City Fields Plan Open House Tomorrow

PRINCE GEORGE — The City is hosting an open house tomorrow in the Kin Lounge from five p.m. to eight p.m. The Parks Development has worked for more than a year on a strategy for managing its 25 ball diamonds and 18 sporting fields.

“We heard definitely about investment is their ball diamonds and sports fields,” explains Robyn McConkey, the City Community Coordinator for Parks, when describing the comments from users during stakeholder consultations. “And we heard about access to high-quality facilities.”

But part of the challenge with that is many of the facilities are subject to exclusive use agreements. Of the 25 ball diamonds, 18 are subject to such agreement and 13 of the 18 sporting fields are as well. That means one organization has sole access to that facility for a nominal field.

“Exclusive use agreements were developed in the early 80’s and 90’s when there was that real baseball boom. And it worked. It worked for a lot of groups. But then, over the years, demands changed and that whole volunteer commitment changed. It’s a lot [of work] for a lot of people,” says McConkey.