Canfield groups look to speed up soccer fields project

A location for the new
township administration building isn’t final.

By JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

CANFIELD — Two soccer groups have a shared goal — to move the township along faster in getting soccer fields ready at the new park on Herbert Road.

Group representatives said they’ll do what they can to advise and help in the preparation of the fields.

Mark Scheel spoke for the Canfield Soccer Club, a recreational club that includes 610 kids ages 6 to 14 from Canfield and surrounding areas. Cindy Doran spoke for FC Canfield, a traveling league that encourages a higher level of competition for 180 players ages 8 to 14 from the Canfield school district.

There will be three soccer fields in phase I of the park development, trustees said at their meeting Monday. That phase, involving 15 acres to the far west of the park on the south side of Herbert, will also include a lake/retention pond, an island with a gazebo and a parking lot.

Bid package

Trustees, who said they would do what they could to speed up development so the fields could be seeded this fall and be in use by next summer, voted to have their architect prepare phase I with the input of the soccer groups. Trustee chairman Paul Moracco said the architect will prepare a bid package for the needed work.

Scheel said the Canfield Soccer Club would support the township’s effort with whatever it could afford financially. He said there’s interest in helping with the maintenance of the fields.

He also said the group can advise the architect in the development of the fields.

“Soccer fields get a lot of wear and tear. Things can be done ahead of time,” he said.

Doran said the soccer groups are willing to do whatever it takes to help the project move forward.

She said the fields could attract tournaments to the area.

“We could make money for this community,” she said.

“Soccer’s a great program,” she said. “We’re keeping kids off the streets.”

“Six hundred kids is a lot to take off the street and I’m happy about that,” said trustee Bill Reese.

A few residents at the meeting tried to ask trustees if the township will build a new administration building on the Herbert Road land.

Trustees would not say.

They had been planning to do so, but ran into objections from some township residents who believe it will be cheaper and more efficient to build a new building on Messerly Road, where the township already has its road department and utilities are readily available.

Reese is for putting the building on the Herbert Road property. He said the cost of utilities is not prohibitive, and said the entire park can be sewered for $70,000.

May meeting

After a special meeting in May during which the trustees voted to sign the contract for the architect who will design the building, Reese told The Vindicator the building would be built on Herbert Road.

The next day Moracco, who was also present when The Vindicator asked the question about the location of the building, said that nothing had been decided about the location. He said that even though he was present, he did not hear the question.

Trustee Randy Brashen, who said during the May meeting that he would not like to see the building built on Messerly, said Monday he only meant that if he had to choose between the two sites, he would choose Herbert.

Brashen said he doesn’t expect the issue to be decided before the end of this year.