A request by a Carbon County girls softball league to use the city’s field fell on sympathetic ears last week during Wednesday’s Price City Council meeting.
The council agreed to allow the teams to use the fields they have expressed interest in next year.
The league, which started 30 years ago in Wellington and then fizzled down to only three teams for a few years, currently has 11 with more than 200 girls participating in softball program.
“This league was organized as an alternative for girls when it comes to boys baseball in the county,” said Karen Griffin, who presented the request to the council. “I just see us getting even bigger next year. There is a lot of interest in this league.”
The council had a few questions, one of which was concerning the county recreation department’s softball program.
“The difference between the recreation program and ours is that we play by different rules and against different competition. When the league ends in recreation, that is the end of play. But for our teams they can go on to regional and state games. There is something more beyond local play.”
The league has been playing its games at an old church field in Wellington but both Griffin and Chris Johnson, who was also at the meeting to ask for the use of the fields, say the field is not very good.
One council member did inquire about where most of the girls that played in the league were from and Griffin told the council that 90 percent of the players live in Price.
“While we play in Wellington, this is not primarily a Wellington league,” she said. “We just need well maintained fields to play on as we grow.”
The city maintains the fields where teams at the north complex play, but coaches and players do a lot of the grooming and marking of them. The two women said their league would be responsible for that same work, just as the baseball teams are.
There was also a lot of discussion during the meeting about two other receational type activities/projects as well; the Dino-Mine Adventure Park and International Days.
“International Days is organized and ready to go,” said council member Kathy Smith who is in charge of the event. “Everything is in place. The next meeting our committee will be having is to get things going when it begins.”
The event, which this year will be held on July 27-29, is an annual celebration of the counties ethnic diversity and features a parade, programs, a flag ceremony and many of the things that go along with town days in many places.
As for the Dino-Mine Adventure Park, Jeane McEvoy, who is the council member involved in the construction of the super playground told the council things are going well.
“This has been a good week for us,” she said. “The Carbon County Recreation and Transporation Special Service District gave us some great funding at their meeting this week ($75,000) and the donations are coming in,” she said. “However to meet our deadline to get the playground built in September we have to have all our funding in place by the beginning of August. If that doesn’t happen we can’t build it until next May.”
The Dino-Mine Park will be built on the theme of its name and will be unique. A number of similar parks, with unique themes, exist through out the state in places like Fruit Heights and West Jordan.
On another item of business, Gary Sonntag, director of public works, told the council that the city will soon be taking down the signal lights that are covered up on on Main Street and 100 West.
“The stop signs are permanent there now and it is doing no good for people to see those lights hanging there,” he said.
The stop lights were shut off when the statue of Kokapelli was placed there almost two years ago. Since then the intersection has been a four way stop.
That also precipitated some discussion about how traffic lights were handled during the recent power outage that occurred in town. In the past, when an extended power outage occurred the city would put temporary four way stop signs at all the lights in town.This time that was not done.
“UDOT (Utah Department of Transporation) doesn’t like us to do that because it sometimes causes confusion,” said Price Police Chief Aleck Shilaos. “So we didn’t, and things seemed to go well.”
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