It is with great astonishment that I received an e-mail this week that the City of Trail is requesting that two new teams entered in our local adult recreation league provide the city with a list of non-resident players. This is so that these players can pay extra fees for use of Trail facilities. Have the ruling elite of the ‘Home of Champions’ not learned a thing over the past decade? They have killed the swim club and the skating club with this two-tier fee system and now they want to do it to adult soccer.
It is bad enough that years of begging for some or even any maintenance to the local soccer pitches be done that we have to go through this.
The soccer fields in Trail are an embarrassment and now due to the lack of maintenance over the years Haley Park has had to be totally redone leaving us with only Sunningdale and the cow pasture called Tadanac. We started the local youth league this past Monday and after removing a wheelbarrow full of debris we had a game on an uneven field with spotty grass, areas of dirt and holes. This is just unacceptable and even unsafe.
Sunningdale at least is level but then the city has been ‘forced’ to put in a fence by one inconsiderate homeowner. The park has been there for 60 some years, there has never been an injury or near miss due to soccer balls going off of the field in the 40 years I have been playing or reffing there but one homeowner complains and the city jumps!
If only when we requested maintenance on the fields or even just cutting the grass and the city would respond it would be possible to avoid the complete redo’s like Haley got in the past fall.
And while we are on the subject of the Sunningdale fence it is clear from the article the city appears to not have a clue that the balls go off the field and into homeowners yards and down the roads in Tadanac as well. If this is such a pressing “safety issue” where is the plan for a fence at least behind the North end goal? And if safety is THE issue then why is a pile of debris 75 feet long and a couple of feet high left along the road at the North end of the field for over a week?
It is really obvious that the city plays favorites here, the Smokies are subsidized and no one from the senior ball league pays extra fees while the ball fields (especially Butler) are manicured to perfection while last year Haley didn’t have its grass cut in six weeks out of a 10-week youth season. The dandelions where 10 inches high! The commercial hockey league also got waived from the two-tier fee nonsense.
The city is about to embark on $30 million in ‘fluff’ expenditures. Maybe there should be some reconsideration on council that if you can’t fix the roads, old bridges, existing stairs and walkways (or even clean them regularly) and keep the playing fields maintained you shouldn’t be spending money you don’t have.
Ron Joseph
Trail
