Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 18, 1990 TAG: 9004180116
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It's softball season, sports fans, and out at Huff Lane Park in Northwest Roanoke not much has changed for the past three years.
Valley View Mall still looms large in center field, the right field light standard still lies face-down like a toppled drunk, tufts of weeds still dot the infield and once again softball will not be played on this woeful diamond.
In July 1987, signs were posted behind home plate: "Keep out of this field. No use of any kind permitted until turf upgrading is complete. City of Roanoke."
Translation: Keep off the grass.
The city had $160,000 to spend on the park. There would be a new backstop, new lights, new bleachers and new grass.
"The grass was growing in clumps and players were complaining," said Lynn Vernon, a city park planner.
Some turf upgrading (that's "grass seeding" to those of you who speak English) was in order.
Now, nearly three years later, the bulldozers, earth scrapers and heavy trucks are rumbling and thundering through the outfield, burying pipes that will carry storm water away from the Williamson Road area.
Cheated out of softball, we can vent our fury on the city government that squandered thousands of dollars planting new grass so that heavy equipment, not athletes, could frolic.
Keep out of the field until turf upgrading is complete? What kind of turf upgrading? Pounding the fescue toward the Earth's core with steamrollers?
Didn't the Parks Department talk to the engineers? Didn't the park people think to hold their grass seed until the drainage project was finished?
This is governmental buffoonery at its worst, this is . . .
Vernon cuts short my crabby grass tirade, clipping short my wasteful-spending blockbuster.
Yes, the field was closed in 1987 because of lousy turf. Yes, the Parks Department planned to seed the field. And yes, the Parks Department did consult the Engineering Department and did find out about the drainage project. Yes, the reseeding was put off until the earth graders went home.
Those signs about turf upgrading? They were, says Vernon, the only signs handy to keep people off the field. Keep off the field because of new seed, or keep off because of steam shovels. What's the difference? Keep off the field.
Rather than make new signs, the Parks Department used the old signs and saved a few bucks.
The most damaging confession I can wring from Vernon: There could probably be more descriptive signs posted at the field.
Instead of governmental ineptitude, we find governmental thrift. What a disappointment.
Huff Lane Park will eventually be refitted with everything from new tennis courts to new turf.
With luck, softball may resume there in 1991. More likely it'll be 1992.
Until then, stay off the grass. And leave the city government alone. Those people are OK.
by CNB