DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270566

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEWIS KRAUSKOPF, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   67 lines

GREAT BRIDGE YOUTH LEAGUE TO GET ITS LIGHTS CHESAPEAKE'S CITY COUNCIL OKS PLAN TO PAY FOR LIGHTS AT PRIVATE COMPLEX.

A Great Bridge youth league will receive $210,905 in public funds because it offers a service the city struggles to provide: baseball fields.

The City Council voted 7-2 Tuesday to approve installing outdoor lighting for Great Bridge Baseball Inc.'s privately run complex in the southern part of the city.

The vote drew applause from the packed audience in the City Council chambers, which was populated by many children wearing baseball uniforms.

With school construction eliminating two other fields in Great Bridge, council members said they felt a duty to contribute to recreational facilities in the borough.

``All they're asking for are lights we've taken away from them,'' said councilman Peter P. Duda Jr.

Councilman John W. de Triquet - one of the dissenting voters along with Alan P. Krasnoff - wondered whether the city should create a formula before dispensing public funds.

``I am contacted by many private organizations throughout the city . . . all who feel they are worthy of consideration by council,'' de Triquet said.

Great Bridge Baseball is home to about 28 percent of the city's youth baseball players.

Under the agreement, the city will install the lights on three baseball fields in the 90-acre Charlton-Mott Youth Complex off Eason Road. The league will pay electricity bills for the lights, except during activities for which the city uses the fields.

Mayor William E. Ward hoped the agreement would lay the groundwork for further public-private partnerships.

``If the city is going to meet its recreational needs . . . we're going to have to look at joint ventures,'' Ward said.

The decision on the lights initially came up in February, but the council delayed voting so the Parks and Recreation Department could assess how often the public could use the private fields.

According to the current agreement, the city will gain secondary use of the lighted and unlighted baseball and softball fields and primary use of the nearby open space. That space will be used mostly for the city's growing soccer program, said Claire R. Askew, director of the Parks and Recreation Department.

Some worried that playing second fiddle to the youth baseball league would mean scant public use on the fields.

Denise Waters, speaking on behalf of the Chesapeake Council of Civic Organizations, suggested that the league rely on private fund-raising to pay for its lights. She cited the Greenbrier Athletic Association's $188,000 purchase to upgrade three B.M. Williams Primary School fields earlier this year.

``Great Bridge Baseball should do the same,'' Waters said.

The agreement also calls for Great Bridge Baseball to stop using lighted fields at Butts Road Primary School during the fall. Those fields will be used for city-sponsored recreational activities.

The agreement lasts 15 years and allows the league to buy out the city's use of the property. The league would have to pay the lights' value, which will depreciate 7 percent annually.

Great Bridge Baseball spent $786,240 for the 12 fields at the Charlton-Mott complex, which opened two years ago. With about 1,400 players ages 6 and up, GBB is one of the nation's largest open-enrollment PONY leagues.

``People get to keep playing ball like they should be,'' Blake Rawls, president of Great Bridge Baseball, said after the vote. ILLUSTRATION: VP MAP KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE CITY COUNCIL

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