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Residents were not pleased when they saw area high school baseball teams warming up and practicing at 10th and Bigler streets two weeks ago as they feared foul balls would launch into the community and potentially hurt someone or damage their property.
“We didn’t agree with that,” John Di Giorgio, attorney for the South Philadelphia Communities Civic Association, said of the high school teams practicing. “We are kind of surprised [the School District of Philadelphia] did that. Hopefully that won’t be a flash point.”
The association’s offices are based at the site.
The Zoning Board of Adjustment told both the association and the district when they met March 10 that the fields were off limits until the three met again at this month’s board meeting, Tony Greco, president of the association, said.
The district agreed to install netting around the baseball fields to prevent foul balls from flying into the neighborhood, but the civic association decided to fight the school district over additional quality-of-life demands at a meeting before the Zoning Board of Adjustment until the district agreed to make good on its word, Greco said. After a change in leadership within the district, promises were not kept, he noted.
“We do want the netting, but we had no other option than to contest it,” Greco said.
The School District of Philadelphia communications office did not return calls or e-mails requesting a comment by press time.
A full list of complaints were listed in a Feb. 17 letter from Di Giorgio to the Susan J. Costello and Thomas P. Witt of the Center-City based firm Cozen O’Connor that is representing the school district. It included complaints of the site being overbooked with sometimes two or three games scheduled for the same day causing traffic congestion around the location. During the fall it serves as the home football field for several high schools, including Bok, Eighth and Mifflin streets, Southern, 2101 S. Broad St., and Neumann-Goretti, 10th and Moore streets.
An irrigation system that was promised during construction has yet to be installed, nor has a curtain to prevent people and cars from blocking the pavement. The public address system is not maintained at a volume level of one as the district indicated it would. Nearby neighbors have noted it’s causing a noise disruption to their community.
Neumann-Goretti also is treated as a “stepchild,” Greco said. While many of the neighborhood children attend that school in addition to public schools like Southern and Bok, Greco said the district charges $2,200 per use.
“It’s a public facility,” Greco said. “It’s not a private company and they’re trying to squeeze every cent out of it.”
Five years ago with former Superintendent Paul Vallas at the helm, the district created four super sites as opposed to revamping fields across the city. South Philly’s followed similar projects in the Northeast, Germantown and near North Philly’s Simon Gratz.
Prior to the makeover, the field was “a dust bowl” with a rusty fence and no irrigation system, Greco said, adding it was frequented by drug users.
“We had an opportunity here to clean up the entire facility and add to the value of the neighborhood,” he said of the super site proposal.
After four community meetings that allowed residents to provide input on the approximately $10-million project, the civic association provided three conditions to the school district, including the inclusion an office for the civic on the second floor of the field house, which the SPCCA paid for with a $50,000 state grant, as well as allowing Neumann-Goretti to use the fields for games and when not in use and Stella Maris, 814 Bigler St., students to use the facilities for recreation, which were agreed upon verbally with Vallas and his staff prior to his ’07 departure for a new role as superintendent in New Orleans. The association also obtained a $300,000 grant from the Sports Complex Special Services District for the project, Greco added.
“Before everything was done and I could get everything down in writing — all these arrangements and conditions … everyone I was dealing with was out of the loop,” Greco said.
The site’s revamp broke ground in September ’06 allowing a grand opening for the ’08-’09 school year, but the outstanding problems lingered after its completion, Greco said.
Within the last year, even City Councilman-at-Large Jim Kenney’s office has stepped in as a mediator, administrative aide Rich Lazor said.
“It is a beautiful facility and the neighbors have valid points,” he said. “There are issues that need to be addressed.”
The association plans to oppose the netting for the field until a compromise is made via a written agreement addressing the majority of the requests along with reinstating a working committee that can address any future issues.
According to Greco, the zoning board pushed off their decision until later this month to give both parties time to settle their issues.
“Our bottom line is we’re ready to negotiate, but they have to be in good faith,” Greco said, “they can’t be pulling any backhand moves like they did [two weeks ago] with the baseball field.”
“What we’d like to do is reach an agreement with them — a written agreement — that sets out all the particulars with the relationship between SPCCA and the school district relative to the use of the site. It would govern all the issues involved,” Di Giorgio added.
While a settlement seems likely with the constant meetings between the two parties since the board meeting, if it were to fall through, a lawsuit from the association could come.
“We hope to resolve it [outside of court], but we do have the duty to protect the residents there from the results of congestion and traffic and all of the issues that result from excessive use of the site,” Di Giorgio said. “If we cannot resolve the issues and we feel there is still a serious danger to the community, then we will fulfill our duty to the residents and file a lawsuit. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”
Greco said a resolution can be reached between the two parties.
“We’re not going wild trying to get everything under the sun,” he said. “Some of these things should have been done already. … None of it is earth shattering.”
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