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Neighbors make pitch to stop field expansion By MELISSA MARTIN EAGLE POINT -- A baseball club's proposal to build a $350,000 bleacher complex at the high school is meeting opposition from neighbors. Donna Hickman, who can see the batter's box from her living room window, has collected 30 signatures to oppose the school's request to increase the baseball field's seating from about 900 to 1,500. "It's a wonderful set-up, but we don't feel it's appropriate to have it here in a neighborhood," Hickman said. "We'd like to see them take this development to a sports park." The school district is asking the Eagle Point Planning Commission to grant a conditional use permit to build a 1,571-seat grandstand, a press box, restrooms and concession stand. The project also calls for paving the access road and creating 228 parking spaces. The Planning Commission will hear testimony and may take action during its meeting at 7 tonight at City Hall. The project would be paid for by Eagle Point Youth Baseball, a booster club that raised the money to build the school's varsity baseball diamond in 1981. The club's source of income, White City Bingo, paid for a second field and an all-weather batting cage. "One of the things that makes this ballpark unique is that it was built by the community at no expense to the taxpayers," said Tom Britton, Eagle Point High's baseball coach and president of Eagle Point Youth Baseball. "You can't say that about too many projects," said Britton, whose team is contending for a state playoff spot this spring. Eagle Point's baseball complex rivals fields at Crater, Grants Pass, Roseburg and Klamath Union high schools, he said. Besides high school teams, the fields are used in the summer by Little League and Babe Ruth players ages 8 to 18. Summer leagues create the most conflict, Hickman said. Discourteous drivers speed past her yard, 60-foot-high lights beam in her window until the 11 p.m. curfew and fans talk loudly outside her bedroom window, often until midnight. "We'd like to enjoy our homes in the summer months," Hickman said. "We can't even entertain in the back yard because of dust from the road flying in our food." City planners recommended the approval, but listed ways the school could deal with the problems of dust, noise, lights, water run-off, post-game traffic clogging city streets and the need for a visual buffer for neighbors, said David Hussell, city administrator. The school already plans to install a culvert and cover the open irrigation ditch near the baseball road and plant 6- to 8-foot-high bushes as buffers for neighbors, said Scott Sinner of Hammonds Construction in White City. The school also plans to install curbs to prevent cars from rolling from the parking lot into residential fences. A chain across private gates would allow Teakwood neighbors to use the school's road to drive their motor homes or other vehicles in and out of their lots, Sinner said. "We are willing to work with the neighbors," he said. For Hickman, living next to a busy baseball complex may be similar to living next to Jacksonville's Britt Gardens, where a summer-long music concert series draws up to 2,200 people a night. "There is a basic lack of respect for the neighbors," says Hickman, who has lived in the same house for 30 years and was involved in campaigns to relocate Eagle Point High to its present location in the 1970s. "We'd like people to treat us the way we treat others." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA