Originally Posted by Greenwich puts field off-limits - The Advocate

By Neil Vigdor
Staff Writer
Article Launched: 07/22/2008 01:00:00 AM EDT

GREENWICH - The town demolished it, but they still came. Next time, they'll be trespassers.

Despite being shut down Friday, the unauthorized Wiffle ball field in Riverside drew a number of teens over the weekend for pickup games that led neighbors to call the police.

So yesterday, public works employees made and posted "No Trespassing" signs on the town-owned lot on Riverside Lane.

"It is what it is. It means you don't go there," First Selectman Peter Tesei said.

Town officials ordered the field closed last week because of liability concerns and complaints from neighbors. The field was on a half-acre lot set aside as a drainage area when the subdivision was built in the late 1940s.

The signs also say "Town of Greenwich Property, No Dumping, Utility Drain on Premise." One sign was placed at the entrance to the lot, another was planted right in the middle of the former field - between the pitcher's mound and second base.

Tesei said the adjacent property owners are prohibited from using the lot.

"We're going to check the (property) lines to make sure there is no encroachment," he said.

Some of the public works employees who installed the signs were part of a crew sent to the lot Friday to knock down an outfield fence that area teens built on the property without town approval.

"The field is not the same as we left it on Friday," said Larry Daur, a town highway foreman.

The bases and pitcher's rubber, which the teens cooperatively removed from the field Friday, were back at the lot yesterday. In place of the outfield fence, underground utility marker flags marked the field dimensions. Narrow strips of wood on the ground outlined where the fences used to be.

Brett Atkinson, 16, acknowledged that he and his friends returned to the lot to play.

"I didn't think it would be this quick," said Brett. "It turned out to be a bigger deal than it should have."

According to police logs, the town received a complaint at 10:48 a.m. Saturday from the homeowner at 100 Riverside Lane that the teens were on the lot.

A message was left yesterday seeking comment from that neighbor.

Two of the neighbors who oppose the teens' use of the lot for Wiffle ball had surveillance cameras installed on their homes, including a lens pointed at the lot.

"He put them up in daylight while we were playing," Brett said.

Lt. Daniel Allen, a police spokesman, said officers should be taking the "appropriate action" to address trespassing incidents. When asked to elaborate, he said any violations would be handled on a case-by-case basis to determine whether there should be an arrest.

Selectman Peter Crumbine said he hopes the situation doesn't escalate to an arrest.

"I don't think it calls for that," Crumbine said. "We're not talking about criminals here, but they should find another place for their Wiffle ball games."

Crumbine and Tesei said they have received a number of e-mails from around the country decrying the decision to shut down the field.

"Peter Tesei has made the decision in the best interests of the town, and it's time to move on," Crumbine said. "He's offered to set up at field at Dundee. And my advice to the kids, with whom I sympathize, would be to accept that offer."

The lot commandeered by the teens is fraught with liability issues, according to town officials, who said an exposed storm drain could lead to an injury and a lawsuit. If the storm drain gets backed up, town officials said it could cause flooding and property damage to neighboring homes, which also could trigger a lawsuit.

Originally Posted by Wiffle ballers try out new diamond - The Advocate

By Neil Vigdor
Staff Writer
Article Launched: 07/26/2008 01:00:00 AM EDT

GREENWICH - Welcome to the House that Lawyers Built.

Exactly one week after they were kicked out of a municipally-owned lot in Riverside in a tearful farewell, a group of jaded teens christened a new Wiffle ball field yesterday that the town created for them behind the International School at Dundee.

"It's better than nothing, I guess," Brett Atkinson, 16, said as he roamed his new environs.

Behind him in the outfield, workers from the parks department hammered stakes into the ground and put up blue mesh safety fencing, making good on the town's promise to find the teens a new home.

"We just wanted to get it to the point where you guys could play this weekend," Joseph Siciliano, the town's parks director, told the teens.

Brett hit the last home run at the old ball yard on Riverside Lane, which the town, on the advice of its legal counsel, ordered shut down because of liability concerns and complaints from neighbors who hired their own lawyer to oppose the field. The half-acre lot chosen by the teens was set aside as a drainage area when the surrounding subdivision was built in the late 1940s.

"At the old field, it was either a single or a home run," Brett said nostalgically.

The scene yesterday at Dundee School, within a bike ride of the previous field, was a sharp contrast from the previous Friday, when a demolition crew knocked down outfield fences erected by the teens while they watched, including a 12-foot high replica of Fenway Park's Green Monster wall.

Siciliano presented the teens with several Wiffle balls and bats that he said he had searched high and low for Thursday night at a sporting goods store.

"(The salesman) said there's a run on those bats," Siciliano said, alluding to the national attention the teens' story has received.

Siciliano then reminisced with the teens about playing a variation of Wiffle ball while growing up in Chickahominy.

"We'd cut a broom handle for a bat," Siciliano said.

If the old field was a band box, the new one is a pitcher's park, with dead center field 110-feet from home plate, 10 feet deeper than its predecessor. It's 90 feet down the lines.

The teens got to choose the dimensions, as well as the color of mesh safety fences. They settled on blue, a departure from the green plywood walls of their former field of dreams. Siciliano said the town spent about $700 on the fencing.

"It's good, but the other field was cool," said Jackie Calagna, 15, who, a week earlier, was in tears when the old ball yard was being demolished.

The lot commandeered by the teens was fraught with liability issues, according to town officials, who said an exposed storm drain could lead to an injury and a lawsuit. If the storm drain gets backed up, town officials said it could cause flooding and property damage to neighboring homes that also could trigger a lawsuit.

Several neighboring homeowners complained to the town that the field created noise, parking, traffic and security problems for the neighborhood.

"They're just neighborhood kids. This is just a very constructive approach of giving them a place to be," Siciliano said.

Town officials chose Dundee School because there were already base paths, a backstop for softball, ample parking and portable toilets for the teens to use. In addition to installing the fencing, which is collapsible in case somebody runs into it, the town brought over some small bleachers to the field.

"They asked to put their (American) flags up, which is fine," Siciliano said. "The only thing we asked is that they don't do any advertising."

Tim Bellantoni, 17, hit the first home run, a shot to left field, at the new field yesterday. He said he is organizing a townwide Wiffle ball tournament for late August at the Conyers Farm "polo grounds" and hopes to field 60 teams of four people, with each squad paying a $100 entry fee.

The teens will be allowed to use the new field until school goes back in session at the end of August, when the town will look for another facility for them to use.

"There's got to be a corner of the world where we can send them to," Siciliano said, quipping. "You guys are getting a dome for the winter. We budgeted for it."

Originally Posted by Asbestos project won't shift Wiffle ball field yet again - The Advocate

By Neil Vigdor
Staff Writer
Article Launched: 08/01/2008 02:55:35 AM EDT

GREENWICH - Despite its proximity to a school where asbestos flooring is being removed, town officials said Thursday the Wiffle ball field they created there is safe.

Located behind the International School at Dundee in Riverside, the field was chosen by the town as an alternative to a municipally owned lot a mile away. The teens were displaced from that lot last month after the town dismantled the makeshift field because of liability concerns and complaints from neighbors.

"There's no immediate health issue, so we're going to keep the children there," said Joseph Siciliano, the town parks director.

Some of the parents of the teens were upset that a tractor-trailer with signs saying "Danger Asbestos" was parked near the field in a lot where the teens park their cars.

"Would they put their kids there to play?" said Bob Bellantoni, whose son, Tim, 17, has been playing at the field since it opened last week.

Toxic asbestos fibers can cause cancer and other health problems.

Bellantoni said he has reservations about sending his son to the field after seeing several storage barrels near the truck and ventilation hoses sticking out the building's windows.

"What if the wind is blowing that way? What happens?" Bellantoni said.

The town's health department has cleared the field for play, with officials saying the contamination is confined to the school's interior.

According to Michael Long, director of environmental services with the health department, special ventilation equipment is being used at the school to isolate the contamination and prevent asbestos from spreading in the air.

School officials said the work is being done by a licensed contractor and is scheduled to go on for another week.

"It's just a routine summer capital project going on, with all the appropriate precautions. Nothing going on in the school has any impact on the availability of the field," said Sue Wallerstein, assistant superintendent for business services.

Wallerstein said there was never any discussion about the project when the school was being contemplated to host Wiffle ball games.

"The discussion was around the field. We, of course, were very happy to make it available to them should they decide they wanted to use it," Wallerstein said.