The Town of LaSalle is making some changes to the way it operates the sports fields at the Vollmer Complex.
Recreation manager Patti Funaro says several concerns have been brought forward from councillors and community users groups regarding opening dates, operating hours and when or when not to close fields during inclement weather.
Funaro says the goal is to ensure fields are open and accessible as much as possible.
"We changed the opening date by a couple of days," she says. "Inclement weather, we've added that information into the policy so people know what our practices are. Our maintenance schedule hasn't changed, but we've added it into the policy so that people are able to see when the fields are lined, when the diamonds get groomed, that sort of thing."
Funaro says the new policy will help keep user groups on the same page.
"The Vollmer is a big place. We have our soccer fields and baseball diamonds with multiple user groups coming in, lots of volunteer coaches," she says "So we're planning to meet with all of these groups and we hope that this is going to help them as well just to improve our communication process so that everybody understands what the practices are."
Flooding has caused some issues the past number of seasons, Funaro says, adding "The last several years, probably four or five years, have been very, very wet springs. We continue to see that. There's been lots of cancellations early in the season just because of the amount of rain that we've had. So we want to make sure that we're communicating with our groups early in the season talking about what our practices are so that everybody is prepared."
The updated Outdoor Sports Field Use Policy is available on the town's website.
The Vollmer Complex has 28 soccer fields, six softball and two hardball diamonds.