[Vision2020] Playfields

[Jeff Harkins]

After watching the "playfield issue" for several weeks now, some observations:

1. Youth sports activities are an important element of a family 
oriented community.  Having survived youth soccer for several years 
(as a licensed coach, licensed referee, soccer association board 
member and co-founder of the Palouse 5-a-side soccer tournament), I 
can easily attest to the importance of additional playfields to meet 
the demand for youth and community activities.  Hours and hours of 
negotiation with Parks and Rec, U of I, and churches were necessary 
to find marginal practice and play areas for youth soccer.  Similar 
negotiations were necessary for community members involved in 
softball, baseball, cross country, etc.  There are more youth 
involved in those activities today than there were when I was 
actively participating.

2. With youth soccer, the N. Idaho league is very-well established 
(Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls, Tri-Cities, Lewiston, Spokane).  Our 
facilities are not on a par with those communities against which the 
Moscow teams compete.  New soccer fields would help to increase the 
number of venues we are able to host here.  That not only benefits 
our local businesses (and gets young folks in proximity to U of I, 
but also helps our local parents - additional fields could make it 
possible for our teams to host a few more venues so our parents and 
kids have a few less trips out of town.  I have heard from numerous 
parents, whose kids are involved in other active team sports, 
expressing similar views.

3. My former residence (Conestoga Dr) is just up the hill from the 
proposed location and I am quite familiar with the terrain/proximity 
issues.  The proposed location would seem to be ideally suited to 
allow the hundreds of young folks and active adults in the Frontier 
and adjacent neighborhoods easy access to a large playfield. It would 
be a site well-suited to anecdoctal frisbee playing, tag, pickup 
games, skateboarding, etc. in addition to active team sports.  It 
also has great visibility from Palouse River Drive so activities of 
the young folks would be observable.  Coincidentally, I vividly 
recall how important the development of the small park - just east of 
proposed site - was to the neighborhood.  Dozens of neighbors worked 
to make that small strip park happen.  But that site is ill-equipped 
to handle the more active youth team sports.

4. The site location would lend itself to development of a bike trail 
extension - connecting with the existing trail system - this would 
likely have great appeal to the community.

5. Moscow is very well suited to handling a couple of hundred 
visitors for a youth team event.  After all, our community hosts a 
number of athletic events weekly that attract thousands of visitors 
(UI team sports)- and it doesn't seem to affect the overall ambiance 
of our life here in a college town.  Quite the contrary, it seems to 
energize our community.  If there are concerns about traffic flow, 
then bring some of our local civil engineers in to reframe the 
access/egress issues.  But the limited amount of traffic involved, 
relative to the traffic issues that are presented in that 
neighborhood during football weekends is seemingly trivial.

6. The sound system issue seems quite easy to resolve.  We have 
numerous sound engineers in the community - engage them to design and 
test various configurations and measure the decibel levels in the 
neighboring areas.  I am quite confident that the sound level can be 
designed to specifications that would produce sound at levels far 
below other noise systems (Greek Row, Kibbie Dome, etc.).

I cannot help but think about the success of the LCSC participation 
in baseball and the benefits that venue has provided to the Lewiston 
area.  I have visited their baseball stadium (a far more extensive 
facility than proposed here) and have walked the neighborhood around 
their facility. The noise emanating from that facility is far less 
than the noise levels imposed on East City Park neighbors numerous 
times a year.  But, the benefits of all those folks having fun far 
outweigh the costs imposed by their facility - it seems likely that a 
similar experience could be had here.

7.  I am quite surprised by the "Arboretum issue".  The Arboretum is 
not a private park intended for only a designated segment of the 
Moscow community.  It is a public facility that is intended to 
educate the public about the importance of managed green space 
areas.  Providing visitors to our community close proximity to the 
Arboretum, especially young people, helps to expose them to the 
importance of the green-space resource.  A playfield space adjacent 
to the Arboretum provides an opportunity to extend the Arboretum into 
the playfield area.  This may be our best chance to develop our own 
version of  a "Julia Davis" resource.

But, bottom line, the Arboretum is a shared resource and the more we 
can share it, the more people will learn from it and respect it - and 
more than likely provide resources to  continue its development.  The 
proposed athletic facility would offer the Arboretum an opportunity 
to extend the managed "green space" to include a river/stream ecosystem.  Wow!

8. Finally, consider the long-term development of the Palouse River 
Drive area.  It is not a matter of whether that area will develop, 
but how and what will find its way into that corridor.  Placing a 
large "green space" there can be a significant footprint that will 
impact that neighborhood in very positive ways.  For example, if the 
95 bypass can be constructed just west of there (along the ID/WA 
border), traffic issues are now routed away from this site.  Access 
would be convenient for all.  Industrial development would be 
curtailed or at least divided/segmented.

The proposed project warrants approval - amend what needs to be 
amended to deal with pertinent issues - and get the facility into play.