1. Kleymeyer Park is NOT in a flood plain. Here is the flood map of Kleymeyer. Note: blue is the flood area, green is < 1 %. (Click On Images To Enlarge)
vs Goebel which is...
2. I met with the director of the youth baseball league in Garvin who maintains the fields. He is in full support of adding these additional fields to their inventory. He says over 300 kids come out to these fields every year. One of those fields just so happens to be the site of where Don Mattingly played youth baseball.
3. I met with the group who is working on getting N. Main St. changed to Don Mattingly Way. They too are thrilled about the idea. In fact, there is now an architect/engineer working on it.
4. The above group reached out to Mattingly about Don Mattingly Way. He was humbled and honored about it and the group tells me they would be more than happy to have him write a letter to MLB to obtain grants and funding for these fields when he returns in October after the season. Mr. Mattingly has already worked with MLB on building fields here before and is a HUGE believer in inner city baseball. This group also has several other local MLB players who could contribute to the project if the ECVB/city is willing to let us build this complex on this city owned lot.
5. I have met with neighbors and leaders at neighborhood association meetings for over 3 months now. NOT ONE resident has been opposed to it. One member of a Jacobsville group lives at Keystone Subdivision across from Goebel. He supports building the fields at Kleymeyer.
The only problem these neighborhood associations have ever had with this idea is the belief that the county/ecvb has already made up their mind and they are afraid to approach these people for help on this project.
6. One of the things these neighborhood associations have been working on already is the pedestrian bridge from Don Mattingly Way to Kleymeyer. This idea first surfaced in the 2002 master plan for the parks dept. This pedestrian bridge is one of the group's main priorities.
7. During one of these meetings, I had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Bill Busing- owner of the Evansville Otters. His only problem, like the residents, was that the decision on the ball fields was already decided. He said the Otters would fully embrace the ball fields project if constructed and he told me that there are plenty of open dates during the Otters season for the championship games of the tournaments held at Kleymeyer to be housed at Bosse Field. This would help generate extra revenue for the Otters and push development down N. Main.
8. A supporter of building these fields has reached out to an organization called Big League Dreams who builds replica MLB fields (http://www.bigleaguedreams.com/replica-fields). According to this supporter they are interested in Evansville.
The key to building these fields to replicate Yankee, Fenway, Tiger, Crosley, Sportsmans Park, Ebbets, the Polo Grounds, and Wrigley is that this will give Evansville a competitive advantage while targeting youth teams from Chi (Wrigley), Stl (Sportsmans), and Cin (Crosley).
9. Kleymeyer Park is city owned. Thus, there would be no need to purchase land.
10. Since Kleymeyer Park is an old landfill that closed 43 years ago, it produces methane gas that can be converted to electricity- one of the main costs in a ball field complex. And no, neither the architect/engineer nor an engineer who is with one of the local gov'ts has said this prevents construction of the fields. In fact, this happens all over in the U.S including VA (http://www.virginia.org/Listings/OutdoorsAndSports/MountTrashmorePark/), NY (http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/design/2012/10/the-transformation-of-freshkills-park-from-landfill-to-landscape/), and IL where Mr. Warren is from (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1N1-1110EAF677A5D980.html)
11. Kleymeyer Park is at the corner of Diamond & First- two baseball terms.
