City OKs upgrade for ball fields in time for spring season
Athletic fields in Taylor will soon be getting a major rehabilitation, thanks to Samsung Austin Semiconductor.
At the regular meeting of the Taylor City Council Sept. 28, city leaders voted 4-0 to use Samsung Quality of Life funds in the amount of up to $115,000 for Ryan Sanders Sports Turf Services to complete work over the winter on 15 municipal baseball and softball fields, with the bulk of them located at Taylor Regional Park.
“We have a variety of different issues on many of our fields,” said Taylor’s Parks and Recreation Director Tyler Bybee. “This quote is essentially to provide new infields on all ten baseball/ fields at Taylor Regional (Park), Mallard Field, the two fields at Bull Branch Park, Rotary Field and Robinson Park.”
For the past decade, fields at Taylor Regional have been plagued with often unplayable fields due to field drying agents that have been poured onto the turf, which has made the the soil less and less able to tolerate small amounts of rainfall, Bybee said.
“We are not getting the water soaking through,” Bybee said. “We are getting a little bit of rain on a Friday night, and we are having a hard time getting tournaments in.”
Parks and Recreation Director Tyler Bybee shows ponding and other issues with the fields at Taylor Regional Park Sept. 28 at the regular meeting of the City Council. Photo by Nicole Lessin
Another issue is low areas with ponding that require constant maintenance and pumping the water out, Bybee said.
“We have a great relationship with Taylor Area Baseball and Softball, and they do a great job of maintaining the fields, but they have a lot of the same issues,” Bybee said. “Theirs is more humps and rises that have built up dirt over time. What this will do is knock all of that out.”
According to the city, the scope of the work will provide roto tilling of all the fields, adding a premium dirt mix to each field, laser grading all the infields, adding mound clay to areas that need to be bult up, as well as other upgrades.
Previously, the Samsung funds, which are donated at $150,000 each year, were earmarked to be used to repair the Heritage Splash Pad, but due to the scale of that project, it is now being funded through debt issuance.
While city leaders were in support of the move, several council members had questions “When you first started, you and I had talked about maybe getting a partner to bring in turf,” said District 1 Councilman Gerald Anderson. “Is that still an option to kind of mitigate the rain issue?”
Bybee said that would help with the rainouts and would also help with the maintenance costs and is something they are looking at right now.
In addition, Bybee said this is more likely to be feasible as Taylor’s revenue increases along with growth.
“I do think the best times for TRP are ahead,” Bybee said. “It’s a huge asset, and with the growth and the hotels coming into town, I do think we are going to start seeing that revenue coming in from those hotel motel taxes.
District 2 Councilman Mitch Drummond asked how the cost compares to artificial turf and asked for numbers on weighing the upfront cost versus maintenance costs.
“That is something to look at as far as return on investment with synthetic,” Bybee said. “Especially with the water conditions and the drought we struggled with this summer with how our system is set up.”
