OAKWOOD, Ill. (WCIA) — The Village of Oakwood made some progress on possible future park upgrades at Monday night’s council meeting.
The agenda included two topics regarding enhancements at Oakwood Village Park. The first proposal involved hiring an engineer to explore potential renovations, which was approved with a budget ceiling of $60,000. However, the second proposal sparked some confusion and concern among attendees.
“I will express my support for engaging an engineer to expand and improve the park, but I require the backing of the village,” stated Interim Mayor Lindsay Light.
That was just the first of two Oakwood Village Park topics the three-person council talked about Monday night.
Light explained that the additional proposal aims to relocate the youth football field to the park’s northwest section and adjust the right field fence of the baseball field to provide additional parking space, along with repositioning the scoreboard and announcer’s booth.
“We are not thinking about us versus them; we are simply thinking about the kids that go to the grade school that want to play baseball, that want to play football. They want to be here in the community,” Light said. “We are not removing anybody from the park.”
During public comment, some community members voiced their concerns about the proposal.
“We got nine squads with all the cheer teams, and all the football players — takes a lot of space to practice safely. Obviously, that’s a big concern,” one person said during public comment.
“But I don’t think it’s quite understood, the undertaking that we’re looking at in the short time frame we have and the amount of space that we have,” said one during public comment.
But Light stressed this solution has been negotiated between the Oakwood Youth Football Club and the Oakwood School District with the purpose of accommodating all youth sports.
“Because there has been a great deal of misunderstanding in the goals to make the park better for all youth sports, no one is being removed from the park. It has come to my attention that certain parties to this agreement on the park did not communicate this agreement internally,” Light said. “Therefore, I motion to table park updates for another meeting to be held in the near future.”
The board meets on the third Monday of every month, meaning the park upgrades decision will need to wait until July 21st.
