FAIRMONT – Call it a pragmatic riff on “Field of Dreams.”
That is, if you’re going to re-turf the baseball fields at Mary Lou Retton Park, you might want to get set on how much you’re willing to spend – first.
Marion County’s Board of Education was on deck with that discussion Wednesday night.
Plans are being bandied about to put down new surfaces on four ball diamonds at the youth park in Fairmont.
Said work, though, carries a major league price tag: The local school district would contribute $750,000 – as would Marion County Parks and Recreation, which oversees the park and its environs.
Fairmont State University would pony up another $500,000.
A private donor has already pledged to round the bases with a $2 million donation.
The Marion County Commission has also committed to the project.
Superintendent Donna Heston, who presented the memorandum of understanding, said she has seen tentative renderings of what the place could look like with the new coverings.
Mary Lou Retton Park has long been the home of organized baseball – just not necessarily for Marion County Schools.
While a number of Little League teams from across the county play there, Fairmont Senior is the only school in the district that calls the park home for baseball.
That’s in contrast to East-West Stadium, which, through 1979 before consolidation, hosted football games under the Friday night lights for the county’s then seven high schools.
East-West these days also fields several soccer and lacrosse matches during the school year.
Fairmont State’s motivation, meanwhile, is to get back to the Friendly City for its baseball.
That’s because the university is on the road either way. It plays its “home” contests some 30 minutes up Interstate 79 at Mylan Park.
BOE member Donna Costello said that while she understood the university wanting its home games, well, home – it was still a matter of equity.
“We keep pushing out that we’re losing enrollment and losing funding,” Costello said.
And that’s in a district, she said, where it’s always “Wait ‘til next year.” The school system has long been light on the bench in terms of dollars for infrastructure improvements.
The Marion County Technical Center is in “dire need” of a new roof, she said.
North Marion High could use a new gym floor, she added – and Pleasant Valley Elementary has been asking for a staff bathroom since she was first elected to the board, she said.
“That’s just a few off the top of my head,” the longtime incumbent said.
“I personally cannot, for $750,000, support what I feel at the end of the day is the intent to get Fairmont State back here in Marion County to play their baseball games,” Costello continued.
“The people who are at greatly more benefit,” she said, “are putting in the least amount of money.”
If there’s no crying in baseball, there’s no communication either, the BOE’s Sam Brunett said.
At least in this instance, he said.
“I’ve not heard a word from any of the other people who agreed to this,” said Brunett, a Morgantown High teacher who still lives in his hometown of Fairmont and is serving his first term on BOE.
In the motion he made to table the matter, he said he’d also like to have a work session with a full roster, as it were.
“We’d have to have time to sit down with all stakeholders and have open and honest discussions with each of those entities to come to some type of agreement,” he said.
His motion passed 4-1, with Costello casting the lone nay vote.
