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08/17/2015 08:46 AMIn exchange for shared weekend use for ten years, the owners of Connecticut Sportsplex are offering to invest in helping the town upgrade seven town playing fields. The Town Council will dig deeper into the offer to determine if it may be a win for North Branford.
On Aug. 11, the council heard a proposal from Sal Candelora of CT Sportsplex, a business belonging to the extended Candelora family (with Mayor Anthony Candelora and State Rep. Vincent Candelora among them). The proposal was on the Town Council agenda for the first time on Aug. 11, as part of the Town Manager's report. Town Manager Mike Paulhus said he wanted to bring an idea he'd been approached with to the attention of the council as a "point of information."
Paulhus said he was "...looking at potentially getting proposals from private companies" although in CT Sportsplex, which approached Paulhus, "...we happen to have one, as you know, that's very well versed in field development and field management (and) I think we have an opportunity to raise the level of the fields, in terms of conditions of the fields, and reduce our cost."
"I'm not making any deals," said Paulhus. "It's a concept that I think is worth discussing (and) I welcome council's input," as well as that of the town's Parks and Recreation Dept. and public schools.
In short, business in booming at CT Sportsplex. The indoor/outdoor sports complex needs more field availability to meet growing demand. Sal Candelora told the council that CT Sportsplex was recently recognized by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for bringing between $8 - $10 million in business to the state last year and, "...that will double next year, because the amount of teams next year will be twice as many as we've had in past," said Candelora.
"Our complex next year, we feel, is going to need outside fields," he said. "We looked at options of renting other fields (but) I was looking at trying to keep this in our town as opposed to going outside."
Located off Route 80 near the East Haven town line, CT Sportsplex has among its inventory five lighted baseball fields with synthetic turf infields. The fields host over 40 baseball and softball tournaments per year and are home to recreational, coed and competitive adult softball and youth baseball leagues. The complex also has four indoor turf playing fields under its dome for soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, flag football, baseball, fast pitch and softball use. Additionally, there are four outdoor fields for soccer, lacrosse, and flag football tournaments and event. CT Sportsplex rents fields to college, high school and area youth teams as well as elite club and travel teams in all field sports, according to its website, www.ctsportsplex.com
When more fields are needed, CT Sportsplex has rented fields from other towns and, when available, from North Branford. But the quality of North Branford's playing fields are an issue, said Candelora.
"We have to sell our fields, so we need good fields," he said.
CT Sportsplex would give the town money (no amount was disclosed Aug. 11) to allow for seven town playing fields to be upgraded, with fixes to include artificial turf infields, in order to meet CT Sportsplex's standard of use. The arrangement with CT Sportsplex and the town would be for a period of 10 years, which matches the turf infield warrantee length.
The town's ball fields are currently most used by North Branford Little League, which receives an annual use permit from the town. While CT Sportsplex originally wanted to offer to upgrade four town fields, (at the high school and near Public Works), Candelora said the group is willing to upgrade three more fields (Memorial, Coulter and the new Wall Field – changing out clay and grass for a turf infield), for a total of seven. That would create more flexibility for field use between CT Sportplex and Little League scheduling, he said.
"The problem with this (comes) when you start looking at the whole thing; and we're looking at Little League's use of the fields. Little League now gets a blanket permit for all fields in our town," said Candelora, adding other towns have similar arrangements. "For good or bad, it's been like that for years and years (and) it kind of stops the town from doing anything else with fields. The only thing I can do with that is to offer Little League something to help them so they don't feel like we're taking something away from them...so instead of working on four fields, we decided on seven."
Candelora said he floated the idea to the president of North Branford Little League and was given to understand that there would be concerns due to loss of control of field use. Candelora said he had not yet spoken to the Little League board. Representatives of the board were not at the Aug. 11 meeting.
"We only need weekends; Saturdays and Sundays, so you have use of the fields all week long (and) on weekends if you needed to use the field I would want you to call us and put your time in on the fields and we'll book our times in around it; so we have a schedule," said Candelora.
Councilman Joseph Faughnan said he didn't want to discount any potential concerns from the Little League but added, "...I'd like to know what exactly is the Little League's concern here, when somebody offers them an upgraded series fields for their use and they'd reject it out of hand."
Councilwoman Rose Marie Angeloni said she was aware the Little League organization would instead prefer to have another playing field at the new Wall Field, but "...they're also complaining about conditions at other fields...so I see this as a great opportunity for the town if (CT Sportsplex) can help us to upgrade. So we really do need to get more information as to why a blanket statement would be, 'No we're not interested in something that could be a service to the town.' "
"I'd like to keep that business here in town," said Candelora. "It's a significant investment on our part and on the part of town, but then you're going to have seven fields that are pristine."