{"id":25384,"date":"2019-12-13T18:43:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T23:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25384"},"modified":"2019-12-18T19:06:19","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T00:06:19","slug":"hallmark-baseball-diamonds-questioned-after-price-tag-increases-by-nearly-1-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/hallmark-baseball-diamonds-questioned-after-price-tag-increases-by-nearly-1-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Hallmark baseball diamonds questioned after price tag increases by nearly $1 million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The transformation of lands just behind the former\nHallmark building near Industrial Parkway South and Vandorf Sideroad into a\ncomplex of two baseball diamonds is being called into question after the price\ntag to make it happen has ballooned by nearly $1 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions were raised around the Council table last week\nafter receiving a report from the Parks Department stating that a budget\nincrease of $942,200, funded from reserves, would need to be approved to begin\nconstruction on the lands, which have been envisioned as a destination for\nlocal baseball players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a report from Parks Manager Sarah Tienkamp\nthe already-approved budget of $3 million would need to be increased due to the\nrising costs of earthworks and site servicing. Unstable soils on the site have\nproved to be a problem, as has drainage, both of which has resulted in\nincreased costs of approximately $500,000 over the initial budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The potential budget increased raised alarm bells with\nCouncil members, who, at the Committee level, decided to delay their decision\nto proceed until January when staff present their Outdoor Fields Strategy\nreport to Council, a report which could yield alternative uses for the Hallmark\nlands but Robin McDougall, Aurora\u2019s Director of Community Services, said a\npreliminary look at the upcoming report still indicates that Hallmark is the\nbest location for the diamonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can see why some members of Council are upset and\nmany stakeholders and residents as well,\u201d said Councillor Harold Kim. \u201cWe\ncertainly feel like we\u2019re brides left at the altar. I feel like I planned a\nwedding for $20,000 and all of a sudden the wedding planner tells you it is\ngoing to cost $28,000 and that is the only alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Kim made the motion to defer the matter until\nthe report can be presented at the January 14 General Committee meeting, a move\nwhich was supported by Councillor Rachel Gilliland who said she would like to\nsee the plan before making a decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI find we are talking about [a] plan that none of us has\nactually had a chance to look at it,\u201d she said. \u201cTo go on just a quick glance\nor just a general conversation and not [know] what the report is going to say,\nwhat these professional consultants are going to recommend, if it is not going\nto effect the bottom line\u2026why not wait to see what [the plan] says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what this report is supposed to bring back\n<\/p>\n\n\n

[but]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would rather have a fulsome read of what this report says and what it\ndirects. If it comes down to the end where, yes, the Hallmark Diamonds\u2026is the\nway to go, then we can have this conversation. If we\u2019re going to be revisiting\nthis on the Fourteenth, it gives us time to move forward without delay and make\na conscious decision on whether or not we want to go forward with this\nincrease. It\u2019s a rather large increase in a budget and I would feel more\ncomfortable knowing that I had\u2026read everything\u2026to make a sound decision.\u201d\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also supporting the deferral was Councillor John Gallo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a citizen-at-large before the 2018 Municipal Election,\nCouncillor Gallo was a vocal critic of turning the Hallmark lands, acquired by\nthe Town in the previous term of Council, from employment to recreational\nlands. Last week, he indicated his position remains largely the same but\nnarrowly left the door open to the upcoming report changing his mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll support [the deferral to January 14] with a really\nbig caveat that I am not sure anything is going to change because, as we just\nheard, there is support for having these baseball diamonds at Hallmark,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cWe\u2019re discussing price here. It has never been an issue of whether or\nnot a report will tell us ball diamonds should go in that space. We\u2019re\ndiscussing a\u2026significant overage in price. I am happy to do it, but I just\ndon\u2019t think it is really going to change much in terms of the decision we have\nto make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust so it is crystal clear\u2026the only reason I would be\nin favour of the deferral is because out of a sheer miracle something might\ncome out of that document to convince me to spend another 25 \u2013 30 per cent on\nthe budget. As it stands now, and I have a long list of reasons why we should\nnot be moving forward with this, and it should come [as] no surprise to anyone\non this side of the table. I am not hopeful, but I am willing to give that\nchance to review that document and have a second look at this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Council members, however, said they were more\ncomfortable moving forward with the budget increase as the upcoming report will\nlikely say the Hallmark lands are still the best option for baseball diamonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questioning the \u201cvalue\u201d of deferring the matter,\nCouncillor Michael Thompson, for instance, questioned what a four-week wait\nwould ultimately achieve. He asked Ms. McDougall whether or not the upcoming\nreport was based on the premise that the Hallmark lands were earmarked for\nbaseball, or whether they were included as empty space available for all manner\nof sports fields. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. McDougall replied that the consultants\u2019 goal was to\nsee what pressures the Town was currently facing in providing sports fields for\nresidents and their process confirmed that the Hallmark lands were a good fit\nfor baseball diamonds rather than rectangular soccer or multipurpose fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t see what we\u2019re going to get out of it at\nthis point,\u201d agreed Mayor Tom Mrakas. \u201cHearing some of the conversations around\nthe table, hearing from staff, hearing what the original comments are coming\nout of that field strategy report that Ms. McDougall is just pulling out\u2026I\ndon\u2019t see how it is going to change the conversation that [we\u2019re supposed to\nbe] having and that is the cost of it: a 30 per cent increase to the budget. I\nthink, preferably, I would prefer us make that decision tonight. Let\u2019s get it\ndone and make a decision. We owe it to our residents, we owe it to the\nstakeholders, we owe it to the organizations to make that decision tonight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNormally I would probably say we could defer it and have that field strategy. From all the comments I am hearing, I don\u2019t see how it is going to change any of our perspectives as far as what we make a decision from a budget perspective. That\u2019s why I would be against a deferral at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The transformation of lands just behind the former Hallmark building near Industrial Parkway South and Vandorf Sideroad into a complex of two baseball diamonds is being called into question after the price tag to make it happen has ballooned by nearly $1 million. Questions were raised around the Council table last week after receiving a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Bq","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 06:53:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}