Alderman Stanley Kudej has wanted better playing fields at Long Hill School for 20 years.
Tuesday night, his dream came one step closer to reality, when the Board of Aldermen approved spending $460,000 on the fields.
The fields are used by mostly Little League teams, for which Kudej volunteers.
But the fields have lots of drainage problems, Kudej said. The fields soak up water and remain soggy long after rains, Kudej said, often forcing Little League game postponements even on sunny days.
A former alderwoman even lost a shoe in the mud while touring the property 20 years ago, he said.
“When we started this whole project, I said there’s no use doing this thing if we can’t solve the drainage problem,” Kudej said after the meeting. He is chairman of the Long Hill Baseball Field Building Committee, which started looking at the property in 2008. When the committee first sought bids for the project, estimates came in at $800,000 to $1 million.
The committee decided that was too much to pay, so they sought separate bids for each portion of the project. The money approved by the board Tuesday will be split among three companies: Nagy Brothers, Executive and Aqua Turf Irrigation.
“The first quote we got was much higher,” Alderman John Papa said. “So I thought what was good was the committee went out and bid it separately to get a better price.”
The board approved bonding for the money, and expects to be reimbursed about $160,000 by the state in Local Capital Improvement Program grants.
The fields will include two 200-foot baseball fields and general field in between them that can be used for soccer or lacrosse.
Board of Aldermen President John Anglace said the fields will be operated by the parks and recreation department and will be open for use among all Shelton teams.
There has already been some work on the fields, when several trees were cut down to extend the open area — a project that cost the town $8,000, Kudej said.
The aldermen expect about half the project to be ready by the time school starts in September, and plan to have the fields completed by the middle of November.
