What Welles Park Neighbors Say

“I am tremendously opposed to the idea of installing 60 foot lights in Welles Park for night baseball. Currently the park has a homey and friendly feel with adequately attended baseball games, tennis matches, music in the gazebo, children playing in the woodsy play area.
Installing lights of this size and this variety will destroy the natural feel of the park, the balance of nature and the purposing for the neighbors who work and live nearby.
I teach at the Old Town School of Folk Music and I enjoy riding my bike safely and gently through the park to and from work.
Jamming in more baseball games and harsh lighting will inevitably create an overflow of non-area residents, traffic, parking gluts, noise, litter and disruption of the ecosystem in our beloved park. Welles Park is a haven for senior citizens who may be hobbling through with a walker or cane, dog owners with dogs on leashes, picnickers, novices trying out Instruments, new practitioners of Thai Chi or exercise.  The dominance of night baseball would create an unjust imbalance and create new dangers for all the above.
I plead with the decision makers to consider these multiple compelling reasons to oppose this plan.”

— Barbara Silverman, Welles Park neighbor

“At our last meeting we voted against the installation of lights in Welles Park for baseball and softball. Our group represents thousands of Seniors in the Northeast portion of our city, and hundreds and hundreds of Seniors around Welles Park. We were disappointed that our request for an in person meeting fell on deaf ears, and instead a virtual meeting was scheduled, opting for a more controllable video forum that was poorly promoted and tough to access for some of our older or less tech savvy neighbors (even as they host other in-person meetings).”

— Gene Schulter, Chairman of the Levy Senior Village