Laura Glesby photo
Blake Field: State-funded upgrades en route.
Parks and fields across the city — as well as a flood-prone westside road — are a big step closer to receiving long-awaited improvements, now that the Board of Alders has formally accepted state money earmarked to make those upgrades a reality.
Local legislators approved accepting that state aid Thursday during the latest full Board of Alders meeting, which was held in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.
Alders voted unanimously to accept American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding allocated by the state legislature for improvements at Edgewood Park, Lighthouse Point Park, and East Rock Park.
They also voted to accept state — and potentially federal — funding for upgrades at Blake Field, Rice Field, and the Wilbur Cross Athletic Complex (collectively known as the East Rock Athletic Complex, where Wilbur Cross athletes and community members alike play sports and walk dogs in the upper East Rock neighborhood.)
And they voted to accept a $1 million grant awarded by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and advocated for by State Rep. Pat Dillon to improve drainage conditions along Forest Road between Chapel Street and Edgewood Way.
Specifically, in regards to the parks and fields improvement grants, alders accepted on Thursday night:
- $1 million in ARPA funds for improving East Rock Park, potentially including playground upgrades in College Woods;
- $800,000 in ARPA funds for Edgewood Park, which will be used in part to replace a footbridge;
- $500,000 in ARPA funds for Lighthouse Point Park, which will be used to rehab the bathhouse;
- And $1.1 million from the state Department of Education, $1.5 million allocated from the State Bond Commission, and $750,000 from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (if the federal government winds up sending that latter sum) to fix up the athletic fields, including switching the Wilbur Cross sports grounds over to a turf-based field.
East Rock Alder Anna Festa, who chairs the alders’ City Services and Environmental Policy Committee (CSEP), spoke up in support of these park upgrades on Thursday.
“The parks are what saved us during Covid, and we need to rejuvenate them,” she said.
Festa recalled testimony from Wilbur Cross athletes and coaches at a recent CSEP meeting. Those student-athletes and coaches said that that the fields’ conditions have led to “broken glass, needles, twisted ankles, and broken bones.” She noted “how important school sports are for mental health, to possibly get school funds for scholarships, and [building] school pride.”
And she offered a shout-out to the Wilbur Cross boys’ soccer team, which her son Matteo leads as captain and which has had a season of successes. “They practiced on those horrible fields” — facing private school teams with better resources, Festa said — “and they did so well.”