A friend gave me a heads-up yesterday (Wednesday) that there was in fact some activity at the softball complex on east edge of town. The friend had probably read some recent new thoughts I shared online. He pointed out that some tree removal had very recently been done.
I walked out there. The complex is on my regular walking and bicycling route. I can't help but notice stuff going on there. Or the lack of stuff going on there.
Sure enough, my friend who is a member of my church, was correct: there was an assortment of tree stumps left over. A major task probably awaits for getting rid of the stumps.
My friend wondered if the area would be developed for parking. Silly rabbit, the area has already been used for parking. Parking has been like the elephant in the room for this project. Our activities director at the public school, Mark Ekren, has made a statement in a public meeting about this.
No one should have been surprised that parking was going to be a flashpoint. On the day of the dedication of the place, no one should have been surprised by the spectacle: cars parked in rows along Prairie Lane going way out. Vehicles were parked in a congested way in the notorious grassy area between ball fields. That's where the tree removal was recently done. However, this is not the area that was designated for parking in the map/diagram that was originally drawn up to promote the complex.
I wince as I think of the motivations vs. reality. This is not a drastic conclusion. Project promoters of course wanted to "sell" the place. It's human behavior 101. They were, after all, seeking financial donations. But then the rubber has to hit the road. In a nice honest world, the complex would have been a sparkling place by now, living up to original effusive projections. Government spokespeople have been involved in this.
How wonderful if everything could have followed the rose-colored script. We never want to rule that out.
I am sometimes accused of being too skeptical. Jim Morrison had me in his office once and said it's part of the nature of news people to become skeptical, as a fundamental outlook.
So, how can we demonstrate that promoters of the project are being disingenuous? Let's take a look at a top page available to read on the world wide web. It's part of the UMM athletics website. Maybe it's called "UMN" now. I struggle to keep up with everything. Here is a quote you will find:
Completed in the summer of 2021, the Morris Softball Complex will be the new home of Minnesota Morris softball starting with the 2022 season. The complex features four fields and a press box that serves as a hub in the middle of all four, allowing for multiple games to be played and followed simultaneously. The main field that the Cougars will play on -- Holmberg Field -- measures 200 feet down the foul lines and 220 feet to straightaway center.
It's all presented as fact. We of course are well past the "summer of 2021." We are on the verge of winter! We all know that winter could descend on us any time now. It is a largely unspoken realization.
Shouldn't we have assumed that this past fall would have been the ideal time to make strides with the softball thing? I saw no progress outside of some piles of dirt that were dug up for some reason. Nothing.
Maybe the excuse has to do with the supply chain disruptions/labor shortage that have gotten lots of ink. Well, maybe the Morris school board could have put its financial commitment on hold. Back in June these school board geniuses set aside an additional $223,000 for the effort. The City of Morris had been approached for a new contribution too. The city said "no," although it seemed at a subsequent public meeting that promoters hadn't gotten word about that yet. Perhaps there was a feeling that the city might be shamed into capitulating, to disgorge the money? That hasn't happened, has it?
The school board vote was not unanimous. It is sometimes risky to take on the local jockocracy. I have heard a belittling, disrespectful comment about the dissenter on the school board - the "no" vote. The tone of the comment had a personal ring which I took as reference to the person's religious affiliation.
I have seen the jockocracy at work in this community for a long time. It has sometimes seemed schizophrenic - while these people incessantly push on sports issues, they have sometimes reached mystifying conclusions when it comes to coaching appointments. From my perspective it gets down to the interests of a "good old boy network" a lot. Need I elaborate? It comes down to "who is friends with who."
What? In Morris, MN? Naw. And these people can be ruthless. It's "Walking Tall" (the movie) without the violence. Remember the Joe Dan Baker character?
I lasted a full 27 years as full-time employee, not only of the Morris paper but the Hancock Record. Forum Communications finally axed the Hancock paper and they made substantial cuts at the Morris paper. Morris is just a weekly now, not good for sharing on sports in a timely way, to be sure. The Morris paper today packs its sports website with UMM, to the point that I actually find it insulting. Don't you? C'mon.
The newspaper should enthusiastically report on sports in a timely way through its website, user-friendly and free all the time. Should just be a matter of principle. And don't give me this business that "the paper has to make money." No business is simply entitled to make money. A business makes money if it provides a needed service.
The paper had a far more important and entitled position in pre-digital times. Problem is, those old times have been completely wiped away. We are reminded of this on a number of fronts. Federated Telephone cancels its TV service. Can you imagine it? Adapt or die. My generation could not have imagined anything like high school sports on "YouTube." It would have seemed out of the "Jetsons" cartoon show. But here we are in the year 2021.
I am not just speculating when I say the softball complex is being scaled back. Supt. Ferguson before he left the role did an interview with Marshall of the radio station. It became perfectly clear there was going to be a "re-design," as Marshall paraphrased it, and that this re-design was simply a subtraction from original plans. "Do we really need so much parking?" I remember Ferguson saying. Well the answer to that is YES.
I came away suspecting there will be no new paved parking whatsoever out there. Do we have to wait for some sort of traffic congestion tragedy to happen? What about when night softball starts there? I mean, the funeral home has gotten big splashes in the media for paying for lights. So when you pay for a funeral, you're supporting local sports, I guess. I did not see lights surrounding either of the new fields yet. There's a whole lot I don't see yet. Take a look at the diagram below:
Addendum: I feel sorry for someone like Fred Switzer who gave generously for this project. He's our former school supt. from the "boomer" generation time. What would he think if he were to observe that the project has fallen short of the original vision? Might some donors begin to think of taking legal action?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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