Brookfield trustees awarded a contract Thursday to repair the first- and third-baseline fences on field four at Brookfield Township Community Park, but officials did not know if the repair will be done in time for Brookfield Youth Baseball and Softball Inc.’s opening day April 21.
There has been discussion about the fence for two or three years, and trustees have accepted the league’s assertion that a township worker damaged fence posts by brushing against them with a lawn mower. Temporary posts have been installed on the first-baseline fence to keep it from leaning over.
G&J Fencing, Transfer, will remove the posts, install new ones, and reattach the existing fence and rails for $2,600. Officials received one other quote, but it was only for the first baseline.
Road Superintendent Jaime Fredenburg said whether the fence gets installed by opening day will partly depend on the township. G&J requires a payment of 50 percent of the cost before it starts work, he said.
G&J was hired April 2 to put up new fence at Jenny Junction, the park’s playground, for $866, and that check for 50 percent has not been issued.
Fredenburg said he budgeted for several projects at the park – fixing a retaining wall, adding more mulch to Jenny Junction and pouring a new entrance walkway to the playground – but the field fence project was not budgeted. Fiscal Officer Dena McMullin said she can “make it work.”
The park’s fund within the general fund has carryover from 2017, and a separate community park improvement fund has $1,381 in it, she said.
“I can justify that kind of stuff only because it’s a safety factor,” McMullin said. “I may have to move stuff, but I’ll try to stay within the park budget.”
G&J did not specify the kind of pipe that will be installed. The current posts are thin-walled pipe, “which would be something like you would use in your back yard, instead of it being a heavier pipe,” Trustee Ron Haun said.
“I’m assuming that G&J is going to go in there, and I’m hoping that they’re going to put in a thicker-wall pipe,” he said. “I don’t want them to replace the same type of pipe.”
