here comes the Anderson spin...
SOUTH WALTON, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - The lack of recreational space for youth sports is coming to a head in South Walton and now county officials are hoping renovations to one park will help alleviate some of their scheduling issues.
"Obviously countywide we have a need for sports parks but especially in the south end of the county where we have such a large population," Walton County Programs and Projects Manager Rick Wilson said.
While there is a new multi-million dollar sports complex in the making, Walton County officials say they are looking for ways to solve the problem now.
"We still don't have enough fields and our commissioners are aware of that, so we're working to improve Helen McCall [Park], build our new sports park and even look into the future with additional fields because it's very badly needed in the south end of the county," Wilson said.
"From my understanding, for the first time in South Walton's history, kids were turned away from little league. That's unacceptable," District 5 Walton County Commissioner Tony Anderson said.
That's why Anderson said he wanted to donate $600,000 of his recreation plat fee money to improving Helen McCall Park.
"The plat fee money can only be spent on parks, so this is a great project for that. I also donated $300,000 to the new sports park for their lighting," Anderson said. "So, it's something we have to do. Yeah, it's expensive, but not as expensive as losing our youth.
"This is a great resource for South Walton. There is only this one park as far as ballparks right now," said Nathan Brown, who frequents Helen McCall Park. "We've got one softball field, couple baseball fields, and a T-ball field. So other than the high school field this is the only field I can practice with my daughter on a regular basis."
Wilson said he believes these projects are critical to encouraging kids to stay out of trouble.
"We all know that we want our children to have something to do, some sort of outlet to get that energy out, to socialize, to meet new people, to learn to play as a team and all the things that come along with sports and we want to keep the kids off the streets and from getting in trouble," he said. "So it's a focus for our board to provide the property and the amenities that these kids and the residents need and we're working diligently to do just that."
"We definitely need some youth organizations to keep the kids busy outside of school," Brown added. "Some kids may not be on the school softball team or the school baseball team because they have band or other athletics or academics, but they like to use their rec leagues to keep playing so we definitely need this facility to keep everyone here involved in some type of sport."
The main plan is to turn the current field from east and west to face north and south so they can add another field to the space they already have.
"We're going to add two fields, build a new press box. It will help solve, alleviate the problem of too many kids in too few of places," Anderson explained.
Between the Helen McCall fields, the new sports complex, and the Boys & Girls Club fields leased by the county, officials say that will bring their total number of lit multi-use fields up to seven, which they believe are still not enough.
"We really need to step up to the plate and I don't think this is the total answer, you know, this is the problem we're solving now," said Anderson. "Walton County is growing, it's 42nd highest growing county in America, so we can't fall behind in youth sports."