City residents consider $500k bond to improve Enchantment Park

City residents are being asked in the upcoming election to consider a proposition to fund improvements at Enchantment Park. The 10-year bond would provide $500,000 for improvements at Enchantment Park and also a play structure at Waterfront Park. 

Leavenworth City Administrator Joel Walinski said they are looking at three improvements. 

“One of them is a safety improvement upgrade of the ball fields. There are three ball fields. We’re looking at improving the drainage and doing some regrading and over-seeding,” Walinski said. “What we’ve heard from the users, soccer players, softball players..is a lot of times the fields, especially after a rain, don’t drain properly. They are very wet. It makes it very slippery and somewhat unsafe.”

Even during the summertime, often games have to be cancelled after just a brief sprinkle, because of the drainage issue, Walsinski said. Fixing the drainage issue is priority one. Priority two is adding lighting to one of the fields at the park. 

“That is to allow for not so much added play during the middle of the summer, because it stays light until late. Definitely in the shoulder seasons, when it gets dark at 5 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. Having lights down there on one of the fields opens up extended play there,” Walinski said. “During the summertime, if you were going to have a tournament down there, maybe you might want to play until 10 or 11 p.m. We do understand the neighbors, so we will address that issue. So it might work in the summertime if we can mitigate the concerns of the neighbors.”

Only one field would be lit at this time. Walinski said these lights are not like the old park lights which would light up the whole neighborhood. These lights feature newer technology that not only uses less electricity but also does not spread the light. 

“The field is lit up, but if you step off the field, it is quite dark. The amount of light spillage is quite a bit less. I think those concerns from the neighbors, at least the lighting aspect of it...we can address those concerns,” Walinski said. 

The other project is to upgrade and replace the playground equipment at Waterfront Park. Walinski said it is an old structure which is nearing the end of it’s useful life. They are planning to also make it ADA accessible. 

It will be designed for toddlers up to kids 13 or 14 years old. If the voters approve it, Walinski said they would like to get some community input from the athletic field users and also input on what the play structure should look like. 

If there were any money left over, the city council could decide to pay back a portion of the bond or use those funds for some other recreation enhancement in town. 

“The city retiring a similar amount of debt on the city property tax bill. Approval of this would have little to no impact on the property tax rate. If this bond does not pass, people might see a slight decrease, maybe $14-$17 reduction in your property tax,” Walinski said. 

The Leavenworth Soccer Club is in support of proposition one. LSC President Aaron Simon said they have 300 kids playing there in spring and 350 in the fall. The improvements would benefit their kids. 

“Enchantment Park used to be an old rock quarry. With the geography there, all the water just funnels down. We’ve worked with the city to have them dial back their zones on watering when soccer times arrives. Just the nature of the landscape there, it is really wet,” Simon said. 

Even dialing back the water, Simon said there is still a lot of saturation on the lower field, primarily because of the clay content in the soil. When the water is dialed back, they get hot spots. In order to keep certain areas green, they have to water more, but the soil doesn’t hold water for the grass, so you get these hot spots, Simon said. 

Having a lighted field would also be a benefit to the LSC. 

“We have to move our schedule in the fall. They normally start at 6 p.m. primarily because Wenatchee teams need time to get up here after work. As we get further in the fall, they move to 5:45 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Usually, they end up getting called due to lack of light,” Simon said. “It would help with that, but also if we ever wanted to do tournaments. One of things the Leavenworth Soccer Club has talked about is doing tournaments as a fundraiser to help out with fields and equipment. That would allow us more hours in the day for soccer.”

Simon said they would like to see more fields lit at the park. At this time, LSC is focusing their funding on getting lights at the Alpine Lake fields. The Enchantment fields are also heavily used by little league baseball and the local adults softball league, the Bavarian Adult Mixed Softball or BAMS. 

BAMS President Ben Burris said fixing the fields is not just comfort issue, but a safety issue. 

“There are two things that will address that, better turf conditions will cut down on sprained ankles, falling, not having to play in ankle deep water,” Burris said. “Getting the actual infields replaced with proper diamond dry, that will help tremendously. Currently, they’re looking to put lights on the lower field, but we’re looking to get them all three fields eventually.”

Burris said they use two of the fields. The third field is designed more for little league with a short outfield. During the summer, Burris said they play up to 170 games at park. They have 15 teams with about 250 people, not counting family and friends. 

“We’re pushing heavy for the improvements. The lights will be a huge addition. There are only so many days during the summer where the light remains until 9 p.m. We play sometimes as late as 9:15 to 9:30. There’s really only a couple nights during the year where the light is acceptable for that,” Burris said. 

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.