Overgrown vegetation, broken fences, and generally unkempt conditions have left the softball field west of Harris Field in less-than-stellar shape over the last few years.
Improvements are on the horizon with plans to restore the field using recently approved Community Preservation Act funds to recondition and reseed the ground and add fencing. In total, Town Meeting approved $429,000, which includes contingency funding, to complete the rehabilitation project.
“I was just glad there was support for moving forward with some renovation effort in that space for the sake of the high school athletic team and also for the community as a whole,” said former School Committee member Amy Checkoway. “Hopefully, it will be something folks can use that will be in better shape to meet the softball team’s needs.”
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Work is expected to begin this fall to be ready in time for the spring 2026 softball season, according to Town Administrator Patrice Garvin.
“We will work within existing conditions,” Garvin told Town Meeting members in May.
The field will not be regraded, but rather the topsoil will be stripped and amended in preparation for sod installation, she said. The design also includes reinstalling the discus throwing area; the shot put station will be funded through the neighboring rink project budget. The adjacent soccer field is being replaced as part of an agreement with the rink contract manager to use the area as a staging space for rink construction.
Echoing town officials throughout the process, Recreation Commission Vice Chair Mike Capitani said this “will be the last thing to finish the campus.”
In a letter to the Community Preservation Committee, Christine Makarewicz and Kathy Marcos — speaking on behalf of Belmont Youth Softball (BYS) — wrote that regulation softball fields in Belmont are “extremely limited” and emphasized the need to maintain the space for that purpose.
“In addition to providing a valuable option for BYS use, that field space is critical to enabling a JV (junior varsity) program and promoting the success of BHS (Belmont High School) softball, which many of our youth players aspire to,” they wrote. “BYS has enjoyed solid growth in recent years and, along with cultivating both skills and love of the sport at younger ages, we aim to strengthen the pipeline of players pursuing high school softball and beyond. Player development at any level — BYS and [Belmont High School] — is dependent on appropriate field space and options for practice and training.”
School Committee Chair Meghan Moriarty said discussion on the playing fields began as far back as 2018, when the School Committee initiated a public comment process.
“There was a lot of input,” said Checkoway, who was elected to serve on the School Committee in 2019, not long after the debt exclusion to build the high school was approved. “I know there have been informal conversations about different possible uses of the space. But … I think the School Committee has consistently been committed to maximizing the amount of open space there and keeping them grass fields.”
Capitani said that while there has been a feeling that the softball field is in need of repair, the question for many has been whether it rises to the top of the priority list and is an optimal use of space.
Every fall and spring, he said, multiple high school teams have to leave campus to practice and play games on the town-controlled fields. That includes 11 athletic teams and the marching band. “It would be great if less student athletes had to leave campus to play on the already over-used town fields that are about to undergo a much-needed upgraded maintenance plan,” Capitani wrote in an email to The Voice.
“I think the people who brought that up had some valid points,” he said, acknowledging the fields fell under the scope of the schools, rather than the Recreation Commission.
According to Capitani, there hasn’t been a Community Preservation Act-funded multi-use field project since Winn Brook, which was completed over a decade ago.
In 2022, Moriarty wrote a memo to the Community Preservation Committee documenting the public comment process through 2022.
“At one point recently, it wasn’t clear that we could do anything at all there because there wasn’t any money left,” Checkoway said. “The resources were identified to at least get it in shape for the JV softball team.”
According to Moriarty, the town granted the land to Belmont Public Schools in 1968.
“I think it’s awesome to see our female athletes out there playing,” she told Town Meeting members in advance of the vote last month. “We all know we lose a lot of athletes when they reach the age of 14, especially females.”
Despite pushback from some Town Meeting members who felt it was too large a sum of money for a “facelift,” the motion to allocate Community Preservation Act funding passed 149-29, with eight abstentions. Others felt that the money was there to support this project, so it should be used.
“I appreciated that there were these resources that could be used that way to move [the project] forward,” Checkoway said.
