The hot-button topic of Monday's Chatham-Kent Council meeting ended up being the proposed new regulation-size baseball diamond in Chatham.
Up for voting at Council: allowing The Field of Dreams Committee to start fundraising, the location of the diamond, and bringing the cost of the design work to the budget. All were passed with a 12-6 vote.
A main source of contention was the proposed site of the diamond. Currently it is home to the Kiwanis Stadium soccer field beside Fergie Jenkins Field at the Rotary Park in Chatham.
"We do have soccer league folks who have reached out to us, and they have close to it sounds like 2000 players this year and it's growing. They do have a right to have their voices heard with some feedback," said councillor Alysson Storey.
The Ward Six councillor added, "I worry this potentially pits different athletic groups in our community against each other. So I worry if we are taking away the soccer fields, that could potentially create some conflict there."
Councillor Ryan Doyle agreed to allowing The Field of Dreams committee to begin fundraising the $2.5 million it would need to build the diamond, however, he thought the proposal was being rushed as not all groups had been spoken to.
"To jump ahead by say a year or so and put this where it is and us approve to spend 35 thousand dollars to design a park there," said Doyle. Adding, "the layout in the agenda seems a little smaller than our current park. And our current park, the right outfield is not a normal shape for a ball diamond, so I wouldn't want to put two oddly shaped ball diamonds next to each other as our main diamonds."
"This is the preferred location but it's not a done deal," said councillor Marjorie Crew.
"We are doing the consultation we are going to do all of that work. this is not punting away soccer fields to make a nice baseball diamond."
While the cost of the design also caused much discussion, councillor Marjorie Crew reminded councillors not to have the budget discussion now and asked them to support this endeavour.
"What we do need is to get this started, what we need to do is start being able to work and raise this money in the community," said Crew. "Let this group do their work and let them help us get assets in our community that people talk about."
In the end, it was determined that while a design created would be specific to the Kiwanis field, it could be modified to another location, meaning the $35,000 wouldn't be a waste.
And ready to hit the point home was Mayor Darrin Canniff, who gave an impassioned speech in favour of approving the motion.
"We are looking at a group ready to raise $2.5 million to cover the cost of this amazing asset," said Canniff. "If we don't support them tonight they are going to say Chatham-Kent really doesn't want to support this...we have to praise our community when they step up to do this."