Engineering firms Stantec and Green International Affiliates are overseeing initial design efforts for a new Haverhill High School girls softball field. (Courtesy photograph)
The Haverhill High School girls’ softball team is one step closer to receiving a field to call their own. Last week, two years after city councilors first implored Mayor James J. Fiorentini to begin the process of creating a new field and related facilities for female athletes, Haverhill’s Conservation Commission approved the Council’s request, the Commission’s Community Affairs Liaison Ralph Basiliere told WHAV.
Engineering firms Stantec and Green International Affiliates are overseeing initial design efforts.
When plans for the field were first discussed, Councilor Colin F. LePage said the project is a long overdue necessity because it helps the city meet equal educational opportunities required by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Behind the scenes, those connected to the team have long complained of subpar player accommodations.
“The baseball team uses the top of the line turf, full bullpen and batting cages, complete and clean dugouts, accessible locker rooms, storage space, permanent fencing and necessary equipment. The softball field has none of these, resulting in several Merrimack Valley Conference coaches complaining they do not want to play us on our field,” according to a letter sent to elected officials by Tim Michitson, a parent and board member of the softball boosters.
Boston-based landscape design firm Brown, Richardson & Rowe, the same firm that created the playground at Swasey Field, was commissioned by the city to survey three possible locations for the field: Trinity Stadium, Riverside Park and the fields behind Haverhill High.
Councilor Mary Ellen Daly O’Brien was among those, including Fiorentini, who advocated for the field to be built on the grounds of Trinity Stadium. “I’m from the time before Title 9. I know what I didn’t get,” Daly O’Brien said, referring to the law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program.
Cost estimates at the time were from $610,000 to $700,000 for a field built either at Haverhill High School or at Trinity Stadium.