Soccer field OK'd: Commissioners approve use of site by park department

BROWNSTOWN

Youth in Brownstown might soon have a place to practice soccer thanks to a decision made by county commissioners.

“It’s been setting there for 100 years, and we have not used it,” Commissioner John Schafstall said during a commissioners meeting Tuesday at the courthouse annex.

Schafstall was referring to a three-acre tract of land that lies just to the south of the county park at Walnut and Jackson streets on Brownstown’s east side.

Larry Raymer with the county park board recently asked commissioners if the area could be converted into a soccer field to give Brownstown youth playing on teams in the Seymour Soccer Association a place to practice without traveling to Seymour.

Raymer said the idea of building a soccer field came from the park board’s five-year master plan.

He said the Brownstown Township Advisory Board has agreed to pay for the costs of leveling the area and sowing grass seed. In the future, the park board might want to add some parking and restrooms, he said.

Raymer also asked commissioners to give the land to the park board after five years if the county could not come up with a use for the property.

Schafstall said he opposed letting the land go, even to the park board.

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