Little League President Responds to Issues Surrounding North Canton Ball Fields

There's a lot to say about the North Canton Little League and why it needs overhead lighting.

But, Gary Giammarco, who's led the organization as league president for 25 years, says the group hasn't gotten much of a chance to explain its need to the city or to its residents over the last several weeks.

"You're only allowed three minutes at city council meetings," Giammarco said. "There's no time to explain ourselves because we're always defending ourselves."

The issue of overhead lighting at the baseball fields off of East Maple Street has been an issue of contention since it was brought up in January. City council members publicly discussed the topic with the community until they realized the proposed lighting would need to be OK'd by the planning commission instead.

The planning commission has since rejected a request by city council to turn a plot of land into a parking lot at the ball fields; however, the topic of overhead lights has not been discussed yet by the group.

Giammarco said he's mainly concerned with incorrect information he's heard from community members regarding how Little League games are scheduled (some say too many games take place at once, leading to parking issues at the fields). He's also concerned because residents have said children are turned down if their families can't afford Little League fees — and that's not true.

The misinformation, he said, portrays the organization in a bad light.

"After you've been around doing this for 25-some years, you know what's right and what's not right," he said.

One thing that's not right, Giammarco says, is residents' claims that several people are parking on their neighborhood streets instead of in the ball field parking lot when they can't find a spot.

"The parking issue is completely blown out of proportion — it really is," he said. "They maybe park on the street one or two cars, but no more than that."

One resident posted to North Canton Patch his comments made at city council regarding issues at the fields. Those comments included one claim that children were turned away because they couldn't pay.

"I have received word from a parent of four children that her kids were not allowed to play at the Little League Ball Fields as they were unable to pay the registration fees demanded by the Little League Board," Chuck Osborne wrote in a North Canton Patch blog. "The parent asked to make payments and was turned down by the President of the Board of Directors."

Giammarco says he doesn't understand how that can be, considering the Little League application includes information for families who want to apply but don't have the means to pay. The families are to contact Giammarco's wife Grace, and that's spelled out on the forms.

The Little League takes care of the registration fee, and the families don't pay a dime, he said.

"They have to be misunderstanding," he said about the family who contacted Osborne. "You can't get any more open than that."

Osborne had also stated any parking issues might be avoided by staggering games, or playing on fewer fields at once.

Giammarco says that just isn't possible because parents and coaches can't get to the fields until they've finished working, and games don't start until 6 p.m. It doesn't leave much time to stagger games in the evenings.

"We would really need lights if we stagger the games because they would go later into the evening," he said. "People work for a living."

And finally, Giammarco wants residents to know the green space the fields were created on is not the city's property, as some have said it was.*

Voters passed Issue 23 in 1998, allowing the city to annex land at Washington Square to the Hoover Co. And, after talks between the Little League and Hoover, it was decided that 20 acres of that green space would be cut out for the Little League, which had petitioned parents and other community members for votes.

"The checks were made out to the North Canton Little League, not the city," he said. "The checks were made out to the North Canton Little League — because that was our land.”

*Clarification: The land on which the Little League ball fields sit was annexed to the city with the direction from the  Hoover Company to allow the Little League to use it.