By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Your general practitioner knows your body better than any other doctor, but she’ll refer you to a specialist when conditions call for it. That’s what we have in mind with our plan to shift the upkeep of Somerville’s athletic fields to specially trained city employees who will focus solely on the care of our natural grass playing fields.

We’ve proposed to the Board of Aldermen that the Recreation Department be given a new name that reflects a new, broader scope: the Parks and Recreation Department. With the name change come new duties. Members of the department will be trained to take on the responsibility of preparing, maintaining, and improving Somerville’s athletic fields. It is a logical, best practices step that has been adopted by many other cities.

This move is a win-win for everyone. Currently, the athletic fields are maintained by the Buildings & Grounds division of the Department of Public Works. They also maintain and care for our other green spaces: city parks, playgrounds, the grounds of our schools and city buildings, and other green spaces. We’re proud of the job DPW employees have done with this wide range of duties. But with the increasing demand on our fields, it’s time to introduce specialized care of our playing fields.

Placing the upkeep of the sports fields under the Parks and Recreation umbrella will let us respond to the community’s needs with better agility. This streamlining has the added benefit of easing the heavy load on DPW, freeing its workers to tend to their many other duties. Most of all, it helps Somervillians who use the fields and expect them to be in the best possible shape.

Athletic fields are different from other public parks. You can’t just mow the grass and call it a day. The use of these grounds is intense: Kids and adults trample the fields for hours on end, and usually while wearing spiked shoes.  This heavy foot traffic damages the grass and compacts the soil, which not only shortens the useful life of a field but can also create risk of injuries. Thanks to the demand on these fields, they require more attention than a typical park—sometimes on a daily basis.

As you can imagine, Somerville’s desire to be a great place to play takes a toll on the fields, which are exceeding their capacity due increasing demand in recent years. This is especially true of the rectangular fields, where the usage has been rising at the highest rate.

But Recreation Director Jill Lathan and her crew know these fields cold. They permit them daily, host programs on them regularly, and inspect them often. Because they work with the leagues and teams who use the fields, Rec Dept. employees also understand which surfaces need tending to most, and when. It’s only sensible to expand the department’s oversight to the maintenance of the fields they schedule as well.

I’ll paraphrase Liam Neeson in “Taken” in saying that keeping these surfaces in good shape takes a particular set of skills. Parks and Recreation employees dedicated to – and specially trained for — maintaining the fields will have the focus and resources to provide even better care of our fields. They will constantly test the soil and know when and how to seed, water, cut, aerate, and add nutrients and other materials as necessary. They will put the fields on a regimented schedule, meaning that a surface will need an occasional break from the action to recover.

These improvements won’t show results overnight. Field maintenance is a long-term project. Some may take a few years to take full effect. Many of our fields also have built-in challenges to overcome, like being put over poor soils and in areas with poor drainage—because that was what was available. Constant soil compaction and overuse has inhibited grass growth. Reversing this will require patience along with TLC.

The lack of ideal soils and drainage as well as overuse of the natural grass is also why our Fields Master Planning process is working to prioritize needed field improvements such as those currently planned for Lincoln Park and Nunziato Field. Field reconstruction too takes time to tackle, but as we improve conditions such as drainage and best practices for maintenance and use, conditions will also improve over time on our fields.

Shifting responsibility for our fields to Recreation is part of a number of administrative changes the city is proposing to the Board of Aldermen for approval.  In 2014, the Board passed a resolution requesting that the city rename Recreation the Parks and Recreation Department, and expand their duties to include maintaining athletic fields.

We are now following through on that resolution, so that we can get to work that lets you play.