By Rebecca Baruzzi
Two weeks ago leaders from Duxbury, Fayston, Moretown, Warren and Waitsfield met to share information and to cultivate the spirit of community around our shared watershed. I applaud the Mad River Valley Planning District’s annual role in making this important meeting happen.
I was able to present on the rec district’s progress this year. I stepped into the role of auctioneer and quickly rattled off the team’s efforts. Probably too quickly. As a recap – the Mad River Valley Recreation District has felt pressure from select boards and the community to do more. To that end we have started the groundwork for our strategic planning process. We have created an inventory of Mad River Valley recreational assets, a survey to measure community interest, a working draft of our new bylaws and we have posted a new website at mrvrd.org to keep our work transparent and accessible. During this same period of time it became clear that the Mad River Park lease could not be renewed and that the recreational district needed to fill a role in ensuring that playing fields were available for our youngest residents.
At the meeting we explained our recommendation to purchase the Mad River Park fields. Recreation district board member Logan Cooke presented the case, which is that our recreational needs exceed the capacity of town recreation fields if we were to lose our ability to use Mad River Park fields. The Mad River Park recreation fields that we have leased over the last decade are available for purchase only.
Parents showed up to support the project and soccer coach Mike Vasseur gave an impassioned speech about the community’s need to support youth sports unequivocally. At the end of the presentation select board members were asked to raise their hand if they supported pursing the project to the next stage.
Recreation district member towns are Fayston, Waitsfield and Warren.
We are very appreciative of the support we have received from the towns around this project. We are fully aware that there are many questions still out there regarding the purchase and we hope to have the opportunity to answer those questions as we continue our dialogue with the towns. Purchasing this asset is a very strong commitment to investing in our future. I hope that when all of the questions have been answered, the town leaders will easily support this investment.
Baruzzi is the chair of the Mad River Valley Recreation District board.
