Naperville Central needs athletic fields

Naperville Central is a large high school on a relatively small piece of land. It serves students and the community by sharing its land and resources with the park district and the community. Within the next year Naperville Central will lose use of Naperville Cemetery land. Students and athletes currently using this land will be displaced.

I support creating new athletic fields near Naperville Central at the north end of the garden plots. This would avoid the harmful impact of busing high school athletes 30 to 90 minutes a day or attempting to squeeze additional athletes onto Knoch Park, thereby negatively impacting or displacing thousands of youth sports participants and other users of Knoch Park. This would avoid the annual costs of transportation, equipment and off-site trainer and help insure the safety of our athletes in proximity to school resources. It would also provide open space and an additional community park venue with walking trail to be enjoyed by all.

Under one proposal, in addition to the 220 plots that would remain on the current site, 144 of the 370 plots to be moved could remain at West Street by developing the area to the west of the existing southern plots. This plan, combined with the development of additional plots on farmland in south Naperville, would expand the program by 100 garden plots and allow most of our current community gardeners to continue on West Street. It would also allow other users to establish another garden community for others to enjoy on our south side. This plan balances all interests and is in the best interest of the entire Naperville community.

Peter A. Shamburek

Naperville