City Discusses Alewine Park at Work Session

Toccoa City Commissioners are trying to figure out what to do with Alewine Park as multiple youth sports organizations are all asking for the space.

Monday, the city commission held a work session to discuss the current lease agreements for Alewine Park and Doyle Street Park.

While there was no question among the commission that the city would continue to lease Doyle Street Park to Toccoa Little League, there is now question about the future leasing agreements for part of Alewine Park.

Currently, the North Georgia Soccer Association, also known as the Rapids Futbol Club, leases the park to use for its soccer programs that serve multiple counties, including Stephens County.

That lease is up for renewal and commissioners questioned the soccer association about the lease on Monday.

Commissioner Gail Fry questioned why the bathrooms and a third, unused field had not been maintained over the years by the soccer association as is required in the lease.

Wade Rhodes with the soccer association said the bathrooms were shut down after a major leak that the organization could not afford to fix.

“It is very old plumbing,” he said, adding that re-plumbing and replacing that entire bathroom is more than the group could do.

Rhodes went on to say that they have had issues with keeping up the third field because of drainage, but also because of vandalism that occurred after the gate at the park was no longer being locked consistenly.

“If we could get back to that arrangement where the gate was locked, it would certainly make us happy and I guess, you guys too,” he explained.

The city agreed to work with the soccer association on both of those issues and to work on a new lease for the two fields that the soccer group is currently using.

Meanwhile, that third field that the soccer association is not using was a topic of much debate as both Toccoa Little League and the E.O. Foundation are wanting to fix up and use that field for their programs.

Toccoa Little League President Russell Brock said that Little League is growing and needs more fields to have places to practice.

According to Brock, they have gone from 168 to over 300 players in a couple of years.

“We are not outgrowing the park, but we kind of are,” said Brock. “We are having to burn lights and stuff to do practices. When you have 30 plus teams, it is kind of hard with four fields.”

Brock noted that Little League does have access to some other fields and is working out with the county to use one field at Rose Lane.

However, he said they still need more space.

At the same time, Evan Oglesby said his E.O. Foundation also needs the field at Alewine Park for space for his growing programs.

“We just feel like that would benefit our program if we did not have to figure out which fields Little League was using,” said Oglesby.

Oglesby noted that Little League has access to fields that his group does not.

Also, Oglesby said he has plans to do even more work to renovate Alewine Park and is willing to work with the soccer association on use of the facility.

No decisions were made on what to do with that third field during Monday’s work session.