EDITOR;
It seems The Times reporters are looking for news articles and are willing to create friction between two sporting groups whom in the past have worked very hard alongside each other to develop playing facilities in order to advance their sports. I had a pretty good laugh about both the June 9 and June 16 articles that made mention to Taber and District Soccer Association’s plans. If the reporters at The Taber Times really want facts for a story, whether there is a battle brewing between two organizations, you should actually talk to someone from the Taber and District Soccer Association. Our association was never contacted.
I was going to wait for next week’s paper to come out to see what the Taber and District Soccer Association was up to next in regards to our organization but thought it would be best to put a stop to all the hearsay, gossip and irreverent information that seems to be circulating through the halls of the town office and Taber Times. This is in response to several articles in the past two issues of The Taber Times regarding a poorly informed and biased comment (June 9 issue) by the "ball guy" but also another story in the  June 16 issue regarding a battle brewing between two sports organizations.
Seems that a sport organization panicked and jumped the gun when, in April at the field-users meeting, I mentioned the soccer association was looking at putting forth a proposal for the piece of gopher-infested patch of quack grass out at Ken Mac Park. For all you people that have never been out to Ken Mac, it is the area between the north east soccer pitch and the unused third ball diamond the Town of Taber tried to build three or four years back. Is it a rumour Taber and District Soccer Association was looking at asking for that piece of unused land? No. It was looked at by the soccer association to assess whether we build three U-12 soccer pitches, allowing us to move our U-12 teams out to Ken Mac instead of our U-10s having to use the too small mosquito-infested wetlands (the oval) inside the very well built and very little-used track.
Alberta Soccer Association (ASA) has mandated we change the U-12 age group from a regulation size field 100 metre X 65 metre to a 75 metre X 50 metre size field. The fields we are now using at St. Pat’s east for the U-12 teams 70 metre X 30 metre are not the correct size but you know what our kids do not complain, they just want to go out, have fun and kick a ball around.
So here is good news for all those know-all experts that feel we do not utilize our soccer pitches to the maximum. At the June 6 meeting Taber and District Soccer Association decided not to go forth with any proposal at this time. This decision came after our association was told at our soccer meeting the decision was basically already made by the recreation board that the chances of our association getting use of the gopher and weed infested piece of valuable property was slim. So, our association will save its money and not level the dirt, not install irrigation and not reseed that weed infested piece of property and not put into use another beautiful green space. In the past, our association has spent its own money and put in countless hours, days and months, arranging for contractors, building fields, laying sod, installing irrigation, seeding, lining and taking care of our fields, not just at Ken Mac but at St. Pat’s east (where two dilapidated unused ball fields once were).
Interesting the waste land in question is now valuable property to the recreation board and baseball. Guess what? This dirt has been sitting unused for more than seven years already with the Town of Taber staff diligently mowing it bi-monthly to keep the weeds down.
The Town Fathers are not collecting any revenue off it because it was designated as a fourth baseball field in the original Ken Mac plans that are long lost in the Town of Taber archives. All our association was going to do was upgrade it allowing our soccer kids to use proper size fields and then let the town collect revenues off it. Of course, this would also give the recreation board another excuse to raise our user fees again for the fifth year in a row.
Sorry to blow a hole in your story (Taber Times, June 16) but there is no battle brewing over future development at Ken Mac unless of course you want start one by warning football and rugby about the recreation board future plans to shut the south soccer pitch down for an extended two to three-year period or warn the tobogganers their beloved dirt pile is going to be turned into a BMX track. Those sports for sure can't go over to the unused gopher and weed infested field because in Greg Price's words, we don't want to take any more green space away from baseball.

DARRELL TURNER
Barnwell