I had the opportunity to attend the Hanover Park Board meeting last week. The Park Board members were cordial and engaged in active listening. They allowed me to make my presentation uninterrupted and expressed genuine concern about the updated information I provided. There was however, one piece of information they provided to me that I found to be quite disturbing. They stated that the Park Board liaison to the Athletic Association was told under no uncertain terms, he was NOT welcome at the Hanover Athletic Association’s monthly meetings. I’ll get back to that in a moment…. The Hanover City Council has 2 resolutions on the agenda for the Tuesday, February 7, 2017, meeting this week. The first is a resolution recognizing and granting an immediate termination of the Recreational Lease Agreement for the Settlers Park Ball field Area. This agreement required a minimum 6 month notice of termination. In spite of the lack of improvements made to the property since the start of the lease, the Athletic Association is requesting an immediate termination. Remember folks, this was the historic 50 year lease between the city and the Athletic Association that lasted all of 1 month! Apparently, both parties believe they can just wave a magic wand and make everything go away after our successful efforts to force them to withdraw their funding request to the state gambling control board when this plan was exposed for the ruse that it was. A thinly veiled attempt to build an adult soft ball field disguised as a U16 boys baseball field. With the termination of the Recreational Lease Agreement for the Settlers Park Ball field area, the Athletic Association will no longer be responsible for the ball field redesign project. This also shifts all liability back to the City of Hanover. The second resolution accepts the donation of $50,000 from the Athletic Association for the purpose of redesigning the ball fields. Before the City Council expresses its thanks and appreciation to the Athletic Association for this donation, they should prioritize and collaborate with their own Park Board, utilizing the data from the 2016 Park Board survey, to determine where this money would be better spent considering that the current cash balance for the Parks Capital Projects Fund is exactly $0.00. If the City Council wishes to accept this donation for the betterment of Hanover’s parks, they should accept it with “no strings attached.” There’s no denying the past good deeds of the Hanover Athletic Association but under their current leadership, it appears that secretive meetings and demonstrated unreliability are now their normal way of doing business. It pains me to believe that the perfectly healthy bur oak trees in Settler’s Park are going to be served up as a casualty to the demands of a few members of this misguided organization. Call your mayor and city council members and ask them why they’d even consider any sort of dealings with this group. Better yet, ask them in person at the City Council meeting on Tuesday night.