Chehalis Mayor Dennis Dawes introduces U.S. Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler during a ceremony to mark the start of renovations to the ballfields at Recreation Park. Herrera Beutler helped unlock federal funding for the project, allowing it to start on time.
U.S. Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony Monday at Recreation Park.
State Rep. Richard DeBolt addresses the crowd during a groundbreaking ceremony Monday at Recreation Park in Chehalis.
Chehalis City Council members Daryl Lund, Terry Harris, Isaac Pope and Bob Spahr listen to Mayor Dennis Dawes during a groundbreaking ceremony Monday at Recreation Park in Chehalis.
Tim Sayler, president of the Chehalis Foundation, addresses those in attendance for a groundbreaking ceremony in August at Recreation Park.
Excavation and prep work has begun on all four of the ballfields at Recreation Park in Chehalis, which will be outfitted with artifical turf infields and modern drainage systems.
The grounds of the ball field complex at Recreation Park are already good and broken, but that didn’t stop dozens of local stakeholders and residents from turning out for the ceremonial groundbreaking of a $2.3 million renovation of the four stadiums used by softball and youth baseball programs.
Artificial turf infields and new sod for the outfields are the centerpieces of the first phase of what is an approximately $4 million overhaul of the park space. New accessible walkways and lighting improvements are also slated for completion in tandem with the ball fields, which are expected to be finished by the end of February 2020. The not-yet-scheduled commencement of the second phase, a full-scale modernization of the adjacent Penny Playground, will take place in the coming months.
Excavators and other heavy machinery have already stripped the diamonds down to bare dirt, with remnants of outdated irrigation and drainage systems poking up from the soil. Chehalis Mayor Dennis Dawes served as master of ceremonies at a podium set where home plate would normally be on one of the fields — the base itself sat on top of a pile of dirt in front of the podium.
Dignitaries ranging from elected representatives to local volunteers used golden shovels to turn that dirt at the conclusion of the half-hour event, which featured a number of speakers all extolling the pride at the ongoing transformation of Recreation Park.
“It was a long path that got us here today,” Dawes said. “This was not something that was thought of just a year or two ago and just decided to be done. This was started more than a few years ago, and there’s been a lot of work by a lot of individuals.”
Among the elected officials in attendance Monday were state Reps. Ed Orcutt and Richard DeBolt, all three Lewis County commissioners and five members of the Chehalis City Council, counting Dawes. Representatives from KBH Construction and the W.F. West High School softball team received some of the loudest ovations of the afternoon.
The first speaker of the afternoon, though not intimately involved in the years of planning and fundraising that led up to Monday, played the most immediate role in getting the project started on time.
U.S. Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, worked with the National Parks Service, a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Interior, to get a waiver for early delivery of funds that otherwise would not have been available until October. She told the assembled crowd Monday that calls from state Rep. Richard DeBolt and Chehalis Foundation Board member J. Vander Stoep alerted her that such a delay would cause the project to be put off for a full year.
DeBolt used his position as the ranking member on the House Capital Budget Committee to help secure more than $1 million in state funding for the entire Recreation Park project. Fundraising by the Chehalis Foundation and a bond issue backed by the city will cover the remaining expenses.
“Every time I come to Lewis County, I’m reminded that this community always pulls together and always gets stuff done,” Herrera Beutler said. “I was thinking about the pool and what it used to look like, and what it looks like now … Every time I come here, I wish I could take what you’ve created in your community to each of my counties I represent, because it really is remarkable for me.”
The land on which Recreation Park currently sits was deeded over to the City of Chehalis in 1953, according to a history given by Dawes on Monday. The Chehalis Community Pool was in operation from 1959 until 2014, when the Chehalis Foundation spearheaded a multimillion dollar renovation that turned it into the Shaw Aquatics Center.
Tim Sayler, president of the Chehalis Foundation, provided a few words about the efforts of the Chehalis Foundation and its efforts over the years to improve a number of public spaces around town. He recalled playing Little League baseball at Recreation Park in the 1970s, “before the girls took over and the boys were moved to the windy park across the highway.”
The baseball facilities did indeed move across Interstate 5 to Stan Hedwall Park, but that only cleared the way for the emergence of a powerhouse built out of Recreation Park. The W.F. West softball team has won three state championships this decade and finished second this spring.
Dawes also reminisced about his frequent trips to the park located two blocks from his childhood home.
“I remember sliding down the large slide and having a joke played on me with a teeter-totter, where you’re up high and someone gets off and you go down fast,” Dawes said. “… Recreation Park has changed quite a bit since I was a child.”
