CYFA Can Practice at Boling Park

The Cherokee Youth Football Association, which pleaded with the Canton City Council for a place to practice a week ago, got its wish during Thursday's meeting.

The council gave the league the OK to begin practices at  on Monday. "They can get started and do whatever they need to do there," Mayor Gene Hobgood said.

There will be stipulations. The city will bill the association to light the fields and CYFA will be responsible for trash removal.

Still up in the air is whether players will be able to practice in cleats.

"They really tear up the field," city parks director David Cangemi said. "There's sliding there and pulling the grass out."

The council said they would revisit the issue later, but asked the city attorney to go ahead and draw up a contract that spells out what's allowable and what's not.

Excluding one week in September, the league plans to use the fields every Monday from 6 to 7 p.m. as well as every Tuesday and Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. for a period of 15 weeks, association president Amy Turcotte said during a July 14 council work session.

"We really are extremely challenged with having multipurpose fields that we can practice on," she said. "The only three fields in the entire county that we can have a football game on for these little kids–and we're looking at probably 1,500-plus families–is the one field at Kenney Askew Park and two fields at J.J. Biello Park.

"These are going to be children that attend the three city of Canton schools: ,  and . These children are all in one way or another ... most of them are going to be taxpayer reisdents that are here."

Council member John Beresford asked his colleagues to consider extending the fields to the association for more than just practices.

"If they want to use it for a game on Saturday," he said, "I think that should be part of that package."

Also Thursday:

• Hobgood said a previous suggestion to use Hickory Log Creek Reservoir bond money for other projects didn't sit right with him. "It's about $600,000 that we've discussed using," he said. "I would have a real, real hard time using that money. When we borrowed the $8 million, we did so telling the public that we were doing that for the reservoir. To use it for any other purpose is simply not right."

Watch the council meeting in its entirety here.

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