Restrictions Urged for Youth Baseball Fields

They built them, the ballplayers came, and that’s the problem, Malibu Canyon-area homeowners are telling the City Council.

A dozen residents implored council members Wednesday night to help resolve their ongoing battle to restrict play at the four Pony League baseball fields at Lupin Hill Elementary School.

Noise, parking problems, vandalism and errant baseballs hitting homes and breaking windows were high on the residents’ list of concerns about the fields.

“If we can’t protect our children, there is something very, very, very wrong,” said resident Martin Atkinson-Barr.

But two Agoura Pony League board representatives said that some of the issues the residents raised were “untruths,” or only partly accurate.

For example, a videotape shown at the council meeting was recorded more than a year ago during an annual area-wide baseball tournament held over two weeks, and was not representative of the activity and crowds normally found at the school, said Barry Norton, a league board member.

School neighbors said they went to the City Council because they had reached an impasse with the league and with the Las Virgenes Unified School District, which leases the fields for $7,500 annually.

Several meetings among the groups have deteriorated into shouting matches, but participants said they were willing to try again to solve their differences.

“I’ve remained positive about this from the very beginning, that if we can all sit at the table and listen and share ideas, and agree to discuss things, there’s always a way to work things out,” district school board member Barbara Bowman-Fagelson said Thursday.

Calabasas Mayor Leslie Devine and Mayor Pro Tem James Bozajian said they would join the other subcommittees in future discussions.