The Grand Park Sports Campus, we’re happy to report, has made significant progress these last several months. You won’t see a lot of it, because much of the work has been with underground initiatives. Now, the city is awaiting bids for eight synthetic-surface baseball fields (with fencing), seven synthetic soccer fields (which includes four football goalposts), perimeter and interior fencing, 52 baseball dugouts, 18 grass baseball fields, netting behind home plate for 26 baseball fields, lighting for 17 soccer and baseball fields combined, site lighting, multi-use path construction and a pedestrian bridge across Cool Creek. Once those bids are awarded, the park will become an even more active worksite, being shaped to revolutionize athletics tourism in the city. Could Westfield one day lay claim to the title of Indiana’s Amateur Sports Capital? We believe it’s possible. Let’s check in a year from now, when the joint will be jumping. Count on it.
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Quick! Name the nation’s second-largest U.S. employer behind Walmart. If you chose the United States Postal Service, you’re on the money. Some in Congress, such as Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), want Saturday delivery, a possibility for the chopping block, maintained. Bad idea. Since Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe is stuck with a 2006 law Congress passed during the Bush II administration, he is in the middle of pre-paying, across 10 years, 75 years’ worth of anticipated retiree health benefits. With handcuffs on. Granted the union environment often is counterproductive to customer service and the chance at longevity for the USPS, but the Republicans of the last decade foisted this upon all of us. We’ve taken our share of shots at the shoddy business practices at the USPS, but that with which Donahoe has been encumbered defies logic, just as Moran’s demand to retain Saturday delivery in the face of mounting deficits does.