No Blair Park on April 4 Council Agenda

You know something is important to a community when the city government pauses to point out that issue won’t be on the next City Council agenda.

To wit: Blair Park sports field development and the Piedmont City Council agenda for April 4.

The city issued a news release stating: “The Piedmont City Council will not take up the Moraga Canyon Sports Fields project at its April 4th meeting. When additional project information is received by the city and an estimate of how long it will take the city’s CEQA (environmental) consultant to analyze the data, the matter will be scheduled for a hearing before the City Council. The hearing will be subject to full public notice.”

The council held a marathon public hearing March 21-22 that resulted in a resolution requesting the Piedmont Recreation Facilities Organization, a nonprofit residents' group, to submit plans for its construction of a canyonside field in Blair Park. The council requested PRFO include “a report listing additional traffic safety alternative options.”

City Administrator Geoff Grote said the city is awaiting those alternatives and thus will not have time to present them with estimates of study needed from the CEQA consultant in time for the April 4 meeting. That date had been targeted by some at the March 21-22 meeting for a decision authorizing the Blair Park field and associated construction, so the timetable moves deeper into the calendar and the construction season.

PRFO has forwarded the Blair Park plan to relieve pressure on ballfields used by youth organizations, which sees many Piedmont soccer and baseball moms taking kids to Alameda and Oakland for practices. Other residents are bitterly opposed to the earthmoving called for in this slice of green space and the threat to aggravate traffic safety issues on busy Moraga Avenue.