Nothing Personal, Just Asking: Information about Dunwoody Senior Baseball

The game's afoot here in Dunwoody with a proposed land swap between the City of Dunwoody and DeKalb County Schools. The current site of "Dunwoody Park", 10-acres of publicly-owned land presently used by Dunwoody Seniors Baseball is to be swapped and used for the new site of Austin Elementary School. Two baseball fields are proposed to be built & maintained by the city on the site of Peachtree Charter Middle School. The city would take ownership of some acreage at PCMS for these fields.  

I'll leave the school stuff to other bloggers. For details of the current proposal, please head over to Heneghan's Blog here.

My questions below are around Dunwoody Senior Baseball. Pretend you just arrived in our town and want to know the history, background and current situation. Nothing malicious. Just no assumptions. 

My overarching point of view is, “Just because we started as a city with something, does it mean by default we continue?” - for example the Dunwoody Village Overlay Zoning that specifies everything has to look Colonial. As a minimum, let's have open public meetings asking questions like, “How much does the city pay in taxpayer dollars per Dunwoody resident to play baseball with Dunwoody Seniors?” “Should the city be in this business?” “What are the Opportunity Costs that we could use elsewhere for Parks & Rec Services that would benefit a broader representation of our residents?” 

I've sent in these questions to the city (on 10/18). When I get responses, I'll post them and/or offer a link to this information. 

My Questions:

• Who & what is Dunwoody Senior Baseball? Are their board meetings scheduled and open to the public? Are their meeting minutes available to the public?

• How many Dunwoody residents are enrolled with Dunwoody Senior baseball? What are their ages & sex?

• Who are their board members, where does their board meet? How are they elected?

• When & how did they establish a relationship with the city? (As contrast to being grandfathered in by DeKalb County)

• What public input was offered prior to establishing this relationship with the city and entering into an agreement?

• What are the terms & conditions between Dunwoody Senior & the city? Do they have exclusive use of the public parkland?

• What is the length of their contract for use of city property? Is it up for competitive bid, publicly announced prior to the term expiring? What is the mechanism for public input as the city considers renewing or granting terms to use city parkland? Is the contract voted on by the Mayor & council?

• Does Dunwoody Baseball offer anything to women? Co-Ed? Recreational Adults? Senior citizens? If not, will they?

• What is the mechanism for the greater public to use these ball fields? Can residents sign up & block out a date & time? 

• Will the city be keeping regular open, unscheduled, unreserved dates & times of the ballfields for public at-will use?

• What is the estimated cost of the new ball fields? What amenities will they have? Will there be public input prior to approving the final plan?

• Will Dunwoody Senior have reserved parking spaces as is currently in use at Dunwoody Park?