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City Razes Fultz Field, Longtime Baseball Hub in River Des Peres Park | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

August 2, 2023

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click to enlarge ST. LOUIS CITY TALK At his website St. Louis City Talk, Mark Groth praised the Fultz Field bench shelters as his favorite in the city. The Parks Department has now removed them.
A baseball field that’s hosted countless games, both pickup and organized, since the 1950s, was razed by the city this week.Fultz Field was named for beloved Kiwanis Club coach Paul Fultz, a legend who died 10 years ago and had the honor of being the first coach elected to the St. Louis Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame. Located inside River Des Peres Park in the city’s Boulevard Heights neighborhood, it was unusually nice for a diamond in a city park, with covered dugout-style benches for the players, a backstop and bleachers. click to enlarge VIA GOOGLE EARTH An aerial view of the field before the city’s efforts in this past week.
But in recent days, neighbors say, all of those amenities were dismantled by workers with the city’s Parks Department.The city confirms it does not plan to replace them.”After several years without consistent field use, Parks Department staff are considering possible upgrades to the field and facilities as soon as next year to make it more appealing and usable for area residents,” Nick Dunne, a spokesman for Mayor Tishaura Jones, writes in an email. Asked why the city didn’t wait until it had a plan for upgrades, Dunne says some features of the field had fallen into disrepair, and the city decided to tackle the parts it could handle in-house.”When finished they’ll likely just plant grass, giving them a blank slate for future projects that the community will actually want to use throughout the year,” Dunne says. In an email to a constituent, Alderman Tom Oldenburg suggested the baseball field might become a soccer field. “There is a shortage of those and we run out quickly,” he wrote. “We actually get more requests for soccer than we do for baseball even on that field. This will still remain community/public/recreation space.”In some ways, the shift represents Americans’ changing leisure pursuits. Baseball has become passe in many quarters; soccer (and pickleball) are where the energy is.But not everyone approves of the change. Marla Hare Griffin has lived in the neighborhood for nine years. She’s upset that the field was taken down — and faults the city for not getting more neighborhood input. In recent years, she acknowledges, the field has been under-utilized, but she says that’s because the city hasn’t properly maintained it since the onset of the pandemic. “We used to have Little League teams,” she says. “But you’d still see families practicing. People would come and sit in the shade or play fetch with their dog. It’s fun to watch the kids swing at a baseball.”All that’s gone, and she can’t understand why. She’s also disturbed by how easily Paul Fultz’s namesake field was razed, as she wrote in an email to Oldenburg.”Someone jumped the gun on tearing down one man’s legacy,” she wrote, “and a beautiful neighborhood baseball field that just needed a little sprucing up and some regular care.” Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters. Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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