Send soccer somewhere else

The Sept. 21 Acorn featured our home on the front page under the headline "Homeowners Rally in Opposition to Westlake Park Plans." The accompanying news article quoted Chris Mann as saying, "We won’t do anything that will cause a lot of noise on a weekend morning or make traffic unbearable or have soccer balls flying into people’s backyards."

I would like to ask how he proposes to prevent this if the soccer field is constructed on this site.

Already, we get soccer balls several times a week in our backyard just from the children playing there. We are not complaining about that and we return the balls to the children.

It does concern us that a large soccer field is being considering in our backyard. This is a totally different situation than children playing soccer during their recess period. A year-round soccer field is much different than an elementary school playground.

White Oak Elementary School is situated in the middle of the neighborhood with homes all around it. The neighborhood was constructed with greenbelts and walkways leading to the school. Consequently there is no parking lot and our streets, which are mostly cul-de-sacs, would become congested with cars.

We realize it is hard to find space for ball fields and other sports activities in our growing city.

However, we believe this particular schoolyard located in the center of our neighborhood is not an appropriate site for a soccer field or sports park.

Ben Cranmer

Westlake Village