Regina ballparks, athletic fields set to open

The road to having organized sports back in Regina was cleared a little as the city announced ball parks and fields are getting set to open.

Community operated ballparks will open on June 22. This includes Broad and Ninth Avenue North, Columbus Park, Kiwanis Park, Kiwanis Park North, Lions Park, Pacers Park, Optimist Park and Douglas Park.

All other parks and other athletic fields, including lawn bowling greens, will open on June 27.

Rod Schmidt, the City of Regina’s acting manager of facilities and special events, said three employees were brought back to help get the fields into shape.

“At the start of the spring we did cut back the maintenance at those facilities just because we didn’t need to do the heavy maintenance but we are moving back to the full cutting cycle, the full cutting cycle, irrigation, fertilization and those sort of things,” he said.

There will be guidelines to using the parks, such as no sharing equipment between players, all individuals who are sick should stay at home, a physical distance of two metres should be maintained between people not from the same household or extended household and hand sanitize should be used before and after activities.

Schmidt said each and every organization will need to work with their regulating bodies to determine a return-to-train plan.

“People have been waiting for these opportunities. We know all the programs have been doing their work in the background in terms of lining up their programs, contacting athletes that are registered and working on schedules in terms of options of schedules,” Schmidt said.

When organizations do not have a time scheduled at a field, the public can drop in and use them.

City of Regina planning for a return-to-work scenario

Back in March, 770 admin and professional staff were redeployed to work from home. As of June 19, 600 employees were still working from home.

The city announced it is in the process of starting to plan for a return-to-work scenario.

With the current restrictions in place, the city’s building can house about 50 per cent of their admin and professional staff.

A city representative said the plan to get employees back to work is a phased plan which will take time to implement.

Virtual city council and committee meetings are still expected to continue for the time being.