The previous Westside Master Plan proposed a complex of soccer and baseball fields just southeast of the City’s Parks Office Building West of Redwood Road. As some may now know our neighborhood lost those sports fields to our neighbors to the north. Over the years our own local West Side needs for sports fields have continued to grow. Soccer in particular has grown in popularity so much that elementary school yards are literally being destroyed by excessive use. It is no surprise then that these schools have begun to discontinue offering opportunities for this badly needed practice and pickup soccer play by taking down their goal posts and otherwise discouraging play. It is therefore unsettling that as interest in soccer has continued to increase in our community that places to play continue to disappear. Distance to the soon to be completed Regional Athletic facility on the north Jordan River is simply too far for local youth to safely travel. Even if they could find a way to this sprawling facility they would not be allowed to play anyway in this elitist, pay-to-play facility. Poplar Grove and Glendale still desperately need places for our youth and adult soccer players alike to play. Because I and others repeatedly brought this issue up in the various recent West Side Planning meetings I was surprised to not find any reference to this longtime, unfulfilled promise of the past in the current proposed West Side Plan, nor in the City’s records of those meetings. What gives? What is wrong with keeping kids on the grass instead of on the streets?