Winchester discusses little league facilities at Coultas property

By Editor | July 15, 2025 |

By Carmen Ensinger

At the July meeting of the Winchester City Council meeting, Paul Sansone, a parent and resident of Winchester, brought up to the council the need for more little league facilities in the community.

“I am newer in town, but one of the first things I noticed is that we have a problem with facilities for the youth in our town who want to play ball,” Sansone said.

Winchester sports several different youth little league teams, yet they have only one field – the high school baseball field, to play those games on.

“It is very difficult to get field time here in town,” Sansone said. “There were several times where there just weren’t the facilities available for the kids to practice or even play on.”

Sansone said he would like to see if they (city and Little League) can’t look into building a new youth sports facility revolving around baseball and softball.

“I just took it upon myself to get some signatures of support from the people in our community,” he said. “There are well over 100 signatures from parents who are involved in little league here and in travel ball that takes our kids out of our community.”

Sansone said that there were many times games were scheduled and had to be moved to other towns because the field was not available.

“Sports are an economic generator for small towns and communities,” he said. “And when we take a game out of our community because we can’t provide a field, everyone loses – the businesses, the kids, everyone.”

Mayor Rex McIntire agreed 100 percent with Sansone.

“I have grandkids who play on teams and one of the goals when we bought the Coultas Property six years ago was to build a recreational facility,” he said. “I have been to several different fields following my grandsons and, like you said, it is amazing to see the turnout of parents and grandparents who support those kids.”

The Coultas property consists of 26 acres on the north edge of town. A small section was sold to allow for the construction of Dollar General, but the rest is still available for development.

“Just within the last three months, the city has become eligible for another OSLAD (Open Spaces Land and Development) grant,” McIntire said. “The last one we used to renovate the pool. Every three years you can apply for one and I really think that this project could benefit from that grant and it is something that is definitely needed.”

The OSLAD grant is based on the median income of a community. In other words, the higher the median income of a community, the higher the community will have to pay for their portion of the grant. The pool grant was a 55/45 grant meaning the grant paid for 55 percent of the project and the city had to come up with the other 45 percent.

Sansone said that he had put a list together of some places that offer grants for this specific type of project.

“I invest a lot of time in coaching the kids and I know there are grants out there,” he said. “I want the best for our kids. I truly think sports is such an important building block for our kids across all platforms.

“Working as a team brings the community together. Hundreds of people come to watch teams over a weekend when there is a tournament. We love seeing our kids doing activities and have an awesome facility would be over the top.”

Mayor McIntire suggested putting together a committee to work on the OSLAD grant with the city’s engineers, Benton and Associates.

“I think we let our kids down by not having a facility for them,” he said. “We have the property to build a facility and it would be silly not to take advantage of it.”