The Seneca School Board had a few matters dealing with sports and couple of other items on their agenda, but it was a relatively quick and straightforward meeting held Monday, Dec.18.

Early in the meeting, high school softball coach Emily Hall addressed the board about the condition of school’s softball field. Hall said the Seneca field is in the worst condition of all the fields in the Ridge & Valley Conference.

The coach pointed out that the infield was no long-er the right soil consistency after years and years of lime being applied. The texture of the current infield simply doesn’t absorb water. This results in puddling and leaves the field unplayable at times.

Hall told the board that verbal bid she received from a Montfort-based company that would remove and replace the infield ma-terial was $50,000. After removing the current infield material, the company would rebuild the infield using a combination of silt, clay and sand. This compa-ny has just replaced on in-field

Addressing the cost, Hall said she was aware of an opportunity for the softball team to take over the con-cession stand at the field. However, she questioned her ability to be involved and helping to run and staff it as the summer went on and the Little League games would need the stand opened.

Hall also reviewed the re-lationship between the Sen-eca Area School District and the Town of Seneca. The township owns the land and allows the school dis-trict to use it for a softball field. In return, the district assumes repair and upkeep of the field.

The Lions Club built the concession stand, but the township owns it. The Lions lost an important person staffing the concession stand recently and is ready to let it go to another entity like the school softball team.

In answer to a question, Hall said the Lions told her that they had made $8,000 at the stand last year, but that included running it through the entire summer for Little League games.

As far as other financing for the infield, Hall men-tioned that she had been told the George Family Foundation and Riverboat Casino both fund projects and might be a source of money for the infield pro-ject.

Regardless of the deci-sion on how to proceed with the infield project, the work will have to wait until after this year’s season con-cludes, hall pointed out. That means work on the infield could start in August or September, Hall told the board.

At the coach’s urging, the board discussed setting up a meeting with the town-ship about work on the field. The current arrange-ment is that the town owns the land and the school dis-trict repairs and maintains the ball diamond. It was noted that the township does mow the bank of grass adjacent to the road.

However, all other mow-ing and maintenance is done by the school district.

There was question of whether the Little League would run the stand during the summer with the Seneca Softball team running it during their season.

Hall told the board that at many schools the parents of the players take turns staff-ing the concession stand.

In the absence of other leadership, Sara Wall and Julie Payne are currently running the Little League program.

I another sports related matter, the board learned that the Wauzeka-Steuben School District wants to form a middle school foot-ball team with Seneca, along the lines of the cur-rent high school football co-op.

Dave Boland, Seneca School District Administra-tor, reminded the board that when the proposal to create a co-op middle school foot-ball team was brought up by Wauzeka-Steuben, the board declined the offer. Boland recalled that at that time, the board didn't want to expand middle school athletic programs

It was noted that nine players, participated this year on the Seneca middle school football team.

Seneca Athletic Director Erika Clark told the board that a Six Rivers Confer-ence Schedule was already developed for middle school football. The Seneca-Wauzeka-Steuben co-op high school team partici-pates in the Six River Con-ference for football.

In the end, the board de-cided to not decide the question of joining a middle school co-op football. Bo-land was instructed to report that there was initial interest in the idea by the board and pursue questions about the contract to form a co-op.

The board also approved creating a digital map of the school property with a grant supplied by the Wisconsin Department of the Justice. The Critical Response Group, a private company, will be hired to do the map-ping of the schools, parking lots and ballfields. CRG’s work will cost $8,135, which will be fully paid by the WDOJ grant.

The map when completed will be distributed to emer-gency responders, including law enforcement, fire ser-vices, 911 , and others.

In other business, the Seneca Area School District Board:

• learned the district was able to purchase a new Traverse van from Sleepy Hollow

• learned that the site for the ag center had been bull-dozed in preparation for construction and a survey map had been completed and submitted to the state and county for approval

• approved giving the Seneca Area School District Monthly Recognition Award to Sunrise Orchard for the elementary student holiday baskets as they have for the past few years; and to SHARE for their work into putting together and distributing gift baskets to those in need in the com-munity

• learned that the Wiscon-sin Department of Instruc-tion will be more restrictive next year in allowing early starts at school districts pri-or to September 1 for clas-ses