$2.8 million offer for Baran Park stirs up debate
Private group offers to build baseball diamonds
Milwaukee County supervisors are weighing the benefits of a proposed $2.8 million private investment in Baran Park against a concern over possible reduced public access to sports fields there.
Journey House is offering to build four new baseball diamonds and equip them with new lighting, scoreboards, bleachers and fencing, as well as a portable sound system as part of a threepronged partnership with the county, said Michele Bria, the CEO of the southside organization.
The diamonds would be used primarily by the group’s Felix Mantilla Little League, currently the chief renter of the fields.
Baran Park has been the home of the league since it was established in 1972 and nearly all of its 300 members are from south-side neighborhoods close to the park, according to Tony Mantilla, son of the league’s namesake, a former Milwaukee Braves player. The players are ages 4 to 15.
Under the proposal, Journey House would schedule open playing time at the baseball diamonds for other groups and charge them a user fee, as the county does now.
Supervisor Steve Taylor and a Preserve Our Parks representative questioned public access to the diamonds at a recent meeting of the County Board’s
parks committee.
“Kids show up at these things with their bats and gloves and they want to play,” Taylor said. “They should be allowed to play.”
At this time, the park’s two Little League diamonds and one high school regulation field are fenced and locked by the county when not in use by groups with reservations. Journey House would not change that, representatives of the group said.
Journey House is offering to build three Little League diamonds and one high school field there.
One existing T-ball field to be rebuilt by the group would not be fenced and it would be open to the public with no reservations required.
“We’re making this investment and we have to protect it,” Eugene Manzanet, chairman of the Journey House board of directors, said in defending the need for fences and gates at the main ball fields.
As the second part of the proposal, Journey House would establish sports turf and landscaping internships for 30 south-side youths each year, and maintain the diamonds and the remaining park at no cost to the county, according to Bria. The 14-week internships would be administered by the group’s THRIVE career program.
The internship program would save the county an estimated $44,000 a year in maintenance costs, county officials said.
Third, Journey House would replace the park concession building with a larger pavilion featuring concessions and a catering-size kitchen.
The pavilion and its bathrooms would be open to the public yearround.
An additional 48 paid internships in culinary arts and hospitality would be provided at the new pavilion each year, Bria said.
The Journey House proposal will be reviewed by the parks committee Thursday.
The County Board is expected to act on the group’s offer at its regularly scheduled meeting later that day.
In addition to saving park maintenance costs, the proposal would eliminate the need for the county to invest an estimated $144,000 to replace the pavilion and rebuild the parking lot at Baran Park, said James Tarantino, the county’s director of economic development.
Journey House is a south-side nonprofit group with a goal of helping families move out of poverty by participating in its adult education, job skills training, and youth development programs focused on academics and athletics.
Little League members practice twice a week in the winter inside Journey House.
They do not get into practice, however, unless they attend a study hall that same day at the group’s south-side location, said Tony Mantilla, a volunteer academic adviser for sports programs at Journey House. Each study hall provides lessons in writing, English and math.
Felix Mantilla played 11 seasons in the major leagues and gained a reputation as a versatile infielder and outfielder. He played for the Milwaukee Braves from 1956 to 1961 and was a member of the 1957 World Series champion Braves.
He played on the 1965 All-Star team as a member of the Boston Red Sox.
After retiring from baseball, Mantilla returned to Milwaukee and founded the Little League program in 1972 to serve low-income children on the near south side.
Mantilla, 83, still lives in Milwaukee and is able to attend several league games each summer, his son said.