The Select Board agreed to postpone a town meeting article that would focus on town-issued permits for Swampscott parks and fields. Board members, though, still acknowledged that there is an ongoing issue around the misuse of the fields and lack of enforcement.

Swampscott resident John Picariello had proposed Article No. 20 for the Town Meeting to amend the town’s bylaws around land use. The article was worded to suggest “no person, group or organization or its members” can use a town-owned park, field or facility without a permit and that the police have authority to enforce the rule.

Picariello had hoped the new action would allow the Swampscott Police Department to enforce that the town-owned recreational areas are to be used with a permit.

Picariello’s article was prompted by a group of men who are “going and trashing” the Jackson Park fields by the high school. He said he – along with his neighbors in the area – have had to call the Swampscott Police Department to report broken locks that held the soccer goals, sticks that stuck up from the dirt and even portable goals.

“I don’t care who they are, as long as they pay to play,” Picariello said. 

Police Chief Rubin Quesada called into the Select Board meeting on Wednesday and reiterated what he told Picariello in the past.

“This has been going on for many years now,” Quesada said. “There is nothing in the bylaw that says if police get there and we see that people are there without a permit and we ask them to leave, the question becomes ‘okay, then what?’…They’ve refused to provide their identification. We don’t have a way or means to be able to forcibly remove someone, and I know that is the extreme.”

Quesada did say his officers could issue a ticket, but he noted that many people on the track may not be bringing their wallets.

“This issue will not cease,” Quesada said.  

The upper Jackson Park field is one of eight recreational locations that the town takes care of, according to Department of Public Works Director Gino Cresta, who also serves as the interim town administrator. Specifically for the upper field, Cresta said the town pays around $80,000 each year for upkeep and organic fertilizer. 

The school’s athletic director, Kelly Wolff, has been receiving a stipend to run the permitting process, according to Cresta.

For an adult recreation group, the facility charge would be $20 per participant plus a $20 per hour fee for lights on a turf field.

“There’s plenty of signs posted up there,” Picariello said, providing photographs to the Select Board.

To request a permit, those interested in using the fields are meant to fill out a form at least two weeks prior to their event. 

The permit also lays out that any use of the facility before noon on Sunday is prohibited except by a special permit and that groups must dispose of their own trash. According to Picariello, the groups playing on the field near him are there prior to noon and leave a mess.

Select Board Members Katie Phelan and Danielle Leonard also pointed out that the group could have been fined for destruction of the town’s property.

The concern around how Article No. 20 is currently written lies along the “unintended consequences,” Phelan noted. She said that in its current state, if children go for a pick up game without a permit, if the article was signed into action, “all of a sudden they can’t play.”

“Although that isn’t the intention, if the police were called in that mechanism and this is what it said, the police would have to enforce it the same way across all people, regardless of whether there’s a man on the soccer field or if there’s a kid on the basketball court,” Phelan said. “We just have to be very careful that it’s not precipitating a discriminatory practice by accident…I want to solve the problem at hand. I don’t want to cause more issues. I want to make sure we’re being fair across the board.”

Phelan reiterated that the purpose of the spaces are for them to be used. She wants to encourage community gathering and play, just in the proper manner.

That said, Leonard said she has a “huge problem right now with the fact that” Picariello is the one enforcing the permits on the field and not the police or Wolff.

“I don’t care if it’s a bylaw or not in the bylaw,” Leonard said. “If they have damaged our property, that is a reason to get off the field. It shouldn’t be left to a resident to do that.”

The Select Board members requested that Wolff attends the next meeting to discuss the permitting process and help address Picariello’s concerns.