A Friendly Agreement Expands Athletic Warmups

Fernandina Beach has often cast an envious eye on a large, unused field in front of the Nassau County School Board’s building on Atlantic Avenue across the street from Central Park. The answer always was that the field was needed for school activities.

So recently, the city tried again. Interim City Manager Charlie George sat down with school officials and, apparently, really charmed them and offered to clean the field up and level it out, sow grass and never use it when the school board needed it.

So when the school board and the city commission held a joint meeting Wednesday, the commission had three asks:

• Renew its lease for Hickory Field facilities on the side of the school board building.
• Have permission to install outdoor bathrooms at the field.
• Have permission to clean up and level the field out front and use it for teams warming up for games across the street.

All parties were all smiles, and, pending some necessary red tape, there was a handshake agreement.

A citizen in the audience made a useful suggestion: Make the new bathrooms unisex. That way when a bunch of girls or a bunch of boys were using the Hickory fields, bathroom lines would move faster.