SUMMIT TWP — The padlock has been removed from the entrance to the East Butler Baseball Association complex.

The association says it remains locked out, regardless.

“We received an email from the borough council stating they were advised to take the locks off, but that our association is still not permitted to use the facility,” said Juan Gonzalez, association president. “People from the community can go on the fields to play catch, fathers can take their sons out there, things like that.

“As far as our association using the complex for any practices, games, fundraisers or organized activities, we’ve been told no.”

East Butler Borough Council recently locked the entrance to the complex during an ongoing dispute between the borough — which owns the land the multiple-baseball field complex sits on — and the East Butler Baseball Association, a volunteer organization that built and has maintained the complex for more than 70 years.

The Eagle has reached out to borough officials without response.

Jay Wagner, coach of East Butler’s team in the Butler County Area Baseball League (ages 16-20), said in a written statement: “I’m in awe of how bad this has gotten. Should have never gotten to this point. Threatening volunteers with trespassing arrest for entering the complex is overkill. Especially when the league has tens of thousands of dollars in equipment sitting there.”

Gonzalez said he and other association board members were going to remove their equipment from the complex.

Center Township and Prospect are other youth baseball organizations that have offered use of their facilities to East Butler for its upcoming fall ball program as has Butler County Community College. Gonzalez said 45 youths ages 12 and younger have signed up to play fall baseball.

“We are grateful for the outside support and have offered our services to assist in prepping and maintaining those fields, since we are not permitted to use our own,” Gonzalez said. “We are moving forward with our fall ball program at these neighboring fields.”

East Butler’s Butler County Area Baseball League team played its first fall game last week at Pullman Park.

“The timing is what is most frustrating,” Wagner said of the borough complex lockout. “We had to pay $250 to play our first fall game at Pullman ... money that should’ve gone toward the kids.

“Couldn’t they have waited six weeks after fall ball, then sat down with the EBBA and worked out their differences? That way, kids wouldn’t have been affected. There’s just no way of spinning this to justify this council voting to lock us out just days before fall ball was to begin.”

Coltyn Dickison is the player captain of East Butler’s county league team. He grew up playing baseball in East Butler and said there were never any problems before this year.

Pullman Park director Dean Selfridge said recently that the borough council had him take over scheduling the games at Speed-O Field, the largest baseball field in the East Butler complex, for the 2023 season.

“It’s fun to play on our own field, under the lights, and we couldn’t do that much this year,” Dickison said. “We had no idea we had to schedule (through Selfridge). We never met the guy. We had no idea.

“The way this whole thing has unfolded ... It just bums me out.”

Wagner said of Selfridge: “No idea who he is, never talked to him, never knew he was in charge of scheduling.”

Heather Schmeider has been a member of the association for 13 years and had a son play ball through the organization. She said the borough took over maintenance of the fields this past season.

East Butler’s youth teams play against youth baseball organizations from surrounding communities.

“We had teams come in here ... They notice the grass hasn’t been cut, and they tell us our infield is unsafe,” Schmeider said. “Freeport refused to play on our (youth) field because they said the infield wasn’t safe enough to use. We played all of our games against Freeport at their place this year.

“We’ve been taking care of these fields ourselves for years. It’s ridiculous, what’s going on now. It’s never been like this.”

Tamara Finucan, who also has a son playing East Butler baseball, agreed.

“Games had to be rescheduled, and there’s so much confusion as to what’s going on,” she said. “My husband played baseball here. There’s so much community tradition and pride in East Butler.

“This complex was built for the children. It’s to support our community, to allow our kids to play baseball together on their own field, to have fun. To deny kids like this? It’s a sad situation ... It’s just crazy.”