Residents concerned for safety near fire station and new baseball training facility

TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — Multiple residents in the City of Tulsa are concerned for their community's safety after they found out a new baseball facility is coming to a rural part of the East Tulsa area.

It's an area that residents say isn’t safe for drivers and for people coming in and out of the park.

NewsChannel 8 spoke with multiple residents, including one who has been here for 40 years, one who has been here for five years, and another at city hall.

All three have the same concerns as one baseball training facility comes to town.

“I’m telling you, the field of dreams had better infrastructure than this place does. We might as well very sincerely buy crosses with flowers on them because it’s going to be at this intersection," said Tulsa resident, Kathy McDonald.

That intersection is at 11th and 145th and multiple residents say that it is a very busy area in the mornings and evening times around 4 to 6 P.M.

Another resident says she isn’t against the idea of this facility coming to town, but safety needs to be a priority.

“Well first of all the safety of the roads that needs to be widened. If they're going to handle a lot more people are the septics going to be up to par? Because we have clay soil in this area. So that can affect the drainage. Is that going to be sanitary? Is that going to be safe for the children? And the people coming there? And what effect is that going to have on the neighborhood? There’s just a lot of different things," said Tulsa resident, Trolene Dodd.

She also says if they're going to allow this to open, officials are going to have to consider the safety of the children and the community.

During a city council meeting last week, there was an event center that was denied that would sit right at that same intersection, but the baseball facility is already being built through the board of adjustment.

Susan Frederick also says the infrastructure needs to be updated in this rural area before anything else comes to town.

“Is it going to be detrimental to the kids and of course the infrastructure is another thing with the roads and streets being so narrow. There is not enough."

Wiggle room?

“Yeah. You have to stand up for what’s right and I’m standing up for my community," said Frederick.

Another big concern they had, was fire trucks being able to pull out and get to the facility if something horrible happened; along with ambulances getting there if there was an injury on site.

NewsChannel 8 had the chance to talk to Christian Bengel who says he didn't have the authority to decide whether a four-way stop needed to change to a stop light.

He informed NewsChannel 8 that he would notify the department that had that authority via email about their concerns.