Old recreation facilities are no source of happiness in Sandston

The USO hall just off Williamsburg Road was conveyed to Henrico County at the end of World War II with the understanding that it would house a recreation center for Sandston residents.

A 50-cent assessment was tacked on to each Sandston resident's water bill to purchase and maintain the center.

Six decades later, the assessment is still in place, and the Sandston Memorial Recreation Center holds numerous community events on its shiny maple floors. But the recreational facilities outdoors leave much to be desired, leaving some Sandston residents feeling like second-class citizens.

As Sandston resident Lisa Creeden said: "They have continued to spend money on other places that have better facilities."

A few yards from the recreation center are two basketball courts that would cause basketball inventor James Naismith to scratch his head.

"Where are the hoops?" asked Sandston resident Diana Thomas. "You see'em?"

Not so much as a peach basket. Blades of grass peek through cracked asphalt that bears the markings of a basketball court -- foul lanes, center-court circle -- but is bereft of poles, rims and nets.

Creeden pointed out two nearby tennis courts with cracked surfaces. The tennis courts were scheduled for replacement last October, she said. "When we complained real loud, they put nets up."

Across the street, the Sandston Youth Association baseball diamond is nice enough, but the practice fields a half-mile away are another story.

Located on Capital Region Airport Commission property once used by the Virginia Air National Guard, the bleak landscape includes baseball diamonds maintained by coaches and parents and several portable toilets.

"We can't make it a better space because we don't own it," Creeden said. "And the county should be maintaining it, but they don't."

Varina District Supervisor James B. Donati Jr. said replacing the tennis courts was delayed while officials considered, then decided against, relocating the courts across the street.

As for the ball fields, he said negotiations are taking place with a landowner a mile away to purchase land for a baseball complex.

"I think they're kind of blowing everything out of proportion here," he said.

Creeden and Thomas call Sandston a wonderful place to live. But they don't understand how the county can purchase and spend money on the thriving Tuckahoe Little League complex in western Henrico while Sandston is neglected -- or why Sandston residents pay a special tax for the recreation center.

Donati rejects the notion that eastern Henrico gets shortchanged. "I get so sick and tired of hearing that," he said, pointing out that the Varina District, which includes Sandston, received more than $100 million for capital projects in a $349.3 million bond referendum approved by county voters in 2005.

"Varina gets its fair share -- probably more than some," he said.

But standing on a basketball court without hoops, it's hard to see how Sandston is getting its fair share.

Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or .