Plan Is No Hit With Neighbors : Recreation: Nearby residents oppose an expansion of the Little League field at Rogers-Anderson Park in Lawndale, saying they have enough broken windows already.

Melissa Bergstrom has two broken windows in her sun room--the result of stray rocks thrown by children playing in neighboring Rogers-Anderson Park.

Five houses away, Emil Desplancke came home one night and found a bedroom window shattered and the bed covered with broken glass. Again, an errant rock had come through the window, showering glass over the bed where his 3-year-old granddaughter usually sleeps.

A bit farther down the row of houses, Keith Krause has collected three soccer balls after they came flying into his bedroom window. He has refused to give the balls back until he is reimbursed for the broken windows.

Bergstrom, Desplancke and Krause share one thing in common: their homes abut Rogers-Anderson Park, the largest in the city of Lawndale. For them, the proximity can be unnerving: soccer balls through the windows, stray rocks raining down on the roof, broken windows.

And now the otherwise mellow park has become the center of a tug of war between the people who live near it--who want to keep it as it is--and others who want to upgrade the park by enlarging the baseball field and installing lights so it can be used at night.

At issue is a proposal to increase the size of one baseball diamond so it can be used by the Senior Little League, as well as add a track, soccer field overlay and exercise stations. Permanent bleachers and a concession stand would be built, and the parking lot would be expanded by 86 spaces.

The idea has infuriated the Rogers-Anderson Neighbors Assn., a group representing about 60 homeowners who say enlarging and lighting the park will only bring more problems.

“We’d do anything for the kids,” Krause said. “We don’t mind them practicing baseball, but we chose to live by a park, not Wrigley Field.”

Bergstrom points to her garden, where tomatoes, zucchini and cantaloupe have been trampled by youngsters who climb over the five-foot-high brick wall separating the house from the park to retrieve stray balls. She wonders if this will only get worse as the park is used more.

Other nearby residents complain that there are enough problems at the park already because access is limited to a single road off Manhattan Beach Boulevard. When the park closes after dark, they say, drug dealers often move in to the isolated park, with little fear of being noticed by police.

Keeping the park open later at night, they add, will attract more people, and more problems.

But Judy Gibson, a Little League organizer and a proponent of upgrading the facility, said organized activities at the park would discourage drug dealing or vandalism.

“If you have a lot of people around all the time, I think vandalism would be minimal. If you have a lot of people at the games, it’s less likely that someone will pick up a spray can and spray graffiti in the middle of all this.”

Gibson also argued that older boys desperately need a baseball field to practice for Senior Little League.

“These children are without a field,” she said, noting that the teams now have no permanent home to practice and play their games. “They are becoming young adults, and they need structure and guidance. Sometimes the way they get that is through organized sports, and we’re afraid they won’t be able to get it because they don’t have a field to play on.”

The 13-acre park is surrounded on three sides by single-family residences bounded generally by Freeman and Prairie avenues and Manhattan Beach Boulevard. Bordering the fourth side are William Anderson Elementary and Will Rogers Intermediate schools off 154th Street. The park serves the schools during the day and reverts to the public after classes.

Three baseball and softball diamonds are currently on the property, along with basketball courts, paddle ball courts, a sandy play area for small children, and several picnic tables under a handful of trees.

The Lawndale City Council will take up the proposal this week. Larry Corrington, director of recreation and community services, said the city must move quickly or risk losing $200,000 in state grants that could be used for the expansion. He said the entire project will cost about $900,000.

Councilwoman Nancy Marthens said she would like to see the money used only for minor improvements to the park.

“My concern is that we need to be sensitive to the neighbors,” Marthens said. “That project may be too large.” She said she hopes the $200,000 in state money can be used to add motion-sensitive street lights for security purposes and to remedy a troublesome drainage problem at the park.

“I’m not unsympathetic to Little League,” she said. “(But) I think we need to come up with an interim agreement and then a long-term solution” to the shortage of ball fields in the city.

To meet the needs for more sports facilities, Councilman Bill Johnson recently suggested developing a sports complex on 33 vacant acres at the former site of Lawndale High School. But that would require approval from the Centinela Valley Union High School District, which owns the property, and city officials said that could take months.

Meanwhile, the Lawndale Little League, which is desperate for a senior baseball field, is willing to compromise with the people who live around the park.

“We want to work with the association,” Gibson said. “We’d rather play at Rogers-Anderson without lights and schedule games during the day than not have a field.”