COEUR d'ALENE - American Legion wants a little bit more leg room.

While city crews continue to construct the new ball field at Ramsey Park in time for first pitch around Memorial Day, the American Legion board said it's not happy with the ballpark's seating.

Specifically, the bleachers behind home plate are too narrow.

Or, as Dennis Spencer, legion liaison put it last week: "Your knees are in the backs of everybody."

Other amenities going into the $315,500 new ball park adjacent the Kroc Center appear to be equal or better, legion board members said, but they thought they were getting wider aisles in their bleachers - like they had at their old park.

"Mostly the bleachers," Monte Larsen, American Legion president said Tuesday night about the legion's chief concern with the new park. "We're not asking for anything outside what we agreed upon."

As it stands, the $18,000 aluminum seating that sits 120 at the new park isn't equal or better, the board said. It met with city officials on Friday to talk about details on the new park, and a presentation was made Tuesday night at the council meeting.

"We were promised a pickup truck," Larsen told the City Council. "But we look across there now and we see a moped."

The legion said it signed off on wider, wooden bleachers with the ballpark's designers at Miller-Stauffer architects. But the designers said those wooden ones would weather poorly, and switched to aluminum. The switch was made unbeknownst to the legion, its members said, although City Parks Director Doug Eastwood disputes that, saying they were notified.

The city will install the legion field's old bleachers along the new park's right and left fields. Seating capacity should hit around 250 then, just like the old park. But what happens to the backstop bleachers might have to wait until after the season. The city asked the legion to come back to the park and recreation commission after the year to see what more can be done for additional leg room.

"This will be a great ballpark," Mayor Sandi Bloem said, adding the city has worked with the legion more than with "any other group." "Let's remember we're out there to watch the kids play baseball."

The equal or better pledge was promised by the city years ago if it should remove the Legion Field at McEuen Park - which it did as part of the park's reconstruction. The agreement was signed off again by the City Council in 2012.

Several components with the park appear headed to fulfill that promise.

Those include a wireless scoreboard with LED lights, improved drainage to prevent puddles, an improved irrigation system, more lights and a refurbished outfield fencing where the legion can sell sponsorship ads, which it couldn't at McEuen Park. The new park also calls for batting cages, which the old park didn't have.

"We're doing our darnedest to make it equal or better," said Bill Greenwood, parks superintendent.

Larsen said that the baseball field that will be 316 feet down the lines and 375 feet to center field does look like it will be a nice one.

But he added, the board said it would have liked to see deeper dugouts, without pitched roofs. The new restrooms constructed adjacent the ballpark don't have flushing toilets, he also pointed out.

Other restrooms at Ramsey Field do, however, as does the nearby Kroc Center, which agreed to let legion guests use them, along with their free parking lot. The city is still waiting for an 18-foot long concession trailer it ordered to arrive. If it doesn't show by opening day, the city will provide a concession trailer to fill in until it does. The city said as for the dugouts, it could only dig down so deep because the field sits on an old landfill.

That leaves the chief concern for the board being the bleachers.

The board said it showed good faith working with the city through the move, and wants more leg room. That may have to wait until the season ends, though both sides agreed to meet weekly as they prepare for opening day.

"We're nitpicking," Councilman Woody McEvers said, pointing to the $315,000 the city is putting into the project. "All that and we're not happy, holy mackerel."

Larsen, after Tuesday's presentation, said it was too early to tell in his estimation if the new ball park would be equal or better when all is said and done, as a game hasn't been played there yet. He said he was disappointed in the communication breakdown on the bleacher issue.

"At this point we don't know," he said of if the new park would turn out equal or better, though he was still operating on "good faith" that it would. "I'm assuming it will be."