American Legion Baseball officials will meet today with the city of Coeur d'Alene's Parks and Recreation Commission to hammer out an agreement on the use of Thorco Field in Ramsey Park.

"This agreement is a little more extensive than what we've had in the past," said Interim Parks Director Bill Greenwood. "The last agreement we had was updated in 1992."

Greenwood said the agreement was written to clarify the "dos and don'ts" so all parties are on the same page.

He said the city met with the Legion about a month ago and gave them the draft copy of that agreement and they have been reviewing it ever since.

"It outlines stuff like who mows the infield," Greenwood said. "From my perspective I don't want them mowing the infield, I want to maintain that."

The agreement does allow the American Legion to work on things like the pitcher's mound and the dirt infield, but it also gets into user fees, concessions, how long the announcer booth can stay at the field and more.

"We want to sit down in front of this and talk out the details," said American Legion Baseball President Monte Larsen. "We have a few issues that we'll need to work through, but we are just getting started."

Larsen is not sure if the parties will reach a full agreement today, but he said his organization wants to make sure they are comfortable before signing the contract.

"We are not done on our side. We are still working through it," he added. "It has been a while since we've had a contract like this."

City Councilman Ron Edinger sits on the Parks and Recreation Commission, and has been a longtime supporter of the American Legion Baseball program.

"I don't know if anything has changed much," he said. "I read through it and I didn't see anything that seemed to be out of line."

Edinger did say that the new agreement will allow more advertising on the outfield fences, but that is really the only significant change he saw.

"I don't think they could do that at McEuen Field," he said. "But at Ramsey they will be able to."

Technically, Larsen said, the Legion was allowed to secure sponsors and hang their banners on the outfield fence, but they had to take them down after every game.

"The difference is that now we won't have to take them down," he said. "Now they can hang from May 30 through the end of July. It's nice that we don't have to take them down anymore."

The meeting will start at noon in the Old City Council Chambers at City Hall.