The town board of trustees voted Monday night to submit a request to build a new field next to the current field near the southwest corner of the Torrance County Fairgrounds.

Plans for the project will be submitted to Youth Conservation Corps for the 2010 youth summer project. YCC awards grant funding to nonprofits and other groups to employ youths in conservation and restoration projects.

Trustees were thrilled at the proposal and brainstormed ideas for the new field.

They hope to make updates to the current field that will include an adobe wall, and the new field, if all goes according to plan, will include cinder-block dugouts, a sprinkler system, ball diamond, concession stand and landscaping.

Trustees agreed a new field is needed.

"If the kids are out playing ball, they're staying away from drugs, alcohol, gangs, all kinds of trouble," trustee Michelle Dunlap said. "If you want positive, provide positive."

Trustee Josie Richards agreed.

"When I was growing up, it seems like there was always things going on here, and now it seems like there's nothing," she said.

The field, proposed to be constructed east of the existing field, would be smaller than a standard field, more likely to be used for T-ball and mush ball tournaments.

The application is due to the YCC the beginning of August, according to Town Clerk Tammy Meyer.

"I'm so excited. It's going to be so cool," Richards said.

In other town business:

Trustees approved a memorandum of understanding between the Torrance County Fair board and Torrance County.

Police Chief Jimmy Chavez said crime is down in Estancia and the Fourth of July weekend was quiet, with no fights reported.

The Fire Department raised a little more than $200 in the annual Fill the Boot campaign to raise money for muscular dystrophy.

The department will continue to raise money and is hoping to collect $5,000 for the cause, Chavez said.

Computer use at the library is up but circulation is down, according to head librarian Elaine Ramsey. The 2009 statistics indicated circulation is down 20 percent, but computer use is up 19 percent, Ramsey said.

She is glad, however, that residents are taking part in a service they don't have at home.