Officials to Finalize Baseball Agreements

Western Baseball League representatives are scheduled to meet with Oxnard city officials and Palm Springs Suns owner Don DiCarlo today to finalize agreements for the Suns to play ball in town for the 1998 season.

Today’s daylong had been scheduled for January, but league President Bruce Engel canceled because he was ill, he said Wednesday.

Engel and two other representatives from the league are set to meet with members of the Baseball Task Force, which includes Steve Kinney of the city’s Economic Development Corp. and Recreation Supt. Karen Burnham, to discuss lease negotiations at Oxnard Community College and to inspect the baseball facility.

In addition, Engel said he hopes to get a feel for Ventura County and make sure the area is right for a minor league baseball franchise.

“It is still our assumption that [Oxnard] is a very desirable area for the league,” Engel said.

“We are coming down there to see if that is the case. We will come away from that with firsthand knowledge of the market.”