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Say hello to the new home of Batavia's Youth Football program: Lion's Park.

Youth Football President Dick Lexer told The Batavian today that the program has decided not to accept the offer from Batavia City Schools to relocate to the field at John Kennedy Elementary. Instead, it will move to Lion's Park on Edward Street in Batavia — at least, for now.

 "It has been two years of looking at places to play," said Lexer. "And every time you look at a place and talk to someone, there are good points and bad points. This has been a long time and a lot of negotiations."

Lexer would not comment on the good points about Lion's Park or the bad points about John Kennedy or anything about the many other locations that he and other program leaders considered for relocation. He said he couldn't get into details because there were just too many.

"Our decision was based on a lot of different things, too numerous to mention," he said. "Basically, there are fewer bad points about Lion's Park than anywhere else."

Lion's Park will not be the permanent home to the program that was told to vacate Dwyer Stadium due to the high costs of maintaining the outfield that gets chewed up by the football games — Council President Charlie Mallow cited figures of at least $10,000 per year in repairs. Lexer sounded regretful about losing the facilities at Dwyer where they played almost regularly for 32 years, he said.

It's only temporary, (he said of the move to Lion's Park). We have to find a better permanent home. We had everything we needed at Dwyer. We had everything. We're walking away from $75,000 in structures and facilities because we can't use the field any more. So we had to find a place for at least this year to play our games. But it's only temporary.

Youth Football begins its season September 6.