RESOURCES
2021 PVLL Covid-19 Guidelines 2021 pvll covid-19 guidelines.pptx 1.pdf
Little League International - http://www.littleleague.org/coronavirus
World Health Organization - https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/index.html
California Department of Public Health - https://www.cdph.ca.gov/
Sonoma County Department of Health - https://sonomacounty.ca.gov/Health-Services/
COVID-19 UPDATE for 2021
(January 15th, 2021)
Valley Families,
The Petaluma Valley Board of Directors is excited to have the 2021 season upon us! As we start to go through our preseason events, I know that most of you have questions regarding how this will all work with the current Covid-19 conditions and regulations in California. The purpose of this email is to pass some information along to you so you are aware of our plans for the 2021 Little League Baseball season.
In December, the State of California finally published regulations for youth sports. Many different youth sports organizations had been asking for information since last spring and were pleased to finally receive this guidance. In these regulations, the government noted the value of youth sports in keeping healthy, active children in our communities. I can not stress the importance of this enough as the league president, and as a father. I have always believed that children learn specific life-lessons on a field playing sports that they cannot learn in a classroom or at home. Our PVLL Board wants the kids to be out of the house (away from the screens and video games) and on the field with their friends and coaches.
So when can we play baseball? Well you may not be aware, but the current regulations set by the State of California allow for our league to hold practices today, following certain health precautions. Yes, even with Sonoma County being in Tier 1 (Purple) and with a shelter in place order. Permission to get on the field to practice has existed since last June. What this means is that we can prepare for our season as we normally do, with our annual Skills Assessments (Tryouts) as scheduled on January 30th. Teams will be drafted the following week, and will begin to practice in February. There will be specific Covid-19 safety precautions in place for all of this.
It is important that you know that we have been in contact with the City of Petaluma since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. They continue to support us, and have issued us permits to play baseball since June of 2020. We have submitted a Covid-19 Safety plan to them that we will share with all of you in a few weeks. This safety plan mirrors what is recommended by the City, County, State and CDC for safety precautions. You can expect health screening, social distancing, and wearing of PPE.
I know that many of you are asking “what about games?” Well there is good news! The new guidelines state that a competitive baseball season can resume once the County moves to Tier 2 (Red). Since baseball is an outdoor sport with natural social distancing, competitive youth baseball can resume before other youth sports will be allowed.
So what if we don’t get to games? While we are confident that we will get to play games in the coming months, the Board has decided that if no games are played, we will offer a full refund to Valley families, minus the cost of any team hats or jerseys that were purchased by the league for your child.
Our plan as a league is to start our season on time with regular practices. When Sonoma County enters Tier 2, games will begin. We obviously do not know when that will be, but are hopeful with warmer weather and further distribution of a vaccine, we will see Tier 2 sooner rather than later. We know that many Counties in California entered Tier 2 last year and that Sonoma County was close to doing so at one point prior to the beginning of the holiday season.
Our current registration numbers are down from last year, but are actually on point with the registrations from the prior two years. We are pleasantly surprised with the turnout so far, as we already have enough kids to field several teams in all divisions. We have also been in regular discussion with the other two leagues in Petaluma: National and American. Both have expressed an interest in interleague play. Should that happen, it will allow us the opportunity to diversify and enhance the game schedule. Kids always enjoy playing on other fields, and hosting visiting teams at their own.
With only a few weeks to go before the beginning of the season, please sign up if you have not at www.petalumavalley.org. As with any year, we are looking for managers and coaches. Be sure to mark your volunteer positions during registration or revisit your profile to mark the positions for which you are interested. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to send an email to [email protected].
We will hold another In-Person Document Verification session at Murphy Field in about two weeks, before and during our Skills Assessment on January 30th. We thank you for your support, and I look forward to seeing you all at Murphy Field soon!
“Go Valley!”
Chris Andres
PVLL President
The following is a record of the 2020 PVLL COVID-19 updates.
(June 18, 2020)
The latest County Health Restrictions increases the number of players allowed at practice from 10 to 12 players.
• A limit of 12 players may participate in a practice. If a team has more than 12 players, a separate practice must be started on a different field with an adult coach to reduce the player number to 12 (June 18th)
---
(June 12, 2020)
Petaluma Valley Covid-19 Amendments (appended to the end of the Response slides)
As the situation in the City and the County are continually changing, this may result in restrictions on youth sports being added, or even relaxed. If these result in any changes in the Petaluma Valley Covid-19 Response plan, the slides will be updated. We will also keep track of any changes of note here.
• All practices are closed to the public. Only players and coaches are allowed to attend (June 10th)
• A limit of 10 players may participate in a practice. If a team has more than 10 players, a separate practice must be started on a different field with an adult coach to reduce the player number to 10 (June 10th)
• Dugouts, bathrooms and the snack shack are closed until further notice. (June 10th)
• All participants at a PVLL event (players, coaches, parents, etc) are required to have a facial covering. However, the facial covering only needs to be used when individuals are unable to maintain social distancing or they enter an enclosed structure. (June 12th)
---
(June 6, 2020)
Petaluma Valley Families,
We are excited to announce that we will resume our 2020 season, and expect practices to return over the next two weeks. The Sonoma County Health Safety Officer (SCHSO) announced that as of today, youth sporting activities are safe to resume in our county under certain guidelines. Petaluma Valley Little League has submitted a Covid-19 safety plan that was approved by the City of Petaluma and SCHSO. This document is attached and posted on our website. All PVLL participants will be expected to follow the safety guidelines.
Much of these guidelines include what is already being done in our community today, and what all of us are already practicing. There will be social distancing, and requirements for facial coverings depending on the ability to maintain social distancing. Game and practice times will be staggered to prevent overcrowding at the fields, and there will be regulations on equipment sharing and dugout use. The attached PVLL Covid-19 Safety Procedure has these details. We encourage you to review it.
We believe that these new rules will make it safe enough for you and your family to return to the baseball field. You can expect to be contacted by your team manager over the next week with practice dates and times. The Major, Minors and Minis will begin to hold practices the week of the 8th, and T-ball will begin the week of the 15th.
You can expect more updates over the next week or two. There is a lot of planning that has to take place. We are hoping that the season will be complete by the beginning of August. At this point, it is unlikely that we will have a City tournament or All-Stars for the Majors and Minors divisions. We know this is sad news for many of you. Our current goal is to focus on having a complete baseball season for the kids to enjoy.
It is obvious that our way of life over the last few months has drastically changed, and that there is a lot of chaos in our world right now. The PVLL Board of Directors believes, and we hope you agree, that finding something as normal as playing baseball will provide some much needed relief in our lives. We ask you to join us as we return to Little League baseball, and we thank you for your patience and continued support. We look forward to seeing you all soon!
There will be more information to follow in the coming days and weeks. Stay tuned, and Go Valley!
---
(April 23rd, 2020)
Valley Families,
We hope that you are all healthy and managing this new lifestyle that we have unfortunately had to adapt to over the last month. Our thoughts, prayers, and well wishes go out to all of you during this time.
This week, the board was able to discuss the state of the season and the possibilities going forward. We wanted to share this information with you so that you know what we have planned. We are hopeful that, with parts of the country beginning to open, life and baseball will resume. Little League International has pledged to support leagues across the world in having a regular baseball season. They realize that this depends on state and city guidelines throughout the country, and that some leagues may be able to return to baseball before others. Little League International has also acknowledged that tournament play (All-Stars) is a second-place priority to the regular season, and may not occur.
The return to Little League baseball all depends on California, Sonoma County and Petaluma progressing through the different phases to reopen the country that have been outlined by the Federal government last week. If you are not aware, the government has listed three phases with guidelines that states should follow. The first phase is strict social distancing in public, with gatherings limited in size, and no non-essential travel. The second phase loosens some of the social distancing requirements, and allows for youth activities to resume. This will be the point when we can begin to play baseball.
Many states have already progressed into the first phase. We suspect that their ability to progress to phases two and three will have an affect on California. If current COVID-19 trends continue to decrease, it is possible that California may enter phase one within the next two weeks. If this occurs, it is possible that we could see phase two follow a few weeks later. This means that it is possible that our season could resume by late May or early June. We realize that all of this depends on the continued decrease of COVID-19 and no significant flare ups that slow the process.
When baseball resumes, it will not be the same baseball that we are accustomed to. The Board has outlined several health safety measures that would be put in place to protect not only your child, but everyone in attendance at practices and games. We will have more details regarding these measures when baseball resumes, but as you can imagine they include social distancing, personal protective equipment, health screening and approximately twenty other safety measures that we believe would make returning to Little League baseball a safe outdoor activity for our families.
To reiterate: We plan on having a baseball season when our state progresses to phase two and that this could be as soon as late May or early June. This season will most likely be abbreviated in length with a lot of baseball over two months and All-Stars may not occur. Upon return, baseball will look and feel a little different, but it will be safe for all of us. We thank you for your patience and continued support. We can’t wait to see you all at Murphy Field soon!
Go Valley!
---
(March 26th, 2020)
Valley Families,
First, I hope that all of you are in good health. We have seen a lot happen in our world over the last few weeks and I know that it has impacted all of us, and some more than others. Being that today would have been Opening Day for Major League Baseball, it was a huge reminder to me that so much has changed in our lives and that we have put so much on hold until we can somehow find “normal” again.
I have spoken to many of you and understand the concerns you have for your families and your baseball players. I look forward to the day we can all congregate at a baseball field again to watch our children play. I know many of the parents that have 12-year-olds are concerned about watching their son or daughter’s last season in Little League slip away after only a few games were played. Having said all of that, we know that health will always trump a baseball game and the board is committed to making sure it is safe for your kids to return to the field when the time is right.
As a board, we continue to monitor what is going on in the world and what our local governing bodies are doing in regard to public health safety as guidance on when we can resume our season. As of the latest, outdoor youth sporting activities will be suspended at least until May. All city parks are closed including our baseball fields. In addition, we are monitoring Little League International recommendations.
Those that were with our league last year know we saw a month of games rescheduled due to weather. If we learned anything from last year, we know how to make a season that started bad with so many rainouts turn out great, thanks to some scheduling adjustments and some really competitive baseball from our older divisions.
While we are still in a holding pattern for this season, please know that our board is dedicated to playing baseball as soon as it is safe to do so.
Go Valley!
Chris Andres
PVLL President
---
(March 25th, 2020)
Sonoma County Office of Education has recommended "distance learning" for all schools through at least May 1st. Petaluma Valley Little League will continue to monitor the ever-changing situation.
---
(March 15th, 2020)
Valley Families,
The Petaluma Valley Little League Board of Directors has continued to monitor the local situation with regards to the Coronavirus. At this time, both Petaluma City Schools and Old Adobe Union School District have cancelled in-person classes through March 27th.
Following this, the PVLL Board of Directors has suspended our 2020 Little League season until no earlier than March 28th. No games, practices or other Little League activities will be held. Decisions regarding rescheduling or schedule-cropping will be made at a later date.
As the situation continues to change, we will continue to monitor. We will keep you apprised during the hiatus with any information on the resumption of the season activities or any extension of the suspension. We appreciate your understanding and patience.
You can read Little League International’s update regarding Coronavirus here: LittleLeague.org/coronavirus
If you have questions about Valley’s suspension of activities, please email [email protected].