By LEAH WEATHERSBY and CLAYTON PARK

After several weeks of community outcry, the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department has announced that it will likely shelve an idea to move Little League baseball games from a ballfield in Ravenna Park to nearby Cowen Park.

The move would have created more room for the long-awaited daylighting of Ravenna Creek in Ravenna Park.

"The preferred option of the (Parks) staff is to ... meet both needs right there at Ravenna," said Virginia Hassinger, a project manager for the Parks Department. "The issue of moving the ballfield is (now) really much less of an issue.

" The decision should come as a relief to the Friends of Cowen Park, whose members voiced concerns about the impact of scheduled games, including inadequate parking, noise, litter, and possible subsequent pressure for lighting.

"On a sunny weekend you can see many pickup games going (in Cowen Park), whether its Ultimate Frisbee, volleyball, or just a few folks practicing football, soccer, or softball," said David Eckert, a steering committee member of the Friends of Cowen Park. "Cowen Park is a refuge of unscheduled quiet in the lives of highly scheduled students, faculty members, and everyday workers."

Scheduling Little League games at Cowen would drastically change the nature of the park to a place where its use is more highly regimented, Eckert said.

Currently, both Ravenna and Cowen parks have baseball fields, but because of poor drainage the Parks Department doesn't schedule Little League games at Cowen. While scheduled games at Cowen Park do not seem to be an immediate possibility, it many not always be so.

At a May meeting with the Friends of Cowen Park, Parks Department official Margaret Anthony said: "The only reason we're not scheduling (the Cowen field) is because of drainage. We used to schedule it years ago."

Friends of Cowen Park is a volunteer citizens group (a committee of the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association) that was formed seven years ago to rejuvenate the park. Over the years, Friends of Cowen Park has raised money to install a new playground structure, including a sun dial, and has also worked to clear underbrush and replanted the park with native plants.

The group's next project will be to renovate the Cowen Park Comfort Station building, a two-story structure originally built to serve as a streetcar stop. The building currently houses restrooms for the park and a meeting room that is used for a children's day camp. The building needs more renovation, said Eckert. The overall cost of the project is expected to be about $300,000.

For more information about the ballfields at Ravenna and Cowen parks, call Virginia Hassinger of the Parks Department at 233-7936. To contact Friends of Cowen Park, call Eckert at 528-4984.