Park Fight In Fauquier Waged Over Mellon Will By Ian Shapira Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, December 27, 2003; Page B01 When executors of Paul Mellon's estate gave $10 million two years ago to build a sports park in Fauquier County, where the philanthropist lived for more than 50 years, public officials were ecstatic. But what seemed at first like a critic-proof gift from the primary benefactor of Washington's National Gallery of Art has run into relentless opposition. Residents in Fauquier's mostly rural north -- including one of Mellon's granddaughters -- have condemned the park design, which includes eight ballfields, an outdoor pool and a 400-seat amphitheater. They have written angry letters to the weekly papers complaining about the park's size, environmental impact and potential to draw crime along with the crowds at night ballgames. "It's like Six Flags without the Ferris wheel," said the park's most vocal opponent, P. Jay Fetner, 60, of The Plains. "It's a stone's throw away from rock concerts. We want a park, but not this big." Meanwhile, less affluent residents in southern Fauquier, many of them new arrivals from older suburbs, welcome the park, especially the fields for fast-growing youth sports teams that have been running out of places to play. "There's a sacrifice [of services] when you move to Fauquier," said Ramon Ramos, a substitute English teacher and a Little League baseball coach who moved to Bealeton from Prince William County four years ago. "But the county needs to step up and have more facilities that are positive for the kids." The battle has exposed the deep divisions and resentments between the county's two distinct cultures, a north-south split similar to the rift in neighboring Loudoun County between the more rural west and the suburban east. Northern Fauquier residents yearn to keep the natural milieu as is, while in the south, families from Washington's inner counties clamor for the amenities they used to have. . . . For the rest of this lengthy story, see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32962-2003Dec26.html