Starting a Community Garden in a field

I am interested in starting a community garden in a space that is now a field. What kinds of problems are we likely to encounter?
How do we go about beginning a garden on such a space without being over run by weeds?
Does anyone have a suggestion about where to get comprehensive info on how to go about this ?
Our Township wants residents to help pay for it - how do we figure out what is a fair charge?
Thanks!

I once shared a field with two other families in Tennessee. The field was borrowed, and used to grow tobacco. One family borrowed a rototiller and turned over the field. We then purchased various vegetable seeds and planted them. Believe it or not, the whole field provided us three families with more produce than we could use, even after we canned and froze it.

The weeds regrew throughout the summer and we never pulled them.

So go ahead - if the field supports a good crop of various "weeds" it will grow a good crop of anything else!

Here is a link to the community garden association with instructions on starting a garden: http://communitygarden.org/learn/starting-a-community-garden.php

Good luck!