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PONY, Little League get hit with big fee increase
By Oakley Brooks
Saratoga Little League and PONY baseball groups will pay largely increased maintenance fees to use Congress Springs Park this spring, despite the leagues' pledged contribution of $216,000 to help finish the park.
Four city council members voted to raise the two baseball groups' combined maintenance fees to $8,211, up from the previous year's fee of $1,500. The council elected to waive a $15 per player use fee for three years.
That decision Jan. 16 came although Mayor Nick Streit urged the council to waive both maintenance and use fees for the baseball groups for three years, in light of their contributions toward outfitting Congress Springs with baseball equipment and other amenities.
"If it wasn't for these user groups, this park would not be complete," Streit said, referring also to the local American Youth Soccer Organization chapter.
Councilman John Mehaffey countered: "This park would probably never have been built if it wasn't for these user groups." Mehaffey and three of his fellow council members maintained that $1.4 million--90 percent of the city's park development fund--had been spent on a specialized park that overwhelmingly benefited soccer and baseball players.
A maintenance contract for AYSO has not yet been finalized, although it's unlikely the council would waive the proposed $12,306 annual fee for the soccer group following the baseball decision Jan. 16.
Mark Linsky, area director for AYSO, said that in earlier discussions with the city about the group's equipment contributions for Congress Springs, he understood that the city would make efforts to waive its annual maintenance fee for the next three years.
Keith Simon, president of the Saratoga Little League and PONY league board member, said he made a similar agreement with city officials during negotiations on the baseball group's contributions to the park. But following the council's vote Jan. 16, Simon stormed out of the Civic Theatre after telling Public Works Director John Cherbone he would never make any "gentleman's agreements" with the city in the future.
"It didn't seem to matter to anyone that we put in money and got the [park] done," Simon said.
The two sides in the ongoing debate over fees for Congress Springs could not agree on whether donations by the user groups were exclusively for sports equipment--as several city council members maintained, or--as sports leaders claim--for the park as a whole.
Mayor Streit said he had tried to work with Cherbone to list the non-sports items the groups contributed to the park in order to credit them toward fees, but he could never settle on which items fell into what category.
That confusion has only fueled the larger debate about an appropriate fee for use of Congress Springs, which has been re-sodded with professional-level turf and will be ready for baseball use this spring.
User groups were involved in the development of Congress Springs, during which they discussed an impending maintenance fee raise. Still, Simon said Jan. 16 that the new fees represented numbers "I never expected." Parks commissioners maintained that after an extensive study of surrounding cities' use fees and fees for use of other facilities in Saratoga, they agreed to come in on the low end of the use-fee spectrum by charging $15 per player per season, with an extra $10 per non-resident player.
But Linsky held that a use fee, on top of a maintenance fee, was out of line.
"I've come to the conclusion that it shouldn't exist," he said. "I can't think of a better use of the parks in Saratoga than soccer, which is a positive family experience."
Simon said he was willing to support only a $10 per player use fee.
But council members, other than Streit, felt that a $15 fee should be set (even if waived for three years) and that maintenance fees should be required this season.
"I see it as something that's very important to start charging," Councilwoman Ann Waltonsmith said. "If we don't collect the money it's going to come out of other people's pockets."
Councilman Mehaffey said excess money from maintenance and use fees should go toward the development of parks throughout the city.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
