Fees to use the City of Sterling softball fields won’t be changing for now. Nick Maikowski, a parent with a local traveling baseball team, came to the Parks, Library and Recreation Board Tuesday with a request to reduce the fee and traveling players more access to the fields.
After a lengthy discussion, the board ultimately decided to recommend keeping the fee, which since 2013 has been $25 for the first hour and $15 for each hour after that, the same for this year, and look at it again when all PLR fees are reviewed, which starts in August. Any fee changes the board does approve at any time would then have to be approved by the city council.
Maikowski explained that the cost of $40 a practice “ends up being a lot of money,” $9 per athlete, and just because they’re on a traveling team doesn’t mean they can afford that. Some players can’t even afford to buy uniforms or shoes, so he and a couple of other business owners have stepped in to help.
He would like the fee to be the same amount Wildcat Softball players pay to be on the city-run teams, which is $30, or possibly a little more but not $40.
“To me it’s ridiculous and every person I’ve talked to, including the eight other travel teams and the two softball teams that travel don’t agree with it. There’s not one person that I’ve met that actually said ‘hey, that’s a good thing,’ especially for youth,” he said, asking why Sterling has the field usage set up this way when other municipalities don’t.
Recreation Superintendent Monty Waite presented information he complied showing the usage fees other neighboring cities charge for their fields. Most charge $45 to use a grass field.
For several years the fee hasn’t been enforced for the traveling teams. Waite noted for the four years he’s been in the position, he’s gone to the fields to talk to the traveling baseball coaches and asked them to give him the courtesy of a phone call to schedule practice time and they never do. So, the city decided just to let them use the fields to play as long as they weren’t interfering.
Then earlier this year, the city had closed the fields due to rain and so Northeastern Junior College could have the field cut for their use the next day and one of the teams went around the locks, according to PLR Director Wade Gandee, and the field had to be prepped again for NJC.
Maikowski said when his two sons’ teams were utilizing the fields they never trashed them or practiced on them when they were muddy. He also wanted to know why the traveling teams can’t have more access to them because when they were using the fields there was no one else using them and even now “they’re still barren for half the day, if not more.”
The teams had started scheduling field use with the city from April 1-April 20, which worked fine, but after that period, when Wildcat Softball started, Maikowski was told there would be no field time available to anyone but the Wildcats and the NJC and Sterling High School softball teams.
He asked for a schedule of when they practice and city officials said they couldn’t give him one. Part of the reason for that is because it’s hard to know when NJC will be using the field, just this year they’ve had to change their schedule at least 10 times because of the weather. That happens with Wildcats too, Recreation Programs Supervisor Cassia Freeland shared with the board she had been on her phone throughout the meeting talking to coaches to reschedule practices due to the weather and with the rescheduling, the rest of this week had been filled at that point.
Freeland also noted just because there’s nobody on the field doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone scheduled to use it. Sometimes teams cancel practice at the last minute because they realize their athletes have too many other obligations and won’t be able to make it.
“We have to figure out, we talked about a new complex, we talked about the SBO fields, the SBO fields they’re not good fields, even when I played ball on them. It’s not safe,” Maikowski said about conversations with Waite and Gandee. “We need to figure out something where these travel teams can utilize the fields. We have to travel to Merino right now, to Caliche, they travel to Fort Morgan.”
He questioned why the fields have to be closed all day.
Gandee explained that the city has one full-time employee, with a seasonal worker, who prep the softball fields, for both Wildcat and adult league games. It takes an hour to two hours to prep each field, so that person is prepping fields from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a short ½ hour lunch break.
“With that, you have to realize our adults have games every night, except for Fridays, so every day is game day,” Gandee said. “That leaves us from 10 in the morning until 11 at night either prepping the fields or we have games on them.”
Waite pointed out he did offer to let traveling teams use the fields from 6 to 9 a.m. but never got a response back. Maikowski said that’s because the contract had changed. Waite told the board the only that changed was that he told Maikowski that if the board didn’t want to change the fees he would have to start enforcing those fees.
Board member Tom Bedford asked if they could use SHS’s field, Maikowski said that’s not an option because they start their season the same time as the traveling teams and they practice daily.
“Why are we making softball a priority over baseball?” he asked, later adding that “city-run programs are great, they get kids busy, they’re active, things like that, but your kids can only accelerate so far.”
Bedford expressed concern about overusing the softball fields.
“The problem right now, as I see it, is there is a larger demand and usage on the softball fields than all the other six (baseball) fields in Sterling. So, there is so much pressure already on them that I feel it’s a disservice to the girl’s youth service programs to give one more chunk of them to the boy’s program,” he said. “I’m cautious to add more pressure onto the three most used fields already, when we have an SBO field that’s empty, that is a larger field and is in poor maintenance.”
The traveling teams do use the SBO fields when they can, but now that SBO’s season has started they are in use every day and they don’t want to use NJC’s field because it would difficult for a 10-year-old to play on a college field.
Maikowski noted it’s difficult to get grant money to repair the SBO fields, because the city is responsible for water and electricity, as well as prepping the fields, RE-1 Valley School District owns the land and SBO only has a one-year lease. They have asked RE-1 for a longer lease, but have been unsuccessful.
“So, you might as well just take that and make it into a pasture. I understand your comment when it comes to putting more pressure on the youth softball girls, those SBO fields are for the SBO teams and the city-owned softball fields are for Wildcat teams and things of that nature, I understand that, but where do the other teams come in? Where do the other youth of Sterling have that right to use city property?” he asked.
Board member Kelly Lowry agreed with rec staff that private teams should have to pay a little more, but asked if they could come up with a fee structure that would be cost-effective and allows the fields to be maintained, where the private teams get X amount of days they can schedule for a certain cost. She also suggested a special meeting with SBO, the traveling teams and the city.
Maikowiski asked if SBO and the city could come together and the city could give some of its budget to improve the playability of those fields. The city already gives $10,000 a year to SBO.
“I have no problem with it, but at some point you’re going to either have to charge fees or do something to pay for that,” Gandee said. “So, you already said you want to pay the same, but I’ve got twice as many girls in Wildcat softball than you have in your traveling teams that want to use these fields, so it’s not apples to apples. I can charge you twice as much then and get the same amount of money.”
He later said the city has said if they need to have a conversation and take back ownership of the SBO fields that’s fine, but people didn’t like it when the city was running the baseball program, and that would mean an increased cost to the city to hire another employee to help prep fields. Jim Smith suggested maybe SBO could still run the program.
Asked by Tracy Glissmann what they should do as a board. Gandee told them the first priority would be to determine if they want to change the fees.
“I am not in favor of restructuring our fees right now,” Smith said.
Glissmann agreed, noting that it’s just like the fee to use Sterling Recreation Center.
Smith also cautioned against Maikowski’s thought of having his teams just join the Wildcats and forfeit every game so they can use the fields. Freeland noted that boys over six are not allowed on the Wildcats teams, so that wouldn’t work.
Ultimately the board decided not to change the fee right now and to continue the discussion on the use of the fields.
