Funding and management problems slow progress on new sports
facility
Faced with hurdles regarding operating and maintaining an outdoor sports complex, and with very little money to pay for it, the city has decided to back off, re-examine the project and proceed slowly in order to “get it right.”
The Morgan Hill City Council Wednesday unanimously decided to have the Public Safety and Community Service Committee further explore options to create a new plan of action for the proposed facility.
“Perhaps we need to take a step back, take a deep breath and take a look at what our overall goals for this piece of property are and how do we achieve those. Maybe we’re going down the wrong path today, so we want to take some time to revisit that,” said Councilman Larry Carr, who heads the committee.
The design of an outdoor sports complex was approved in December 2004. The RDA purchased 36 acres bordered by Condit, Murphy, Barret and San Pedro Avenues for $7.65 million, hoping to construct the project at an estimated total cost of $11 million. The city only has a budget of $2.5 million for Phase I of the project, which was to be completed by the spring of 2007. The city wants to recover costs by the facility’s third year of operation.
Plans to operate and maintain an outdoor sports complex have met a number of stumbling blocks along the way. The Coliseum Recreation Group, a private for-profit company, was initially interested in partnering with the city to manage the new facility. After they felt negotiations with the city had forced the CRG to take all the risks, the group pulled out of the project in late August. The city then turned to two local youth sports groups, the Morgan Hill Youth Sports Alliance and the Morgan Hill Youth Sports League, to operate the project. But the two groups failed to reach an agreement on how to run the project.
“These are two sports groups that have competing needs,” Julie Spier, assistant to the city manager, reminded the council. “They haven’t been able to work out their differences.”
Don Mott, spokesperson for several nonprofit youth groups under a loose affiliation called the Morgan Hill Youth Sports League, told the Times early this week, “We have not got past certain issues, the two groups have a different concept of how things are supposed to be done.”
Bob Benevento, also representing the MHYSL, reiterated the group’s desire to play a significant role in operating and maintaining the fields, noting there are 3,500 players, parents, volunteers involved with MHYSL.
“That’s a good 10 percent of the population of the city,” Benevento told the council. “We think we represent the youth groups of the city as opposed to MHYSA, which we believe does not.”
Vice president of the Morgan Hill Youth Sports Alliance, Jeff Bernardini, was not at Wednesday’s council meeting. He did not return phone calls.
All parties differ on projected costs for operating and maintaining the facility: The MHYSA initially set costs at $127,000; MHYSL, $150,000; CYSA, $160,000; the city, $274,000, with user fees.
Spier recommended that the PS/CS committee step in and see if it can help bring the two nonprofit youth groups together and explore options. She said a private group had approached some groups but has not formally submitted a proposal, which would require a new business model. She said field-use fees need to be standardized and coordinated and advised that the city suspend further design of the project and re-examine costs. She indicated $2.5 million might not be enough to fund Phase I of the project.
“I believe we need to do it right,” said Kennedy and proposed the logical solution to fund the project would be to extend the life of the Redevelopment Agency, “adding appropriate funding as part of the new RDA extension so that we can in fact do it right.”
Mott believes the sports complex still can become a reality.
“We believe it appears to be a consensus with all the parks and recreation personnel, and the city council want to have a great sports complex and we have the opportunity to do it,” he said. “We believe it can be done and even bigger than what we see now.”
The city council was not prepared to back out of the project either. The PS/CS committee will now explore options and return with a report before the council’s annual retreat in January.
“It’s certainly not our intent to delay this, it’s our intent to do it right, … We need to refocus ourselves and see what are services we’re providing our community, what is an economic return that we are able to catch as well, and make sure we’re meeting goals that we’ve always set, and do it right the first time,” Carr concluded.
Rose Meily covers City Hall for the Morgan Hill Times. Reach her at 779-4106 ext. 201.
