Barrington Park and Recreation Commission approves field fee increase

Proposed increase will next head to the town council

Posted 9/25/18

The Barrington Park and Recreation Commission voted 4 to 1 to approve a proposed increase to field use fees at its meeting on Thursday, Sept. 20.

Commission members Geoff Turner, Marcus Paiva, …

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Barrington Park and Recreation Commission approves field fee increase

Proposed increase will next head to the town council

Posted

The Barrington Park and Recreation Commission voted 4 to 1 to approve a proposed increase to field use fees at its meeting on Thursday, Sept. 20.

Commission members Geoff Turner, Marcus Paiva, James Bellamy and Patricia Driscoll voted in favor of the increase, while Christina Larisa opposed the change and TR Rimoshytus abstained. 

The proposal, drafted by Barrington Town Manager Jim Cunha, calls for a few changes to the field fee structure. If approved by the town council, the field use fee will increase from $10 per player each year to $25 per player each season, and there will be a new tournament rate of $200 per day for Level I (better condition) fields and $100 per day for Level II fields. 

There would also be a single-day-use rate for "low utilization" adult and youth leagues of $75 for Level I and $35 for Level II.

No officials or administrators from any of the youth sports leagues in Barrington were invited to the Park and Recreation Commission meeting, and some of the officials were surprised to hear that the meeting had been rescheduled to Sept. 20 — the Park and Recreation Commission normally meets on the fourth Thursday of the month, but was moved up to the third Thursday this month.

"I was unaware of the change and was not informed," wrote Barrington Youth Soccer Association President Steve DeBoth in a recent email. "I have not heard of anyone in the BYSA being made aware."

Mr. DeBoth has questioned the process involved in changing the field fee structure. In a previous interview, he said town officials are "treating the parents as piggy banks."

"Why can't the town table this process for now and get us all in a room to work toward a common objective: getting kids outdoors exercising on good fields where everyone agrees on what is fair for the leagues to pay, and what is fair for the rest of the town to pay toward children's health," wrote Mr. DeBoth. 

At least two members of the Park and Recreation Commission said they did not speak with youth sports officials prior to voting at the Sept. 20 meeting. A day after the vote, Mr. Paiva said local sports league officials should have been invited to the commission meeting.

"I think we should have tabled this and gone over it a little more," said Mr. Paiva.

Barrington Recreation Department Director Michele Geremia said Mr. Cunha had already met with some of the league officials to discuss the potential change. She said Mr. Cunha drafted a memo detailing the potential fee increases, but it had not been officially shared with league administrators.

Ms. Geremia added that the meeting date was changed because some commission members would not have been able to attend a meeting on Sept. 27. 

The recreation department director said a fee change is overdue, and it is time that sports leagues do more to help the town with athletic fields.

"A lot of the responsibility falls to the leagues," said Ms. Geremia. "Soccer destroys the fields with the heavy traffic and with the heavy schedules."

Mr. DeBoth said he was "very disillusioned" with the process the town has followed regarding the potential field use fee increase. He said Barrington municipal leaders have not been clear as to how much money the town spends on soccer-related field maintenance. Yet despite that missing information, town officials are moving forward with the newly proposed set of fees.

"I, and many others, question the legitimacy of this process when no one has told us why $15,000 doesn’t cover our costs, no one has told us what our costs even are, and no one has asked us if these new fees are enacted how much money we will actually be paying," wrote Mr. DeBoth.

"A logical person realizes that if this were actually about 'covering costs' all of those things would have happened. Instead, it looks like this is actually a way to raise revenue so the DPW can spend more time working in the schools to help with the school budget. Am I the only one that sees this as being unethical? To tell a group of people to pay more so their children can participate in health-promoting activities, only to actually use that money somewhere else? How is that fair?"

Another Barrington resident, Brian Knight, had a similar reaction to the proposed field fee increase. Mr. Knight wrote a letter to the editor this week questioning the financial estimates involved in this proposal after he read about the town manager's efforts to change the charter so that DPW employees would be able to do work inside local schools.

"Is the town manager attempting to increase the budget of DPW in order to cover the costs associated with the increased workload in this proposal? If so, this turf battle is being resolved on the backs of young athletes," Mr. Knight wrote.

During an earlier interview, Mr. Cunha said the town currently collects a field use fee of $10 per player for each sports' primary season — that totaled $18,000 in revenue for the town this year. Mr. Cunha estimated that the town spends $126,000 annually on its fields, including $47,000 for labor and another $20,000 for field paint. 

Town officials have said that the additional revenue raised by the proposed field fee increases would be used to better maintain Barrington's athletic fields. Mr. Rimoshytus, a member of the Park and Recreation Commission, said he was assured that the estimated $30,000 in additional revenue from the fee increase would be funneled back to the DPW for work on the athletic fields.

"These new fees are going to the DPW, not to the general fund," said Mr. Rimoshytus. "It's not a line item, but it will go to the DPW."

Some people in town have questioned whether the municipal government needs to ask the leagues for more money. 

They said the municipal government already received more than $175,000 this year from the school department — that money was earmarked for maintaining public school property. 

On Friday, a Barrington school official confirmed that the school department paid the town $178,554 for "facilities grounds keeping for FY19".

Kids and screens

Mr. DeBoth said the town needs to look beyond the numbers to best understand how a potential fee increase could lead to lower participation in youth sports.

"I cannot understand how this town seems to undervalue the great service the youth leagues are providing this community. At a time when everyone knows getting kids away from screens to exercise, to actually interact with each other face to face instead of texting, and to instill in some of them a lifelong habit of exercising are all extremely beneficial, this town is instead making it harder for us to do all those things without ever engaging in a real dialog with us," Mr. DeBoth wrote.

"Most communities consider spending some amount of tax revenues collected on all residents and applied toward activities that support healthy children is actually a worthy way of spending those tax dollars. Why isn’t this town looking at us as partners with a common goal of helping children be healthy, of helping parents from all parts of town create relationships, and of helping create some town pride, among other things?"

Mr. DeBoth said the potential field fee increase, which could cut into the revenue BYSA earns through its Barrington Invitational Tournament in November, leaves league officials feeling undervalued and unappreciated.

"You can hear the frustration in my words. I know some of them may come across as sharp, but I can see the ripples that will spread out from this decision, and those ripples negatively impact children’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being," he wrote. 

"I have no issue with fighting for the health of our children, and believe me, if these fee hikes go through, fewer children will ultimately be participating in sports at the early ages. Just find a warehouse they can all play fortnite in and pat yourselves on the back for a job well-done."

Mr. DeBoth said that should the proposal make its way to the town council, officials should be prepared to see many local families step forward in opposition.

"We have 900 children in our programs this fall, which is a huge percentage of the 4-13 year olds in this town. If this continues moving forward, we will ask their families to become directly involved so the town can see just how many people this will hurt," wrote Mr. DeBoth.

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