Editorial: Barrington field fee proposal is tone deaf from start to finish

Posted 9/28/18

Barrington leaders appear embarrassingly tone deaf as they hammer through a new set of fees for everyone playing outdoor recreational sports in town. Consider the evidence …

The town …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Editorial: Barrington field fee proposal is tone deaf from start to finish

Posted

Barrington leaders appear embarrassingly tone deaf as they hammer through a new set of fees for everyone playing outdoor recreational sports in town. Consider the evidence …

  • The town manager seemingly developed the plan on his own, deciding to raise the per-player field use fee — a fee each sports league pays the town for every enrolled player — from $10 per year, to $25 per season, without any legitimate explanation. The best anyone can surmise is that it seemed like a ripe target to raise some extra cash, because those parents can afford to pay more.
  • The proposal fails to detail how much the town spends on each league for field maintenance. It also fails to explain how the additional field fees would be allocated to the individual fields. In short, the town has not provided any plan for how the fee increase would actually lead to better fields.
  • The timing could not be worse. At the same time as the entire middle school sports complex was ripped apart and plowed into dust, eliminating (aside from the high school) the largest, busiest and (this is relative) highest-quality athletic complex in Barrington, the town is demanding more money for every kid who steps onto a field — 500 percent more for any kid who plays in both the fall and spring. If anything, field maintenance costs have decreased with the middle school under construction.
  • The remaining athletic fields in Barrington are, at best, adequate. At worst, they are bumpy, uneven, heavily worn and poorly maintained.
  • The town says it costs about $126,000 to maintain the fields annually, and that leagues only provide about $20,000 in field use fees. But what about the $175,000-plus that the school department gives the town each year for “grounds keeping” at the school properties?
  • The Barrington Park and Recreation Commission moved its normal meeting date a week early, heard the proposal in a vacuum and voted to approve it, with barely anyone knowing what had happened. Again, no one from any of the town’s four major outdoor sports programs — soccer, lacrosse, baseball or football — was ever notified or invited to the meeting.

Those are the events thus far, leading up to a public hearing before the Barrington Town Council that would likely be in January.

If councilors give this real consideration or even entertain the idea, they should consider the climate in which they make the decision.

Parents today are battling an epidemic with their technology-addicted children. Without a doubt, parents deserve some of the blame for enabling access and not properly monitoring smart phone and other device usage, but they are nonetheless facing a generational crisis. Young people are increasingly sedentary and isolated, with health problems skyrocketing at all levels — suicides, unhealthy relationships, bullying, mental health problems, obesity, drug use … Some of these problems are endemic in teens, but not in the ways or levels being seen today.

Instead of creating barriers to recreational sports — and, yes, an additional $120 per year can be a barrier for a family of three — the town should be working to lower barriers and expand programs.

These sports leagues are swarming with volunteers who devote time and talent to the youth in Barrington. Instead of working with them, to develop programs, ideas, activities and partnerships, the town is maneuvering to see how much money it can squeeze out of them.

If this is the direction for “lowering taxes” and attracting new revenue, then why stop at field fees. Charge usage fees for the old folks visiting the senior center and library fees for patrons who use that magnificent facility. Place donation bins next to the playgrounds and put turnstiles at the entrances to walking trails.

They sound like absurd ideas, but all are town facilities that require maintenance and investment, and all are utilized by just a portion of the town’s population — similar to the families enrolling their kids in recreational sports.

If the town had great sports facilities, perhaps new field fees could be justified. It does not.

If the town were planning to develop new facilities, perhaps new field fees could be justified. It is not.

If the town treated league volunteers like partners and worked together to create more opportunities, perhaps new field fees could be justified. It has not.

So far the town has shoved through a poorly developed plan to extract more money from this town’s families, without a promise of anything in return. So far, the town appears utterly tone deaf.

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
MIKE REGO

Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.