Middletown Youth Soccer has a 25 year lease of the city park known as the Country Club Road fields, with exclusive rights to use its two large soccer fields, which were constructed with city money.
MYS and other athletic leagues have sought artificial turf fields for many years, in order to provide more playing time for their teams.
At the May, 2018 meeting of the Public Works Commission, the leadership of MYS asked if it could use some of the 21st Century Parks bond money to install a subsurface, which would then be covered with privately funded artificial turf. Brig Smith, the City's General Counsel, determined that it could not, because the Common Council approved the Mayor's proposal that no bond money could be used to install artificial turf.
Smith informed MYS that it would have to fund the entire installation, and in addition would have to post a bond to ensure that the work would be completed satisfactorily, as well as a bond which would ensure that the field would be restored to natural grass at the end of the lease.According to the minutes, none of the Councilmen serving on the Public Works Commission raised any other concerns about the installation of artificial turf.
The city's position is that no other permits or approvals are required.
The typical cost of an artificial field is $750,000.
In the 6 months since MYS asked if city money could be used for some of this, the city has taken steps towards the paving of the parking lot and construction of a concession stand and restrooms.
Those improvements will cost the city over $1M.
It's still unclear why MYS is allowed to pursue a $750K turf installation, when they are asking the city to pony up for the paving of their lot. It's been reported that paving the lot was a condition of their $1 lease.
ReplyDeleteWhich is it?
Is MYS dealing with funding shortfalls, or are they flush with cash to spend on better fields than are available to the rest of the town?
Are they still going to be leasing the facilities for rock-bottom, when they are not in compliance with their lease?
Is anyone else not required to comply with the terms of their contracts with the town, or is MYS special?
Are other town organizations still going to be unable to use that facility after the town has spent $1M in taxpayer funds to continue improving it?
Why is the town willing to funnel this much money into support of a for-profit organization, when non-profit town leagues are looking for field space?
Didn't this same organization pass on $355K of costs from the fields on Long Lane back to Middletown? Maybe they should pay the city/taxpayers back first.
ReplyDeleteAnd we believe this is different how?
How do I pick and chose what to abide by in a lease? Can I just stop paying my Middletown property taxes?
Disgusted....thanks Middletown!
So one person goes to meeting and public works bends over backwards to use taxpayer money to make these so called improvements?
ReplyDeleteThe sidewalks can't even be fixed in this town. Why are town attorneys, finance dept employees, public works employees, and common council members not abiding by town ordinances as well as trying to find every work around in this parks bond? This is abuse of power and flying in the face of public trust. This stinks to high heaven.