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Council briefly further discussed this issue on May 28 and generally the feeling was that the <br /> city is busy enough maintaining and scheduling its own facilities and parks, it doesn't want <br /> the potential liability for scheduling and maintaining the school facilities, and it doesn't want <br /> the "headache" of scheduling and prioritizing field use for more than one association per <br /> sport. <br /> City staff desires to get out of the school field maintenance and scheduling business for a <br /> number of reasons. One reason is that sometimes the school district does field <br /> improvements or weed spraying without prior communication and notice to the city and this <br /> causes us problems with scheduling. Another issue and reason is that the fees received from <br /> the youth associations never covers the time, material, and equipment involved in <br /> maintenance. Finally, and most importantly,maintaining school fields limits the maintenance <br /> of city parks. No longer maintaining school fields will free up a significant amount of time <br /> and equipment that can be used on other park projects. <br /> The school district has the equipment and the expertise to do field maintenance. They do <br /> this work in the spring and in the fall. The school district can receive most of the funds for <br /> maintenance from the youth associations and hire summer help to maintain their own <br /> facilities for use by the associations. Therefore, children from throughout the school district <br /> can be using school district scheduled and maintained facilities. If the funds received from <br /> the association are not enough to cover the school's expenses, then the school district and <br /> the associations need to work things out. This change does not cause any real extra work for <br /> the youth associations as they already work with community education on scheduling of <br /> school facilities in other communities. <br /> In summary, reasons for this proposed change include: <br /> • Community recreation disbanding and changing to city recreation...there is no <br /> longer one group doing all the coordination of all the facilities and this is now done <br /> by individual cities and the school district. <br /> • It makes no sense for the city to be scheduling and maintaining school facilities. <br /> • It makes no sense for the school district to be involved in setting city scheduling <br /> policies <br /> • Reduces city liability (i.e. injuries taking place on school fields that the city schedules <br /> and maintains). <br /> • The city desires to use its summer help and equipment to do more work in city <br /> parks... this is a true concern as the city will soon be scheduling and maintaining the <br /> softball complex. <br /> • School improvements to school fields are sometimes unpredictable and this has <br /> caused scheduling and maintenance problems for the city. This should be less of a <br /> problem with the school both scheduling and maintaining their own property <br /> Recommendation <br /> It is recommended that the city send notice to the school district and the youth associations <br /> that the city will no longer be scheduling and maintaining the school district fields. <br /> S/council/pat/schoolfieldmaint <br />