5.8. SR 06-24-2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

River MEMORANDUM TO: FROPI: DATE: Mayor and Council Pat Klaers, C'j~_~dm~strator June 24, 2002 SUBJECT: Discussion on City Involvement with School Fields Item 5.8. For many years field scheduling and maintenance were never any problem. The school district was the only unit of government that had facilities and all the scheduling and maintenance was done by the school district (community education) and youth associations. The community recreation organization was established in 1992 and this organization eventually took over the coordination of field scheduling with each host city being responsible for maintenance. The school district no longer maintained their fields during the summer and any fees that were collected from the associations to offset expenses went to the host communities. Today the situation is more complex than in the early days and when managed under community recreation. Today community recreation no longer exists and cities are offering and coordinating recreation activities. Today most cities have some of their own fields and even the VFW has soccer fields available in Otsego. Additionally, coordination with more than one association per sport for field scheduling has become an issue. Maintenance and scheduling of school facilities came to a head this spring when United Soccer wanted to use school facilities that were not available. Due to growth in the Three Rivers Soccer Association (TRSA), they had scheduled all the available fields. In prior years there were a sufficient number of fields in and around Elk River to accommodate everyone. What made the field scheduling issue in 2002 even more difficult was the past relationship with the TRSA, whereby this group has invested funds into field development and soccer goals and United, as a newer organization, has not made this same investment. Also, it should be noted that fields were available in other communities within the school district but were not being used because they either were not being maintained by the host city and/or they were not in the best location. The timing of this conflict over school field scheduling happening this year was unfortunate as this is the first year of Elk River's city recreation program. City recreation assumed many of the existing policies of community recreation. City scheduling of the school fields resulted in policy questions from the School Board at our joint May 23, 2002 meeting. The City