Copyright Joliet, IL Patch
A proposal to set Little League fees for Buckeye Fields at $43K follows an unresolved debate over youth sports fields in Lafayette. LAMORINDA, CA — The Lafayette Little League would pay $42,925.85 in fees to use Buckeye Fields as a playing ground, according to a proposal on tonight's Parks, Trails & Recreation Commission agenda. The fees cover the league's use of Buckeye Fields between Feb. 1 and mid-August – six and a half months, or 54 percent of the year, according to the commission. The fee proposal will go to the Lafayette City Council if approved tonight. The item follows a bitter dispute over the sports field that involved Little League's playing rights and parity for girls' softball, which has opened a broader debate that will be difficult to resolve. The league and the city want the same thing — kids playing ball on quality fields. However, Lafayette lacks adequate youth athletic fields and, according to city council members, the funds to pay for them. Jonathan Katayanagi, director of the Parks, Trails, and Recreation Commission, said Lafayette is not competitive for grants. The other options involve fundraising and raising taxes. The league has a plan of its own, and it's not afraid to challenge others who don't share it — including the city. The debate broke open over modifications to an infield at the Buckeye Fields complex to make room for girls' softball, proposed to comply with California's gender-equity law. The Parks, Trails, and Recreation Commission in August approved plans to install a dirt mix infield, estimated to cost between $12,000 and $20,000, within the city's budget for refitting. City staff considered the option to be the most expedient way to make the space comply with the required regulations. Three of Lafayette's four natural grass athletic fields include permanent baseball mounds and grass infields, making them unusable for regulation softball play, according to a report by Katayanagi. Only one — Chaney Field — can be configured for softball, and that field lacks parity in amenities. It is also the one leased to Lafayette Little League under a long-standing agreement that granted exclusive in-season use. Buckeye Fields also includes the most robust amenities. Katayanagi wrote that the dirt mix infield modifications approved by commissioners would create a regulation surface for girls' softball, address concerns about inequitable access, and still leave the field available for baseball, which can use it with a portable pitching mound. Lafayette Little League President Colby Powell argued in a letter that the decision about the field should be postponed for a larger study and suggested that moving ahead with the plan would be unfair because there are relatively few girls playing softball to warrant the plan. In addition, the "public funds — perhaps those potentially budgeted for modifications to Chaney Field — should be invested in an athletic field facility that is perfectly suited for improvement as a softball complex" rather than a hybrid softball-baseball field. On Oct. 27, council members voted 5-0 to stick with the original plan. "It should never have come to this," City Councilmember John McCormack said during the Oct. 27 meeting.
