 - The Lander City Council has once again postponed its decision to help pay for improvements at the Lander Girls Softball League Complex, pending further discussions with the local organization.){kind=link}
(Lander, WY) – The Lander City Council has once again postponed its decision to help pay for improvements at the Lander Girls Softball League Complex, pending further discussions with the local organization.
Councilmember Julia Stuble said the softball league agreed to the latest postponement because “we don’t yet have certainty on the amount that they’re requesting” from the city’s economic development fund.
“They’ve had what I believe to be productive conversations with city staff … around what repairs and maintenance the city will be responsible for in the softball fields that were originally part of the original package requested,” Stuble explained during a council meeting Tuesday. “So that’s an expense that’s being taken off, but there’s still not quite clarity … about what the league would like to request.”
That “clarity” should be provided during a work session with the softball league and city staff, which is scheduled to take place Jan. 28, Stuble said, reminding the council that the “last time we tabled this … we asked for a work session, and that didn’t materialize.”
“A work session conversation, with the softball league able to testify and provide information, is essential,” she said.
Mayor Monte Richardson asked staff to come to the meeting with an overview of costs associated with repairs at the complex, and Stuble asked them to outline the “commitments” the city has already made regarding upkeep at the facility.
“Let’s be really clear about what we’re doing, and then what we might seek funding to provide the softball league to do,” she said.
Public Works Director Lance Hopkin said he would also invite the firm leading the city’s current master planning effort to the meeting to provide the council with “preliminary information” about “potential new locations” for municipal softball fields that wouldn’t belong to Fremont County School District 1 – the entity that owns the current softball complex property.
“We’ll see if we can … present something to tell you what (the) community asked for and what’s being drawn up in certain areas,” he said.
He added that his “fear with the school district” property is “we have no control over” it, so if FCSD 1 decides “tomorrow that’s their new turf field … all of it goes away, and you guys can’t do much other than complain that you invested there (and) it went away.”
“A lot of what we’ve advised … is to make sure you’re making sound investments into property that we own, not property that we rent,” he said, suggesting that, if the city does “invest” in the FCSD 1 property, they should make that investment “mobile” so they don’t have to “tear it up” later.
For example, he said, “if you’re going to put lights in, (use) lights that you can unbolt and hopefully move somewhere else if you decide not to continue to do this.”
Richardson asked staff to reach out to FCSD 1 this month to see “how much they’re willing to help support these activities out there.”
“I know it’ll probably be zero,” he said. “But I still think I’d like to hear that from them … that they do not want to add any funding to this.”
The Lander Girls Softball League originally requested $456,822 from the city’s economic development funding program for upgrades at the local softball fields, which “have been in decline for several years causing safety concerns,” according to a report from the Lander Economic Development Association.
“Issues include non-functioning scoreboards, a lack of storage for equipment, backstops and fencing that are in disrepair, poor lighting for the fields including leaning light poles, and dugouts with large cracks that are trip hazards,” the report states. “In addition they would like to improve the playground (which is a sandpit often full of wasps) and want to create some shade for spectators.”
Due to the “state of the fields,” the softball league cannot currently host tournaments or evening games at the complex, LEDA said, suggesting that, “if there are concerns about putting permanent improvements on leased property, perhaps a long term agreement could be negotiated with the School District.”
The Lander Investment For Tomorrow Committee recommended funding the project at 75 percent, or $342,617.
For more information, call the City of Lander at (307) 332-2870.