Save the future of adult soccer by overturning Parks’ attempt to overcharge soccer teams to subsidize grass softball fields.
In
the upcoming 2003 budgets, the Seattle Park Department has proposed almost
tripling the rates of the synthetic sports fields and King County Parks has
proposed doubling the rates on the sand fields. It has been shown through
Park Department documentation that adult soccer fees already cover their share
of the current maintenance costs of these fields and we believe this is a form
of unfair, if not illegal, taxation! Adult
soccer players are not even allowed to play on the nicest field surface - grass
- but are being forced to generate extra revenue, through increased fees, from
the year-round sand and synthetic fields to subsidize the expensive grass
softball fields that are open for play only half of the year.
Soccer team fees have been kept reasonable over
the years but the combined increases have forced Co-Rec Soccer to raise the
Winter ’03 Team Fee from $55 per player to the “experimental market rate”
of $70 - $75 or more that Parks are demanding for no extra service.
Currently Co-Rec Soccer and other soccer leagues have no choice but to
charge the high fees now, because the councils will not vote on the final amount
until after the teams have been registered.
We object! These fees are unfair because:
·
Even if
some of the wealthy teams and players can afford the high team fees of over
$1,000 per 10 game season, low and medium-income teams and players will be
denied access to the soccer fields.
·
Adult
fees on grass fields do not recover their share of maintenance costs. Grass
fields lose as much as $459.50 per game at current rates.
(These statistics were compiled from information provided by Park
Departments and we have requested that they be reviewed by the City of Seattle,
Office of City Auditor.)
·
Adult
fees on lighted sand fields more than recover their share of maintenance costs. Sand
fields make $17.19 per game already!
·
Adult
fees on lighted synthetic fields will go beyond recovering their share of
maintenance costs, which may be viewed as being taxed twice for the same
facility. Synthetic fields make $27.40 per game!
·
Both sand and synthetic fields should stay at their current rates of $33
per game because they are already self sufficient at current rates.
·
Adult
fees on sand and synthetic fields are being increased disproportionately
compared to other facilities such as pools, grass fields, golf courses, etc. and
may be viewed as discriminatory.
·
Historically,
public entities have subsidized more men’s sports than women’s through the
schools, colleges, NCAA, and stadiums for the NFL, MLB, and NBA.
Now in Seattle and King County, by charging “market rate”, many co-ed
and women’s teams will be eliminated due to high fees.
·
Money
losing grass softball fields are being kept open while moneymaking or break-even
sand soccer fields are being closed in King County.
·
Collecting
fees is drastically more difficult for organized sports leagues than it is for
Park Department employees. A
city/county employee is paid to collect $3 from each swimmer when they arrive at
the pool. But, unpaid soccer team
managers must collect $70 checks from their 15 players in advance, deposit them
into their own account and write a check for over $1000 to their league.
The league then must account for and deposit hundreds of checks into
its’ account and then write one check for thousands of dollars to the Park
Department. Many team managers
would lose $70 - $140 if unable to collect from even 1 or 2 players.
Park Departments never lose; they receive 4 checks per year from each
league, up to $40,000 per check each season without any extra work.
This year Parks looked at the $40,000 and must have said, “That was
easy… let’s double or triple it”.
·
Historically,
cities have not set user-fee increases so high as to disrupt whole groups.
But, this $200 increase takes the soccer team fee over $1000 and will
harm whole teams. If one soccer
team manager is unable to collect the full amount in advance of registration
deadlines from their teammates, an entire 15-member soccer team cannot play at
all. Fee increases at pools do not
eliminate 15 swimmers at a time. One
swimmer either swims less often or gets a discount pass for numerous visits,
while a soccer player will get no discount and 0 games.
·
Sand
fields that turn to mud in the winter or dust in the summer offer a lesser
quality “experience” than grass. So
soccer players are much less likely to pay high rates to their team managers for
sand fields than softball players who will have the luxury of playing on grass
in the nice weather and would expect to pay more for the maintenance costs.
·
Golf
courses and driving ranges are continually asking for new subsidies.
Do golf fees cover costs?
·
Doubling
and tripling rates on soccer fields do not appear to be increases on user-fees
but new taxes that are supposed to be approved by the voters.
A $38 per sand game increase in King County and a $72 per synthetic game
increase in Seattle are not typical $3 increases that leagues have been forced
to adjust to in the past and are destructive to sports leagues.
A local women’s league is discussing folding their whole league this
winter.
·
Taxes to
cover maintenance for fields may have already been paid for by the citizens in
past levies.
Seattle Parks staff agrees that middle and lower income teams may
not be able to afford “what the market will bear” on synthetic fields and
says “they can always play on the sand”.
This is unacceptable.
King County Parks staff agrees that sand “breaks even”, is a
lesser quality surface, costs less to maintain than grass; that swimmers have it
better than soccer players in that they get discounts for multiple uses and
still suggests that adult soccer leagues should “cut services” to pay the
proposed increase that doubles the rate on sand.
This is unacceptable. King
County staff, by creating a “waiting list of leagues” to take over the sand
fields after the low-income teams have been forced out, has violated the
county’s obligation to keep sports fields affordable to the general public!
Not only has King County Executive Sims attempted to double the rates on
the already self-sufficient lighted sand fields, he has now proposed that FIFA /
Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association (LWYSA) take over the four perfectly
satisfactory lighted sand fields at Marymoor Park and turn them into synthetic
fields. The problem is that,
according to King County Parks’ staff, LWYSA will then be allowed to charge
adults “what the market will bear”. Although
it has been stated that adult leagues, like Co-Rec Soccer, would be guaranteed
their historical rights to use the fields, adult teams may not be able to afford
the escalated prices, and there would be no governing body such as King County
Council to make an appeal to. Low-income
teams who drop out would forever lose their historical game slots that have been
earned and paid for over the last 20 years…so there is no guarantee at all.
The same thing could happen to youth leagues not affiliated with LWYSA.
This fall
LWYSA chose to play on grass and charged $115 - $150 for each youth player.
They could set field-use fees so high that the adults who are now paying
around $55 per player per season to play on sand fields could possibly have to
pay $150 per player, even though synthetic surfaces have already proven to pay
for themselves with current field-use fees.
In addition,
youth leagues are subsidized with almost free soccer games.
If parks had subsidized adult leagues for the last 20 years, they would
have been able to save up the over five million dollars that have been paid in
field-use fees. But without that
kind of money adult soccer leagues can’t compete against youth in the bidding
for King County fields. Executive
Ron Sims and LWYSA should not be allowed to start a bidding war for the soccer
fields throughout the region. We
request that the King County Council void the agreement with LWYSA.
The lighted
sand soccer fields are a limited resource and are probably the only facilities
in King County
We protest these proposals by King County Executive Ron Sims,
Superintendent of Seattle Parks Ken Bounds and King County Parks Director Bob
Burns that mismanage public resources and violate the public’s trust.
We ask that elected officials meet with Co-Rec Soccer representatives
to review alternative budget solutions as soon as possible.
Last
week, Parks staff, in defense of their proposal for high increases on the
synthetic fields, told Co-Rec Soccer that our middle and lower income teams,
“could always play on the sand fields”, which are currently affordable.
This advice is not only unacceptable; it is incorrect. Parks has proposed
turning most of the 8 sand fields into synthetic, so soccer players, in fact, will
not have the choice to play on the more affordable sand fields - they could
be gone within five years! Softball teams, on the other hand, will have
the option to pay lower field-use fees because the 169 grass fields that are the
same price as the sand fields are not all going to be replaced.
They will still be available for lower and middle-income softball teams. A
softball team will still have the option to pay only $700 for 10 games on grass
while a soccer team will have no choice but to pay $1,200 for 10 games on the
synthetic fields.
Last spring Seattle Parks Superintendent Bounds attempted to discriminate
against soccer and other sports by exempting softball from his 10pm lights-out
recommendation, allowing softball to play until 10:45.
Fortunately he was pressured to withdraw his proposal and light
restrictions are now equitably applied between sports.
But now Parks singles out soccer again by skyrocketing the fees on
synthetic turf, the only surface upon which soccer will eventually be
allowed to play.
Clearly, as we watch unemployment and the homeless population grow, through no fault of their own, it becomes apparent that our government needs to guarantee productive, private sector, minimum wage positions with health insurance.
I’m
one of the managers of a Seattle based small business called the Co-Rec Soccer
Association. We are one of the largest co-ed sports leagues in the
country, with over 1,600 teams per year and are the largest user of Seattle
fields. We have fought high rates
for years to keep our fees reasonable to an individual – which is around $50
per person per season. We currently
have 50 part-time employees and are working hard to create more jobs in the City
of Seattle.
It is an outrage that the Seattle Park Department would spend 6 years in
hundreds of meetings, proposing synthetic sports fields to increase capacity,
use the local sports community to pass levies while the field-use rates are
reasonable, and then turn around and almost triple the rates for the synthetic
fields.
For over 50 years, men’s sports have rarely been restricted.
In fact, three professional men’s teams have their own multi-hundred
million dollar stadiums, at the taxpayer’s expense, from which to develop
their teams, leagues and multi-million dollar player salaries.
Before raising fees on co-ed sports teams the city needs to restrict the
expansion of men’s professional sports. Support
the expansion of local sports leagues that have had a history of including women
on their teams so that true equity in team sports can occur.
The Seattle City Council needs to show the sports leagues that they will
follow-up on the principles outlined in Field System Resolution #30530 and be
willing to over-rule actions by the Park Department that undermine
non-department sports. We call upon the City Council to restructure all the fees so
that they are fair and to restructure the Seattle Park Department.
We are also asking that the City of Seattle, King County and the State of
Washington to compensate Co-Rec Soccer for being continuously undermined by the
Park Departments and public policy that continuously supports the expansion of
men’s professional teams. Please
consider subsidizing Co-Rec Soccer with minimum wage positions to help organize
soccer work-outs in low income communities.
·
Increase
parking and other fees associated with men’s professional sports.
·
Increase
fees on the grass fields.
·
Increase
fees such as swimming, tennis, zoo etc. twenty five cents.
·
Increase
administrative costs on Department sponsored softball until softball team fees
match non-department soccer team fees, which are not subsidized.
·
Charge
LWYSA more for their games.
·
Close
grass fields.
·
Develop
public support for a Strengthen Seattle levy in the future.
CITY OF SEATTLE ATHLETIC FIELD SYSTEM RESOLUTION (non- binding) (10/10)
The amended version of the Seattle City Council
Field Athletic System Resolution was just published. It contains
amendments that are beneficial for the entire sports community.
In summary:
1. The 10pm ending time is proposed for fields that get
lights after the resolution is adopted. The
existing fields with lights are not affected – all existing games are
grand-fathered into a 10:45pm game ending time so that no current games are
lost.
2. When the proposed 60 newly lighted fields are built, youth leagues could spread out their practices and the adults' second game could end by 10pm.
3. New fields will be built in order of need for the sports that have the largest unmet demand relative to other sports.
4. Requests that fees be set “at a reasonable level so as not to restrict access to the fields”.
The Seattle City Council, with Peter Steinbrueck as President, passed the Athletic Field System Resolution (type in Resolution #30530) on Monday, October 7, with a unanimous vote.