City Council gives LTUSD $75,000 for fields; Asks they come back to consortium

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Dr. James Tarwarter, Superintendent of Lake Tahoe Unified School District, was at Tuesday's South Lake Tahoe City Council meeting to explain why LTUSD should receive $150,000 from the City for ballfield maintenance. He walked away with $75,000 with a strong recommendation that he join the Community Field Consortium Tarwater chose not to join in November, 2015.

The Community Field Consortium between the City, Lake Tahoe Community College and the school district was planned in 2015. At the last minute Tarwater pulled out as he felt the scope of the joint participation was more than LTUSD was prepared for. The LTCC fields, the community fields and the school district's fields would have all been pulled together for use, with each of the three parties putting their own financial and/or property resources together.

For almost 20 years LTUSD and the City have had different financial arrangements centered around both care of the fields and with scheduling their use and the consortium was to help further that relationship.

In 2013 the City gave $100,000 to LTUSD to help offset costs associated with the fields for community recreation use. Prior to that there was revenue sharing between the two but that ended when LTUSD agreed to hire a Grounds Supervisor, Tournament Coordinator and Facilities Reservation Clerk with the proceeds.

In May of this year, LTUSD asked the City for consideration of a $150,000 payment for field maintenance. Since the City looks at cost recovery when setting their fees they asked LTUSD to come back with cost recovery for the public use of fields. City Manager Nancy Kerry and City Councilmember Brooke Laine attended a LTUSD board meeting to explain their request. At Tuesday's City Council meeting, Tarwater and COO Billy Wessell came to explain the setting of their fees.

LTUSD doesn't use cost recovery since much of the use of fields is during school hours, and youth sports are charged a minimal amount to encourage play without financial impact. Wessell broke down the use of fields into three categories: 10 percent of field time is fair market value (used by tournaments), 8 percent is used by local non-profits and 82 percent is by local youth sports including AYSO and Little League.

The question of who owns the fields was part of Tuesday's conversation. Taxpayers pay for them no matter who "owns" them. Teamwork between all three (LTUSD, City and LTCC) was recommended so their would be no more question on who was responsible forwhat.

"I want things to go well in the future," said City Councilmember Brooke Lane. "For 50 years the City has been a partner with LTUSD. It gets confusing for organizations when wanting to book fields and LTUSD wants to be the central source for booking." She said with the $75,00 paid by the City now, community needs would best be met with LTUSD coming back to the consortium where there would be open doors of communication.

"It makes sense to work together," said Dr. Tarwater. "I have no problem of being part of the consortium pending board approval." LTUSD Board Member Angela Swanson was present and told the Council they would definitely bring it to their board.