Council hits sports field user groups with rate increase

Tensions over field rates in the city continued to simmer during Monday night as City Council agreed to an increase in user fees.

Sue Knight, who attended the meeting on behalf of the North Bay Soccer Club, says that she was disappointed with the outcome.

“We couldn't convince council that they were going in the wrong direction.”

“I'm not surprised...the writing was on the wall,” she says.

The controversy that has been playing out for a number of weeks clearly has two distinct sides with quite different calculations and mathematics basing their arguments.

According to a detailed cost analysis comparing the 2011, 2012, 2013 years projected costs seem to favour the youth's sports point of view that indeed costs have risen substantially.

Council seems to think only a dollar or so in increases will be seen per player this year however, the league is calculating it as a whopping 43.6 percent increase in three years.

The local sports organization feels as though they've been baited and switched after chipping in big money to facilities that will now cost them so much, it may diminish their ability to provide field time and extensive competitive season.

“That is significant, especially since we already gave them half a million dollars,” says Knight.

“I understand the pressures that (the City's) under, but all they've done is download to us.”

Chair of Community Services Councillor Sean Lawlor says that by taking into account some of the input that the City's had over the past number of years, voting in favor of the increases, as well as phasing it over a three year period, is viewed by council and staff as “reasonable and manageable.”

“I think that looking for a 50 percent cost recovery is fair,” says Lawlor.

Touting 50 percent cost recovery for users marks a new form of government ideology some might coin “Ultra Conservative.”

One can only imagine the level of education, health care, or social housing the country might see if this new ideology becomes a justifiable normality.

What about if a library was expected to charge its members for half of the cost, and municipality, would this mean an extension of this ideology onto roads, bike paths, military, and the list is mind boggling in its justification.

Middle class families and taxpayers clearly are taxed at higher rates and the pinch of government and economy has pushed hard working families to make hard choices now in a city more and more concerned with raising profits for their ever elaborate sports facilities.

The complex and somewhat intrusive system of gaining subsidies and asking for reductions or even handouts is beyond the pride and time of many who seem to rather simply avoid the issue of improving their health and lifestyle with organized sport.

“The reality is that a lot of kids don't fall under 'Kids Sport' and don't fall under L.I.P.I. (Low Income People Involvement of Nipissing), they're what I call the “working poor”, two parents who are working with minimum wage who don't fit in the category of any of these groups," says Knight.

“They don't have the dollars to play so we have to help those kids out too and our clubs does do that so they're many different variables that we have to consider and see for next year.”

President of North Bay Select Soccer Doug Cameron says that the city did offer reduced rates but only during off peak hours, not a time when the teams can make real use of the fields.

He says that the increases will lead to reduced practices and or games and a greater demand to go out of town as a less practiced team to take part in sports where it's more economical.

Ask Cameron, “Do we want to pay the extra twenty dollars plus or are we prepared to look at a shorter season, less game?”

“If you look at less games, well then, you've got an excellent, beautiful sports complex sitting there with nobody there.”

Will this push away young people from getting involved in the physical and character building activities of sport?

During council's discussions of the issue, Councillor George Maroosis spoke to the fact that a sports feasibility study is going on as we speak and forewarned a similar situation could revalue indoor facilities in the municipality in the near future, suggesting that those concerned had better make their voices heard sooner rather than later.

It's hard to imagine the small cost of getting people physically trained and participating in a healthy lifestyle in their early years certainly wouldn't outweigh the long term costs to society in terms of lost productivity and health care costs but sometimes it's hard to see the forest from the trees.

It's not clear, however, if the North Bay Youth Sports Association will use North Bay's public facilities.

“We already play games in Sturgeon Falls once a month so we may have to look doing that more often to keep cost down here,” says Knight.

“I also think that next year, we'll have to raise our registration fees.”