Galesburg school board members and administrators continue to squabble over how to lease District 205 athletic venues to outside entities.
After a lengthy debate Monday, the District 205 Board of Education failed to reach a consensus and elected to table a vote on an amended facility use agreement.
The latest point of contention centers on a recommendation by the Building and Grounds Committee that would have made most varsity athletic complexes — Thiel Gymnasium, Jim Sundberg Field, F&M Bank Stadium and the varsity softball field — exempt for rental from outside entities.
The committee and some district officials reasoned there was a desire to preserve athletic facilities where varsity sports are played to ensure there is no disruption to sports seasons due to the potential of damage from outside entities. Officials also had concerns that rentals to outside entities would potentially conflict with schedules of GHS varsity athletic teams.
The suggested policy would have meant other than District 205 groups/clubs/activities/sports, the only other programs that could use those varsity facilities would be the school-affiliated Junior Streaks and Future Streaks baseball and basketball teams, along with the FC Galesburg Soccer and Galesburg Junior Football League.
Galesburg American Legion Post 285, for example, would be exempt from leasing Sundberg Field during its summer season. The Legion would, however, be able to rent the sophomore baseball diamond.
Board member Rod Scherpe questioned what entities would be impacted by the exemption to lease the varsity athletic fields.
“That’s the gist of it, right?” Scherpe said. “We’re now saying the Legion can’t use our baseball field at all?”
Board Pamella Bess-Tabb said she believed scheduling conflicts would be a non-issue with proper black-out periods of when outside entities could use facilities.
“Could scheduling be an option if we didn’t exclude people?” Bess-Tabb said.
Superintendent of Finance Jennifer Hamm said, “I think we’re looking at two separate issues. Yes, there is a way through scheduling. But the bigger concern was our varsity facilities. If an outside entity were to have some kind of an accident or we would have some (damage) caused by an outside entity, our students may not have the opportunity to use those facilities for a long period of time.
“So, to eliminate that chance that any of our varsity facilities would be damaged by outside entities, that’s why we took them off the table. There was a desire to want to be able to preserve those facilities for our varsity programs.”
“I think it’s a terrible thing to exclude students from participating in these activities just because we want to preserve our facilities. The reason we built them was for kids to use them.” — School Board member Rod Scherpe
Scherpe and Board President Courtney Rodriguez said they were opposed to the proposal.
“I think it’s a terrible thing to exclude students from participating in these activities just because we want to preserve our facilities,” Scherpe said. “The reason we built them was for kids to use them.
“What happened? I’ve lived in this community for 25 years and the entire time, we’ve had people utilize our facilities. Whether it’s baseball or softball or soccer, we’ve been welcoming and encouraging them to use our facilities. And overnight, we’re getting these proposals saying let’s charge them, let’s classify them, let’s count the population of Galesburg students who are participating. We never did that before, and things were great. We had flourishing athletic programs because of it.”
Scherpe added, “I get it, there’s legal liabilities and insurance restrictions and all kinds of associated costs. I think the district could eat some of those costs because we’re dealing with millions of dollar budgets. But we’re arguing about $20 for a scorekeeper. I don’t like where this is going.”
Hamm said the district maintains the former Van Dyke Field football field and improvements are being made at the sophomore baseball diamond.
“There are definitely facilities that if outside entities want to rent our facilities, pretty much we can accommodate any sport,” Hamm said.
The other change to the proposed facility use agreement was the addition of a 25% discount on the hourly rental fee and associated costs for entities leasing District 205 venues for more than four hours.
After nearly 20 minutes of discussion, Board member Rodney Phelps moved to table the issue, and suggested he and fellow Building and Grounds Committee member step aside from the facility use agreement planning to allow other board members to revise the plan.
The amended facility use agreement was tabled and will be brought back to a future meeting.
Amended District 205 Facility Use Agreement by WGIL Radio on Scribd
