City discontinues maintenance of school fields
Arrangement was only temporary, mayor said
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published March 28, 2007

The city of Westlake has stopped providing maintenance for athletic fields on Westlake City School property during the summer, Mayor Dennis Clough said.

The city’s recreation department formally informed the school district of its decision through an e-mail in January.

The fields are used mainly by recreation leagues that are independent of both the city and school district.

Clough said the city had agreed to maintain the school fields during the summer months while the district was under financial pressure waiting for voters to pass an operating levy. A levy was passed in May 2006.

The city agreed to provide some maintenance work beginning in the summer of 2005, Recreation Director Mike Rump said. The schools were not maintaining the fields and many people were upset as a result, Rump said.

“We were getting a lot of phone calls from parents and league officials,” Rump said.

The recreation department agreed to line and drag the baseball and softball fields, as well as adding a drying agent after rainfall, Rump said. The city also applied an expensive red clay material which absorbs water to several ball diamonds on school property.

Westlake Recreation Director Mike Rump told West Life city officials were always under the impression that when the schools received money from the levy, they would resume responsibility for the fields.

“We never viewed this as a permanent responsibility,” Rump said.

Clough and Rump want the schools to now take responsibility for the fields during the summer.

“The feeling was the levy passed,” Rump said. “(The school district) should have the money.”

But district Superintendent Jim Costanza said it was never his understanding that the schools were to resume maintenance duties once the levy passed.

“That wasn’t an agreement that I was aware of,” Costanza told West Life.

Costanza said while the district makes the ball fields available to the recreation leagues at no charge, servicing the fields for the leagues beyond just cutting the grass is not part of the school district’s mission.

“It isn’t our mission to run summer recreation leagues,” Costanza said.

Costanza said the district continues to cooperate with the recreation leagues about scheduling and maintenance issues. And he said he’s not upset with the city for its decision.

“The city gets to choose what it does and what it doesn’t do,” Costanza said.

However, Costanza said it was his understanding that cities in the region typically do provide maintenance for school-owned athletic fields during the summer months as a community service.

Rump said the city maintains 15 baseball or softball fields as well as soccer fields on its properties. The city does not charge the leagues to use the fields and in fact donates $10,000 annually to four leagues.

If the rec leagues were to use only the city fields being maintained during the summer and abandon the school fields, will there be enough fields for everyone?

“Probably not,” Rump said. “It would probably involve some creative scheduling.

“The leagues are growing and we just need more space,” Rump said.