SEQUIM — Shawnna Rigg and her Little League players want water for a ballfield, but can’t get a drop from the city of Sequim.
Their thirsty field-to-be is outside town, on Silberhorn Road.
Rigg, president of Sequim Little League, addressed the Sequim City Council on Monday night during its public-comment period.
When she and Sequim Little League organizers first purchased their 10-acre parcel just east of James Standard Park, Rigg said they were told city water was available for it.
“Come to find out, now it isn’t,” she said, adding that when she met with the Sequim Planning and Public Works Department, she was told to seek help instead from the City Council.
“We’re at a standstill,” Rigg said.
Sequim Little League fields some 31 teams, from T-ball squads of 5- and 6-year-olds on up to majors with girls and boys age 9 to 12, according to its Web site, www.SequimLittleLeague.com.
“We’ve had five or six or seven conversations,” Fred Millar, another Sequim Little League representative, told the council.
Outside UGA
City Public Works staff told him that since the Silberhorn field is outside Sequim’s urban growth area, or UGA, the city is prohibited from furnishing water to it.
True, Sequim city attorney and interim city manager Craig Ritchie said. The state Growth Management Act doesn’t allow cities to provide utilities for properties outside the UGA, even if the organization is a nonprofit.
“The general fund — which is currently not in great shape — could decide to donate funds for some kind of contract services,” with Little League.
But “it’s a complex situation,” Ritchie said, since cities cannot give public funds for private purposes.
Sequim has contracted with youth organizations before.
It provided $60,000 this year to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula to maintain its teen programs. That’s a contract for services, not a donation, Ritchie has noted.
Little League teams now play at James Standard Park — but Millar and Rigg feel as though they’re on shaky ground there, too, since Millar said they have no long-term park-use agreement with the city.
That can be rearranged, Ritchie told the council.
Return with options
“We can come back to you with some of the options,” such as a long-term lease, a contract for services or an agreement that Little League will donate its land to the city in order to have it irrigated.
Rigg asked to see those options “in a timely manner,” since Little League play starts in April, and the grass seed needs to be planted and watered well before then.
Ritchie, however, said he wants the City Council to see a draft 2010 budget first.
The newly hired city manager, Steve Burkett, is expected to start work next Monday and present the budget during the council’s Nov. 2 meeting.
That session will begin at 6 p.m. in the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.