PORT TOWNSEND — A community partnership is in the works to keep Jefferson County Memorial Field in operation as a venue for league sports and special events from carnivals and car rallies to music festivals.
Officials with Port Townsend and Chimacum school districts, which heavily use the facility for high school sports, say they are in favor of that effort.
Memorial Field — a post World War II-era athletics facility for football, baseball, soccer and other large-scale community events — is in serious need of improvements and safety upgrades that would cost about $1 million, county Parks and Recreation Manager Matt Tyler said more than a year ago.
The field at 550 Washington St., in Port Townsend is now closed for the season, an annual winter routine, county leaders said.
They said it will be open for the usual events in late winter and early spring.
But long-term solutions for keeping the popular park open are still needed in light of Jefferson County’s budget crisis.
Ideas for supporting Memorial Field will be discussed at two meetings today.
Tyler is scheduled to go before the three Jefferson County commissioners shortly after 10:15 a.m. to discuss a parks service plan for all county parks, including Memorial Field.
“Staff recommends that the board hear the update, ask questions, and enter into an informal dialogue with staff on how to aid implementation efforts to keep Memorial Field and other parks facilities operating under current budget restraints,” Jefferson County Administrator Philip Morley said in a memo to the commissioners, who will meet on the matter in their chambers on the ground floor of Jefferson County Courthouse, 1820 Jefferson St., Port Townsend.
The Port Townsend School Board is scheduled to hear an update from Superintendent Tom Opstad on Memorial Field when it meets at 7:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Building, 450 Fir St., Port Townsend.
Collaboration key
Morley said public and governmental collaboration is the key to coming up with short- and long-term remedies for Memorial Field.
The main issues?
“How to continue to operate it at present, and ultimately to make the improvements for the longer term, and both are challenges,” Morley said.
“The more pressing challenge now is putting together a community partnership.”
In a Jan. 13 parks and recreation blog post at http://countyrec.blogspot.com/, Tyler addressed residents’ worries that Memorial Field would be closed to use.
“At the direction of county officials, I am seeking to build a coalition of user groups, business organizations, individuals, service clubs and so forth,” he said.
“The purpose of the coalition will be to provide maintenance of Memorial Field until a permanent solution is found. My job will be to organize the coalition and provide what support I can.”
Tyler and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board have been preparing a report over the last few months that provides detailed information about Memorial Field, and outlines how the coalition will work.
“If we are able to get enough pledges of support, I am hopeful we will be able to re-open Memorial Field in time for PT Boys Soccer season,” Tyler wrote in his blog post.
Port Townsend schools
Port Townsend schools chief Opstad said Friday he thought that a partnership was “a good option.”
District volunteers already help operate the field for games, he said.
David Harrington, the district’s facilities and maintenance manager, has already met with Tyler “to see what can be done and try to share some of the responsibility” for Memorial Field, Opstad said.
Harrington said Friday that he left the last meeting with Tyler and county Public Works Director Frank Gifford “feeling good that the county is working with the entities and the local school and looking to find ways to keep the field open.”
Harrington was confident that the school district’s spring sports would be using the field this year as usual.
He said the school would likely step up maintenance of the field, but he was unsure to what extent.
“My understanding is we are going to continue to work out some kind of [agreement] between the county, school districts and the city, and possible private parties to see what we can do to keep the field open and how to maintain it for events,” Harrington said.
Chimacum schools
Mike Blair, Chimacum School District superintendent, said his district was also interested in joining the county’s proposed partnership.
“We’ll be willing to help them keep it open,” Blair said of Memorial Field.
Chimacum uses the field for four or five varsity home football games a year, he said, and county parks uses the school’s gym for recreational programs.
In September, Tyler cited a $100,000 budget shortfall and outlined a proposal to close four parks facilities, cut almost three part-time staff positions — leaving just one paid staffer for parks maintenance countywide — and become heavily dependent on volunteers.
Since then, volunteers have stepped up to prevent the park closures and county officials now hope the same can be done for Memorial Field, which cost the county $91,319 in 2009 to operate and maintain.
It is just one of several county parks threatened by budget cuts.
The county parks system that serves about 2,200 families with 700 children budgeted $539,546 in 2009 expenditures but has only slightly more than $438,000 for 2010. That’s a 19 percent reduction.
Parks district?
Morley said now might be the right time to reconsider forming a metropolitan parks district, which has been discussed among government entities and others as a tax-revenue-generating option to fund parks and recreation over the years, never coming to fruition.
“The reality is, with the parks currently being partially funded out of the county’s general fund, I cannot see a time when the general fund is going to be healthy enough to fund county parks,” Morley said.
“The general fund is not going to be able to ride to the rescue,” he added.
“What’s going to be bad is only going to get worse.”
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
