Fair or Foul? Coach Questions High Fees for Fields

Michael LaTorraca has a group of 84 players—exclusively from Caldwell and West Caldwell—throughout his Blue Devils youth baseball program.

But over the past four years, they've only played a few games on home soil.

That could soon change.

According to the West Caldwell-Caldwell Recreation Department's fee schedule, a $150 permit charge has been assessed since 2006 to non-affiliated or independent groups to use the recreation department run fields for each three-hour interval.

In addition, a $20 participation fee has been instituted this year for each player for every season.

Meanwhile, LaTorraca's teams have used out-of-town fields for smaller fees of $50 each game or even no charge at all in Clifton, he told West Caldwell's governing body during Tuesday night's council meeting.

"It just boggles my mind that out-of-town places are willing to do so much stuff to help my boys, but my town doesn't really seem to want to," LaTorraca said. "That's frustrating, because everything I've done is to follow these boys to the high school. I turn away I'd say 20 or 25 players a year who call me from Roseland, North Caldwell, Essex Fells, Cedar Grove, Little Falls—I tell them this is exclusive to the Caldwell boys."

However, Mayor Joseph Tempesta assured LaTorraca that the governing body, in conjunction with the recreation department, will address the fees over the next month.

"We are on the cusp of finally changing these policies, hopefully for the better. The fee schedule needs to be vetted—hopefully, at the next meeting or two. It would be my goal to make it as reasonable as possible, but the costs are the costs," Tempesta said.

"We've come a long way, but we're not perfect. We have a long way to go. One of the things that we owe to you and other organizations is to be fair and address some of those policies that should have been addressed several years back. We're going to address them. You have my commitment to push the council along to get these things addressed in the next 30 days."

According to Tempesta, one of the hurdles has been the recent discovery that the recreation department was never legally formed.

However, Town Attorney James Lott, who realized the issue several months ago, has nearly completed an ordinance to legally establish the recreation department and a resolution to implement the department's policies and procedures that are expected to be voted on at the next council meeting on July 6.

"It's almost embarrassing to say, but our attorney discovered that we really don't have what they call an enabling ordinance on the recreation department. What happened originally 40 or 50 years ago, we had what we called a recreation commission. When we transitioned to a recreation department, it was never done formally. It was kind of done informally and then just evolved over the years. We never, by law, set up a recreation department," Tempesta said.

"That's one of the things we discovered and kind of also put a monkey wrench into the works the last six months. We finally have that on track. We even found the appointments of the director of recreation—technically there was an appointment made every year but there was no enabling ordinance to actually do it. This was all discovered in the last six months."

Gabe DiMasi, supervisor of the recreation department, said that needs to first be completed before the department can examine "where we're going with our mission, our goals, our objectives and our operating" and to determine the field usage by clubs.

According to DiMasi, the $150 permit fee was implemented before he took over, but is a reasonable amount when considering the expense of overtime for members of the Department of Public Works to prepare the fields on Sundays and the overall cost of maintaining the facilities.

"In the spring, it's a Sunday sport, because many communities don't want it to interfere with their in-town program. That said, when we call our guys out to do a field on a Sunday, it's an expensive venture. I assume that's where that $150 fee came from," DiMasi said.

"Fees during the week in the summer, could they be less than $150? Yes, but again, we do have a lot of programs that we have to put first. These fields get a lot of use. ... When these fees were put down, they were justified when you look at all the reasons why."

However, the fees, which are assessed and approved each year by West Caldwell's governing body, have forced some teams like the Blue Devils to look elsewhere to play.

"I was told four years ago about the $150 fee. I was told the fee was put in to not let out-of-town people rent the field for less than that. It wasn't for residents. It was never said that it would be $150 for a field. I've been researching and I've been told five different stories of where the $150 came from," said LaTorraca, a West Caldwell resident, coach and parent.

"We just want to play baseball and use a home field. We've been playing baseball out of town for four years."

LaTorraca's teams, which range from 8-and-under to 12-and-under, have used Grover Cleveland Park—at their own expense.

According to LaTorraca, the Blue Devils have invested their own time and $1,500 to hire a private landscaper to improve the field that he said has not only benefited the Blue Devils, but the recreation department, the Caldwell Cardinals and Trinity Academy as well.

"We're trying to reorganize the departments so we can provide those services without having to pay time-and-a-half," said Councilman Dominick Aiello, chairman of the recreation committee.

"We're still in the process of doing that, and once we are able to do it, we will reassess again on how we can lower the expense that we're not giving people time-and-a-half to take care of the fields on weekends. We can't sub it out. We can't let individual organizations work on the fields. There are certain insurance liabilities that we can't take on. We're literally trying to adjust everything and how we work in order to make the fees come down and be affordable for all the organizations."

But LaTorraca questioned the purpose of the additional $20 fee for each player for every season on baseball, lacrosse, soccer and football teams.

"We enjoy helping kids and now when you embark with this fee schedule, you're going to hurt parents. There are a lot of parents struggling out there. There are parents who come to me and say they want their kid to be a Blue Devil, but they can't afford it," LaTorraca said.

"I tell them not to worry about it, other parents will help out. Other parents help out. I help out. I give money so they can join. I'm one of many. That's what we do. We volunteer because we choose to make it better for the boys. By assigning fee schedules and charging people for the fields that we pay taxes for, you're hurting the boys, you're hurting families.

"You never charged us before. What are you going to give them? I think that's what everyone wants to know. Are you going to make the fields better?"

However, Councilman Stanley Hladik said the economic climate has changed from a few years ago when these fees were not imposed and taxing the entire community for services provided to the athletic programs wouldn't be fair, either.

"I thoroughly believe in sports. I believe in the kids. But we do live in different times than we were even a few years ago. There are a lot of people who live in this town who don't have kids and who may not have anyone attending the schools here who pay a lot of taxes and they are supporting the town as well," Hladik said.

"Your question could be reversed to them. How is it fair to them to absorb the cost on a Sunday for somebody to come work on a field to let you play? All we're trying to do here is be fair. We're trying to assess things so we can accommodate the kids and make it fun for everyone. We're trying to rejuvenate rec, come with a mission statement and part of that mission statement is all about the kids.

"We're not trying to hurt the kids. We're not trying to hurt the parents. We're just trying to be fair to all the taxpayers."

Tempesta said a fair compromise is close to being reached and one he hopes will keep more teams like the Blue Devils playing in town.

"I think we're very close. It's one of fundamental fairness. I'd like to see some of the pricing to be fair—covering our costs, but not so over burdensome on parents in any organization and to the extent possible that we can accommodate any group above and beyond recreation. I think we should always accommodate whenever we can to the extent possible that we can," the mayor said.

"Parents aren't going to go away. They are going to do what they want for their children. If they don't find it here, they're going to find it somewhere. I am a very big believer in keeping our kids here and keeping our revenues here because otherwise we lose."