Full Count: Little League, School District Attempt to Resolve Dispute

The relationship between the Greenfield School District and the Greenfield Little League took a precarious turn last week as concerns arose regarding the use, maintenance and scheduling of baseball/softball fields throughout the district.

League president Aaron Esenberg raised his concerns to the school board Feb. 7 after learning of the district's plans to start an adult softball league. According to Esenberg, the plans conflict both from a scheduling and revenue standpoint with the Little League organization.

"We have kept up all of those fields using organization dollars," he said. "As a Little League that built and maintained these fields over the years, we were very concerned when we found out that the school district is going to be running their own adult softball league and potentially using (fields)."

Superintendent Conrad Farner said the district is "pretty far along" in the planning stages for a softball league. District officials held a meeting with Little League representatives recently.

"We met with them very positively and collaboratively. My understanding is that it was a three-hour meeting where we literally worked everything out and had all of the plans taken care of," he said. "We want to work with then. We value Little League and we think it is a great program." 

Farner characterized the relationship between the district and Little League as "great."

"We actually moved things around in our planning to accommodate Little League. There shouldn't be any concerns from our perspective because we have enough facilities, days in the week and hours in the day that people who want to use our ball diamonds should all be able to use them and coexist," he said. 

The district has a facility-usage policy that allows for reservations to be placed on the fields. The city's Little League does not have an exclusivity contract with the school district after March 31 of this year. 

"We were just really kind of surprised by all of this because Little League can go in and use the reservation process just like anybody else so I'm a little in the dark on it. (Esenberg) hasn't talked to me and I don't really know where that was coming from," said Farner, referring to Esenberg's comments regarding his concerns during the board meeting.  

Esenberg added that his organization understands the district owns the fields and gets first dibs on scheduling on those fields. The ball field at Glenwood, according to Esenberg, costs Little League about $4,500 a year to maintain. That amount does not include the volunteer hours. 

"We have the second right to those fields being we built those fields and maintain those fields," he said. "Basically the school district will be making revenue off of our backs." 

Esenberg also said that Little League is "totally for helping the school district out," but added that the league will stop maintaining the fields if it cannot use them.

Farner indicated district officials will follow up with Little League officials to discuss their concerns.