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Smaller-scale baseball brouhaha calms down
By ANDREW MEACHAM TIERRA VERDE -- Call it the $250,000 question. Is that what a Little League ballfield will cost homeowners each year? No, and community leaders are still working to douse the rumor. There are no bases or bleachers on the pie wedge of county-owned land west of the Bayway to Fort DeSoto and just north of Fire Station No. 2. But the orange-sprayed surveyor's stakes map out a diamond. The Southwest Little League expects the field to be ready by spring. The field's alleged price tag, a resident's computation based on a countywide tax increase that passed last month, came as a surprise to members of the Tierra Verde Community Association. They have a signed agreement with the county granting use of the land for $1 a year over five years. The field will cost taxpayers nothing. Donations for creating a baseball field at the site are being administered through Southwest Little League. So far, most of the money has come from Tierra Verde parents. "We have done everything, we have paid for everything," said Richard Wilkes, a veterinarian and part of a core group of dads who lobbied the county for use of the land. The notion that a baseball field would cost Tierra Verde residents a quarter of a million dollars a year gained traction after John Christman's letter appeared in the August editions of the Tierra Verde News and Sandpiper. A Times story about the county's proposed tax increase also reported Christman's contention, though the newspaper subsequently published a correction. "It's very frustrating," said community association president Marsha Young. "People call the office and wonder why things are said." Her rebuttal letter appears in the September issues of the community newspapers. Mike Kinter, a retired pharmacist and one of the fathers who is backing the field, said residents had been damaged by misleading or false statements. "You know how if you tell someone something, who then tells someone else, who tells someone else?" Kinter said. "Ultimately, whatever truth you had originally is gone." The tax increase will go into effect Oct. 1. About half of the revenue collected -- or $2-million -- will go toward recreation for the county's 280,000 unincorporated residents. The balance could go toward such improvements as sidewalks, street resurfacing or neighborhood beautification. Christman, a retired engineering consultant, said he deduced $250,000 for the ballfield by applying half a mill -- or 50 cents of tax for every $1,000 of assessed property -- to an estimated $500-million for Tierra Verde's property values. He acknowledged that his "$250,000 per year from here to eternity" figure involves some interpretation. "It's tenuous, but there is no other effect," he said. "What else is there that the county is doing to provide anything to Tierra Verde? The only thing that's been mentioned is the ballfield." The field's backers and county officials reiterate that there is no public cost. The recreation license agreement between the county and the Tierra Verde Community Association spells out the terms: $1 a year for five years. TVCA must provide insurance, including fire, liability and personal injury coverage. Southwest Little League is already insured through Little League Baseball, the national organization, Kinter said. The nearly 350 players, ages 5 to 14, in Southwest Little League come from St. Petersburg, Tierra Verde, Gulfport, St. Pete Beach and Treasure Island. They now rotate among three playing fields: Hurley Park, in Pass-a-Grille; Egan Park, in St. Pete Beach; and Lyons Field, in Treasure Island. In recent years, the league has searched for new sites to reduce drive times for some players and increase scheduling options. Hopes for an agreement with the law school at Stetson University fell through this year. Organizers say they still need a new site, at least for practice and day games. County officials say they had considered increasing recreation services -- hence taxes -- for unincorporated residents before baseball became an issue. The increase resulted from a reversal of longstanding practice, allowing "active-" as well as "passive-use" parks by creating ballfields and tot lots, and forming partnerships with cities, school districts, and nonprofit corporations such as the Boys and Girls Club. "There was no cause-and-effect relationship" between baseball dads' request to use land in Tierra Verde and a subsequent tax increase, said Mark Woodard, a county budget official. Granted, the dads' request for the use of county land helped trigger the county's change of philosophy, but so did similar requests from other unincorporated areas, said Commissioner John Morroni. "It was one of those things we needed to start taking a look at," said Morroni, who cast the only vote against the tax increase. But he disagreed with the unincorporated residents who say they are being asked to pay more when they have no recreational amenities themselves. "There are people who don't want to pay taxes for schools, either, because they don't have any grandchildren in the schools," Morroni said. "But that's the way America works." Little League parents are organizing a golf tournament with a $100 entry fee. The event starts at 1 p.m. Sept. 20 at the Isla del Sol Yacht and Country Club. Proceeds go to the Southwest Little League/Tierra Verde Baseball Complex. Organizers hope the land will be ready by spring, at least for a practice field and day games. A wish list includes bleachers, perimeter fencing and an electronic scoreboard, for starters. If such items suggest permanence, that's fine with Richard Wilkes, who started this ball rolling. Wilkes has suggested adding a tot lot and walking paths at the field, now little more than a scraped swatch of land on State Road 679. Like a handful of other Tierra Verde dads backing the project so far, he expects the license agreement with the county to exceed its current setting of five years. As for the field's alleged quarter-million-dollar price tag, Wilkes said, "I don't think we will shoot it down. I think time will wear it out."
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