Coaches dream of improved field use

Deepa Bharath and Rick Devereux

It was supposed to solve problems and be a compromise between needy

youth sports teams and the city’s high schools.

Instead, some argue, an agreement between the city and the

Newport-Mesa Unified School District, which demands that the high

schools share fields with other groups, became the catalyst in the

resignations of coaches and an athletic director at Costa Mesa High

School.

The so-called joint-use agreement between the city and the school

district has been in place for more than a decade. But in the past

months, it has found a new place at the center of debate and

controversy after boys athletic director Dave Perkins’ July 1

resignation and boys basketball coach Bob Serven’s decision to step

down on April 3.

Nevertheless, the joint-use agreement is here to stay, Assistant

City Manager Steve Hayman said.

“The idea is to maximize the use of resources in the community,”

he said.

It is essential to ensure that the city’s policies and rules

relating to field use are obeyed, officials said.

The agreement, in its current format, has been in existence since

1992, Hayman said.

“We’ve had some version of it for many years,” he said.

It was renewed in 2002, without any significant changes, Hayman

said.

The agreement dictates that any high school, community group or

league secure a permit from the city to use a field. Joined at the

hip of the joint-use agreement is another document called the Field

Allocation Policy, which spells out how fields are allotted and the

rules governing allotments.

Schools first in

The main purpose of the joint-use agreement was to set parameters

on how the city and the school district can use fields without

conflicts, said Jaime Castellanos, assistant superintendent of

secondary education.

There is a three-tier structure when it comes to who gets the

first shot at booking fields, he said.

“The schools come first,” Castellanos said. “The resident leagues

and groups come next. And then finally, there are the nonresident

groups.”

He called the agreement a “conventional” document.

“A lot of cities have a similar agreement, and this one is not too

different from what other cities have with their school districts,”

he said.

In January 2003, the city appointed five part-time workers and

gave them the title of field ambassadors. Their job is to monitor the

fields and enforce those rules and regulations.

But this program has been of very little help and has, in fact,

added to the bureaucracy, said Amy Stephens, Costa Mesa American

Little League commissioner.

“It creates five more people to talk to,” she said.

But Stephens’ biggest complaint against the ambassadors is their

“lack of common sense.”

“We’ve had situations where we have people working on the field,

and [the ambassadors] hassle them,” she said.

Estancia boys soccer and track coach Steve Crenshaw agreed with

Stephens.

“You have field ambassadors and park rangers ticketing coaches,

coming out with police officers and embarrassing you when all you’re

trying to do is run a youth program,” he said.

The ambassadors “overreact” and have shown “a lack of discretion,”

Crenshaw said.

Whose fields are they?

The high schools have a problem with lack of maintenance on the

city’s part, said Sharon Uhl, Costa Mesa girls athletic director and

softball coach.

“The fields are being destroyed because the city has not done

anything to maintain them,” she said. “They say coaches think they

own the fields. We do, because we buy the things for the fields. The

city’s not buying me dirt or buying goals for the soccer fields.”

Coaches also end up cleaning up trash left on the field from the

previous user, Uhl said.

“That’s my classroom, and I have to see dirty diapers and empty

beer bottles there,” she said. “Coaches are cleaning up that mess,

not the city.”

Doug Deats, former Costa Mesa basketball coach who also resigned,

said it’s “not a very good deal” for the coaches.

“The [agreement] is bad, because the only one who maintains the

field is the coach,” he said. “The coach is left scraping out

sunflower seeds in the dugout, picking up trash and taking care of

the field.”

But Jana Ransom, the city’s recreation manager, said when it comes

to complaints about the field ambassadors, “there’s more to it than

meets the eye.”

“I don’t want to slam anyone,” she said. “But it takes a certain

number of violations and a certain number of steps over the line to

get to a ticket or citation.”

It’s the coaches’ noncompliance with the joint-use agreement

that’s causing all the problems, Ransom said.

For example, a coach complained that he got kicked off of his

field at 5 p.m. because of bad weather, she said.

“After 5 p.m., the fields are the city’s responsibility,” Ransom

said. “And if the ambassador feels that using the field in that

weather is going to cause damage to it, he or she is going to stop

them from using the fields. We don’t do things for no reason.”

But ambassadors seem to show little or no discretion, sometimes

even kicking people off of fields in the middle of games, said Kirk

McIntosh, AYSO Region 97 board member and tournament director of the

Daily Pilot Cup.

“There should be some discretionary authority here,” he said. “I

can’t tell you how many times park administrators come out when

one-hundredth of an inch of rain [falls]. More water comes out of the

sprinkler systems, but they shut down the fields citywide.”

Pointing a finger at an ambassador would amount to blaming the

messenger, Ransom said.

“The city has a municipal code,” she said. “We don’t make the

rules. We only enforce them.”

Change as an answer

One solution to the recent brushes with coaches may be to be more

lenient with the high schools, said Parks and Recreation Commissioner

Wendy Leece, who as a school board member in 2002 voted in favor of

renewing the joint-use agreement.

“The rules and guidelines are necessary because they give

structure to an idea,” she said. “But high schools have different

needs than, say, a Little League or AYSO. So maybe it’ll help the

high schools if we revisit the agreement and let them manage their

own fields.”

But the joint-use agreement itself is vital to maintain a sense of

balance and fairness to the process, Leece said.

“It’s forced different groups to be more organized in their use of

the fields,” she said.

Neighboring Newport Beach has had a joint-use agreement with the

school district for 20 years, but that agreement does not encompass

the high schools, said Andrea McGuire, the city’s recreation

superintendent.

Another major difference between the two cities’ agreements is

that Newport Beach does not issue permits for any of the fields owned

by the school district, she said.

“The main reason for that is we can’t maintain their fields,”

McGuire said. “We don’t have the personnel or the capacity to do

that. All fields owned by the city are contracted out for

maintenance, so we never had the desire to change the joint-use

agreement.”

Newport does have its own version of Costa Mesa’s field

ambassadors, but their roles are different. The two part-time park

patrol officers monitor everything from the city’s fields to picnic

areas and playgrounds.

Costa Mesa’s problem boils down to a lack of fields, said city

Parks and Recreation Commissioner Byron de Arakal. The joint-use

agreement is invaluable to the school district because it saves them

the burden of dealing with the permit process, he said.

“The high school looks at the joint-use agreement as a burden

because it takes time away from their practice,” he said. “There’s

more to the high school’s issues with the coaches than the agreement.

The joint-use agreement just got hauled into the issue and was used

as a pinata.”

The system of having field ambassadors makes sense because they

are “good intermediaries,” de Arakal said.

“They are a lower level of authority versus a badge,” he said.

The city could do a better job of making people aware of its

policies, de Arakal admitted.

“But the bottom line is: People need to follow rules,” he said.

“High school teams are not favorites over AYSO, and AYSO is not

favorites over high schools. Everyone has an even shot.”

* DEEPA BHARATH is the enterprise and general assignment reporter.

She may be reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at

deepa.bharath@latimes.com. RICK DEVEREUX is a sports reporter. He may

be reached at (949) 574-4225 or by e-mail at

rick.devereux@latimes.com.