City Approves Travel League Park Fees

Patrick Smeraldo of Collaborative Children’s Solutions speaks during Monday’s City Council meeting as Ericka Thomas, city comptroller, and Tom Nelson, a former council member, look on.

At Jamestown’s city council April voting session, the council approved a placement of fees for use of the city park by traveling teams.

The resolution approved by the council states that fees for travel baseball and softball teams will be $125 per game to include practice time, adult flag football will be $200 per team, and adult softball teams $365 per team, with these changes set to take effect on May 1.

Before the resolution was approved, council member Joseph Paternini, Bergman Ward IV, asked for the resolution to be amended slightly to reflect and be more defining relative to the cost of the individual pricing for each team, specifically changing it to say the fees will be in place per team per game. This amendment was also approved.

Before the vote took place, city resident and owner of Collaborative Children’s Solutions, Patrick Smeraldo, addressed the council in support of the fees.

“I was somewhat disturbed this morning when I saw the article about the fees for baseball rental and fields,” Smeraldo said. “I don’t have a problem with it. In fact, it affects me. My son plays for a team that will play on those fields. His team or me as a parent will have to come up with that money. I have zero problem with that.”

Smeraldo continued by saying it has been a luxury in the past few years to be able to use the fields for free, but the city has commitments to make. He added that he did not think it was a crazy amount of money to ask for and that he thought people did not realize how the department structure in the city works.

“For example, in 1986ish or 1985ish I worked for the parks department while I was in college and we had about 45 people in the parks department at the time,” Smeraldo said. “I believe there’s about 17 right now.”

Smeraldo gave a list of events that happened last year, including St Patrick’s Day, the Easter Egg Hunt, Memorial Day, Christmas in July, Summer Wellness Fair, County Festival, Gus Macker, Labor Day, Halloween and the Christmas Parade, saying these are all events the parks department takes care of, and that it is a lot for 17 people. He added a few other items that the department takes care of, including field maintenance which happens after hours and brings in over time costs.

“The city shouldn’t bear that,” Smeraldo said. “It is what it is. I don’t know if the travel ball clubs, all the coaches and kids reside in the city, but that’s where we’re at in the city.”

With Smeraldo’s company, Collaborative Children’s Solutions, hosting and being in charge of multiple events in the city, he said he did not mind having to pay extra fees for certain things as the events are not city events. He continued by saying the city has other things it worries about.

“The city is dealing with two heinous crimes last week against infants, and we’re worried about fees?” Smeraldo said. “That’s ridiculous. Have another bake sale, cough up. Do what you’ve got to do. This is a city, and that’s the price of doing business.”

Smeraldo said that every employee in every department gives “everything they have” to the city, which includes “countless hours”, and are then “brutalized on social media”, which he expressed is also ridiculous.

Besides the fees, the council also approved resolutions on grant funding for the Prendergast Landing project, authorizing police department and fire department members to attend trainings, and suspending a hiring freeze in the Public Works Department.