VERO BEACH — The Vero Beach City Council Tuesday night voted 5-0 to enter into a lease agreement with Indian River Sports Complex Inc. for the city’s Michael Field baseball facility.
The five-year lease carries with it a rent of $1 per year, with Indian River Sports Complex Inc. carrying the liability insurance and listing the City of Vero Beach as an additional insured.
Under the lease, Indian River Sports Complex will be responsible for paying to maintain the fields and, in exchange for that, they will also have control over scheduling the use of the fields and charging leagues or teams for their use.
The Indian River Sports Complex group, headed up by long-time Sebastian River High School baseball coach George “Buddy” Young, already leases and manages several fields for the county, plus some of the city’s fields on 16th Street and reported to have 529 kids enrolled in its various youth baseball programs.
The move was prompted by budget concerns, with the city’s recreation department increasingly strapped for cash to maintain the fields and to pay for lighting.
Before the vote, dozens of parents, coaches and local business-people rose to the public podium to speak for and mostly against the lease proposal. Another group, led by locals Jason Redmon, Coogie Friedman and Derek Muller who call themselves Heritage Park, pleaded with the City Council to give them a chance to lease and manage the fields.
When the lease with Indian River Sports Complex came up at the June 3 meeting and it was recommended by staff for approval, the council postponed the vote for two weeks to give Redmon’s group time to pull a concrete proposal together and also for the council to be briefed by staff on the different leagues and options available to the city.
But even two weeks later, Mayor Dick Winger objected to the lack of specifics presented by the Heritage Park group.
“I wouldn’t mind — as painful as it was listening to it — listening to more of it if what we could get was a business plan,” Winger said. “What we got was an emotional appeal.”
Members of the public complained about a lack of free green space for kids to practice or to throw a baseball or football with their friends or families. They said kids are forced to go outside the county to find fields, or to practice in parking lots and on tennis courts.
The council, via this decision, got caught up in a long-standing controversy and literal turf battle among the Little League organization and the Cal Ripken league and Babe Ruth league.
The dispute drew passionate speeches from both sides, but ultimately the Indian River Sports Complex group, which represents the Cal Ripken and Babe Ruth leagues, won out.
Young explained that, over the past three months while working out the details of the lease with the city, his group had already expended funds to refurbish the city fields.
Parents present were skeptical about Young’s claims that the fields would be kept open to all groups who want to use them when they’re not being used by the leagues for scheduled games and practices.
In another matter relating to parks, the council voted 5-0 to approve a proposal for Vice Mayor Jay Kramer and a volunteer committee to begin fundraising efforts to pay to install irrigation for the grass at two mainland neighborhood parks, Piece of Pie Park and Jacoby Park.
