From Gil Spencer in Today's Daily Times
In the novel “Shoeless Joe,” farmer Ray Kinsella heard a voice. And the voice said, “If you build it, they will come.”
So he built it, a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa corn field.
And they came.
Closer to home, and in real life, a handful of kind-hearted folks decided to build their own Field of Dreams.
Nine years ago they took a patch of swamp land owned by the Penn-Delco School District, leased it for 50 years, and turned it into one of the prettiest ball fields in Delaware County.
They built it with their own hands, sweat and gumption. By their own example they convinced others to donate their time, equipment and money to see their vision become a reality.
And what they created was better than anything W.P. Kinsella dreamed up. Because what they did, they did in real life.
Moreover, they did it for the children of their community. Instead of the ghosts of old pros playing in Iowa, real live kids from Aston, hundreds of them, have had a chance to play ball on a beautiful field, maintained year in and year out by the folks who built it.
Until now.
Suddenly, last week, the Penn-Delco School Board announced it was voiding the lease it has with the Aston Valley Baseball League and would be taking back control of its property at the end of July.
Why did the school board do this? That is the $325,000 question.
It’s not as if the school district had any problem with the league or how its officials maintained the field. (Superintendent George Steinhoff admits as much.)
The district had the best of all possible worlds: An excellent field for its own high school baseball team to play on, built by volunteers at no cost to the district. It also got preferred access to the field whenever it was needed with no responsibility to maintain it.
Does a deal get any better than that?
Not really. And yet for some reason, the school board wanted out of it.
I called Steinhoff to find out why. His explanation raised more questions than it answered.
According to Steinhoff, last fall he was asked by unnamed board members to look into the lease agreement. Any group having a 50-year lease on school property struck some of them as odd.
Out of the ordinary maybe. But once you know the history of the deal and the benefits to the district, you’d think the board would have had the common sense to leave it alone.
But this is, after all, Penn-Delco.
Having sought and gotten a legal opinion from their solicitor that they were perfectly within their rights to terminate the lease, the board decided to do just that.
Steinhoff called Franny Miles, one of the prime movers in building the field and running the AVBL and informed him of the board’s decision. Miles was stunned. He didn’t understand why the board wanted out of the deal.
When he called around to find out, he said, the first thing he heard was the absurd claim that the league had denied the district rightful access to the field. That was just flat-out incorrect he said. Later, he was told it had something to do with the board wanting “equity throughout the district.” Whatever that meant, he didn’t get it.
The one thing he did get is that the league had a legal agreement with 41 more years to run. And though the district was within its rights to get out of the deal, that lease required Penn-Delco to pay the league for the cost of all buildings and non-removable items at the site.
Miles says the total of those things is $125,000. He said he also believes the league should be entitled to another $200,000 for all the work that was donated by everyone to build and maintain the field for the last nine years.
After all, these people didn’t donate their time, money and energy to build a field for the school district. They donated all that with the understanding that the AVBL would maintain control of the field per the terms of the contract for at least 50 years.
Penn-Delco Solicitor Mike Levin correctly points out that one board can’t bind another to honor a long-term contract. But he also admits that the current board is under no legal obligation to cancel the lease, they are simply doing that at their own “discretion.” And for what? What does the board accomplish with this move?
Well, it manages to take over the cost and responsibility for maintaining a field it didn’t build and didn’t have to maintain. They have invited a lawsuit that district taxpayers will have to pay to defend. And they managed to anger and upset a group of Aston citizens who have done nothing but good for the community and its children.
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
At last week’s board meeting, President Tony Ruggieri said the board had no intention of booting AVBL from the field. He said league officials could “trust” the board to do what’s right by the kids and the league.
Oh yeah, if this board has proven anything over the past few years, it’s that it can be trusted ... to do the dumbest possible thing at any given moment.
To make matters worse, Levin claims that the district doesn’t owe the league anything, despite clear language in the lease that requires reimbursement for improvements to the property.
Incredible.
The last thing league officials say they want is to sue. But they have hired attorney Frank Catania to make sure their rights under the lease are protected. Both Catania and Steinhoff say they are hoping to meet next week and come to an amicable settlement of the situation.
But it never should’ve gotten to this point.
This is Shoeless Joe meets Brainless Tony. The school board under his clueless leadership is writing its own fractured fairy tale.
“If you build it, we will come... and take it.”
Here’s hoping for a happier ending.
Quote:
, since she's been a thorn for them they just wanted to return the favor
Mr Crab! I needed that laugh!
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