Support Your Local News Media

Congratulations to the Jewel City JWV Little League, who joined with local AYSO leaders to protest imposed hourly fees for sports organizations’ use of Glendale’s fields. The groups showed up well prepared and in force at yesterday’s Glendale City Council meeting to successfully overturn the decision for now.

Earlier this week I posted a lesson from the Pasadena Art Center College of Design flap over its $150 million expansion. The plan was tabled for further study after a student’s negative blog post gained overwhelming support via the internet.

Focusing on the post and the avalanche of comments it received, I believe I didn’t give enough credit to traditional news channels and organizations. Local newspapers, student organizations, and I’m sure email notifications to interested parties, all helped turn the tide on the hillside development.

The field use issue in Glendale has been brewing for awhile. I remember hearing about the hourly fee idea when I was on the Little League board a few years ago, but it never got off the ground then. When the Glendale Parks, Recreation and Community Services Division suddenly decided on July 2 to impose fees, league officials said they were unaware there was a specific proposal on the table.

Organizing their base, they copied a Glendale News-Press URL into a mass email and gathered board members together to draft a letter. That evening, league representatives and concerned parents surprised city council members with a large protest. The council responded by sending the matter back to the commission for further review and public input, as reported in today’s News-Press edition.

Here are excerpts of the letter Jewel City JWV Little League board members sent to the council:

Youth sports like baseball make good citizens of players and parents alike, and they make Glendale a community…

Jewel City JWV does not use the City’s baseball fields “for free” because it does not pay an hourly user fee. Unlike many other communities, Glendale does not provide a city-run youth baseball league. If it did, of course, it would not be run by volunteers, and would result in significant costs to the city. Jewel City JWV thus provides an important social and cultural benefit to Glendale at no charge to the City. In addition, our league performs in-season maintenance on the baseball fields at its own cost. If the proposed fees are imposed, Little League will no longer be financially viable in Glendale. The City will then have either no baseball program to offer its youth, or will have to create and operate its own youth baseball program at a steeply increased cost than is currently the case. This makes no financial sense.

It is telling, to say the least, that at the same time the City has granted tens of millions of dollars in land and benefits to the recently-opened Americana commercial development, it is proposing a tax on children to play baseball. Glendale is not a business district – it is a community. The Council should reverse the Parks Commission decision to implement these fees.

I’d like to humbly amend my assertion earlier this week that one blog post can succeed where other methods cannot. Credit for success in the Art Center controversy and in Glendale’s sports field issue should go to individuals and organizations on the scene, detailed news media coverage, and successful email appeals for support.

The lesson for homeowners: join your neighborhood organization and help them develop an email notification list, keep up with local issues by supporting local news media, and keep checking relevant blogs!