This could be the last year for Little League at Ecke ball fields

We wrote last year about the City giving away its option to a clean 10-year extension of the lease for the Ecke YMCA baseball fields, which put Encinitas Little League at grave risk of a loss of playing fields.  The change was negotiated by city staff, and passed unanimously by council without discussion as a consent item. When a member of the public informed the council a year later that they had put the Little League fields at risk, the council seemed surprised.

It now appears that risk has become a reality.  Encinitas Advocate:

Susan Hight, executive director of the YMCA, said in an email that the organization is developing a site master plan to serve members better, including expanding its footprint and renovating existing buildings. The plan could affect one or more of the fields.

"The YMCA anticipates finalizing their master plan site prior to July 2015, in advance of next year's scheduling session (for leagues)," Hight said. She also said the YMCA would provide open communications with families who are part of the sports leagues.

So the YMCA clearly wanted to terminate the lease early. Just over a year after being given the right to terminate, they already have development plans. But why would the city give away eight or more years of use of the fields with no good alternative for the Little League?

Parks and Rec Director Lisa Rudloff is sticking to the highly dubious city line:

Rudloff said the 30-day clause provides flexibility if either party wants to end the lease. As an example, Rudloff said: "If the city, through the parks master planning process, identified space to develop, the city would have flexibility to get out of the lease."

The city needing flexibility to get out of the lease stretches credulity.  The rent is $25 for the entire term, and maintenance and utility costs are only $129,000 per year, a tiny fraction of the Parks and Rec budget and a bargain for four lighted fields for which the city has no alternative for the Little Leagues.

So what the heck happened?  We can see three possibilities:

1) Rudloff's story is true.  Vina and Rudloff wanted the option to save a small amount of money, and either didn't know or didn't care that they were taking much-needed playing fields away from Little Leaguers.

2) Rudloff and Vina gave away the fields to benefit the YMCA or related development interests, for some unknown reason.  The fact that they negotiated this change and slipped it through the Council without public discussion lends credence to this possibility.

3) Some or all of the council members supported the YMCA development plans for some unknown reason, and Vina and Rudloff were just carrying out the council's wishes.  Unlikely as this may seem, it is bolstered by the fact that the council has neither fired Rudloff nor opened a public inquiry into this debacle that hurt thousands of Encinitas children's sports opportunities and made the council look foolish.  By not holding anyone accountable for the contract change, the council is admitting tacit approval.

What's your theory?

All four sitting council members who gave away the Little League fields have their terms ending in 2016, and at least three are expected to run for re-election.  Joe Mosca and Al Lerchbacker may want to call the Little League folks.

Rudloff and Vina gave away city's right to clean 10-year extension of Little League fields lease at Ecke YMCA

Former Mayor Jerome Stocks writing in the San Diego Reader:

The Ecke family donated the land to the YMCA for the benefit of Encinitas youth back in the 1980s, and in 1989 the then-nascent city of Encinitas entered into a 25-year lease with the YMCA.

The YMCA didn’t have the money to build the facilities, and the city didn’t have the money to buy the land, so a deal was struck. The city agreed to build three or four baseball fields which could also accommodate at least two soccer fields, plus a snack shack, and equipment storage areas.

In return for constructing and maintaining those amenities, the city would have the right to program those fields to suit public demand including Encinitas Little League, Encinitas Soccer League, and what became up to seven other user groups.

The lease payments for the five acres of prime real estate less than a mile from the beach was a whopping $25 for 25 years. Yep, a buck a year for 25 years. Do the math, the 25 years was up in 2014.

But the lease also had a ten-year option that the city could exercise at its discretion at the end of the original 25-year lease. But for some reason that no one will fess up to, they threw that away.

That last part, if true, is a stunner. The fiasco was bad enough when the city council rubber-stamped the 30-day termination clause without discussion. But that was assuming that the Y had bargaining leverage and wouldn't have agreed to an extension without such a clause. If the city actually had the option to renew the lease cleanly for 10 years and didn't, something extremely nefarious appears to be afoot. That would mean the city's negotiators actively worked with the YMCA to steal an asset from Encinitas and its kids right under the noses of an oblivious city council.

Do you think those folks up north who are about to hire Gus Vina know about this whole episode?

The Ecke YMCA is a respected community organization. Perhaps the public blowback they've gotten will persuade them to do the right thing and amend the agreement to take out the termination clause.

UPDATE: It's true! The city had an absolute option for a 10-year clean renewal, which Parks Director Lisa Rudloff and City Manager Gus Vina amended away with the council's apparently unwitting approval.



Both Encinitas Undercover and the Union-Tribune's Logan Jenkins had completely missed this bombshell. Jenkins wrote, "The conventional wisdom appears to be that the YMCA held the trump card. No sudden-death clause, no extension. The city had to agree to Draconian terms." Which is now clearly not the case.

If this city council truly believes in "transparency" and "open government," there will be a full, public investigation into who was involved in adding the termination clause added and why, and how City Manager Vina and Mayor Barth agreed that this should go on the consent calendar and avoid public discussion.