KELLER — With Keller Sports Park park busting at the seams and the majority of users being non-Keller residents, city officials recently began discussions to ask for help from the city of Forth Worth.
City Manager Steve Polasek on Feb. 5 asked council for direction concerning a draft proposal to Fort Worth asking for help with operational costs of the park.Polasek said currently, Fort Worth residents make up 47 percent of youth sports participants, Keller residents make up 40.4 percent and users from other communities make up 12.6 percent."There has been a tremendous amount of growth in areas of north Fort Worth that has begun to put pressure on our facilities, impacting our use and maintenance and operations costs," Polasek said.The proposal stems from discussions between officials from both cities.Polasek said Fort Worth officials suggested staff put together a proposal letter that might spell out opportunities to work together on the issue."In a nutshell ... we are asking the city of Fort Worth to participate and help pay for our annual maintenance and operational cost and base that on the actual amount that we spend as a city," he said. "And also base that on the percentage of actual use based on residency."Polasek said the letter provides a response date of March 29."We are hoping to receive something back by that time," he said. "That gives us time to make preparations to either work with the city of Fort Worth, hopefully in the fall of this year, or to begin exploring other opportunities to address this disparity in advance of the fall 2013 youth sports season."Polasek said everything has a capacity, including this facility."We are getting to that point where the majority of the users are non-taxpaying residents," he said. "If the day were to come where we decide to address Keller residents, and Keller residents alone, our current configuration of fields and facilities at the Keller Sports Park more than meets our requirements for build-out for our community."Mayor Pro Tem Tom Cawthra said the picture on the Keller side is the parent of a young child coming to council and saying, "I’m told I have to be at a 9 p.m. baseball game.""To have them look at us and have that problem and we say that it’s because we’re too popular,simply isn’t going to cut it much longer," Cawthra said. "We have to address the issue of capacity and this is, in my opinion, a very fair way to do that."Not including debt service, annual operating cost for the park is about $750,000. General estimates project an annual payment of about $350,000 based on 47 percent of Fort Worth resident use.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
