City of Cibolo and YMCA Contract
There have been several emails asking what exactly is the contract between the YMCA and the city. This article will hopefully answer those questions.
The original contract is a 15-year contract which they are seven years in. The contract between these two gave exclusive management rights to the YMCA. The city owns the fields, and the YMCA manages the reservations. There is an per hourly rate minimum of 2 hours, plus a per team deposit.
The YMCA pays the city only $30,000 for these rights to the city The city continues to pay utilities, electric, water, etc. The city provides all field maintenance, including dragging the field, cutting grass, etc. The YMCA does nothing.
This contract not only includes the 3 fields at the sports complex, but also the sport utility field adjacent to the ball fields. If anyone should happen to research the average maintenance costs of maintaining baseball fields, you’ll find the average is $98,500 per year. Two regular fields costs $197K and a T-Ball field averages $30K per year. In total, the city pays an average maintenance cost of $227K. Not including utilities. The city sees no income from registration fees, just the flat amount of $30,000. And yet if you ask the city, they wii tell you they have a "strong" relationship with the YMCA.
There’s also another issue with the two baseball fields; the irrigation is having issues at an estimated cost of $12K to repair. In the meetings, the YMCA is demanding this be repaired and paid for by the city.
In our December meeting, the city told the YMCA they needed to “rethink” the contract. The YMCA told the city to send them a proposal. The YMCA has no intention of renegotiating the contract, why should they? This is a very lucrative deal and yet, control any other sports from coming into Cibolo.
The verbal discussion with the city and the YMCA (again, nothing is in writing), Cibolo LL would be paying the YMCA a total of $160K per year to use the fields. With other operating costs, registration fees would be almost $300 per player. You can see why it was rejected along with the real reason (after reason) the YMCA can not be trusted.
When you read the League Updates and see comments that the YMCA is holding the city hostage, this should hopefully clear things up.
Just a side note, if you research rankings for youth sports organizations, Little League is the #1 organization in the world with over 3 million participants. The YMCA didn't even make the top twenty. When you do your research, you'll see why.