New hourly public field use fees impacts youth sports team

LYMAN, Maine — The town of Lyman now charges a $25 per hour fee for all public use of its sports fields, and coordinators from a local youth sports organization said the new costs will negatively impact their little league teams.

Sports fields may be covered with snow and ice right now, but fields in the towns across Maine will soon have kids playing little league and other organized sports.

For Massabesic Little League softball coaching coordinator Galen Nickerson, having to pay an hourly fee to the town of Lyman, just to use the field, seems wrong.

“When I heard about the cost, I was in denial.” Nickerson said. “I thought, ‘There’s no way a town is imposing a fee on its own local use sports to use its public spaces.’”

Lyman’s Town Manager Lindsay Gagne said the money will go towards keep up with the maintenance of the public spaces and that it will ultimately reduce the financial cost for taxpayers.

“The change was implemented to help cover some of the costs associated with the fields, including mowing, irrigation, fertilization, trash removal, portable restrooms, and other ongoing maintenance and operational needs,” Gagne wrote in an email response. 

Nickerson said he feels enforcing the fees will do the exact opposite.

He explained that 20 percent of the league’s 440-plus youth players live in Lyman.

Nickerson added that he believes the new fees are not only wrong, but it’s also a money shuffle that kicks back to Lyman residents.

“To me, it would be like having somebody stand at a playground and charge admission. You don’t do that,” he said. “If we were to spread that cost of the fee across the league, it would increase everybody’s registration by about $15, and that would put us at the top of the pack making us the most expensive little leagues in our area.”

The growing league uses nine different fields for practice and games to accommodate all 41 of its teams. With more than 440 players, they need every field they can get access to. 

The Lyman field is used 10 to 14 hours each week for eight weeks during softball, baseball, and tee ball seasons. 

Nickerson and league president Greg Mitchell have done the math. The new hourly rates will create a $2,000 to $3,000 increase in costs for the league if they decide to absorb the new fees rather than pass the cost on to parents. 

Mitchell explained that they’re already dishing out thousands of dollars to maintain the nine different fields they use. He said they barely made ends meet last season.

“We basically broke even with the money we spent on each field. We spend over $2,000 on each field on maintenance alone,” Mitchell said.

The league is a nonprofit. Although the town covers the cost of some maintenance, the league takes care of a fair share of the field maintenance as well.

Massabesic Little League covers the cost of recutting the infield, applying Turface, which is field conditioner that helps with drainage and increasing the longevity of the field, and they drag and line the fields, which helps keep weeds at bay.

The league also hosts clean ups on the fields they use, picking up rocks, leaves and cleaning the dugouts.

Both Nickerson and Mitchell said the league already invests a great deal into the town’s fields.

Mitchell lives in Lyman. He said he has been adamant about coming to a compromise and working to help the town understand how much these fees will hurt youth sports. He said he reached out to the town’s select board, hoping to come to some sort of agreement.

Mitchell explained that the league even offered to give the town a $500 donation, which is something they do for some of the fields they use, but he said Lyman’s select board wouldn’t budge. 

Town Manager Gagne shared in an email, “At their most recent meeting, the Select Board discussed the possibility of holding a workshop with the local non-profit to gain further insight. However, no one has yet reached out to schedule a meeting with the board.”

Nickerson said he thinks this is a step in the wrong direction, emphasizing that this might encourage other towns to implement their own hourly fees as well. 

“They asked us what hourly fee we would be comfortable with, and I told them that I’m not interested in playing that game,” Nickerson said. “It’s a dangerous way to go. Really, it’s a slippery slope that can spill over to other towns. That would be bad for little league and other youth sports.”

Lyman has a second field that hasn’t been used in over a decade. Massabesic Little League went to the town last year and offered to renew the field at no cost to the town. Mitchell said it was an idea that was welcomed, and the nonprofit was prepared to fully cover all cost associated with making the field ready for use. 

“Not asking the town for one dollar in that aspect. Then they want to impose this fee on two fields. Now we’re talking 10 to 14 hours for each field. That’s doubling the cost already.”

Nickerson said they won’t be able to renew the field if they’ll have to pay hourly rates for field use. He added that they may have to start exploring other options like having shorter practices, more away games, or more use of other fields, which will all also negatively impact parents and players.