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2022-02-22 Blair Little League Field ImprovementsBlair Little League 500 N 10th ST Blair, NE 68008 (402) 677-5825 Bllpresident20170gmail.com February 15, 2022 Rod Storm City Administrator City Hall 218 S. 16th St. Blair, NE 68008 Dear Mr. Storm, I just wanted to reach out and thank you again for meeting with our organizations the other day. You helped to clear up some of the questions we had in regards to our lease as well as helped us to straighten out our understanding of the electricity to our complex and how it is used, etc. Per our conversation, I want to bring you up to speed about our current situation. We also want to ask about the possibility of the city further assisting the Blair Little League in terms of a financial investment. As you know, over the years, we have been very self-sufficient in regards to funding for our organization. While this has been a point of pride for the Blair Little League, it has also led to some major challenges in terms of our baseball fields and facility. Essentially, our organization pays all of its bills out of our registration fees, concessions and whatever else we raise in private donations. Due to the ever increasing costs of field maintenance, equipment, supplies, insurance, and electricity costs, we find ourselves with very little left over to be able to make the necessary renovations and improvements to our fields. One way we have tried to offset costs is through small increases to our registration prices over the years. With our current fee levels, it has become more difficult to cover playing costs while keeping our prices low to ensure the participation of as many families as possible. Blair Looking ahead, we also realize our facility has the potential to be of even greater benefit to our community. However, we do not have the necessary funding to make the renovations needed. In terms of our current field structure, it is as follows; we have three fenced fields with stationary clay based permanent mounds on them. Over the years of field work, we have had clay and product brought in to make repairs and build the surface, however, two of these fields have not had the proper grading thus leading to drainage issues on the playing surface. The three mounds also pose a problem; these stationary mounds are all set to Little League specifications, and while this works well for our league, it leaves our fields unavailable for extended play teams that participate in other leagues such as USSSA or various other Metro Leagues. For example, we were recently contacted by the Slump Buster Tournament which happens every summer during the time of the CWS. They requested the use of three of our fields. However, two of our three fields are not able to be configured in a way that would allow them to use those fields. We had to turn away the use of these two fields in which they wanted to host three to four games per field Friday -Sunday for two consecutive weekends, up to 24 additional games on top of the 12 we are able to accommodate on Hardy Field. All of the teams that compete in this tournament are from out of town and are out of state teams. This tournament takes place over two weekends during June. Our hope is that, with proper field repairs, we can not only get this tournament on the books moving forward, but also have the fields ready to host additional tournaments. We have a plan in place to move this development forward. This plan involves renovating our three T -Ball fields as well as all three of our fenced fields; Weiderquist, The Healthy Human, and Hardy Fields. Essentially, we need to have quite a bit of product brought in to be incorporated into all of these playing surfaces as well as the equipment necessary to perform the repairs. We will then replace the stationary clay mounds with portable mounds that will allow us to move them to different distances, accommodating the varying age groups. Our T -Ball EMEMIRIVEMMM fields can then not only be used during league play, but used as practice and or warm-up fields during tournament play. This plan will not only help the Blair Little League, the City of Blair will also be positively impacted in several ways. First our Little League teams will have better and safer playing surfaces for our Blair and Washington County participants and hopefully, fewer rain outs. In addition, we will also be able to rent out our fields to teams that wish to host tournaments on weekends. It is our hope that the increase in tournaments will benefit the city by having people patronize our new and current hotels as well as our local restaurants and gas stations. Increased revenue from tournaments will also help us continue to improve our complex with improved batting cages, field maintenance, sprinkler systems and equipment for the Blair Little League and the community in general. The proposed cost to renovate these fields is $26,330, this includes the purchase of sand, field conditioner and portable mounds. There is no labor in this estimate as that will all be done by volunteer board members and equipment. We are asking for the city to join us in this significant project and provide any level of financial support that may be possible. After this larger investment, our playing surfaces should be up to a level that we can maintain them year after year in our operational budget. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Ryan Greenwood President Blair Little League