The Platte City Park and Recreation board unanimously passed two items during its meeting on Monday, March 5 at the Civic Center.
Issues regarding rental fees for the city-owned ball fields will now head to the board of aldermen for approval later this month, while a move by the board on background checks on coaches and officials will go into effect immediately.
The rental fee change is an amendment passed last July that approved a fee schedule for use the ball fields for teams not associated with the city’s recreation programs.
The fees were collected prior to the use of the field but when rain outs occurred the city had to attempt to reschedule within the same month or owe money back to the teams or organizations.
The change will be the collection of fees by bill on the 10th day of the month following the field use. Users will be required to pay for all times that the fields are reserved by not used, unless Dannie Stamper, the city’s parks director, has announced a rain day.
The fee is $15 per hour without use of lights and $25 per hour with use of lights.
Also given the OK from the Parks and Rec board was entering into an agreement with Protect Youth Sports, a private security firm, to conduct background checks.
Most recently the city has gathered personal information on all sports coaches and officials and submitted them to the Missouri State Highway Patrol at a cost of $13 per check and about $1,300 per year. That also meant the city had to safeguard the personal information. The passage of this agreement mean that is no longer be the case.
Protect Youth Sports, based in Tampa, Fla., charges $199 for an annual subscription and $8 per check, with the annual fee waived for the first year. The total projected cost is $800 in 2018 and $1,200 in the following years.
The initial savings will be about $500 and the following years will vary by the number of coaches and officials.
Due to this amount being within the department director’s expenditure authority, no board of aldermen action was needed.
The board also continued talks on the possibility of a municipal pool. All of the members weighed in with some things they thing would be key for a new pool to replace the one that was closed three years ago. No action was taken and the discussion will continue after measurements are to be taken of the proposed location.