Dropping Parker Road deal, Fort Gratiot reaches new agreement with Little League

The agreement Fort Gratiot Little League had with the township to lease 40 acres off Parker Road is coming to an end.

But another arrangement is being re-established to help ensure the kids have somewhere to play.

The township board recently agreed to terminate the Parker agreement with the youth sports organization — first OK’d in 2018 and extended two years later. They also signed off on a new one-year agreement for use of fields off of State Road.

Originally, the group looked to relocate its baseball and softball programs, citing the organization’s growth, by building a new complex. A roughly 40-acre portion at the northeast corner of 100 acres the township owns west of Parker and north of Keewahdin Road was included in the lease agreement — itself an area that remains a long-range priority for the township to redevelop for recreational use.

Four years later, Parker Road remains undeveloped.

And if the Little League couldn’t build out new facilities, Josh Sparling, their current board president, said it made sense to make a change when approached by the township.

“Quite frankly, with the cost of everything, that’s gone up ... up to half a million dollars to build,” he said Thursday afternoon. “We don’t have that money.”

Sparling said their name being attached to applications also seemed to make it more difficult for the township to secure grant funds itself.

Township Trustee AJ Armbruster, who’s also involved with the Little League board, said he thought it was too difficult for the organization, comprised of parent volunteers, to “do what the big dream was over there” on its own.

“If it helps township get funding for a product over there and even if it’s not what our pipedream is, Little League doesn’t want to stand in the way of development,” he said. “The whole (discussion) just came back to protection for the kids and the township to make sure they had a ballfield to play on no matter what happens with it.”

Although new ballfields in the Parker Road area remain part of the township’s master plans, officials said there were no immediate options to build anew. Instead, in terminating the agreement, Fort Gratiot Supervisor Rob Crawford said the Little League gets first right of refusal to use new fields if they’re built.

“We’ve gone back and forth, back and forth basically for the last month,” Crawford said.

Whether the township does build new ballfields, he said, depends on available funding down the road.

Currently, the township leases the land off State Road south of Fort Gratiot Middle School from the Port Huron Area School District which is, in turn, already used by Little League.

Another agreement also OK’d by the township board solidifies the arrangement.

“The big reason for this is to show what we expect from them and what they can expect from us and (the) set up of fees, scheduling issues, and things trying to resolve all the problems in the past we’ve had with miscommunications at times,” Crawford said.

As approved, the State Road agreement raises the per-team user fee from $50 to $75. Crawford cited the cost of preparing the fields for use.

Township Treasurer Jamie Oprita said it also includes a $1,000 tournament fee, pointing to a Father’s Day weekend event the Little League hosts.

“If they need extra portable toilets, there’s a fee for that,” Crawford added. “If they need cleaning, there’s a fee for that.”

Armbruster said the Little League was “happy to pay the higher fee.”

“There’s never been an issue with those fields over there,” he said. “The township does a fantastic job giving the kids somewhere to play.”

Sparling said their board still needed to green-light ending the Parker Road agreement and sign off on the State Road one, and that it would likely come up at the January meeting.

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Dropping Parker Road deal, Fort Gratiot reaches new agreement with Little League