Field feud fed by low supply, high demand

Alicia Robinson

Costa Mesa’s shortage of lighted athletic fields has led to a dispute

between two youth soccer clubs over who gets playing time, and where,

when the field supply is limited.

It’s also raised the question of what “local” means, and whether

Costa Mesa’s fields should serve people who don’t live in town.

As the city has grown, the field shortage has become more acute.

It will get worse in the near future as some school fields are shut

down for improvements and one at TeWinkle Park is closed while a new

softball complex is built.

The problem is that while youth sports programs have expanded, the

city hasn’t added any new fields since 2000 when the Farm athletic

complex opened, Costa Mesa Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman

Byron de Arakal said.

“We’re essentially trying to shove 10 pounds of sugar in a

five-pound bag,” he said.

That struggle has pitted one regional arm of the American Youth

Soccer Organization against another, although both groups include

Costa Mesa kids.

Two AYSO groups play in Costa Mesa -- region 120, which includes

more than 90% Costa Mesa residents, and region 97, which is made up

of people from Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

The city recently gave AYSO 97 permission to play at the Farm,

which cut into AYSO 120’s time there. But AYSO 97 officials say they

need the fields after losing a lighted field at Kaiser Elementary

School, and a field at TeWinkle Middle School is too far away from

where their players live.

AYSO 120 officials want the city to revoke the permit and stick

with an earlier agreement that AYSO 97 would use fields east of the

Costa Mesa Freeway (55).

The soccer field battle is indicative of a larger problem with the

field situation, Costa Mesa City Manager Allan Roeder said.

“It really is a tough situation because you’ve just got demand

that’s superseded available facilities,” Roeder said.

He said it’s nearly impossible to decide if one group is more

worthy of using the field.

City officials have been working for more than eight months on

possible changes to a pact between the city and the Newport-Mesa

Unified School District that governs how and when city and school

athletic facilities are used, and by whom.

Many of the school district’s fields need costly upgrades to

irrigation and drainage systems, some need regrading and lighting

improvements, and other fields need to be replaced, Roeder said.

Officials want the agreement to clearly define the city’s and the

school district’s responsibilities and to set a schedule for

improving the fields.

The council also has directed the Parks and Recreation Commission

to look at how field time is divvied up and how groups are ranked to

get field permits, a problem de Arakal called “a festering kind of

boil.”

That could open the question of whether AYSO 97 should be

considered a local group, since more than half of its players are

Newport Beach residents. The group was included when the city last

refined its field-use policy.

The commission will begin discussing field-use issues at a meeting

Wednesday and will report to the council Sept. 6.

To de Arakal, whose daughter plays in AYSO 120, the solution is to

ask the American Youth Soccer Organization to split AYSO 97 so it

doesn’t straddle two cities.

But AYSO 97 field director Jeff Braun said it would be ridiculous

to divide up the region; the kids who play in it go to the same

schools, he said.

“It’s kind of a shame for somebody to think that now they can’t

share volunteer youth organization sports because they’re in two

different cities,” Braun said.

QUESTION

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* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at

[email protected].