SANTA PAULA : Council Repeals Sport Teams’ Fee

The Santa Paula City Council has voted to repeal a 4-year-old administrative fee for teams to join the city’s adult sports program after officials blamed the fee for dwindling participation.

The city imposed the fee in 1989 on the city’s 13 leagues in five sports--softball, soccer, basketball, over-38 basketball and volleyball. The fee added about $55 to the average $285 fee required for a team to join one of the leagues.

But since the fee was first imposed for summer leagues in 1989, the number of participating teams has steadily declined, jeopardizing the entire program, said Mel Howery, city recreation director.

The city’s softball league attracted 24 teams for its spring and summer seasons in 1988, but that number dropped to 11 for the summer of 1989, when the fee rose from $312 to $380 to cover administrative costs.

In the fall of 1989, the recreation department laid off scorekeepers and cut the amount spent on supplies and awards to lower its costs.

Although the fee was reduced to $325 to stimulate interest, the number of teams participating fell to a low of six teams last summer.

Howery said the city of Santa Paula has a special need for adult sport leagues. “Sport leagues are important in Santa Paula because there is not a lot to do in the town with the theater closed and no roller rink,” Howery said before the council vote. “To do anything else, you have to leave town.”

To compensate for the loss in fees, the council on Monday approved a proposal for the recreation department to turn over any fees in excess of $2,000 for each league at the end of the year. Howery said he believed that the alternative method would provide nearly the same amount of money to the city.