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Field of Dreams

Island Life

Last night at the Vashon Park District (VPD) commissioners meeting I had a couple people come up to me and express interest in what I might be writing here for this round of interpretive lip reading regarding the Great VPD Field Debacle. At the time I really had no idea what I was going to write- to tell the truth, I hadn’t thought about it because I had a few other things on my mind. Luckily, there was this meeting, which most of you all missed. As it is, as they say, you can’t make this stuff up, but it just keeps on coming, so here it goes.
 
Before we get into the meeting, there are a few things that first need to be clarified. I was originally going to title this piece Field of Fraud, but opted for a slightly less sensational spin. The reason for that bit of restrained excitement was because of a link provided in a recent email to a document from the Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) of the State of Washington, addressed to VPD General Manager Elaine Ott regarding, what else, the VES field project. Much of the hubbub and rigamarole that has been made at many of these recent commissioner clown college symposia has been all about whether the conditions of project completion can be met by the re-imposed deadline of June 30th (mark your calendars). This date is duly noted in this RCO communiqué. There is also this quotation that I will quote directly:
 
‘The draft [state auditor] report states, "To receive the $500,000 grant, the District was required to have $628,876 in matching funds. In March [sic] 2009, the District signed the grant acceptance letter and certified that the matching funds were ready and available for the project." The District did not have the matching funds on hand. The match certification form is part of the grant application and is submitted shortly before the Board awards the grants. The RCO issued the project agreement in August of 2009. Section 38- Application Representations- Misrepresentations or Inaccuracy or Breach- of the agreement makes it clear that misrepresentation or errors in the application may be considered a breach of the agreement.’
 
Since my Webster’s says that "something said or done to deceive" is one of the definitions of fraud, then Field of Fraud sounds like it would not have been much of a stretch here, but we will leave the title as is, since we have so much more to touch on.
 
In spite of the sappy-ness, ‘Field of Dreams’ is one of my more favorite sports films. As long as there is a bit of magic realism (as opposed to Disney imagicination- I just made that up) in a film, I am totally there. The one problem with this film is that it has been hijacked by the cliché bandits and is the source for the now all too often paraphrased: if you build it, he will come. And so it is with the VES fields- we are assured that they will indeed come to play and frolic once the emerald carpets have been unfurled and lit from on high by the shining light of the park board holy trinity and their foresight and wisdom. Or at least that’s what they’d like you to think. In fact, if one were to go by the glaring lack of attendance by representatives of any of the supposed "user groups" at pretty much any of the meetings I’ve been to, one might assume that the sound of one hand clapping will be all that is heard in response to the opening call to play ball.
 
A while back, there was a voice heard from the lacrosse (or is it Lacoste?) community, and mostly he complained about the playability of Island fields. It seems that back in the ancient times of my prep school days, the lacrosse gang were the badasses of the spring sport scene, landing somewhere between rugby scrummers and hockey boxers, and to hear that a little rough turf might side line these bad boys makes me wonder if I’m remembering the same sport.
 
On the other hand, if any of the potential VES sportifiers would like an example to follow in terms of how a facility and a season might be managed and planned for, they could perhaps take a few lessons from pool manager Scott Bonney. In a presentation that outlined strategies for moving ahead with the summer pool season in spite of the drastic cuts mandated to cover the cost overruns and management bungling on the VES field project, there wasn’t a question Scott couldn’t answer about the pool- if only the same could be said about the park budget and the members of the board. In fact, there was a bit of a dust up, with a possible donnybrook brewing in regards to what and where the park budget actually is. Head number cruncher Bill Ameling had issues with the terminology used by accounting consultant Marie Browne in her reporting of the monthly parks financial statement. As opposed to the term "losses", as reflected in Marie’s report on the park’s profit and loss statement, Mr. Ameling would rather hear the term "expected budget expenses", as in what apparently is at the top of his slightly more euphemistically titled report- Profits and Expected Budget Expenses. In the mean time, board member and commissioner’s voice of reason John Hopkins flatly stated: "We don’t have a budget- that’s the problem…."
 
It was mentioned that the approved ghost budget actually did exist at one time, both on a white board and on someone’s cell phone photo memory card. Where the actual budget representation is now seems to be anybody’s guess, as no one was able to locate anything representing a tangible or legible facsimile. As treasurer, perhaps Mr. Hackett should look into that, as one of his stated duties as such is put forth in the Park charter thusly: "The Treasurer shall work with the Executive Director in preparing and educating the board and public in preparation for the annual budget." Good Luck with that.
 
In the mean time, the community collective hand wringing will continue unabated, and the work on dashing toward the project completion finish tape that may or may not be pulled aside at the last second will continue unquestioned, except maybe by some. As a follow up, I did go up to the field after the heavy rains last week to see what effect that had on outflow. As I have no official way to measure flow, all I could say is that it had changed from a burble to a gushing, which I guess is to say not much at all. I did take a sample in a sterile bottle, but it is quietly resting in a cool place at the moment with no plans for testing. I did get an answer from Jim Didricksen at County Roads as to where this effluent goes. It is not, as project manager Mike Mattingly stated, piped and routed to the town sewage plant. It flows in a pipe south along the highway and then under the highway into a pond, where some day we may find out what the leaching of yet more turf chemistry may or may not do to yet another aquatic environment. It is, after all, a great big happy experiment, right?