By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
One of the founders of Bronson Youth Sports received support from the Bronson Town Council this week to purchase about $2,200 worth of equipment for fall sports.
Angela Lambe and her husband David have received startup funds from the city in the past, but there have been a few bumps in the road for the couple.
Bronson operates on a fiscal year that begins annually on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30 of the following year. Angela Lambe arrived with her request for money just in time to beat the Sept. 30. 2021, fiscal deadline by three days.
The council agreed to purchase soccer nets, four dozen softballs, cheerleading mats, and first aid kits provided she arrived with the paperwork on Sept. 28. She arrived on time and the equipment was purchased.
Lambe said BYS will host large soccer tournaments at James H. Cobb Park on Oct. 16 and 24. She said 8 Bronson soccer teams and more than 100 players will participate along with teams from other cities in the area.
“The park will be full and we will have games all day,” she said.
She said BYS needs soccer nets because some have been damaged by the town’s lawnmowers.
“Some have been hit by lawnmowers and are kind of shredded and will have to be replaced and some are just damaged,” she said.
Softball games will start Oct. 14, she said. She said there will be several home games this year. The league is expected to provide softballs for the home games.
She asked the town to stop flipping over metal bleachers and mowing around the soccer goals instead of moving the goals to cut the grass. She said the upside-down bleachers represent a safety problem for the kids. She said she can’t flip them back over herself. Public Safety Director said his employees aren’t flipping over the soccer goals.
Lambe said they want first aid kits for each coach or sport to use while the kids are playing. She wants first aid kits at the concession stand and baseball fields.
Lambe said BYS has started a cheerleading program. The girls are beginning to work on stunts and they need mats for safety reasons. One of the goals of the cheerleading program is for the girls to participate in competitive cheering. The cheerleaders are cheering for Bronson Middle School.
BYS Funding Issues
The deadline for receiving Bronson funding has created some problems for the Lambes in the past. They lost $10,000 in the first year of their program when they approached the town after the new fiscal year started. Former Mayor Beatrice Roberts didn’t offer to move the money into the parks and recreation budget for the new year.
This year the Lambes are anticipating losing about $2,000 of the $8,000 they were allocated by the council in 2021 for the same reason. Their unused money was never actually lost from the town budget. The money remained in the city budget but was moved out of parks and recreation and into a different category in the council’s operating budget for 2022. The council has the option to amend their 2022 budget to assign the money back to BYS.
The council hasn’t been giving any ground on the issue. Roberts said the Lambes must spend the money from the town in the fiscal year it was assigned to them. No one on the council challenged Roberts on the issue. Roberts has retired and won’t be part of the council when the board holds its next meeting in November. Mayor Robert Partin will run the meetings in the future. The council has cancelled its October meetings for vacation time.
Angela Lambe also asked for help from the town in filling tire ruts with sand on the soccer field. She said some of the ruts were made by the town’s lawnmowers but she and her husband also caught four-wheelers on the field.
The town has a pile of sand in their storage area at the back of the park, but the council didn’t offer to let BYS use the sand. Lambe said if the ruts are still in place when soccer games begin, referees, will force them to obtain sand to fill the ruts for the protection of the players.
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Town of Bronson Regular Meeting September 27, 2021; Posted October 3, 2021
