ANALYSIS By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
The Public Works Department in Bronson mowed the soccer field this week at James H. Cobb Park, which was good, but the lawnmowers left tire indentations in soft soil across the field, which wasn’t good.
Bronson Youth Sports, Inc. is hosting two soccer tournaments this month at the park, site of the soccer field, so the indentations have some significance. The field needs to be flat for the soccer games. The town park will be filled with people.
The tire indentations on the soccer field were made by the town’s heavy commercial lawnmowers operating on soft marshy-like soil. The soccer field is lumpier than usual in some areas due to the tire track ridges, but to be honest, the tracks may not be deep enough to stop the tournaments.
In the past, the marshy soil, which was placed on the field during the development of the park in seasonally wet areas of the town off Picnic Street, has healed itself over time by swelling up and filling in the shallow tracks left by tires.
But the soccer field also has current tire marks left by lawnmowers in recent weeks when the field was too wet to mow, and by four-wheelers using the field illegally. Those tire marks need to be filled in with sand. The four-wheelers that made the imprints were apparently using the field for fun.
The council has yet to offer Bronson Youth Sports, Inc. assistance in filling in the deep tire tracks with sand. The town has a pile of sand in the storage area that could be used for filling in the deeper tire marks. Angela Lambe, co-founder of Bronson Youth Sports asked for assistance at this week’s council meeting but got little response.
The Bronson Town Council doesn’t have any security at the park. The council previously purchased four park security cameras but installed three of the cameras in Town Hall to protect town employees. The cameras have never been moved to the park. The sheriff’s office occasionally drives through the park on patrols but provides little security.
One of the original security cameras is mounted in the storage area at the park but isn’t functional. The council has not seen fit to purchase additional cameras for the park or move the cameras in Town Hall to the park, hence lack of security.
There are many unauthorized ways to enter the park, even if both of the metal gates on Picnic Street are closed. Picnic Street runs through the middle of the park. There are two rarely used gates on either side of the park that can be bypassed for illegal entry plus other locations the town doesn’t acknowledge as existing. The pranksters can have their way after dark even if both gates on Picnic Street are closed to vehicle traffic.
Much of the damage at the park in the past has occurred in the dark hours of the morning when the park is officially closed. Closing the park from midnight to 5 a.m. hasn’t stopped the damage because there are too many ways to walk or drive into the park other than through the main entrances. The damage occurs when most of the town is fast asleep.
Bronson Youth Sports, Inc. has had its battles with the council and in particular with former Mayor Beatrice Roberts. She retired on Thursday. The youth organization has lost $12,000 of town start-up funds because the mayor put her foot down and said the organization should have asked for the funds during the fiscal year when the funds were allocated in 2021 and 2022. The fiscal years run from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30 of the following year, but those fiscal years don’t always match up well with youth activities and with the signing up of young people for the programs. The council wants the youth organization to honor the fiscal year deadlines and show up far enough in advance to ask for the money. Point well taken, but more flexibility on the part of the council would be welcome when it comes to the start-up funds.
The council could transfer the $12,000 back to Bronson Youth Sports, Inc. budget if it was so inclined. The money was never taken out of the town council budget. It was simply moved to other areas of the budget and can legally be given back to the youth program with a budget amendment.
The town council had been paying a Bronson Recreation and Parks director about $40,000 annually to run the youth program, but BPR had withered and was about to collapse completely when David and Angela Lambe stepped in as volunteers to take over what was left of the dying program. They named their new program Bronson Youth Sports, Inc.
With the arrival of the Lambes, council members are getting a youth recreation program at a considerably lower cost because the Lambe’s don’t take a salary. They are volunteering hundreds of hours of time annually to run the youth program for the town, but they don’t get much thanks from the council.
Town Manager Susan Beaudet has stepped in more than once to help out the program. In one instance, Bronson Public Works Director Curtis Stacy, who was previously the paid recreation director, wanted to use the classroom building at the park for his staff to take breaks. The Lambe’s finally got control of the classroom building with Beaudet’s help and are using it for its intended purpose to serve the community’s young people.
Beaudet also found $7,000 in unspent money in executive salaries and moved the money to another part of the budget, with town council permission, for use in restriping the town’s track at the park. Bronson Middle High School Track Coach Rod Thomas wants to use the track for BMHS home track meets next year.
The council considers Bronson Youth Sports, Inc. to be a private organization, which is true, but it also agreed to give them start-up funding and withdrew $ 12,000 of that money.
The Lambe’s managed to keep the youth program going during the COVID-19 Pandemic last year, but the council didn’t offer any pats on the back for their good work. Going forward, will the council’s attitude toward the youth program improve, and will the council ever give the program all of its start-up money? Will the council install security cameras at the park and throw its full weight behind having home track meets at the park?
Meanwhile, the town has a lumpy soccer field to use in two weeks for the first big soccer meet at the park and the deeper tire tracks on the field haven’t been filled. But the park is mowed. It is neatly trimmed. Mowing has been difficult with all the heavy rains this year. Some of the mowing ceased entirely because mowers were getting stuck.
A good bit of the park was underwater a few weeks ago. A river of swamp water continues to flow through a drainage ditch at the back of the park. Much of the park was built in a marshy area and floods during heavy rains. Stacy experienced this problem as the paid recreation director. The Lambe’s have also experienced the flooding. The flooding is often an impediment to using the park for youth recreation. The council could probably improve drainage but hasn’t shown much interest in the subject and doesn’t welcome suggestions from the public. The council takes the position that the park just naturally floods, which is true but hasn’t conducted a study to find out how to improve drainage.
The town has a new mayor in Robert Partin. The mayor often wields a bigger stick than the other council members, but Partin has to acknowledge the power of the town manager, who was hired to run the town. However, Partin can wield considerable influence in policy decisions as the town moves forward. Roberts insisted on overseeing the town park herself. She is gone now. Ideally, someone with more interest in the town’s youth and its recreational programs, and someone who actually lives in Bronson and is young enough to appreciate the importance of youth recreation, will take over the position of overseeing the town park. The council member who oversees that park has no official power to make changes but can monitor what’s going on at the park and make suggestions at council meetings. The council member overseeing the park can also work more closely with the Lambe’s and try to meet their needs rather than throwing up roadblocks.
Time will tell.
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Town of Bronson October 3, 2021
