Editor, Times-Union: In light of the proposed funding cut to the CCAC, I would like to commend the city.
When the city looks at this they are looking at two things. How does it impact the community? And what is it doing to help our local youth (local athletes)?
The CCAC's impact on the community is little.
The complex only promotes business of their interest (Ramada, Buffalo Wild WIngs, Papa Johns.) If Karl has a bug against you or you’re not a board member your business is probably going to be left out of the loop on that. He brings in out of town vendors to "keep everyone at the park" and spend their money at the park. He wants the money to stay there as much as possible and does not promote the local restaurants very well, if at all.
This year's College Showcase only yielded at most four college coaches. More effort is needed for good ideas to be successful. Talking does not get work done. Things need to be worked out, thought out, and executed with a care in mind. In this case, there should also be employees making sure that they get coaches to the park for this event no matter what the case.
The T-ball leagues are a great example of the professionalism that CCAC shows. One of teams wore shirts that were sponsored by Little Caesars, they had to play the whole year wearing shirts that said "Little Ceasers." Also, at the end of the year Certificates of Achievement were given out to the kids. They were all given a certificate that said "Certificate of Achievment". This sends the wrong message to our youth and I hope that they do not follow.
The place is very unprofessional as I have seen many grammar mistakes on important outgoing documents, employees smoke freely (including the Executive Director) during youth tournaments and right in front of all these youth athletes. The look of the park lacks in many different spots. The parking lots, the fields, the scoreboards, etc., very unprofessional looking place.
This isn't a make it or break it fund for the CCAC. The power lies at the top. More involvement on private funding and fundraising will even this issue out.
Past funded projects have turned into a vacant gymnasium, a generic website, and an unnecessary all-terrain vehicle. That's where the $20,000 goes and are used to fund unnecessary or half thought out projects. Also, the city doesn't want to fund a private penthouse apartment above the Executive Director's office.
The park only helps the commerce of the community a handful of weekends during the summer season. Where is the all-year-around help? This place needs to get creative and think of sports other than softball, particularly winter sports. They should develop a system for the winter time where they can pull as much revenue as summer time. Maybe some sports like gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, and lacrosse could make a good, profitable program for the winter times. Camps, clinics, leagues; they need something.
With eight potential full-time employees, there should be plenty of resources to have eight different sports or purposes to fully commit to. Right now the facility only caters to one sport. With all of the resources available out there, some other sports could be involved in the process and be catered to. I'm sure the city sees that this place is primarily functioning for softball and would rather put funds in places where the money can help more people and the community.
