Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Tyrone resolves lockout of youth baseball There was no joy in Tyrone on Monday, as a temporary closing of Shamrock Park turned the town into a modern day Mudville. Joy returned on Tuesday, however, after 41 coaches had received or renewed their certifications through the National Youth Sports Coaches Association (NYSCA) the night before. Though the fields were reopened on Tuesday, games scheduled for that day had already been cancelled due to rain. Teams in the Tyrone Youth Baseball Association (TYBA) were supposed to resume league play after spring break early this week, but the fields at Shamrock Park were temporarily closed by the town due to TYBA’s non-compliance with the signed park use agreement. The agreement called for all coaches in TYBA to authorize background checks and be certified to coach by the NYSCA. The agreement also asked for a current copy of the TYBA by-laws and a complete schedule for the fields, including all tournaments scheduled to be played on the fields. The town council had set a deadline of Friday for TYBA to be in full compliance, and when that deadline passed, the fields were closed at 6:30 p.m. Friday night. “The fields will be closed until TYBA comes into compliance with the signed park use agreement,” said Town Manager Barry Amos in an interview on Monday morning. “The issues are still background checks and NYSCA certification for coaches, though there has been progress made on the background checks.” The background checks seems to be one of the major bones of contention between Tyrone and the TYBA. TYBA president Beth Higbie agreed that background checks are necessary, but she said that there is a lack of a concrete appeals process for a coach who may feel that they have been wrongly disqualified. Higbie also said that a change in where the background checks go failed to meet council wishes. According to Amos, there is a concrete appeals process and it is mentioned to the disqualified coach in the letter informing him or her of disqualification. The letter lists an address to send an appeal request to. After the request is received, the appeals committee consisting of the mayor, town manager and town attorney will meet with the person and his or her attorney. The background check results used to go to Tyrone recreation director Kim Stephens, who has since departed the position. The results currently go to a detective with the Tyrone Police Department. Higbie said that this goes against the wishes of council members who stated at an earlier meeting that they did not want the police doing coaches’ background checks. Amos said that it was council’s wish that police not conduct the background checks, which they don’t, and that once a new recreation director is hired, the results would be directed to him or her. Higbie mentioned a number of other concerns that TYBA had in a recent interview. Among them were questions of whether or not the town attorney Brad Sears was involved in writing the background check policy and whether or not Tyrone actually had the right to lock Shamrock Park due to a quit-claim deed owned by Fayette County. Amos answered these concerns by stating that not only was Sears involved in the writing of the background check policy, but TYBA was involved as well and that several changes were made to the policy based on input from Higbie. As for the quit-claim deed, Amos stated that if Shamrock Park was not used for recreational purposes, control would revert back to the county. Amos added that both mayor and council still want a recreation use for Shamrock Park. Higbie also charged that previous park use agreements were delivered late, sometimes by more than two months, giving them no time to negotiate the agreement. Amos admitted that it was possible that agreements may have been sent late, though no one in the town’s administration was aware that they had not been received. He said the park use agreement in question was the same one that was signed and complied with for the 2002/2003 season. Once the topic of a possible lockout was addressed at the most recent council meeting, charges from coaches and parents flew at both the town and TYBA. Since the fields were closed, they came out more rapidly. Rumors began circulating about the town wanting Shamrock Park to be the setting for a new town hall and library, while others vented about the current format of play in TYBA and a wide disparity in talent level between competing teams. One parent/coach, who wished to remain anonymous, said that he felt both sides were equally to blame. “The background checks issue has been mishandled by TYBA to an extent,” he said, “but a number of things have been put in place by the town of Tyrone, and then they don’t enforce them or offer assistance on how to handle them.” With park gates unlocked again, it’s “Play ball!” time for the 424 children involved in the league.