Reply to DCPS students shafted again - sign petition to keep Jelleff field public

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Reply to "DCPS students shafted again - sign petition to keep Jelleff field public"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No dog in this fight, but I’ve coached baseball in many different schools in DC. Jelleff was owned by the boys and girls club, the city bought the building and field in '08 or '09.  There city didn't begin maintaining the building until then.  The field was built, turfed, and maintained by Maret during the fall/spring according to the lease since then.  The reason it's a 10-year lease is that 10 years is the lifecycle of the turf on the field.  Maret uses the field until 6pm (unless there is a game being played, and Maret has earlier game start times than other teams in the league) Monday-Friday, 3 or 4 Saturdays a season.  The British School uses the field during the weekdays until 330 pm on weekdays when the field is generally unused.  The reason for this setup is to accommodate as many groups as possible including Stoddard, and Break-Out Lacrosse.

Furthermore, as someone who has extensive history with DPR's inability to maintain outdoor athletic facilities I know the city won't actually maintain the field space.  I've spent countless hours prepping and maintaining public baseball fields like Banneker/Maury Wills, Ft. Reno, Friendship, Guy Mason, Hamilton (before it was turf) and Taft field.  Every time the city loses one of it's public/private partnerships the facilities, and the children that year them, suffer.  A recent and local example is the conditions that have deteriorated at Guy Mason since Georgetown Softball left.[/quote]

You've identified a big issue  - what the city has done historically with maintaining field space. The city had these properties like Jellef for years that it did nothing with -- even though residents (public school children) could have used them back ten plus years ago. Private interest groups came in renovated properties to be usable in exchange for a use period plus an additional fee. The private interest group created the value on city property and now wants an extension. It's a tough issue. [/quote]

Except that doesn't sound like what's happening here, at all.  [b]It sounds like DC bought the field and then immediately leased it to Maret for 10 years at an incredibly cheap rate, on the "condition" that Maret do renovations that benefit only Maret.  Basically DC bought a field for Maret.  [/quote][/b]

This deserves investigation.[/quote]

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