Youth ballplayers struck with upkeep fees previously paid by taxpayers

Youth baseball and softball teams will have to include an extra expense in their budget for the 2026 season as the city works to better maintain their fields.

Creston Park Director Rusty Zimmerman explained the current situation with the city-owned fields during February’s park and rec meeting.

“We have about five different organizations that use our fields and they currently use them scotch free, which means we pay for everything,” Zimmerman said. “Those fields are expensive to maintain; they’re expensive to put new bedding in or rock, and the bases.”

Some of the teams mentioned were the Creston schools, Southwest Iowa Baseball Association and little league. Board member Margo Fuller and Creston City Council member Kiki Scarberry were both appalled to hear the city was doing all the work with no recompense.

“I thought the schools were prepping the field themselves,” Scarberry said.

“I know how much the baseball program made on their fundraiser last year. It is not out of line to ask them to pay for it,” Fuller said. “I’m appalled that we haven’t charged them, that this has happened, and I’m a parent of a child that’s played on all of those teams.”

Zimmerman pointed out that little league specifically said in their registration forms that some of the money families pay to be involved would go toward field maintenance. However, this hasn’t happened in years.

“‘Each year, our costs include the uniforms, shirts, equipment, our umpires, capital improvements such as fencing and some of the maintenance on the field and the facilities in which we use,’” Zimmerman read. “That’s the very first paragraph of the registration form. There is no funding that comes to us - zero.”

Zimmerman said the games that cost the most money to the city involve the softball team, the only team to not use a mound, at the VFW field.

“They turn around and get done playing sometime say at noon or 1 p.m. because they played a doubleheader and at 4 p.m. they have little league games that require the mound, so I have a three-hour window to tear that field down, repaint the field and bring the mound in, which is not moveable by man power,” Zimmerman said. “We take four guys, and that wastes an hour and a half, two hours. It’s a lot of time. Probably once a week, we have seven games a day.”

After doing more research, Zimmerman proposed prices to the park and rec board Wednesday, March 19.

“My suggestion based off of labor, materials, chalk and paint for the little league is $25 a night, straight across the board. If they’re using the field, it’s $25. The VFW, however, which is what the junior high softball uses, is $100,” Zimmerman said. “If we want to make our fields better, bring them back to where they should be, this can help that process.”

The city would only charge for games, not practices. As most programs have already started their season and taken payments from players, Zimmerman said no one would be charged this year. However, the teams should be prepared for this change in summer 2026.

In other park news...

While previous rain acted as a setback to JNC Construction as they work to dredge McKinley Lake, it didn’t take long to find a solution. A new water pump has been purchased, with the ability to pump out 2.1 million gallons of water a day. The crew will be on another project for the few weeks, but once they’re back, Zimmerman said it’s full steam ahead.

“It looks like they’re just keeping to that corner… that’s the deepest part of that whole way, so once they get that done, once they move towards the bridge, they go from 13 feet and they’re going down to 2 [feet],” Zimmerman said. “They’re working the heaviest area right now to try to get it done. Pray for a very dry spring and summer.”