Tourism board, city at odds over fields

The Corbin Tourism Commission and officials from the City of Corbin are at odds over the renovation and construction of soccer and youth football fields on a piece of land located at the Corbin Civic Center.The Tourism Commission is unhappy with the work that has been done on the land the Commission donated to Corbin Parks and Recreation in 2003, and questioned whether they got their money’s worth out of the $75,000 of Land and Water Conservation Fund Grant money used for the work.
Another point of contention between the two is what type of field is being built on the property.
Tourism Commission chairman, Dennis Lynch, said the Tourism Board thought the soccer fields being built would include fields for youth league teams, as well as a regulation size soccer field that could be used to host college soccer tournaments.
Parks and Recreation Director Marlon Sams says he the understood that the fields were for the city’s youth leagues and not for tournaments.
Corbin City Manager Bill Ed Cannon, Commissioner Alan Onskt, and Sams attended the Tourism Commission meeting Wednesday to try to clear the air between the two parties.
Onkst said the reason he was at the meeting was because he felt like the city was continually getting “hammered” about the field and he would just like to put it to rest the city’s involvement in the dispute. He pointed out that Parks and Recreation operated independently from the city.
“I’d just like to get that part of it behind us so that we can quit beating each other up over it, and that’s what’s happening. Call it what it is,” Onkst said. “I can tell you’re unhappy by the look on your face,” Onkst told Lynch.
“I’m very unhappy. I’ve been unhappy since the day you all said you had it fixed,” Lynch said.
Part of that unhappiness seemed to be the board’s lack of input on what was being done on the property.
“We gave up half our Civic Center property for this program and when they got done it is not anyways near what the agreement was,” Lynch said.
“I never saw a set of specks. I never talked to the person that did the work. We didn’t have any say so even though we were giving up half our land. We didn’t want any say so, we just wanted the facility to be done for the children of the community,” Lynch said.
Lynch said the board was under the impression that the land would be filled in, level with the parking lot.
In response to board member Burly Foley’s question of getting their money’s worth, Cannon said, “You got what was bid. What was bid was put in there. I think the final project cost on this was about $80,000, so we got the grant for $75,000 and put another $5,000 with it.”
Cannon also told the board that when the cost of bringing dirt and filling in level to the parking lot was figured up, it would have cost about another $160,000.
Several board members also questioned whether or not he field was level.
“The field is about two or three feet below the parking lot but it is level. It doesn’t look like it from the parking lot but when you get down on it, it is level,” Sams said.
Lynch also said that workers damaged sewer lines, which flooded bathrooms at the Civic Center.
Sams told the board that any damage that was done to Civic Center property was fixed by the contractor.
Sams explained to the board that a youth football field was being built on one end of the property, with a 75×120 yard high school soccer field on the other end with smaller fields between the two.
“The way the soccer section is being done, we’re not taking up as much room for the smaller kids as we are for the bigger kids, so you’ve got plenty of room for soccer fields,” Sams said.
Board members questioned why the fields were not ready for play after over two years.
“I am still of the opinion, that we don’t have a soccer field up there that is playable and we can go up there and start having tournaments on and people would want to come from out of town and want to play on, and we don’t have a football field of any type,” Lynch said.
Board member Missy Shelton said “We need something for those kids to use this year. When we first brought this up we thought it would be the next year and then it was the next year.”
Sams told the board that the soccer fields could be used this fall, but the football needed more time. “You could use it right now but we are letting the grass grow. We couldn’t hardly get any to grow. We put over two tons of fertilizer on that, so it needs more time’ Sams said.
As to the Tourism Commission being able to host college soccer tournaments on the fields, Sams said there was room to build a full size soccer field but that was not the purpose of the grant in the first place.
“I don’t know why we would want to host a college tournament in the first place. Yes you can put a larger field there, but the misconception, forgive me if I’m wrong, but that was deeded over to us to do as we see fit, to build some soccer fields and football fields. When I approached the board about this project, it was understood that it was for the junior soccer association,” Sams said.
Board member Don Estep said it was time to move on and asked what needed to be done to see that the fields are completed.
He recommended that the board consider supporting the Corbin Recreation Commission on finalizing the project, keep the board informed and involved and let the board be an advisor to it and move forward from this point and get the job done.
Onkst also invited everyone on the board to attend one of the City Commission’s monthly work sessions to discuss any problems they had with things the city was doing.
“I would think the ideal thing would be to come down there and sit down and talk to us face-to-face and not badmouth us out here in the community.” “We’ve got to learn to work together even when we make mistakes and things don’t exactly turn out like we think they ought to.”