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EAGLE — For around five decades basketball players have gathered for noon-hour pickup games. Back in the day, the gym was on the top floor of the old Eagle County building until the roof started leaking like a sieve.
Renovation plans did not include a gym and it looked like “game over” for the noon ballplayers.
However, in the mid-1990s the school district wanted to build a new gym at Eagle Valley Middle School but didn’t have enough money, and asked Eagle to kick in some cash. Eagle agreed and contributed $431,000, with the condition that noon ballplayers would be able to play there for the next 50 years. Mountain Recreation, then known as WECMRD, would manage the noon ball program.
The three entities inked the deal on July 25, 1995, and all lived happily ever after … until this spring.
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Eagle County Schools now says it’s a new world and it does not want adult basketball players in the same building as middle school students during the school day.
The school district asked Mountain Recreation to relocate Eagle’s lunchtime basketball to the Gypsum Recreation Center. The players say the move will kill their 50-year tradition.
What’s a 50-year deal worth?
The school district says the remaining years on Eagle’s lease are worth $13,000, and that’s what the district is offering Eagle to walk away from its $431,000 investment in 1995, worth $739,851 in 2020.
Caught in the middle is the Eagle Town Council, which is scrambling for cash in the wake of the COVID-19 economic crash. The council postponed any action until later this month.
During a March 24 town council meeting, some Eagle Town Council members wondered aloud what the lease is worth, and if a $13,000 buyout was a sufficient return for their 1995 investment of $431,000.
From the opposite end, during a meeting earlier this month, several school board members said they’re ready to terminate the agreement, kick the players out and banish them to the Gypsum Recreation Center.
Some school board members said it’s time for the players “to put the students’ needs first.”
Killing an Eagle tradition
“Noon ball is a 50-year Eagle tradition that would die if they’re forced out,” said Scott Webster, who has played noon ball for years.
That 1995 agreement said with Eagle’s contribution, the school district would build the gym big enough to be a community asset.
The gym was built for around $92 a square foot, under that 1995 agreement. It would probably cost around $220 a square foot now, Webster said.
Under that 1995 agreement, a rec district staffer was supposed to monitor noon ball. That soon went by the wayside and Webster said noon ballers were told to police themselves. So they did, Webster said.
“If anyone came in who we didn’t know, we’d handle them,” Webster said.
Sometimes that meant directing people to the restroom. Sometimes that meant banishment, like the guy who started a fight during a game who was told not to return.
Mountain Recreation board agrees
In a March meeting, the Mountain Recreation board directed the staff to move the program to the Gypsum Rec Center, a facility it manages. In handing down its edict, the board cited “the liability associated with bringing the public into a school facility during the school day.”
“When the intergovernmental agreement was signed in 1995, Mountain Rec did not have alternative locations to host the legacy program,” wrote Janet Bartnick, Mountain Recreation’s executive director, in an email. “Today, the district operates the Gypsum Recreation Center, and relocation of the program is possible.”
Bartnick said there was an incident reported to Safe2Tell this year that was addressed, and which presents legitimate concerns going forward.
“Our board did not feel it was appropriate to host an adult program in a middle school, during school hours, for the safety of our children,” Bartnick said.
Gym access and security cannot be monitored and controlled at the level it needs to be, the school district said.
“Unfortunately, times have changed over the last 25 years that it no longer makes sense to continue to mix the student population with community members. Hosting the program at the school, during the school day when students are present, is putting our students and staff at risk. Safety must be a priority and limiting opportunity for access to the school is imperative,” the school district said in its proposal to move the program.