WECRD proposes dugout solution to city council

During a Mountain Home City Council meeting on March 12, Western Elmore County Recreation District Director Lee Pierce came before the City Council and Mayor Rich Sykes with a proposed plan to deal with litigation involving the Minor League baseball dugouts owned by the city.

Last fall the former board of the WECRD had agreed to pay Cristobal Construction to build new dugouts for the field. Shortly after that agreement Judge Jonathan Medema's injunction put a halt to the gifting of money to other taxing districts. That decision left the payment of the project, that was already in process, up in the air. On the week that the Board of Directors of the WECRD were recalled, both the WECRD and the city council voted on the lease of the dugouts by the WECRD in an attempt to pay the outstanding bill. The City Council was torn on the decision and Mayor Rich Sykes had to break a tie that was later discovered to be an invalid vote in the matter and the lease was void.

Since that time the new board of directors and the city have been trying to find a way to finish the construction and get local businessman John Cristobal paid the money he is owed for the portion of the project that his company completed. City workers and Director Pierce recently completed work on the dugouts in time for the start of the softball and baseball seasons to begin in Mountain Home and now the two entities are on track to stop litigation over the unpaid bill. During a special meeting of the WECRD on March 7 the directors and their attorney Philip Miller discussed the matter in depth. Director Lee Pierce made a motion to go to the city with a long term lease plan for the Minor League fields. Both he and President Dan Gillies voted in favor of the lease while Director Doug Meyer voted against the lease.

On the evening of March 12, Director Pierce came to the city asking for a 15 year lease of the field.For the full story, pick up a copy of the Mountain Home News or click on this link to subscribe to the newspaper's online edition.