SANDY, Utah — Last year, Sandy families paid about $5,000 for field space for football. This year, that fee could be tripled to as much as $17,000.
Chris Erwin received an email from his son, Rylan’s, football league – Alta youth league -- about the city increasing rental rates. "I don’t think it’s fair, when we were first alerted of it, it struck a nerve.”
“It’s not about me, it’s about the kids, and them playing football,” said Erwin. “You want to give everybody access to play the sport, it’s a fun sport, kids love it, and for that kind of an increase all that once, it didn’t sit well with me, it actually made me really upset."
"It hurts me because a lot of these kids, me included, feel like football is a second family,” said Jamie Benzon, president of the Alta youth football league. She said to be able to handle the new proposed rates, they would have to reduce practice hours for kids, and eventually, families would have to help bear costs.
"I know parents are working multiple jobs and trying to put food on the table with the price of groceries and stuff like that, it’s just, this is an added expense,” said Benzon. She has been in talks with the city, and said they are moving from charging the rent for teams per kid, and now doing it by the hour.
"Football is huge, it teaches you teamwork, it teaches you commitment, teaches you obligation,” said Michael Harrington, whose son also plays in the league. “If you’re taking that time away from them, its harmful all the way around."
Sandy City said they are dealing with the rising costs of everything as well. "We are paying more for water, we are paying more for labor, and we're paying more for fertilizer,” said Barb Smith, director of communications for Sandy City.
But they are also hearing people's concerns and understand that is a high increase in a short period of time. So, they said they also will work with youth teams and figure out what is feasible.
"Recreation is very important to Sandy, we have numerous parks, they’re all well utilized and our children are important to us, so we don’t want to limit our children from being able to play on these beautiful facilities,” added Smith. “So the negotiation continues, these are not solid numbers yet, and we expect that we will come to a reasonable solution soon."
