By Bert Lehman
The city of Clintonville recently met with representatives from the organizations that will utilize W.A. Olen Athletic Field this year to discuss the field and the facility’s bleachers.
Parks and Recreation Director Justin Mc Auly told the parks and recreation committee at its May 2 meeting that the advertising program at the field also came up during the discussion.
“The Clintonville Athletics want to hand it down to somebody else that has more time and can better the system a little bit,” Mc Auly told the committee. “They really don’t have a whole lot of time to dedicate to that program.”
The Clintonville A’s Badger Amateur Baseball Association team currently has an advertising agreement with the city of Clintonville.
According to Mc Auly, the agreement calls for the A’s to solicit advertising for the field, hold onto the funds and provide the city with a financial report covering the advertising funds.
Funds can be spent only on projects agreed to by both the A’s and the city.
“Those funds need to be put into the field,” Mc Auly said.
Mc Auly said one idea brought up during the discussion was the possible creation of a new organization with its own tax ID number that would oversee the advertisement program of the W.A. Olen Athletic Field.
“This organization would have a representative from all the organizations that utilize the facility and a rep from the city itself,” Mc Auly said.
The proposed new organization would be responsible for soliciting advertising in addition to deciding which projects take place at the facility, Mc Auly said.
He added the goal would be to increase advertising revenue so less taxpayer funds would have to be used on the facility. This would create the possibility that user fees could be eliminated in the future.
“Or at least reduce (user fees) would be the goal,” Mc Auly said.
Mc Auly said it might be 2020 before a new organization could be created.
“I think it would help the city out a lot because I think we’d be able to get some of those things done that we are just unable to afford,” Mc Auly said. “If we can better that program, I think we can have more funding available.”
Committee members appeared receptive to the idea.