League faces shutout from its new ballfields

By Emily Heffter
Times Snohomish County bureau

JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES North Snohomish Little League's 10-field complex was built illegally and may soon have to be torn down.

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SNOHOMISH — Park the car in the ankle-deep grass and walk across the outfield, pockmarked by baseball cleats. Unfold a lawn chair in the shadow of the Cascades, buy a snack at the concession stand and settle in behind the dugouts to watch the game.

North Snohomish Little League hosts eight to 10 games a night at this new complex, a more-than-$500,000 investment in land, grass seed, bleachers and fences.

But next year, barring a change in state law, they'll have to tear it all down. If the fields are still there after May 31, 2005, the county will fine the league $250 a day.

The complex is already illegal, but county officials looked the other way when it was built on farmland. Now, the county is ending a decade-old practice of allowing sports leagues on agricultural property.

Snohomish County officials cited the North Snohomish Little League late last month for building 10 fields on agricultural land. They also gave notice to another Little League and some farmers who have leased their pastures to soccer clubs.

A state law forbids sports fields on protected agricultural land, and despite Snohomish County officials' lobbying efforts the past two years, the state Legislature hasn't agreed to allow them. Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon sponsored an effort to change the law when he was in the Legislature, but said that as county executive, he has no choice but to shut down the illegal fields.

"We have to follow the state law," he said. "We're not in a position to break the law."

Fields in high demand

Snohomish County's rapid growth in the past two decades has resulted in a shortage of ballfields. County and city governments and school districts are struggling to provide fields for games alone, leaving club and Little League teams largely on their own for practice fields.

The county is scrambling to build more ballfields but will never be able to fill the need, said Marc Krandel, planning supervisor for the parks department. Not counting school and city fields, Snohomish County has 12 baseball and seven soccer fields. In the next 18 months, the department plans to build eight baseball fields and four soccer fields.

"The county couldn't possibly produce enough fields itself to provide for the demand," he said.

The state Growth Management Act requires the county to protect farmland of "long-term commercial significance." The county determines that significance through its long-term planning.

Reardon and other proponents of changing the law say land used for ballfields can be converted easily back into farmland.

Critics of a change, including 1000 Friends of Washington, an anti-sprawl group, disagree.

"Once it's established as a ballfield for kids, that's not going to be not a ballfield," said Kristin Kelly, the Snohomish County representative for 1000 Friends. "It's always going to be a ballfield for kids. The only way you save farmland is you protect it."

Kelly's group has twice blocked legislation that would have allowed the ballfields. County officials say they'll try again, and this year they probably will have a legion of parents lobbying with them.

This battle was settled in King County four years ago. A 2000 state Supreme Court ruling prohibited ballfields on protected farmland in King County.

Outside Monroe, another wink-wink agreement is coming to an end. The county notified farmer Steve Davison he has to stop leasing about 20 acres, tucked behind the Monroe Correctional Complex on the Skykomish River, to the Sky River Soccer Club. A hand-painted plywood sign propped against a fence post points the way, down a bumpy gravel road past his fields of cattle and corn.

Next year, he'll let his cattle graze on the soccer fields, but he believes he won't be able to make as much money as he has been by leasing the fields to the soccer club. The soccer club paid him about $1,400 a year for the land, and the soccer traffic brought business to his doorstep, he said. He often sold beef, pork and corn to players and their families.

Opponents argue that sports aren't compatible with farms. Teams bring traffic and noise, and farmers have to worry about spraying chemicals or creating dust too near the fields, they say.

"Everyone knows there is no place (else) you're going to find ... flat, open space that's for sale at a reasonable price that a nonprofit youth soccer club can afford," said Chris Thornton, the president of the Sky River Soccer Club.

Tom Aichele, a vice president of the North Snohomish Little League, led the league's development of the farmland last year. Aichele said county officials have been sympathetic. They understand that nonagricultural land is too expensive for most nonprofit leagues to buy.

"I think that the county wants to get bailed out by the state," he said. The league's new fields are across the street from another clandestine complex that South Snohomish Little League has owned since 2000. Between them, the two leagues serve more than 1,200 families.

The North Snohomish league looked for property for three years after learning it would be kicked off its old fields at nearby Harvey Airfield. The state Department of Transportation paid the league a $460,000 settlement to end a dispute over an access road to the old fields. The league raised $40,000 more to complete the cost of the new complex.

"It came down to we either buy this land and hope the Legislature passes this piece of legislation or we don't play," Aichele said.

Reardon said the county "should have been honest with them earlier in this process."

Still, said Craig Ladiser, the county's new planning director, the league knew its fields weren't allowed. "I think they took a gamble," he said.

Aichele acknowledged he took a risk when the league bought the 24 acres for $240,000, but county officials told him they thought the bill would pass.

County Council Chairman John Koster, R-Arlington, says it would have passed were it not for state Rep. Sandra Romero, D-Olympia, who did not bring the bill for a vote at the local government committee she chaired. She is not running for re-election when her term ends this year, but she said her absence won't help the legislation's chances.

"I think it would be very difficult to pass the bill," she said. "I don't think we had enough votes to get it out of committee."

State politicians are committed to protecting agricultural land, she said, especially the land at stake under the proposed law.

Kelly, of 1000 Friends, said the county should be focusing on finding places for ballfields instead of counting on the state Legislature.

Jostling for field time

Some Snohomish County leagues are without fields, sharing space with adult and school teams. The Arlington Soccer Club used to play on a "bootlegged" 12-acre complex it called "The Soccer Farm," said Steve Huston, the club's president.

"I think we were the last of the soccer outlaws" in Arlington, he said. City and county officials knew where the fields were but ignored them, he said. When the farmer who was leasing the fields to the club found a way to develop the land into homes, he ended the lease.

Now the club fights for field time in city parks. It has considered finding another "soccer farm," but that doesn't seem worth the risk, Huston said.

Word of North Snohomish Little League's plight is starting to circulate among parents, and Aichele hopes they'll be forgiving. The league's board is urging parents to help lobby the Legislature, but Aichele says he fears a day when "we have to call news cameras and show them taking us off the field in handcuffs."

"It's an issue bigger than playing ball: Do we want to protect farming or don't we? I think that's the question," said 1000 Friends' Kelly. Her group wants to work with the county to find more land for fields.

For the parents who helped build the North Snohomish Little League fields, it's hard to see past the fields filled with kids in uniforms and baseball mitts.

"I definitely think what they have going here definitely outweighs the benefit of turning it into a farm," said José Martinez, his eyes wandering past the fence where his 10-year-old son was swinging at pitches Tuesday.

"They can condemn land for highways; maybe they should condemn it for ballfields," said David Lande, on the bleachers to watch his grandson play. "If you don't make room for recreation, what are you going to make room for?"

Emily Heffter: 425-783-0624 or eheffter@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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