HARLINGEN — Rules for the city’s athletic fields, pools and other venues are now in place to ensure the facilities receive maximum use and generate the most revenue, city officials say.
The Parks and Recreation Department, following approval last week by the City Commission, has established rates it intends to charge for using the city’s baseball, football, softball and soccer fields for practice and tournaments.
Starting yesterday, the city is now charging for daily use of athletic fields on league off-days, which is a change in how usage rates have been structured in the past.
Carlos Sanchez, assistant city manager, characterized the changes as a bit of “house-cleaning.”
“At the same time we were trying to standardize our fee structure,” he said yesterday. “There were some fees that were a little bit outdated.”
Harlingen’s parks and rec department hasn’t changed its facility rates in about seven years. From this week on, it is now charging $150 all day per field for city residents hosting a tournament, and $180 for non-residents.
By comparison, Brownsville charges residents $200 per day for non-tournament field use and $300 per day for a tournament. Non-residents are charged $250 per day for non-tournament play and $350 per day for tournament play, according to the City of Brownsville’s website.
Prior to this week, field rental rates were set by the nonprofit league groups that had leased the fields for the season.
“The way it worked before is we had a lease agreement with the non-profit organization that would run the city leagues, the softball leagues or the football leagues,” Sanchez said. “So they had full control of the use of the fields.”
That means those league groups received a daily rental fee, not the city, when another group or team wanted to use the fields on a league off-day.
The new agreements mean these league groups have to submit a schedule or calendar to the city marked with the days the league intends to play. The city will then rent the facilities on off-days to other groups and collect the fee.
Sanchez said the revised rules aren’t necessarily designed just to maximize revenue. He said it will also keep the fields in use more days out of the year and at least earn enough money to pay the city’s operational expenses.
Other changes, he said, will allow the rental of city swimming pools during non-public hours. For a three-hour period, the fee would be $250 for a city resident and $300 for non-residents. Previously the city charged $200 for a pool for four hours.
“Pretty reasonable,” he said.
Other rates and fees, too
The fee changes for Harlingen’s city recreation fields were not the only ones approved by city commissioners.
Rate and fee changes also were green-lighted for the Harlingen Public Library, the Planning and Zoning Department, Municipal Auditorium, Casa de Amistad, the Harlingen Arts and Cultural Museum, other public buildings and Tony Butler Golf Course.
Some fees are actually going down, not up.
At the financially troubled Tony Butler Golf Course, the facility’s board has long been frustrated at its inability to match lower green fees at private golf courses in the area since the city commission sets the rates the course can charge.
Sanchez said lower greens and cart fees actually went into effect at Tony Butler on July 1 on a trial basis, and said there has been a “slight uptick” in the number of golfers using the course since. But he said it is too early to say whether the additional golf traffic will continue.
The new summer rates from May through September are $23 to play 18 holes with cart included. From October through April, the cost is $17 per 18 holes and an additional $11 per cart rider.
“We hope this is a tool that’s going to help us promote the course, and then just kind of allow people to come back and visit the facility and be able to enjoy a good-quality course,” he said.
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