Lack of a second stymies court plan

Moorcroft Mayor Ben Glenn and two other councilmen has been actively working toward installing a basketball court adjoining the existing tennis court in Westview Park. With Councilman Austin Smith quoting the lowest bid for the dirt work, he excused himself from the conversation and vote at last Wednesday night’s meeting, where the formerly tabled subject was presented for consideration.

Glenn, whose company had bid but was not chosen, previously asked Town Attorney Pat Carpenter if he could join the discussion was informed that he could, “because I’m not the low bid and not part of the project”.

Councilman Dale Petersen opened the conversation candidly:

“I was hoping we could get it for $20,000-$30,000, that’s not the way it came. It’s a lot of money, but I feel we need to have that basketball court there…We either accept the low bid and build the court or we don’t and look for alternatives. If we choose not to go this way, we need to spend a little bit of money fixing up that [tennis] court.”

This opinion is also held by Glenn, who later said of this venture, “We’ve done a good job making our parks good for little kids, but these teenagers are getting into trouble like I used to…they need something to do.”

Councilman Bob Stewart said of the project that he does not, at this time, support, “It already looks like they’ve got a pickleball court right there and there’s room on the north and south sides where they can put basketball hoops. It won’t be a full court, but they could play half court.”

Stewart expressed concern about the amount of money in question for something he felt might not get used that much.

“I’m not going to say it won’t, but at least this way, if we’ve got it, we can get the poles, concrete them on the outside with the hoops on the inside of the fence and see how often it’s being used. Then, maybe, down the road, go with it,” he said.

“If it gets used quite a bit, I would not be opposed to putting in another court for the taxpayers.”

Councilwoman Heidi Humpal agreed with Stewart and later explained her reasoning for not seconding the endeavor.

“I was against building a new basketball court because, initially, when Councilman Petersen brought forth the idea, he was thinking maybe in the $40,000 range, but it came back significantly higher than that just for the dirt work and the concrete. That [price] didn’t include the finishing fence around it or the lights – we were going to be up in the $70,000-$80,000 range.”

She continued, “I went down and walked around the [tennis court] there. The fence is still in good shape, the concrete needs a little bit of work, which our maintenance guys can do, it’s something they can handle… and put a couple basketball hoops in that…We’re going to get a new net for tennis and pickleball; we can utilize what we have and see if it starts getting used again instead of wasting $80,000 on something that is already existing, it just needs a few $1000 worth of work.”

The councilwoman suggested using the funds for, “Fixing up some of the other things we have around town, in the parks that may need done, like completing the baseball field complex we have… getting that top field right so it’s useable for the baseball kids. If we’re going to put that amount of money into something, I’d like to see it put into something that actually gets used each season.”

Petersen said, “I could live with that, but I think we need to do something, we can’t let our tennis court sit there and rot like it has for the last several years.”

Discussing other options in the town parks if this motion failed, Petersen recalled the need of new playground equipment, “Maybe that’s a better use of the money.” He figured the cost of fixing the existing tennis court at a price of $54,800 before moving on to any other plans, which is the better part of the estimated $80,000 total cost previously mentioned.

“You’ve made some good points on the playground equipment and stuff like that,” admitted Glenn. “If you look around this town, though, there is nothing for the kid who is above the playground age who wants to go do something, but doesn’t want to go do what I did when I was a kid. That is the reason why I’m still going to support the basketball court – because we did tear out the only one we had in town and whether it was used three times a week or a 1000 times a year, it was still keeping an age group who might be keeping them out of things that [the police chief] gets to talk about… That’s my only opinion on the basketball court...”

He added that he understood the cost to the town, but reminded them of the SPOT tax, stating, “I assume we would use to fund this”.

The mayor later spoke candidly about the meeting’s outcome, “We’re trying to do something in this town besides water lines and sewer lines and for this motion to die for lack of a second was really disheartening.”