LAWTON – Lawton’s new Youth Sports Authority is gearing up to take over management of the city’s recreational programs for young athletes.
The board met for the first time Friday to take care of housekeeping matters, including selecting officers and approving bylaws. After taking care of those items, the board discussed its mission of administering the city’s youth sports programs.
In February, the Lawton City Council approved a trust indenture establishing the Youth Sports Authority, which will develop and oversee youth sports programs and venues. The change will make it easier for the city’s parks and recreation department, which currently manages those programs, to focus on other tasks.
The authority is responsible for promoting Lawton’s youth sports programs, attracting tournaments, and managing playing fields and other venues. That could include the city’s indoor youth sports complex, which will be built in Elmer Thomas Park.
The authority should put the sports complex on the back burner for now and focus on the transition from city-run sports programs to authority-run programs, said member Hossein Moini.
“Of course, the facility will come,” he said. “But I think that all the media coverage mostly has been about what the facility’s going to look like. We’re not stopping that project, but we are putting a brake in that piece of this project to figure out the programs and get that done.”
Chairman Brian Henry said Mayor Stan Booker has challenged the authority to build the best youth sports programs in the state. Henry added that the authority has a lot of work to do if it wants to complete the transition by July 1.
“We’re going to build some of this airplane in the air, because July 1 is not only the fiscal year change, but it’s also the gap in the registration periods (for youth sports programs),” Henry said.
But some people said they thought the transition, which would include finding a program director and setting a budget, could take at least a year,
“You’ve got to have time to identify the funding,” said City Manager Michael Cleghorn. “You have to have time to identify the contractor. You need time to identify the person who’s going to manage your youth sports programs. I see that as a 12- to 18-month transition.”
He said a longer transition period would give the authority more time to work through the process. In addition, it would help city officials decide how to reassign Parks and Recreation staff who are currently involved in administering youth sports programs.
“It would give them time to transition to other positions if they so choose,” Cleghorn said. “They know when it’s going to happen instead of -- right now, if it were to be July 1, we turn the switch on, I’ve got to figure out what to do with x number of employees that are involved in youth sports from Parks and Rec.”