LAWTON –Lawton has created a trust authority for the city’s youth sports programs.
Lawton City Council approved on Tuesday a trust indenture to set up the Lawton Youth Sports Authority, which will develop and oversee youth sports programs and facilities. The city’s parks and recreation department currently manages those programs.
The authority’s duties include promoting youth sports programs, attracting state and national tournaments, managing playing fields and other facilities. That could include the city’s proposed indoor youth sports complex, which will be built at Elmer Thomas Park.
The original trustees of the nine-member board Councilmen Randy Warren and Sean Fortenbaugh; businessmen Brian Henry and Hossein Moini; Albert Johnson Jr., vice president of university advancement at Cameron University; Lawton-Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Dr. Krista Ratliff; attorney Steve Coleman; insurance agent Clint Powell; and Carey Monroe, director of events management at Cameron. Mayor Stan Booker is the trustor, who establishes the trust.
Warren, Powell and Coleman will each serve one term on the authority, while Fortenbaugh, Monroe and Ratliff will serve two terms apiece. Henry, Moini and Johnson will each serve three-year terms. After each trustee’s original term expires, all appointments to the authority will be for a three-year term unless a trustee is disqualified or removed for cause.
The original trustees’ successors will include two sitting council members, who will be nominated by the mayor. The seven remaining slots will be nominated and filled by a quorum of the current trustees, as the need arises. The council must confirm all nominees.
At least six of the trustees must live within Lawton’s city limits. If a trustee moves outside the city limits and the board now longer has three Lawton residents, at least one of the nonresidents will have to be replaced to comply with the residency requirement.
The residency requirement does not apply to the original nine trustees, but it does apply to their successors.
Councilman Jay Burk said he liked the idea of having a trust authority manage the city’s youth sports programs, but he was concerned about the method for appointing future trustees.
“It would be nice, in my mind, if we set out how those people are appointed,” he said. “Because it goes on to say that as those other seven positions become vacant, they are reappointed by whoever’s left on the trust to appoint whoever they choose that live inside the city limits.”
Burk said the current system for nominating trustees could lead to politicizing the authority, which he wanted to avoid.
As an alternative, Burk suggested allowing the mayor to nominate two sitting council members to the trust, which is the case now. In addition, he proposed allowing an outside organization, such as the Parks and Recreation Commission, to nominate other candidates for the trust.
“The ones that I’ve done in the past, we’ve always tried to figure out ways that those positions would be filled and how it would be equitable, and nobody would have control of the situation,” he said.
Mayor Booker said that all candidates for a seat on the trust authority, whether they are nominated by the mayor or someone else, are subject to council confirmation.
“We – meaning whoever’s doing it, whether it’s me or the group that’s left – all we do is nominate,” he said. “The council appoints.”
Brian Henry, one of the original trustees, said the idea behind the current system was to appoint trustees whose children were old enough to participate in youth sports programs.
“I think we have a selection – a broad range,” he said. “We have entrepreneurs. We have attorneys. We have chamber representatives, university representatives.”
Henry noted that the council has the final say on who will serve on the authority.