Youth Soccer Convinces City to Enter Partnership

The Elite Soccer League -- a youth league with about 400 players in San Clemente -- will have guaranteed sports field access at discounts after convincing the San Clemente City Council Tuesday to enter a partnership.

The league was originally recommended for denial by staff because of the way they're run as a nonprofit, the fact that the coaches choose teams rather than spreading out kids of all skill levels among teams and some other considerations.

The city developed its partnership model to allow youth leagues access to the city's sports fields at different discount levels -- leagues that would offer services similar to what a city-run league would offer, said city Recreation Manager Pam Passow.

Under the rules for accepting a league into the city's junior partnership level, the league must have no more than 20 percent of its revenue go toward administration. According to the staff report, however, Elite soccer spends 47 percent on paying trainers, administrators and referees.

But Mike Affleck, director of the Orange County-based league, said the city staffers had miscalculated the nonprofit's revenue and expenses. They included money paid to trainers voluntarily by coaches and other expenses that aren't accounted as revenue for the league -- the actual administration expenses for 2012 were 7.5 percent of revenue, Affleck said.

Kids and parents packed Council Chambers to argue their case.

Elite Soccer parent Tom Tuttle argued the city would be unfair to "rubber-stamp" American Youth Soccer Organization, Little League and a couple other leagues while rejecting Elite's partnership.

Volunteer coach Stacey Cunningham argued that without a partnership status, kids in the Elite league had access to sub-par practice fields.

"They don't deserve to be falling in gopher holes, and they deserve to be playing on real grass," she said.

Council members voted 4-1 to approve a junior partnership status for Elite, saying that the overriding concern for granting partnership is to provide access to the fields to taxpayers "because they have already paid for them and continue to pay for them," as Councilman Tim Brown put it. 

Mayor Bob Baker dissented, saying the selective nature of the league's players didn't serve the bulk of San Clemente residents, but he did urge staffers to figure out a better way to allocate field space to all groups.