Letter: Why is town manager targeting youth sports?

Posted 8/22/18

To the editor:

It's unfortunate and embarrassing to have to write this letter.  

Unfortunate because it seems every time the town or school department wants to save money, there is an …

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Letter: Why is town manager targeting youth sports?

Posted

To the editor:

It's unfortunate and embarrassing to have to write this letter.  

Unfortunate because it seems every time the town or school department wants to save money, there is an immediate attack on services that benefit the future or our community, the youth of Barrington.

It's embarrassing, because after living in town for 10 years, I'm starting to regret my decision to move here. I find myself questioning if we made the right decision.

Why am I fighting with the town's decision to allow Barrington Pop Warner the use of a Little League baseball field to host a flag football league for 150 kids.  

What am I doing here?  

Why did the town try to cut the lock on the Pop Warner storage locker at Tap-In? My phone number is all over our website, I know because mothers and fathers call me all the time asking about football.

Would we have been better off in North Kingstown, Portsmouth, or East Greenwich?

I completely understand the middle school project has made it very difficult to support our youth sports programs, but that is no excuse. That school has been in planning for close to a decade. The town should have seen it coming.

Barrington created this problem, and it's larger than field use. We built a community around our schools. Our town pride is built on education and thriving youth programs. But that is not the town manager's domain...maybe it should be.

He's claimed to reach out to the youth league administrators, but I haven't heard from him, except when he wanted to throw Barrington Pop Warner out of Tap-In and Veterans field. Has he contacted the soccer, lacrosse, or baseball leagues?

What I read was that he's talked to "older" residents, who seem to think the town is under charging. Is that the right population to weigh an opinion on what our young citizens require? 

In my opinion, the town manager should think first about our identity as a town before looking for ways to break it down. Asking for more money, and providing less services is an irrational response to a rational problem. I hope it was taken out of context, but I checked around, spoke with other administrators, and that is the plan. Unfortunate, embarrassing…

Seth Fisher

Barrington

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