Members of the Prince George Horseshoe Pitching Association say they've been waiting for more than a year for the city to live up to a promise to repair the courts at their Carrie Jane Gray Park facility.
With the season-opening Prince George Open tournament set for this weekend, the majority of the 30 courts remained in unplayable condition as of Thursday afternoon. The most significant issue is stakes that are loose or laying down in their pits.
"The mayor was down there when we opened last year and he said that he would fix the pits - well, it never happened," said PGHPA member Ida Boschman. "So we went to the city and we asked, 'What's going to happen?' (and were told) 'Well, we can't do it this year because we have no money, it wasn't allotted out.'"
Boschman said a city representative met with association members at the courts about a month ago. However, with time ticking down to Saturday's first toss of a shoe, nothing has been done to fix the problems.
The inaction has Boschman fuming, especially because of a huge increase in the fees the PGHPA pays to the city. One year ago, Boschman said, the annual rate went from $10 to $1,000. To make things worse, the higher cost is spread among fewer members.
"We used to have 45 or 50 members and now I think we've only got 11 or 12," she said. "We're just a little club now."
Boschman also pointed out that when the city relocated the club from Recreation Place to the current location in time for the 2005 season, a promise was made that the new courts would be equal to or better than the original ones.
"Our (clubhouse) building is a bit bigger - not much, but a bit - and other than that, we've got nothing," she said.
"I really don't know what to do."
The courts - beautiful back in 2005 - have lost some of their shine. Despite some weeding work done by the city earlier in the week, small weeds are prevalent throughout the playing area and some of the backboards are badly weathered. As for the stakes, 17 have been flagged for repair and five are completely out of the ground and laying down.
According to club member Alice Boschman, Ida's daughter, the loose stakes have resulted from faulty installation. Alice said a standard stake is one inch in diameter and is supposed to be sunk into a wooden block with a hole that is slightly smaller - 15/16ths of an inch. The block is then buried two feet into the ground. But, Alice said when some of the loose stakes were dug up and examined, it was discovered that the hole - like the stake - had a diameter of one inch.
"(The stake) would start wiggling back and forth ever so slightly but it would eventually make the hole bigger," she said.
Another problem with the stakes is that the vast majority of them are not the regulation 40 feet apart from each other.
"I think about 26 of them are more than 40 feet - they were made that way so there's another thing we have to contend with," said Alice , who is also the PGHPA secretary. "We've said all along they're not right. They were put in incorrectly by the city to begin with - that's what I think.
"I don't think anyone (from the club) actually paid attention to the distances. The city said they would do it, so it was done. We never got out with a tape measure and stuff like that."
When the club hosted the Western Canada Classic in 2015, Alice said players had to be shuffled onto those courts that met tournament regulations.
"You have designated pits for different games and we had to scramble to move people throughout the day to pits that were good, and we just made it by the skin of our teeth," she said.
Ida said club members have now fixed four of the courts themselves. She said the city promised to have four more ready to go for the Prince George Open, which starts at 9 a.m. Saturday and runs through Sunday. In total, 15 to 20 players from Prince George and Quesnel are expected to compete.
Chris Bjorn, the city's supervisor of parks, told The Citizen on Thursday afternoon the city - as with all its user groups - has an agreement with the PGHPA and that the wording of that agreement "is very specific with what the user group is supposed to look after and what the city is supposed to look after." At this spring's meeting between the city and the association, Bjorn said the PGHPA expressed its desire to have the stakes repaired. According to Bjorn, an agreement was put in place to have that work done in time for next season.
"They have apparently a provincial-type tournament next season, in 2018, that we are going to put together a plan to basically redo some of those pits and help them out - get them tournament-ready for that date next summer," he said. "In the meantime, they did say they have a small tournament here (this weekend), which I believe they have more than ample enough pits for. So we haven't acted on doing that yet but it is on our radar and it is in our plans to help them out with that."
Bjorn said he could not comment on what Mayor Lyn Hall told association members last spring.
"I do know we did a lot of weeding work for them last year, that the mayor requested, but we didn't have a request on the stakes," he said.
"We've done quite a bit of enhancement to their building as well. We did some improvements in their washrooms and we've installed some new LED lighting for their pits in case they do ever do late play later in the year. So we're working with them, I'm just not sure they're understanding that we do have a plan in place, even though I did let them know that."
Bjorn confirmed the $1,000 fee increase for the PGHPA. He said the increase came out of a core audit review done two years ago and that the hike was applied to user groups across the board.
"All user groups had (their fees standardized) and that was raised to $1,000," he said. "So it doesn't matter your size or stature or age class or anything like that, they're all the same. Unfortunately some groups are smaller, and this group in particular only has 12 members approximately. I understand that, but that was definitely a decision that came out from the core audit and was implemented."
