Fielders want talks with Zion

Dear Lake County Fielders Fans,

Much has been said and written about the Fielders this past season, and our differences with the city of Zion’s public officials. We feel that it’s time to be open and transparent about those differences, and where we should go from here.

After being recruited by the city of Zion, the Fielders have been working on this project for over five years, and at great personal expense. We’ve spent and lost over $2.5 million based on the city’s public promises to build the team and the community a modest baseball stadium. We’ve fielded a team for the past two seasons in a makeshift temporary facility that the city did not even make available to us until midway through both seasons. We’ve staffed an off-season front office operation through two years where there was nothing on the stadium site but a vacant field. No seats, no concession stands, no bathrooms — nothing resembling a stadium. For several years, we’ve stuck with Zion, this project, and remained loyal to Zion’s city council, even when other local communities sensed trouble with the city and approached us to relocate to their cities. The result has been broken city council promises, damage to our fans’ confidence in the project, massive unanticipated financial losses and distress to our small business, and now strong-arm tactics by the city to break our agreement.

In March and April this year, three separate times the city notified us in writing that in the days to follow they were commencing a $7.5 million bond sale to complete the stadium construction. We believed them. In the six months since then, neither the bond sale nor stadium construction has occurred, and the financial and public fallout has fallen squarely on the Fielders. Much like 2009 and 2010, the stadium site now remains a vacant field, and the city recently claimed that the Fielders owe rent on a stadium that they promised to build, but still doesn’t exist. The Fielders did pay rent in August and September 2010 while in the temporary facility that was taken down in mid-September, but have withheld payment since then until the city makes efforts to follow through on its commitment to build the stadium.

But rather than focus on how we reached this point, the Fielders have been attempting to reach a solution for months. From March 17 to August 4 this year, on seven different occasions, I requested a meeting or project update from Mayor Harrison, and the mayor would not respond to our questions or provide us with a meeting. Five years of work and $2.5 million spent, and we weren’t granted a meeting with the mayor, who we understand is retired and holds no employment other than his position as mayor of Zion. On August 4th this year, I sent city attorney Scott Puma an email asking to meet with him and council members to discuss and hopefully resolve issues relating to the rent and stadium construction. Mr. Puma’s response to me in an email that same day stated, “I don’t think that will be worth anyone’s time.” Mr. Puma’s firm, Ancel Glink, has already billed the city about $120,000 during the past 16 months on this project, so we’re beginning to see where he’s drawing his sense and motivation of what time is worth going forward. Attorney Puma also stated in that same email, “It is difficult for the city council to stomach this type of discussion ...” If the City Council indeed doesn’t have “the stomach” for this deal, they should have been honest enough to tell us so before making promises that ultimately caused our business to lose $2.5 million. I’m sure it is what they would have expected themselves had any of them been in our position with their personal money and reputation at stake. Three of the four City Council members personally visited me during this past June and July, all with expressions of support for our position that a stadium was promised for the 2011 season, and with frustration that the city did not follow through. One even suggested that I should threaten to file a lawsuit against the city, as other businesses in Zion have had to do in the past just to get movement on city promises.

Regardless of all that has happened, we still believe in the good people of Zion and their community. We remain available to meet with Mayor Harrison and other decision makers to find a solution, as we assume that finding solutions to problems in their community is among the reasons that they aspired to hold public office. As I stated in my email to attorney Puma on August 4, “nothing ever gets resolved in silence.”

Rich Ehrenreich, President

Lake County Fielders