Sports field use stirs debate in Burlingame

Commissioners did direct staff to enforce a take-back policy if sports organizations don’t give back unused fields for the fall season by a late July deadline. But all other changes will go back for committee review.

Currently, the tiered priority system takes into account the percentage of Burlingame residents in a sports group, as well as the number of participants overall. The new policy would remove the two-tiered validated user system and put less stringent regulations in place. 

That new system would permit a broader variety of groups to register for field use under a Commission Approved Organization title. CAOs would then receive field slots based on the number of Burlingame residents in the program, Parks and Recreation Director Margaret Glomstad.

This would have allowed the Burlingame Soccer Club — which currently does not qualify as a validated user and gets last field pick as a renter because of its roughly 40% resident percentage makeup overall — to participate. BSC coaches and players emphasized that their organization serves around 600 Burlingame residents. 

“The idea is we have an organization with a huge number of residents … that are getting seriously cramped. They can’t get a seat at the table until the very end,” Commissioner Howard Wettan said. “It does come so late in the process, it’s such a scramble it really does put a burden on families.” 

Despite commissioner support for groups like BSC to become more equitable players in the field selection process, the draft policy did not pass because it would eliminate large swaths of field slots for smaller sports organizations like Burlingame Girls Softball, Coyotes Lacrosse and Mercy High School. 

Burlingame Girls Softball would be allocated 30 less spots for their spring season, the Coyotes would be down 7 and Mercy would be down 10, Recreation Coordinator Raphael Garcia said. The issue of smaller sports groups getting pushed out of field time, particularly when their sports are in-season, was largely unacceptable, commissioners said. 

“If the only way we can give them a seat at the table is to give them a huge chunk of slots that leaves smaller organizations with fewer slots, then that’s a problem for me,” Commissioner Ian Milne said. 

Staff were asked to reevaluate the weighting possibilities for these smaller groups and bring solutions back to the council, hopefully in time for winter field allocations. 

Many larger youth sports organizations like AYSO soccer and the Burlingame Youth Baseball Association — who would not necessarily be losing field slots but would likely lose some priority over selection — pushed back on the proposed changes on principle. 

A bevy of concerns were raised, including the deprioritization of Burlingame resident field use and the volunteer makeup of larger organizations’ coaching staff — who often require more timing flexibility, proponents argued. They emphasized that the more competitive, cut-based nature of the BSC program, alongside its proportionally lesser makeup of Burlingame residents, means it shouldn’t receive equal priority to more community-based sports groups. 

“How in the world are we even considering the changes?” Tyson Scofield, president of the Burlingame Youth Baseball Association, queried.

But BSC coaches, players and parents pushed back. Many of them live in Burlingame as well, they argued, and getting last field priority remains a consummate challenge for working families. 

“I will be entering [Burlingame Intermediate School] in the fall. I want to know in advance what the soccer schedule is,” Isabel Aguayo, a Burlingame resident and BSC player, said.