Playball Missoula

Ballpark not abiding by agreements

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I read Sunday’s glowing editorial about the ballpark and simply must respond.

While parking remains an issue for us in the neighborhood surrounding the ballpark, there are bigger issues that nobody seems to care about.

Specifically, that Playball Missoula and the city agreed to numerous terms in a use agreement that they are not abiding by.

My main

complaint with the ballpark management is that they agreed to keep Hickory Street closed during events, yet they have been very reluctant to do so. In fact, it has required me to pester the mayor, my City Council people and Matt Ellis (general manager of the Osprey and apparently everything to do with the ballpark) to get police presence there during events.

Even then, they were only capable of keeping Hickory Street closed during a handful of nights as the crowds left the stadium this summer. Other nights, I had to go down there and stand at the barricade myself, to ensure that these people do not move or drive around it. The Osprey had been staffing the barricade themselves up until last year, when they apparently decided to save however many dollars it cost them to do this. However, since I’ve been on them about it, they’ve somehow been paying the Missoula Police to do this for them, supposedly.

The mayor and my City Council people, Bob Jaffee and Stacy Rye, have made every concession to the ballpark group, at the expense of the safety of my family and neighbors. They should hang their heads in shame for embracing such an unfriendly and slippery group of people.

Furthermore, other parts of the use agreement are ignored entirely. Playball (the relationship between Playball, the Osprey and Mike and Matt Ellis is terribly nebulous and vague. They all seem to be one.) agreed to pay to the city a set dollar amount per year, in lieu of taxes, as well as a maintenance fee. They have not paid a dime, to the best of my knowledge, thus far. This now totals $390,000.

Furthermore, the use agreement states that other events at the ballpark require the same traffic control as ball games, and require a meeting of an Extraordinary Events Committee. But Sept. 7, they held one of these events without informing this committee at all, and without having any traffic control in place.

Furthermore, Playball/Osprey/Ellis are supposed to advertise parking in local papers, which they’ve never done.

In fact, I would bet that it would be more difficult to find parts of the use agreement that both parties have adhered to than parts that it hasn’t.

This organization, in my opinion, is negligent, unprofessional and in breach of contract with the city.

It’s quite upsetting to see them heralded as our city’s champions of community spirit. Rather, I see them as poster children for what we all know as the old boy network here in Missoula, and for extremely bad PR.

Again, my Web site where I document most of this is http://www.mzla.com/osprey.

-Keith Blackwell, Missoula