Parks panel OKs lower field-use fees despite Leinart league’s for-profit status
Costa Mesa parks commissioners unanimously recommended Thursday approval of a controversial flag football organization’s request to continue paying a lower fee for use of city athletic fields.
The Matt Leinart Flag Football League — named after the Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL quarterback — had requested a one-year extension of its special status that allows the for-profit K-8 organization to pay reduced fees.
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[For the record, 2 p.m. June 26: Parks Commissioner Byron de Arakal’s motion asked commissioners to approve special status for three other youth sports groups; Leinart’s flag football league was not mentioned.The other commissioners voted unanimously in favor of de Arakal’s motion. After the vote, the commission’s clerk said the commissioners were unanimous in their recommendation to extend Leinart’s status. On Friday morning, Recreation Manager Travis Karlen said city staff are reviewing the discrepancy.]
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If the league were deemed a for-profit group of non-Costa Mesa residents, its fees would be significantly higher. About 14% of Leinart’s participants are Costa Mesa residents, according to city staff, though one Leinart volunteer disputed the number, saying the amount is actually much higher.
The commission’s recommendation faces City Council approval next month.
Thursday’s vote comes soon after the publication of an Orange County Register investigation that included allegations that the Leinart league labeled itself a nonprofit group to acquire lower field-use rates throughout Orange County, despite it being a for-profit company. To do so, acting on the advice of an attorney, the football league used Matt Leinart’s separate nonprofit foundation to secure the rates.
According to the Register, Costa Mesa City Hall received nearly $50,000 less than it likely should have for the league’s use of the Jack R. Hammett Sports Complex during a three-month period last spring.
Commissioner Byron de Arakal said he was “disappointed” at the Leinart group’s alleged actions reported in the Register.
“There’s not a lawyer in the world that won’t find a crack for you to hide in to save some money,” de Arakal said. “[Leinart’s group] gamed the system, as far as I’m concerned, on the profit and nonprofit stuff.”
At the outset of Thursday’s vote, city CEO Tom Hatch read a statement that said the Register article raised “a fair point” about the rates charged the league.
“If they have operated as a for-profit organization, then they should pay the appropriate rate,” he said.
Hatch added that city officials met with Leinart’s group last week to “review this issue and [begin] the process to determine the appropriate fees and the appropriate next steps, which likely will include a re-payment schedule.”
Hatch did not provide specific amounts that City Hall believes it is owed.
Frank Albers, speaking on behalf of the Leinart league, told commissioners that the organization is willing to pay any fees City Hall believes are due. He said his group was never trying to be deceptive or boot other flag football groups off the fields.
“We were upfront and honest from Day 1,” Albers said.
Leinart’s group has come under fire in Costa Mesa before.
In early 2014, a Daily Pilot investigation showed that the Leinart K-8 league was given priority by “senior leadership” at City Hall for use of the TeWinkle Park Athletic Complex.
Leinart’s moving in effectively booted out three higher-priority groups from their prime Friday night spots.
Critics decried the decision as an apparent violation of City Hall’s own policy, with the three groups all being high-priority “Group 1” users — two notches above Leinart’s lower-tier status as a “Group 3.”
The decision also led to the resignation of Bob Knapp, who at the time was the city’s recreation manager and was dismayed at what he thought was a “completely inappropriate” decision.
Top city management contended that they never violated City Hall’s field-use allocation because it was in management’s purview to allocate scarce resources based on community needs. Later, Knapp was accused of helping Leinart’s rival flag football association, Newport-Mesa Friday Night Lights, avoid paying nearly $50,000 in field-use fees for the Jack R. Hammett Sports Complex.
City officials contended that Friday Night Lights deceptively told City Hall that its top commissioner didn’t receive financial compensation, and that because he did, the league was ineligible for the lower field-use rate and owed the taxpayers back payment.
Knapp denied the allegations, calling them a “smear attempt” to use him as “a scapegoat for the poor decisions of others.” Friday Night Lights eventually repaid City Hall an unspecified amount of money.
