Vets commissioners want to hash out ‘gray areas’ of ballpark lease with Kernels

Veterans Memorial Commission members Gary Grant and Jerry Ziese aren't reaching for ball bats as they plan to meet with the Cedar Rapids Kernels' management to discuss what they call “gray areas” in the lease that governs the operation of the city's Veterans Memorial Stadium ballpark.

After Monday night's monthly commission meeting, Grant and Ziese said that the commission wants to clarify parts of the lease, to which the ball team, the city and the commission are a party, now that the ballclub has asked the city and commission to make maintenance repairs and facility improvements at the minor-league park.

The question is just who should pay for the repairs and improvements to the city facility and how much should the ballclub contribute? Grant said.

At least three financial issues in the lease are areas that the commission wants to discuss with the city attorney and then with the ballclub.

One of the issues concerns an annual payment for extra property insurance. The commission has said that the lease calls for the ballclub to pay for the insurance, though the commission has paid the bill since the stadium opened in 2002 at a cost, most recently, of about $16,000 a year.

The lease also discusses revenue from naming rights, but Grant said it is unclear if the revenue from the naming rights should be going solely to the ballclub as it has been. The commission repeatedly has asked the club to report its naming rights' revenue, but the club has not done so, Mike Jager, the manager for the commission, said Monday.

A third matter involves the definition of attendance. The lease calls for the ballclub to pay the commission/city $1.50 per person for any annual attendance over 155,000 people. The ballclub sells more tickets than 155,000 each year, but the actual attendance is less. Is it paid attendance or seat occupancy? Ziese asked Monday night.

Grant said the commission wants to find an “equitable compromise” that guarantees that the Kernels have the revenue they need to operate, that the debt on the stadium is paid off and the taxpayers get a quality ball field with a quality minor-league baseball team.

The ball team, he noted, has on its wish list a new, state-of-the-art scoreboard. Some of the revenue related to naming rights and attendance could help pay the cost for such an improvement if the lease is interpreted to say that some of that revenue goes to the commission and/or city, Grant suggested.