10/25/2021
As you may have heard, TOGSA was forced to pause registration for the 2022 Spring Season. This is because the Conejo Valley Board of Education voted to raise rental fees for all school facilities. The new fees increase our facility costs by over $14,000, more than ten times what we currently pay. As a non-profit organization, this is an unsustainable increase for our league. This is also impacting other sports organizations that use CVUSD facilities, and if these rental fees are implemented it will devastate softball, baseball, track, basketball, flag football, and many other youth sports in the Conejo Valley.
Below is the letter TOGSA sent to the school board and superintendent. We encourage our families to also voice their disapproval.
To:
Mark McLaughlin, CVUSD Superintendent - [email protected]
Karen Sylvester, CVUSD Board Clerk - [email protected]
Lauren Gill, CVUSD Board Member - [email protected]
Rocky Capobianco, CVUSD Board Member - [email protected]
Cindy Goldberg, CVUSD Board Member - [email protected]
Bill Gorback, CVUSD Board President - [email protected]
We are disappointed to be again writing to explain how the Conejo Valley School District’s increase from $1,350 to approximately $14,500 per season will be detrimental to our non-profit youth organization. We are shocked that the District and Board of Education knowingly chose to ignore the community feedback provided at multiple meetings prior to March 2020.
Thousand Oaks Girls Softball Association (established originally as Conejo Valley Girls Softball) has been in this community since the 1960s. TOGSA serves between 200 – 300 girls ages four to 14 annually. We are one of the few non-profit organizations in the Conejo Valley that caters specifically to girls. We are run entirely by volunteers.
The fee increase will devastate our league and these young girls. We do not have other options for fields. Other local leagues with access to CRPD fields only pay $5.50/hour, which equates to a fair $4,200 per season. CRPD provides bathrooms and ALL maintenance including daily dragging and watering of the infields.
In the years prior to Covid-19, TOGSA spent $50,000 on necessary upgrades, new field-related equipment, extra fencing, and other renovations to keep our girls and adjacent neighbors safe. TOGSA pays for softball-related upgrades at Los Cerritos. Our volunteers spend long hours preparing the fields for year-round use. The district provides maintenance as needed by the school’s physical education classes (rodent removal, mowing, irrigation, etc). In addition to the new CVUSD fee schedule, we are experiencing steep increases in our bathroom rental costs from the Boys and Girls Club, who no longer stock nor clean the bathrooms as part of the rental fees.
It would be a shame if our long history of serving girls in the Conejo Valley was not fully understood and taken into consideration when making this change. While we understand that costs for labor, supplies, and other related expenditures increase annually, the new implementation of the fee schedule is more than 10 times what our organization currently pays. We do not believe this is a realistic or a fair increase. We ask you to recall this vote as you did in 2019 and to again involve the community in creating a fair fee schedule that benefits the CVUSD community.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
TOGSA Board of Directors
