Villa Park commission to review baseball-field reservation process after complaints about all-day bookings

The Community Recreation Commission opened a months-long review of the village’s baseball-field reservation procedures, citing competing needs between long-standing youth leagues and other users.

Chair (chair) presented a village-sent proposal asking the commission to assess field allocation to promote "fairness, efficiency, transparency, and increased utilization" of village-owned baseball and softball fields. The chair disclosed personal ties to Villa Park Youth Baseball (VPYB) and asked other members to state affiliations before discussion.

Commission members reported several problems with the new reservation workflow after the Parks Department moved bookings into CivicRec this summer. "I was able to fill out the whole request, send it in to get a field, and then was denied the field because it was previously already rented. So I went that day to the field that I requested and the field was empty," a commissioner said, describing two instances where an apparent scheduling or software error left a paid user without access and prompted them to book elsewhere.

Members endorsed several possible fixes: breaking park rentals into shorter time blocks instead of single all-day reservations; creating a master schedule (the proposal suggests a February submission window) so long-term users can secure dates early; and a precedence or permit system that gives long-standing local leagues automatic scheduling priority for games and practice permits. One commissioner said, "Villa Park Youth Baseball has been here for a long time and has done a lot of great work…they should get first rights to all the fields," while other members stressed balancing that priority with access and revenue opportunities from nonlocal renters.

The commission directed staff to consult the Parks Department about CivicRec’s ability to break up rentals by amenities and time, to check whether the village enforces cancellation penalties, and to survey nearby districts (Lombard, Downers Grove, Addison, Glen Ellyn and others) for practices to inform a recommendation. The chair said staff will compile the findings into a packet item for the next meeting and the commission will then formulate recommendations to send to the board.

Background details mentioned at the meeting include a past intergovernmental agreement (IGA) dated 2024 and a standing understanding that if VPYB put forward $9,000, the village would waive fees for 2025. The commission did not adopt policy changes at this meeting; members asked staff to return with concrete options and examples.

Next steps: staff will report back with CivicRec configuration details, cancellation/penalty rules, comparative policies used by peer districts, and draft schedule options for the commission to review and forward to the board.