'Getting to yes' at Conrad Complex

We cannot recall an instance when "negotiations" have involved such extreme differences as what we see with the ongoing talks regarding the future of the Conrad Complex.

The softball complex has been leased by Flathead County for $1 a year over a 50-year period that expires in 2009.

Surely, everyone can agree that $1 a year is an unreasonable relic from a long-gone era when the land wasn't worth much - not nearly as much as the civic benefit that the lease was expected to provide over five decades.

So it's reasonable to expect a lease more in line with modern times and property values.

But then we come to the terms offered by the Conrad Cemetery Board of Trustees, who want the annual lease increased to somewhere in the range of $25,000 to $50,000 a year.

That's some serious inflation.

Flathead County Parks and Recreation Director Jed Fisher describes it as "outrageous and unaffordable." And it's hard to disagree with him.

Adult softball teams pay $800 per team to play at Conrad, and that money has been used just to cover basic facility costs. Coming up with an additional $30,000 might cost individual complex users as much as $40 extra in fees, according to Fisher, which would predictably diminish use of the facility.

"We don't want to be unreasonable," said the chairman of the cemetery board.

Well, there must be a compromise a bit more reasonable than the bottom-line price of $25,000 a year. The cemetery board bases its pricing on the $40,000 that the state charges to Kidsports, an alliance of youth sports organizations for use of land on the north side of Kalispell.

But Kidsports is paying for 22 sport fields on 134 acres - three times as many fields and five times the acreage as the Conrad Complex offers with its seven fields on 27 acres.

If the Kidsports fee is the model, then it seems that a comparable fee for the relative acreage and facilities at Conrad Complex should be somewhere in the neighborhood of $8,000, which is 20 percent of the $40,000 that Kidsports pays.

Flathead County offered $5,000 and was rejected, but the county's offer was much closer to what a reasonable lease rate should be.

Flathead County has poured money into the facilities at Conrad Complex for years. It should not be forced out by a lease rate that complex users clearly cannot afford.

The cemetery board has offered the land for community use as a civic-minded duty for many years. We owe them our thanks, and we hope a similar spirit will prevail now, once a fair price is reached.