Manson Parks forms committee to help chamber acquire Leffler Field

MANSON – Manson Parks Commissioners voted to form a committee in order to partner up with  the Manson Chamber of Commerce in order to raise funds needed to purchase Leffler Field.

On the first meeting of 2019, the Commissioners heard from Jeff Conwell during the meeting.  Conwell went over the motivation behind acquiring the property.

About a year and a half ago the Manson Chamber approached the Leffler family on the idea to acquire the field once it became available for purchase.

“The ask is 1.3 million, so about a month ago, we did an ask to the Chelan County Commissioners for half a million dollars, they said yes.” explained Conwell.

From there, the Chamber contacted the Port of Chelan Commissioners, in hopes of a letter of support from them to the County Commissioners.
Manson Parks Director Robin Pittman and Conwell met with Port Commissioners, walked the property and “acquired the support from them.”

As a requirement to receive the funds, the Chamber must fill out a form, the form is the application for the Rural County Tax Funding.  

However, as Conwell explained, there’s one obstacle. “The Manson Chamber is not a government entity, the monies that are acquired from any of the government agencies we are approaching, have to provide those to a government agency, we are not recognized as government agency in our community,” Conwell explained.

Conwell was clear about the fact that the Chamber is leading the funding for the project and Parks will be able to take charge of the property.

“We’ve had a website in place for about two months now, we haven’t taken it public … our goals is to get this funding from the government entities,” said Jeff.

That evening Conwell asked, Parks to be the face for the funding application. Along with that, Brian Patterson also informed the board about two other possible sources of funding.

One option being the Recreation Conservation Grant and the second deals with funds from the State’s Capital Budget which requires sponsorship from a legislator.

“The project has to be included in the County’s comprehensive plan … we want to make you the face for this ask from the Commissioners so we can have it moved over to their comprehensive plan,” said Conwell.

As more details were addressed to the board, Chair Rob Campbell suggested to form committee to work on the project and for two members of the board to be part of it.

From the Parks board, Randy Reed and Campbell will be in the committee along with other members of the community.

A letter of intent has to be signed by the end of the month and from there 120 days are given to collect the remaining money and purchase the property.