Amid cuts to overcome a $245 million budget shortfall through 2011, the city is slated to shut down Rose Mofford Softball Complex located at Peoria and 25th avenues, Desert West Sports Complex located at Thomas Road and 67th Avenue, and Papago Sports Complex located at Oak and 64th streets. The three sports complexes are home to about 700 youth and adult softball teams, according to city research analyst Hayden Maynard.

“We are urging the girls who play in these games to show up at the meetings in uniform,” said Bobby Pena of Triple Crown Sports. “The city council members don’t go to these games. They don’t see the wonderful things these girls are doing and that closing the parks would be a huge mistake.”

The Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department is proposing more than $17 million in cuts, including reducing the amount of people responsible for maintenance of parks across the city, Maynard said. The proposed cuts will decrease the department’s ability to keep the parks clean and force the parks to host fewer events because they will be understaffed.

The impending closures of the three complexes have huge implications for girls softball. Seventy percent of the events at the three parks are softball fastpitch tournaments, Pena said. The three sites have a total of 14 softball fields and accommodate 33,000 softball players a year.

Pena, who is also the softball coach at Xavier College Prep, said the closure of the three complexes would force tournament play to be cut tremendously as teams scramble to find other places to play. High school softball would also be affected, because Xavier plays their home games at Rose Mofford.

The city of Phoenix has begun holding 15 hearings to let citizens voice their opinions regarding the impending closures, Pena said. He plans to attend eight of those meetings as a member of the Private Sector Softball Committee, which was formed to fight against the closures of local municipal parks that host softball games.

The closures are not finalized and no parks have closed as of yet, but as the budget cuts stand right now, the three sports complexes will close, according to Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department spokesman David Urbinato. The city devised a plan to reduce spending by 30 percent and the parks fell into the fateful category of cuts, Urbinato said.

The fate of the sports complexes will be decided March 2, Pena said. After that, closures could happen as soon as June. In the meantime, Pena is trying to raise awareness about the importance of the complexes remaining open.

“If the city closes these parks, girls will lose opportunities get college scholarships,” Pena said. “Softball provides the platform for girls to get an education at the next level.”

USSSA assistant softball director Rick Phillips emphasized the importance of the three parks staying open not only for youth events but for adult softball leagues as well.

“Adults like to play too,” Phillips said. “Desert West, Papago and Rose Mofford are major sites where adults play out their leagues. The consequences of the parks closing extend beyond youth and high school softball.”

Phillips is joining Pena to fight the park closures by encouraging teams to attend all the city meetings.

“We want the parking lots completely full,” Phillips said. “We want as many teams and their families to show up and be heard.”

Phillips wants people to know that he has solutions to the budget crisis as it relates to the softball parks. Between Phillips and Pena, the two have come up with cost-cutting measures to dig into the total operating costs of the three complexes as much as 50 percent.

Pena said that the city is discounting the economic boost softball provides. According to the 2009 Economic Impact Report by Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department, girls’ slowpitch and fastpitch softball generated $35 million of revenue for the city of Phoenix through means such as airfare reservations, hotel stays and spending at local malls. People who come to Phoenix to watch softball tournaments are a major economic boost that the city would risk losing if they closed the three parks, Pena said.

“There is a potential for a lot of revenue to keep these parks open, without tapping into tax dollars,” Pena said. “The city needs to look at these measures.”

The lack of fields for softball teams to play on is just one of many issues the city faces if the parks were to close, Phillips said.

On game nights, Desert West, for instance, is bustling: the lights are on, people are milling around and the skatepark is full of energetic adolescents. Phillips argues that if Desert West closes, the vacant site will facilitate a crime spike.

“Events at these parks provide a window of several hours that act as a stop gap against crime,” Phillips said. “Having a park open and hosting games keeps it busy. People are in and out, and kids are occupied.”

Closing the complexes will impact many businesses that have close proximity to the parks and rely on their patrons for business, Phillips said.

“So many businesses will feel it, from the QT on the corner to the Big 5 Sporting Goods store down the street,” Phillips said. “The closures will affect a lot of people.”

The proposed closures would not have any effect on youth and high school baseball, Pena said. For the most part, softball and baseball are not played on the same fields.

“Baseball would never get cut,” Pena said. “It’s too popular. Girls will always be the first to go and it is unfortunate.”

The city of Phoenix is doing one-time procedures such as taking money out of a pension plan that the city overpaid into for years to help ease the budget, but it is not enough, District Six chief of staff Hal DeKeyser said. More cuts are needed to ease the ballooning budget.

The closures are not only directed at city parks, but community gathering places such as senior centers, DeKeyser said.

“Unfortunately, the situation requires that municipal closures are necessary at all levels,” DeKeyser said.

Scheduled hearings (all start at 6 p.m. unless noted) include:

Feb. 16 at Manzanita Senior Center, 3581 W. Northern Avenue

Feb. 16 at Burton Barr Library Auditorium, 1221 N. Central Avenue

Feb. 17 at Goelet A. Beuf Community Center Multipurpose Room, 3435 W. Pinnacle Peak Road

Feb. 17 at Madison School District Office Board Room, 5601 N. 16th Street

Feb. 18 at Cowden Center Barb’s Room, 9202 N. 2nd Street

Feb. 18 at Pecos Community Center, 17010 S. 48th Street

Feb. 23 at Paradise Valley Community Center Multipurpose Room, 17402 N. 40th Street

Feb. 23 at Shadow Mountain Senior Center, 3546 E. Sweetwater Avenue

Feb. 23 at Cesar Chavez High School Auditorium, 3921 W. Baseline Road

Feb. 24 (7:30 a.m.) Steele Indian School Park Memorial Hall, 300 E. Indian School Road

City contacts include:

Budget & Research (602-262-4800). This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Mayor Phil Gordon (602-262-7111). This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

District 1 councilwoman Thelda Williams (602-262-7444). This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

District 2 councilwoman Peggy Neely (602-262-7445). This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

District 3 councilman Bill Gates (602-262-7441). This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

District 4 councilman Tom Simplot (602-262-7447). This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

District 5 councilman Claude Mattox. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

District 6 councilman Sal DiCiccio (602-262-7491). This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

District 7 vice mayor Michael Nowakowski (602-262-7492). This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

District 8 councilman Michael Johnson (602-262-7493). This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.