Unified youth football league sees drop in kids

The RFPR director says this drop was expected because of the creation of a city schools league.

Registrations for the unified youth football league run by the Rome-Floyd Parks and Recreation Department and Boys & Girls Club are down by 200 to 225 from last year.

Parks and Rec Executive Director Kevin Cowling told members of the department’s advisory board Tuesday that the drop in kids registering for the league was expected with the creation of a youth football program for kids in city schools. The Rome teams, which are for kids ages 7 to 10, has joined the Northwest Georgia Football League, which includes programs from Bartow, Cobb and Paulding counties, along with other areas of Northwest Georgia.

Cowling said he didn’t want to estimate how much money the drop in registrations would cost the program because registration hasn’t closed and more kids could join. He previously said losing city participants would cost the program 20 to 25 percent of its total revenue.

Bill Collins, an advisory board member and city commissioner, asked Cowling if he’s had any interaction with organizers of the new league. Cowling replied that he has had no dialogue with them.

In other items, Cowling informed the board the department received a $7,500 donation from the nonprofit Citizens for Better Parks. The donation was used to purchase five new AEDs — automatic external defibrillators. The department now has seven of the medical devices.

Parks and Rec officials are looking at what the costs would be to bringing back two adults sports — softball and kickball — and try and determine the prices for participating. Cowling said the costs would be included in next year’s budget.

Advisory board members also heard from Cowling about the department’s projects that made it onto the package for funding through an extension of the current 1-cent special purpose local option sales tax. The bill for the 16 projects is $2,026,600, which was trimmed down from $3.2 million worth of projects.

One of the projects cut out called for the construction of a building behind the stage at Ridge Ferry Park to be used for dressing rooms, especially for performance artists for various festivals and events. Scotty Hancock, an advisory board member and county commissioner, replied to Collins’ comment that this project needed to be put back on the SPLOST package by saying a permanent building wasn’t possible because its location would have been on a flood plain.