Ball fields may benefit from estate

Published 3:00 pm Friday, March 9, 2007

Some $800K from the estate of Keith Birkenfeld may be tapped.

There would be no neon lights. Nor would placards be affixed to every man-made object in sight.

But if funds from a former islander’s estate help two turf fields take synthetic root at Battle Point Park, recognition would come in some form, most likely a kiosk named for the late C. Keith Birkenfeld.

“There would probably be one central structure,” said Bainbridge Island Youth Soccer Club President John Sloat. “Something to say thank you for recognizing such a significant gift to the community.”

That gift would be some $800,000 from the C. Keith Birkenfeld Memorial Trust, named for a former teacher who lived on Bainbridge Island and amassed a $17 million fortune before his death in 2005.

The soccer club has secured about half of the $1.54 needed to resurface two fields – now a combination of sand and chrome rubber – and will seek the remainder of the money from the trust.

In accordance with Birkenfeld’s will, the trust gives priority to applicants willing to name all or part of the project for which they are seeking funds after Birkenfeld.

Knowing that, the soccer club sought the blessing of the park district, which owns the land and would ultimately have the final say on what to name the field or any structures built around it, before pursuing the grant.

The park district board on Thursday passed a motion allowing the club to “recognize, through the use of a kiosk or plaque, all major donors to the Battle Point Park soccer field project if the Birkenfeld grant is approved.”

The name of the field itself will be considered at a later date.

Park District Director Terry Lande said the board must follow a certain procedure to name facilities, including creating a committee and eliciting suggestions from the community.

Ultimately, though, the park district takes each case as it comes, and is bound by few restrictions.The question of how to name public facilities is by no means a new one, he said.

Facilities across the island are named for those who impacted community. But as public money becomes increasingly scarce, officials must decide at what cost they are willing to part with the naming rights of a facility.

Across Puget Sound, all three of Seattle’s major professional sports teams play in publicly funded buildings that carry corporate names.

Though the scale of island fields is considerably smaller, questions about how to fund needed capital projects for local sports facilities – which some argue are badly in need of improvement – persist.

The school district – itself looking to spruce up some of its sports facilities – has a naming policy similar to that of the park district in that it includes the creation of a committee and a public process.

The district’s policy dictates that name choices are at the discretion of the school board, but there are no explicit guidelines about what types of name should be chosen.

“We could name anything or nothing,” said school board president Bruce Weiland. “But it’s not something we take lightly because it has long-term meaning.”

Bainbridge soccer officials have long complained about the shortage of adequate fields on the island and in Kitsap County.

BIYSC Vice President of Field Development Laura Sachs said Bainbridge has six full-size soccer fields and six small fields for younger players, all of which have natural playing surfaces.

She said the field conditions at Battle Point Park are muddy in the winter and dusty in the summer, making play difficult and in some cases dangerous.

The club in December reached an agreement with the park district to install artificial turf – which costs twice as much as natural turf but drastically improves playing conditions and field capacity – at the Battle Point fields.

The project still must clear the permitting process, but its expected to go to bid in January of next year. Construction would begin in summer 2008 and the fields would open in the fall.

Sachs said the fields would be the centerpiece of the club’s facilities. There would be no lights to enable nighttime play.

Countywide there is only one artificial turf surface, with at least two more planned, including one at Bainbridge High School. Seattle, Sachs said, has more than 70 artificial turf fields.

She said no plans were in the works to name the fields anything in particular before the club decided to seek the Birkenfeld grant.

“Right now they’re called ‘fields four and five,’” she said. “Our feeling is that there are many park projects out there that are named after people. If someone’s estate contributes a significant amount of money to strengthen a project, it makes sense to recognize them.”

Sloat said the naming of the fields themselves is “off the table for now” because the grant deadline is fast approaching, but with approval to provide some sort of permanent, formal recognition to Birkenfeld, the club is hopeful it will be awarded the grant.

Birkenfeld, who made his fortune through real estate, directed that no funds go to “entities which receive more than 20 percent of their annual income from government funds.”

“I am a Kitsap lad who started with nothing and I am proud to be able to leave something for others,” he wrote in his will. “I never had a salary over $21,500 annually during my lifetime… I hope my example will cause others to save, invest and give.”

Attorney George Nickum, who is the executor of Birkenfeld’s estate and sits on an advisory board that helps allocate the money based on Birkenfeld’s wishes, said his client asked to be recognized for his contributions not out of vanity, but to tout the importance of philanthropy.

“He didn’t care about personal recognition,” Nickum said.

“He thought people should be aware when private money was paying for a project. He wanted to encourage more philanthropy.”