The City of Turlock has an affiliate program that allows organizations to partnership with the City of Turlock Recreation Division. These partnerships are not to compete or be in conflict with City programs or a previous affiliate. The Recreation staff encourages youth organizations to apply to become an affiliate, so they can offer programs that the Recreation Department does not provide.
By affiliating with the City of Turlock Recreation Department, youth organizations get staff support in use of City Facilities at a reduced rate and support in securing school district facilities as needed.
Being an affiliate organization with the City of Turlock, the youth organization pays an affiliate fee of $3.50 per youth participant and $4.50 for adults. An additional $6.00/youth and $8.00/adult is charged for all non-residents.
An organization can still operate in Turlock whether they are an affiliate or not, it’s just that an affiliate gets a discount on city facility fees and scheduling priority with city and school facilities.
There are three findings that must be met to be an affiliate that does not compete or conflict with current Recreation programs:
Name of the organization has to have “Turlock” in the name.
Insurance with an attached endorsement must have the name with “Turlock” in it.
The group has to provide a roster with participants of at least 50% being Turlock residents.
There is not a defined timeline for an application to be accepted or approved as an affiliate by the City of Turlock. There is also not a prioritization policy for who applies first. Applications may be revised or amended up until they are to be considered by the Parks, Recreation and Community (PRC) Commission.
At the January 13, 2010 PRC Commission Meeting discussed and considered approving a youth football affiliate. Two organizations, Trans Valley Youth Football (TVYF) and Turlock Youth Football (TYF), had applied but according to the City’s policy only one could be accepted. The City Recreation recommended waiting until the City could review their policy and see if it wasn’t time that maybe more than one affiliate be approved to meet the community’s needs. The PRC Commission ended the issue with no action and scheduled the issue to be on the agenda again for the February 10, 2010 meeting.
At this week’s PRC Commission Meeting, the PRC Commission heard a recommendation from City Recreation Superintendant Juliene Flanders to accept both applications and approve both as affiliates. Both organizations met all the requirements to be approved and were both being considered at the same time while there are no current like affiliates.
Flanders did explain that the City was reviewing the process and has found that they really need to gear up the affiliate program.
Zach Perkins of TYF spoke of his organization’s concerns of limited facility use at Joe Debely Stadium without even adding the potential TVYF Turlock Titans, that TYF is already scheduled to host the their Cen-Cal League’s Super Bowl at Joe Debely this year, and that TVYF does not have “Turlock” in their name.
John Nixon of TVYF explained that they are applying as Trans Valley Youth Football DBA Turlock Titans. TVYF has a Turlock address and a City of Turlock business license. Nixon added that TVYF has 175 Turlock kids already signed up ready to play football this year.
Perkins said that he contacted the Secretary of State and as he understands it, a non-profit can’t file a DBA certificate as another organization. Perkins asked for the City Attorney’s recommendation on this legality question.
Juliene Flanders clarified simply that “Turlock” was in all the required documentation in TVYF’s application.
City Attorney Phaedra Norton said that she was not able to get any resolution from the Business and Profession Code, Attorney General’s website, Secretary of State’s Office, and County Clerk’s Office in regards to the legality of a Public Benefit Corporation using “doing business as” (DBA).
PRC Commissioners Desiree Silva and Angela Raeburn both questioned the decision making process on what the City’s policy was when these organizations applied because the City is now recommending that two affiliates may co-exist and that the City is currently looking to revise the affiliate program policy.
Specifically, Desiree Silva asked questioned the City’s recommendation to add an affiliate after already having one. Flanders clarified that the City did not have one, but that both are applying at the same time.
City Manager Roy Wasden was in attendance with City Staff and addressed Raeburn’s question of unfairness in changing the rules mid-process. Wasden referred to a number of inconsistencies and said that while the city has had rules and past practices, they just didn’t add up. Wasden also stated that the affiliate program clearly needs significant cleanup.
PRC Commission Chair Brent Bohlender began discussion toward a vote saying that the issues the organizations have with limited facility use isn’t really the PRC Commission’s issue, rather that both meet the requirements to be an affiliate and that maybe one affiliate is not enough to meet the community’s needs.
PRC Commissioner Desiree Silva disagreed by saying that if approving one and not the other, it would give one a field scheduling advantage over the other by using the City’s prioritization agreement with the schools.
Silva also said that the agreement specifically says that there is not to be more than one like affiliate.
Lastly, Silva had an issue with TVYF and how they didn’t have “Turlock” in the name.
Recreation’s Juliene Flanders clarified that TYF is not an affiliate so there are no youth football affiliates with two currently applying. City Staff clarified that “Turlock” is included on TVYF’s affiliate application.
PRC Commissioner Barney Gordon questioned if Trans Valley Youth Football applied first, should they be considered first? Gordon also pointed out that at the last meeting TYF made it seem like it was impossible to schedule more use at Joe Debely Stadium but he found a schedule on TYF’s website showing only 5 weeks of use at Joe Debely Stadium out of the entire season.
The PRC Commission reasoned that both should either be approved or denied so that the City would not be giving preference to one or the other.
Municipal Services Director Dan Madden reasoned even further by stating that theoretically, if the PRC Commission denied both organizations, a third group such as a rugby team, could apply and get prioritization over both youth football programs with less participants because the PRC Commission would basically be obligate to approve their affiliate status.
The PRC Commissioner voted 3-2 to approve both TVYF and TYF as affiliates (Barney Gordon, Brent Bohlender, and Richard Salinas voted in support/ Desiree Silva and Angela Raeburn voted in opposition/ Bella Daniel was absent and Gabi Kinsella resigned after last meeting).
