Who gets to use Jelleff Field? Some neighbors and advocates are fighting against a private school for access

The field at the Jelleff Recreation Center in Georgetown is publicly owned, but for nearly 10 years a private school, Maret, has enjoyed priority use of the field during after-school hours when recreation center fields are most in demand.

After almost a decade of this arrangement and over the objections of the Georgetown ANC and many neighbors, DC’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) signed a renewal agreement this year to continue Maret’s priority use of the fields during after-school hours.

Why? Because the school will be paying for upgrades to the field.

Councilmember Elissa Silverman, several Georgetown ANC Commissioners, and a Change.org petition with nearly 2,000 signatures are all asking DPR to void the renewal of the agreement.

It all started in 2009

From the 1940s through 2009, the Jelleff Recreation Center was owned and operated by the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington. However, due to economic conditions, in 2009 the Boys and Girls Club began a request for proposal (RFP) process to sell the Jelleff Recreation Center. Before the process could be finalized, the District paid $20 million to acquire Jelleff and two other recreation centers, bringing the recreation center into public ownership. However, the field needed a significant amount of investment and maintenance to be usable year-round and in inclement weather.

Rather than investing the $2.5 million needed to build an artificial turf field to be administered by DPR like most other public parks, the District struck an agreement with Maret School, located almost two miles away in Woodley Park, in which the school would pay for the new field and other improvements in exchange for 10 years of priority rights to use the fields between 3:30 pm and 6 pm on weekday afternoons (2 pm on Wednesdays) during the fall and spring, all day the last two weeks of August, and 10 Saturdays a year.

Who gets to use a public field?

People affiliated with Maret School are not the only people who want to use fields in Georgetown. There have been requests to use the fields from neighboring schools and the Boys and Girls Club which operates at the Jelleff Recreation Center. According to the parents and commissioners behind the Change.org petition, these requests are very occasionally granted. Meanwhile, most “home” games are played at fields nearly an hour away from Georgetown.

The field at Jelleff is not big enough to accommodate every user at every time they want to use the field and there’s not much, if any, available land to build another recreation field in Georgetown.

Under these circumstances, where demand for field space exceeds the supply of field space in the neighborhood, what is the best way to allocate the space? Under this agreement, DPR’s answer is essentially renting it to the highest bidder.

DPR claims, as they did in 2009, they do not have the funding to maintain the field at Jelleff. After almost 10 years since Maret School initially rebuilt the field, it now needs a new turf and fence which costs money. Rather than fund this through the normal budget process, DPR turned to Maret again for an extension of the original agreement. This extension would not end until 2029.

There was money in the District’s budget to acquire Jelleff in 2009 and when it was purchased there should have been a plan for upkeep and maintenance though DPR claimed there was no budget. The field was in bad condition, so getting a new field was good, but at what cost?

There are not a lot of good options

If you take DPR at its word that there is not enough money in the budget to properly maintain the field, there are not many good options. DPR could take control back over as it planned in 2009, and the field could deteriorate. But at least space will be used based on DPR’s allocation rather than taking a chunk of the best times and giving it to Maret.

Another option is to have Maret upgrade the field so it’s better for all the users, knowing full well that the primary user will be Maret for the next 10 years.

Even if the use allocation were given back solely to DPR and the City paid for the field replacement, it is unlikely that everyone who wants to use the field will be able to use the field. The Boys and Girls club and public school users would get more time on the field during after-school hours. But, with so many groups wanting to use the field at the same time, it is unlikely that all groups would get as much time as they want.

How to manage and provide public goods

There are lots of ways cities manage the use of public land and services. Pools in DC are free, but some neighborhood pools are open for a longer season than others. Valet staging and intercity bus service public space permissions are based on first-come-first-serve exclusive use permits with nominal annual fees, and lots of services are based on waitlists.

Another way to manage or provide public goods it is to work with a private entity to support some or all of the costs of the public service. This is most evident in real estate transactions when a developer pays for public land and also builds a new library or fire station on the ground floor of the new development.

But unlike a new library or fire station funded by commercial development, the public’s right to use the public service isn’t hurt by the fact that there’s a commercial development upstairs. At Jelleff, there’s a limit on the number of users at a time unless more field space is built and managed by the City in Georgetown. And, at least for now, it seems like hours in high-demand are accessible only to one sliver of the community.