Lease Dispute Between Adelanto and Baseball Team Heats Up

The city says the High Desert Mavericks owe it money for maintenance of Heritage Field, and that the team has made it difficult to book special events there, a charge the ball club denies. Eviction is a possibility, one city councilman says.

A battle between Adelanto and the High Desert Mavericks regarding the baseball team’s use of the city-owned Heritage Field at Stater Bros. Stadium could end in the team being evicted from that facility, according to a city council member.

The dispute, which boiled over this month when the council voted to end its stadium lease with the minor league ball club, could be resolved before a judge, Councilman Jermaine Wright said.

“I think this will end up in court, and I think that it could end up with an eviction,” said Wright, who accused the Mavericks of not negotiating in good faith.

 The team, which is scheduled to begin its 2016 season April 7th with a home game against the Inland Empire 66ers, has been given 60 days to resolve the lease dispute. That period ends Feb. 22, at which point the city could begin eviction proceedings, Wright said.

Dave Heller, managing partner of the Mavericks, denied Wright’s accusations. The team, a Class A affiliate of the Texas Rangers that has played at Heritage Field since 1991, plans to play there this year under the terms of its $1-a-year lease with Adelanto, Heller said.

“The Mavericks have a legal, binding contract with the city to play the 2016 season at Heritage Field, and that is what we intend to do,” Heller said. “We also expect the city to honor its agreements even if it doesn’t like them.”

The council voted to terminate the stadium lease after deciding that the agreement violates the state Constitution, which prohibits giving excessive public funds to a privately operated business.

Council members maintain that, since the current lease began in 2012, Adelanto has spent roughly $2 million maintaining the stadium, and that the team is obligated to pay that money back or find another place to play.

The vote was part of the council’s July 13 consent agenda, meaning it was lumped together with several other issues, all of which were voted on collectively and with no discussion.

However, Wright and his fellow council members sent a clear message to Mavericks ownership that the stadium lease must be renegotiated so that it’s more favorable for the city.

Adelanto officials, including Mayor Richard Kerr, held a series of meetings with Mavericks’ representatives last year. Those sessions were held every other Friday for several months but produced no positive results, Wright said.

“We were meeting regularly and then they got called off last June,” said Wright, whose four-year term will end next November. “The people from [the Mavericks] stopped showing up for some reason.”

Whether the city was owned $2 million for stadium upkeep never came close to being resolved, Wright said.

“They  either wouldn’t admit that the city is owed any money or they would come up with excuses for not paying us,” Wright said. “We need to go back to the table and reach an agreement that will defer the city’s costs, but nothing is scheduled as of now,”

Because it was anxious to have a professional baseball team, and because it saw the ball club as a source of summer jobs for local youth, the city council in 2012 negotiated a “bad lease” that is not in Adelanto’s financial interest, Wright said.

“I don’t know of any other minor league baseball team that pays $1 a year to lease its stadium,” Wright said. “That’s unheard of. [The Mavericks] also don’t draw well from the city of Adelanto. We ended up subsidizing the team so that people from Hesperia, Victorville and Apple Valley could come out and watch baseball.”

Of its current five members, only Wright and Councilman Ed Camargo were on the 2012 council.

The Mavericks have also alienated some people in the High Desert business community by  limiting the number of non-baseball events held at Heritage Field, according to a long-time commercial real estate broker in the region.

“They have control over the stadium, and they don’t want to have anything there except their baseball games,” said Don Brown, president of Lee & Associates Victorville. “They don’t like concerts because they say it will tear up the field. The same goes for football.”

Lee & Associates had an agreement with the city to find non-baseball related events for the stadium, Brown said

The company had a chance to book country singer Gretchen Wilson for one night at a discount rate  – Wilson was traveling through the Victor Valley while on tour – but the show never happened because the Maverick said no.

Lee & Associates ended the agreement after one year.

“There was no point,” said Brown, who said he advised city officials that Adelanto would be better off without the Mavericks as a tenant. “We would approach the city with an idea and they would say ‘we have to talk to the Mavericks about that,’ and every time the answer would come back no. It was very frustrating.”

Wright agreed with Brown’s assessment, saying the city has had a difficult time getting events other than Mavericks games into Heritage Filed, which seats 3,808 for baseball.

“It’s true that they only want baseball there.” Wright said of the team.

But there are other events at the stadium, including concerts and the Adelanto Grand Prix, a three-day racing event that was held at the stadium earlier this month, Heller said.

The Mavericks aren’t concerned about having a place to play this year because its agreement with the city allows the team to extend its lease to Sept. 30, well after the season will be over, Heller said,

He denied that the team, which is part of the 10-team California League, has not negotiated in good faith with the city, as Wright and others have claimed.

“We’re always willing to negotiate, but I’m not sure there’s anything to negotiate because we have a lease with the city that it agreed to,” Heller said. “If the city of Adelanto doesn’t like the terms of that lease, that’s too bad.”

The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a California League team and a Los Angeles Dodgers affiliate, aren’t likely to encounter the problems the Mavericks are facing even though their stadium, LoanMart Field, is owned by Rancho Cucamonga.

“Every lease agreement is different, and ours says we play 70 regular season home games [at  LoanMart Field],” said Grant Riddle, the Quakes’ general manager.  “And that’s all it says. We have no say over any other dates.”