Riverside Ball Association President Katie Schneider spoke the council Monday night. Photo by Sam McIntosh.
The Riverside City Council has given funds to the Riverside Ball Association.

The Tri-County 10U All Stars Babe Ruth Softball Team, an elementary age charter team that comprises players from Riverside and Lone Tree, requested a $1500 donation at the Riverside City Council’s July 17 meeting to help fund their trip to the World Series competition in Florida last month. A motion passed from the council to give the $1500, contingent on a meeting with the City Attorney Bill Sueppel. After meeting with Sueppel, Mayor Allen Schneider proposed that the council scale back to giving $500. At Monday’s meeting Sueppel asked the council what value this contribution would be to the city, and the standards for this donation be applied to other organizations seeking funding for trips.

Councilperson Tom Sexton commented on the public purpose of a grant, “Well my concern, yeah, I think the Ball Association is probably a good place to spend money. But I was a little disappointed when we had a business owner downtown here that suffered a physical accident with another employee and they were having a major fund drive for him. Yet we found that wasn’t a public purpose to us to contribute to that which I feel a local downtown business is a pretty good spot to be giving money because there’s definitely a public purpose there, I thought.”

Council person Jeanine Redlinger discussed how the team spread awareness of the City of Riverside at the World Series tournament, “They’re advertising for us and it encourages them to take part of ball games and activities the city provides and to stay here as members of the community, even if we have a bad street in the town.”

A vote passed 4-1 to grant the Riverside Ball Association a $500 Hotel-Motel Tax Grant.