In a 4-1 vote, Great Falls City Commissioners approved up to $425,000 of park maintenance district funds toward repairs at Voyagers Stadium during their Nov. 4 meeting.
Commissioner Shannon Wilson voted against the request.
The city owns the stadium and has leased it to the Great Falls Baseball Club since 1999. The Enbar ownership group bought the Voyagers last year.
The funding is nearly the entirety of available park district funds available for the Park and Recreation Department annually for projects and will require commissioners to approve a budget amendment since it wasn’t included in the budget they approved over the summer.
Under the lease, the Voyagers rent is $12,884.08 annually for 2026-2030.
A reader told The Electric on Nov. 10 that the Voyagers were two years behind on their rent payments.
The Electric asked city staff who said on Nov. 11 that the baseball club had just paid their 2024 rent and had not yet paid their 2025 rent.
According to the lease agreement, rent is due on or before Nov. 1 each year.
Rent payment status was not disclosed by city staff during the October work session, Nov. 4 commission meeting or in the staff packet.
The lease payments go into the city’s general fund, according to city staff.
In response to a Nov. 10 public information request, the city clerk emailed The Electric on Nov. 12 and wrote: “the 2024 lease payment has been paid. The 2025 lease payment is outstanding.”
Scott Reasoner, Voyagers general manager, said that they had paid this year’s rent and the check cleared weeks ago. He said they’d never missed a deadline on rent.
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The commission decision to allocate $425,000 of park district funds for Voyager stadium was also the focus of the Nov. 10 Park and Rec Advisory Board, which agreed it was beating a dead horse, but expressed their frustration.
Jessica Compton, interim Park and Rec director, told the board that a concrete integrity test was being planned at the stadium and city finance staff was working on contracts and vendors for the concrete, seat replacement and safety netting included in the funding request.
The first phase, she said, could be the concrete and seats and phase two the netting and poles, but they’re looking at timing since pouring concrete is weather dependent and the logistics of the season starting in the spring.
Kevin Vining, parks supervisor, said the projects will have to follow city processes, including a minimum of three bids and the city will execute the contracts.
Pat Carroll, park board member, said the decision “just burned a big hole in the back of my throat” when he heard it, but appreciated that the money wouldn’t be given directly to the Enbar group.
Jim Sergeant, park board member, asked Parks and Rec staff what they had to do to adjust to the decision.
Vining said that during the commission discussion, they kept asking what projects were deferred.
“That’s not the correct term, it’s eliminated,” Vining said, as that funding would be gone.
They have 12 years left of the park maintenance district and staff said they’d laid out projects for the duration of the district that they now have to adjust.
Compton said City Manager Greg Doyon had requested Park and Rec staff to show what would be cut to fund the Voyagers stadium so that when the next group comes to ask for money, they could say no.
Compton and Vining said they were both hoping to do more parks projects and planning for larger projects such as a new irrigation system in Gibson Park, which is an estimated $2.5 million.
The pond wall in Gibson is also in need of significant repair and the River’s Edge Trail by NorthWestern’s office down to the Black Eagle Dam is sloughing off and “getting pretty concerning,” Vining said.
They might have to close sections of the trail in that area unless staff can find additional funding, he said.
DeeAnna Brady-Leader, park board member, said “frankly our park system is what people come to, all people” and she was frustrated to see a decision like this made for hotels and tourism.
Carroll asked if there was anything legal they could do to stop the funding, such as suing the city, but staff said the commission was the final decision.
Sergeant said they need to learn from this to stop future requests and there needs to be a better procedure.
“I think a lot of people in Great Falls, including myself, hated that they jumped to the front of the line,” Sergeant said.
Brady-Leader said that comparing it to how long they’ve been working with Verizon to put a monopine in Dudley Anderson Park, a project that’s been further delayed, “something this big should never go through this fast.”
Carroll said he had season tickets for four years and “I didn’t see anything that needs to be fixed right now.”
Art Taft, park board member, asked “why haven’t the people that run the baseball stadium been taking care of it?”
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Vining said there’s some debate about who’s responsible for maintenance and projects, particularly what constitutes minor versus major projects.
Taft asked about communication regarding the state of the facility.
“Were they coming to us saying hey look at this, we need to fix this, or have they just been sitting on it,” Taft asked.
Vining said the Voyagers had been putting money into the stadium, but he didn’t know how much. He said they were making some changes and documenting more of that kind of work.
Compton said Park and Rec staff hadn’t been informed and “there wasn’t a lot of sharing in the past.”
Taft said “we did not have a voice in this matter.”
Compton said, “that’s how it was to us too,” and that she was prepared to talk about projects that would be cut as a result of funding the stadium repairs but wasn’t given that opportunity at the commission meeting.
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“I’m just curious about what advisory committee means if we don’t give advice,”Brady-Leader said, and Sergeant said the park board should have been invited to the stadium tours that commissioners took.
During the Nov. 4 meeting, Commissioner Rick Tryon said that they’d specifically asked during their October work session for details on what Great Falls Parks and Recreation projects would be affected if they approved the Voyagers funding.
Tryon said there wasn’t a specific outline in their agenda packets.
“Is that something that’s unknowable at this time? I’m hesitant to vote for this unless we know what it is we will not be funding in order to fund this,” Tryon said.
City Manager Greg Doyon said the packet didn’t include a comprehensive list of parks projects he’d seen after the Park and Rec director left in April, but that the projects included in this year’s budget wouldn’t be affected.
Looking at the rest of the projects for the rest of the park maintenance district, Doyon said funding the Voyagers stadium repairs may delay those.
To which, Tryon responded, “so we don’t know.”
Doyon said he could run to his office right then and get the list if they really wanted it.
Tryon asked if there would be a noticeable deficit in park projects if they funded the Voyagers repairs.
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“Will the public feel that in some way if we fund this and defer those other projects,” Tryon asked and said before he voted on it he needed to know the impact on the original intention of the park maintenance fund.
Doyon said the priority list for next year’s projects may change, but funding the Voyagers stadium repairs would defer other projects and it “really does come down to community priorities.”
Doyon said they were being asked to consider that the stadium was a city asset leased to the Voyagers and “my understanding of them asking for it is they can’t fund it themselves.”
He said it comes down to prioritizing the stadium over other amenities the community wants, to which Tryon asked how they could prioritize the stadium if they don’t know what the other projects are and suggested postponing the decision until they could get a more detailed and comprehensive idea of what they’d be “sacrificing” to fund the stadium repairs.
Tryon said he agreed the stadium needed work but that the public deserved to see what would be deferred.
Mayor Cory Reeves said he was not supportive of postponement.
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Commissioner Susan Wolff said that when she went to the stadium as part of consideration of the Voyagers funding request, she was “stunned” about the condition of the concrete and seats.
Commissioner Shannon Wilson asked if they were breaking contracts on funds already committed to projects.
Doyon said that this year’s budgeted projects wouldn’t be affected.
Wilson asked if the stadium had been put on the list somewhere down the line for repairs.
Doyon said that they were being asked to fund the Voyagers request and add their projects to the list.
Scott Reasoner, Voyagers general manager and Enbar group partner, said they know their request will limit funding for other parks projects.
He said that they started the process a long time ago and there’d been a miscommunication with staff.
Reasoner had funded other projects that aren’t necessarily just parks, such as Electric City Water Park and the Mansfield Theater.
The city owns and operates both of those facilities.
Reasoner said Voyagers stadium was one of the oldest ballparks in the U.S. and they’d lower ticket prices for the next season and weren’t asking for the money to drive their revenues.
Brett Doney of the Great Falls Development Alliance said that the agency had a conflict of interest since they’d invested $1.1 million into the purchase of the baseball team and were grateful to the Enbar group for keeping the team in town.
He said they weren’t able to get a bank involved so GFDA stepped in and convinced the state to participate in their loan because they think it’s important to have affordable family entertainment.
Doney said they also supported the creation of the park district and that Voyagers funding request broke down to $7 per city resident so they believed it’s a good investment and if done properly, the city would have the stadium asset for a long time.
Rebecca Engum, Visit Great Falls Tourism director said they supported the project as the baseball team increased quality of life for locals and benefits the tourism industry.
She said the stadium hosts trainings and meetings, as well as sports and live music.
Engum said she didn’t envy the situation of having to constantly pick this over that when it’s all needed in the community, but “this asset has been ignored for awhile.”
Ed Brown, Great Falls Area Chamber of Commerce said there aren’t currently a lot of baseball fans so could understand some people thinking the stadium repairs weren’t necessary, but kids who have fun at games today could become fans in the future.
Tom Jacobsen, a partner of the Enbar group who lives in Cascade, said that they started Enbar and the associated businesses to create community space downtown and when the opportunity to purchase the Voyagers came along, it was in sync with their mission of community space.
But it was “probably not the smartest business decision we’ve ever made,” Jacobsen said.
Maintenance has been deferred on the facility for years, he said, and it was unfortunate that they weren’t able to get in front of the commission to ask for these repairs during the budget process.
Sean Sturges has been involved with Legion baseball and supported funding the stadium repairs.
“It’s a gem in this city and without it we would not be the same,” he said.
Jeni Dodd, a regular commission meeting goer, was opposed to funding the stadium repairs and asked why the maintenance had been deferred for so long.
“Why weren’t they making repairs all along,” she asked and said “it is unjust” to use taxpayer money to support private business.
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“Public parks are free to people. That’s what people voted for to support the public parks that are free that we can go to, not to an entity that makes money,” Dodd said.
Two other opponents said there were other parks and trails that needed improvements and that service the whole community.
During public comment, Doyon stepped out of the commission chambers and returned with papers, consulting in the hallway with the interim Park and Rec director.
Returning to the meeting, he said he had a couple of lists and it was “unfair to dump this on the commission in this venue” and that while preparing for the conversation, they realized the “stale lease” needs to be revisited.
When the Enbar group announced in November 2024 that it had purchased the team, former Park and Rec director Steve Herrig told The Electric that the sale didn’t affect the current lease, but that they have been in conversations with the group about possibly restructuring the lease.
“I’m very hesitant to vote on this based on the lack of information that we have and the lack of understanding of what we’re going to have to defer,” Tryon said.
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There’s “no doubt” the stadium is in need of some repairs and is “a real gem” in the community, “but that’s not really the question. The question is what do we have to give up in order to fund it.”
Commissioner Shannon Wilson said that she valued the stadium, but thinks it needed to come after other public parks and facilities for park district funds and wondered what would happen if bids came back higher than estimates as they did for other recent city projects such as the Mansfield Theater seat replacement project.
“I think we’re rushing into taking money from the park district maintenance fund,” Wilson said.
Mayor Cory Reeves said it was no different than the water park or the new indoor aquatic center and if the repairs aren’t made, the city shouldn’t keep the stadium open due to safety issues.
Reeves said the Enbar group bought the team with the understanding the repairs would be in the budget and it wasn’t on them that the city dropped the ball.
Commissioner Susan Wolff said “this is a first step, there’s long term maintenance needed there. I totally support this. I don’t want to see the liability that’s gonna come in front of this commission and this city if those repairs are not made.”
Tryon said he would vote for the funding, but “reluctantly” because he didn’t think they had enough information but valid arguments had been made about public safety issues.
He said he did not want to see the park district assessment increase and “what frightens me” is that they approved this, and then other things come up and they’re forced with the decision of increasing the assessment, which he would not support.
Wilson said the decision was setting a precedent and “boy, I value baseball, I value Centene,” but it was “really going against” the intention of the park district.
