The Soldotna Field House Booking Policy was established at the Soldotna City Council meeting on Wednesday, April 9th, to ensure fair access, efficient use, and alignment with the City’s goals of promoting community recreation, economic benefits from events, and opportunities for all age groups.
The City of Soldotna Parks & Recreation Department manages the scheduling and upkeep of the Soldotna Field House, a key community recreational facility.
Parks and Recreation Director Joel Todd says, “The booking policy for the field house is a hierarchy of who would have access and when.”
The different user groups and the city-sponsored programming and events would have first priority. Todd said, “These are things similar to like what you would see at the ice rink, which would be a public ski or the learner ski programs where we know that these are valuable times and days for the community to access that facility.”
After that, they would start booking historical events, specifically ones that are “economic drivers” for the community, like home shows, sports, and rec shows. According to Todd, these events are often planned over a year in advance.
Then, they would proceed with youth sports and adult nonprofit sports, which would be similar to the KPHA and high school programs that are currently on the ice rink. “We would want to lock in these different leagues or programs, and then drifting down, we would get into more of the commercial programs or activities,” Todd said.
“Using that hierarchy for booking the field house will help the staff make sure that we’re using all of the time and space to the best use.” Todd says. “So this just gives us an opportunity to work with each user group. More details would be in our procedures, the how to’s, the fines, the dates for when people would need to request their time. That would all come in house with our staff.