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City ‘made mistake’ in timing of request for soccer group to fork over more money
• Ceres Youth Soccer now won’t be asked to pay $50 per player
Lou Toste speaks
Lou Toste, president of Ceres Youth Soccer, gave the Ceres City Council a piece of his mind about the city asking for a dramatic increase in the share of per-player fees. The city quickly backed away from the plan, which the city manager called a mistake.

City officials are red-faced after an ill-timed proposal that would have financially impacted the Ceres Youth Soccer Organization and raised the ire of its officials.

At last week’s Ceres City Council meeting, Lou Toste, president of Ceres Youth Soccer Organization (CYSO), protested the city’s plan to require it to pay $47 more per player for use of the soccer fields at Ceres River Bluff Regional Park.

The city has since backed off of the request.

Approximately 1,000 youth play soccer annually in the league. They pay $100 to CYSO to play, of which $7 goes to the city of Ceres.

“We’ve been paying $7 to the city for each kid that plays plus we pay for the fields to play, to practice and I was approached to raise the fees to $50 per kid,” Toste told the council. “I’ve been here 42 years running this league. To see something like that, $50 … asking $50 is impossible for our league to run the way we run it.

“You’re talking a thousand kids, $50,000 and we have to out for all the expenses we have with everything, uniforms, referees, everything,” said Toste. “This sport has been tremendous.”

He asked for the matter to be discussed next year, noting that CYSO already began taking signups at the Ceres Street Faire last May for the upcoming season.

Mayor Javier Lopez said the City Council was unaware of the tentative increase in prices and told Toste: “Nothing will be set in stone so we’ll make sure staff will sit down and talk with you in regards to this matter.”

Also protesting last week was CYSO treasurer Ruben Alvarez who told city leaders that “It’s unconscionable for you guys to raise our prices without any notice literally when the contract was given to us. It was given to us two days before the contract expired. It’s not reasonable for us to be able to do something like that.”

City Manager Doug Dunford said he was unaware that sign-ups for the fall league began in May and acknowledged that “it was stupid to start that late” in negotiations.

“It wasn’t fair to them to ask for an increase so late in the game,” said Dunford, who added, “I don’t blame them for being made at us. I had the wrong information. We need to start talking to them in December for next year.”

He said the city is at a “bare minimum level of charging” CYSO and seeking to recover “some of the costs of taking care of the fields and all that stuff.”

When asked if the city would press for the $50 amount, Dunford said, “We’re going to look at it over time.”