Finger pointing from the operators of World Baseball Village in Bellevue, to the city and back. The big losers, unfortunately are the kids who just wanted to play baseball and the coaches and parents who paid money.
The complex just south of Offutt Air Force base is still a mess after the June tornado.
This was the place for 12 year old boys to play baseball around the same time as the College World Series as teams across the country compete.
“I thought it would be a good experience not only for the kids but the parents as well,” said Minnetonka Phantoms coach Ben Hendrickson, “it was our first big team trip.”
But they only played 6 games before the storms canceled the much anticipated tournament. Hendrickson thought the team would get some of the more than $11,000 back that they fundraised for the trip.
“He just explained once the insurance goes through, you know, you guys will get your refund,” said Hendrickson.
But World Baseball Village didn't have that insurance.
“Part of our management agreement was, that they were supposed to keep business continuation annuity insurance in place,” said Bellevue City Attorney Pat Sullivan who said the fault rests with World Baseball Village because while the city owns the property the village owns the managing rights.
“So the burden or risk of this tornado is really placed on them and they were supposed to insure against that and they didn't insure against it,” said Sullivan.
But Sullivan admits the city didn't check to see if world baseball village had the required insurance, “Should the city of Bellevue been checking on that every year-you know in Monday morning quarterbacking or hindsight yes.”
This back and forth leaving the teams in the dark wondering if they will get any money back.
“I was kind of disappointed in how we were told as well,” said Hendrickson.
3 News Now did reach out to World Baseball Village to see if they would comment on this story about refunding any of the money back to those teams and coaches however they did not respond back to 3 News Now by the time of this story.
