Members of the City Council’s Finance Committee approved the new lease during their meeting this week. The full council will vote on the five-year deal today. It has already been approved by the Tarp Skunks’ owner, Community Baseball LLC.

The lease will be extended through 2030 and cover the 13 weeks from mid-May through mid-August. Base rent will likely be much less expensive than it has been in years past, with rent starting at $13,000 in 2024 and 2025 and increasing $1,000 a year from 2026 through 2030, when the payment will be $18,000. Baseball has resulted in lease payments as high as $40,000 in some years.

“I think it also reflected a little bit about what the other teams in the league pay, and Jamestown was substantially higher,” said Tony Dolce, R-Ward 2 and council president. “I think they wanted to come back a little more in line with what the other community ball clubs were paying. They’re looking for the long-term viability of the franchise.”

The Tarp Skunks are the successor to the Jamestown Jammers, which succeeded the Minor League Baseball teams in the New York-Penn League Jamestown had played host to until 2014, when the Jamestown team was moved to Morgantown, W.V. The 2016 season brought the Prospect League to Jamestown while still using the nickname of the Jammers. The Prospect League team lasted one year before it was replaced by a team in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League. Before the organization left for Milwaukee in 2019, the franchise itself was donated to Jamestown Community Baseball LLC. The new ownership, consisting of several local investors from prominent Chautauqua County businesses, aims to keep baseball local and alive in Jamestown.

Jamestown Tarp Skunks Cooper Munro (27) celebrates a home run with teammates during Game 1 of a PGCBL doubleheader against the Auburn Doubledays on Sunday at Diethrick Park. P-J file photo by Scott Kindberg

Last year’s Tarp Skunks lease netted the city around $25,000, according to Elliot Raimondo, city corporation counsel.

“One of the things is we have an original lease that was originally negotiated with the Jamestown Jammers, who we all know were a farm affiliate team of Major League Baseball, so those revenue numbers were based on the parent company’s ability to have farm talent. The new lease is really based upon the fact that we do have community baseball, we want to see community baseball stay in the city of Jamestown. The numbers themselves are based on the fact that it pays $1,000 a week. So in all fairness to Babe Ruth and other city activities, we have $1,000 a week rent for this first year and then inflation we calculated after the first two years.”

Payments in the past have included incentives depending on how many games the team won, how many community appearances the team and its players made throughout the year and attendance that could decrease the amount owed to the city. The new lease also acknowledges the fact the Tarp Skunks offices will soon move from the stadium to another building, decreasing the space the team uses in Diethrick Park.

“In as much as the incentives were concerned both parties felt it was a lot of paperwork to count how much the Tarp Skunks appeared at various community events, what was done here and what was done there and if they made the playoffs,” Raimondo said. “We simplified the process because it’s in their best interest to do as many community events as possible, so we took that out of the contract.”