The Grizzly Stadium community project has two primary objectives. The first is obvious, providing student athletes in Mariposa County with facilities that are at least comparable to the schools with which they compete.

The second goal, when the stadium is complete, will offer this county an economic engine that has never existed here.

Except for 100-year floods, rock slides, and federal government shutdowns that limit public access to Mariposa County’s revenue lifeblood, Yosemite National Park, this economy thrives during the traditional tourist season, and struggles for the balance of the year.

Yosemite has always fed the coffers of local business during the traditional summer season. But for much of the rest of the year, during the shoulder seasons and off season, Mariposa County’s economic engine slows to an idle.

The mere existence of Grizzly Stadium can apply the accelerator.

For example, next spring a 35-team girls’ youth softball organization wants to hold a tournament at Grizzly Stadium. That could easily equate to 2,000 visitors over a three-day period who would pump revenue not only into Mariposa’s business community, but into the County treasury through sales taxes and transient occupancy taxes (TOT).

In the fall of 2011, the Southern Athletic League would like to hold a season-opening football jamboree in Grizzly Stadium. Mariposa could look forward to accommodating 16 football teams and all the fans that travel with them.

There’s no reason why in 2011 the highly-successful youth football Superbowl couldn’t be held here. The list goes on and on, and only the tip of the iceberg has been exposed.

Since the majority of youth sporting events take place outside of Mariposa’s traditional tourist season, the shoulder seasons and off season can be remolded into solid revenue resources for the entire county.

Once complete, the stadium’s existence would create employment opportunities at area businesses, and leave Mariposa County government leaders less influenced by the gyrations and unpredictability of the state’s budget mess.

In typical Mariposa fashion, it’s the community that has undertaken this mission, which will certainly elevate the level of satisfaction at its completion. We hope you will make a contribution, financially or in another fashion, to securing this community’s future.

R.D. TUCKER GAZETTE PUBLISHER