The Seaside School District’s drive to meet a federal Office of Civil Rights deadline ran into a wall Monday night at the Seaside City Council meeting. School district representatives had hoped to emerge from the meeting with approval for a conceptual site plan for a softball reconfiguration at Broadway Field consistent with an agreement between the district and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

But councilors, donors to the Herche Family Training Facility at Broadway Field, members of Seaside Kids and others led to tabling the project redesign at Broadway Field even as the federal deadline for the school district to remedy Title IX gender-equity violations looms in a little more than nine months.

They said that the decision hadn’t received public input, the consent of all partners at Broadway Field — including the city and the Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District — and would undo fundraising efforts for Seaside Kids Inc.

“I’m still puzzled,” Councilor Tita Montero said. “When did the word get out? How was this presented to the community so people would know they had an opportunity? I’m not happy with what I’m hearing because I don’t feel that the effort was made.”

The plan was considered the best of three field proposed redesigns, school district project manager Brian Hardebeck said.

Moving the training facility, which was designed and developed from donors through the community and Seaside Kids, Inc., is not something the school district would “favor” doing, he said, but would be viable and keep the quality and performance of the building as good as it is now.

The district consulted with Emmert International, a building relocation company based in Clackamas, to move the training facility.

“They have moved multiples of these kinds of buildings very successfully,” Hardebeck said. “This option would add an additional field for year-round community use. The overall vision is for a spring sports destination location that’ll allow simultaneous softball and baseball play.”

They met with Seaside Fire and Rescue, Seaside Public Works Director Dale McDowell and Skyler Archibald, executive director of the Sunset Park and Recreation District, to provide a proposal and feasibility study, Hardebeck said. A parks committee open house in August also provided an opportunity for public review.

Hardebeck added that the school district had received a letter of support from the Herche family, who provided a large portion of the batting facility’s funding and received naming rights.

Without the endorsement of Seaside Kids Inc., the reconfiguration faces a big hurdle.

Andrew Silvas, a donor to the training facility, said he hadn’t heard about the plan until a few days ago.

He said was proud of the work he and others were able to do for the community in providing the training facility.

“This needs to be brought where everybody has a chance to look at it,” Silvas said. “As a donor I think that I should have been notified — if not the entire community.”

The organization’s president, Scott White, said a survey of top donors showed those who responded are against moving the facility.

“We rely on donations of time and money for our group to keep going,” White said. “And if we lose some of our top donors I’m not sure if Seaside Kids can continue.”

Before hearing a motion to table the project, Mayor Jay Barber said he thought the school district plan offered an “excellent location” for the field.

“I want, as the mayor and a member of this council, to say, ‘Yes, let’s do this,’” Barber said. “But you all need to sit down and work out all the details.”

The timeline is challenging, Susan Penrod, the school district superintendent, acknowledged.

“When we originally met with the Office of Civil Rights we shared with them that it was a tight timeline,” she said. “In our two check-ins that we have had with them, we’ve continued to share that. We have not asked for an extension at this time, but because we wanted to see go further with site selection. But I see that happening.”

Barber and councilors Tom Horning, Tita Montero, David Posalski and Steve Wright voted to table a decision on the school district proposal. Dana Phillips and Randy Frank were absent.

The school district will return with additional information and a communications plan at the council’s next meeting, Sept. 27.