It is terrible when people volunteer their time to youth sports only to try to make a profit for their business. It is even worse when they do it with the full approval of the board elected to protect the integrity of the youth sports league.

This Saturday my kids are taking their baseball photos for the Madera National Little League. Except this year there is a new photographer with a new contract. That photographer is Gomes Images owned by Billy and Kathy Gomes.

Both of the Gomes are on the board of directors for the Madera National Little League. Only Mr. Gomes was elected by the general population of the league. Mrs. Gomes was appointed weeks after the general election.

Not only that but Kathy Gomes was the person who requested and accepted bids from other photographers. Now I do not know if Mrs. Gomes looked at all the bids before one was selected but she sure did have the opportunity. I also know she did not contact all the photographers in the area for bids.

I try to do business above board. If it’s even a little bit in the gray, I stay away. I don’t know how anyone looking at this contract can’t see it’s at the very least a conflict of interest.

Taking bids for a contract is a way of getting the best price for the best work. If the person who wins the bid is also the person sending out the requests for bids and the person accepting the bids, common sense says there is a problem with this?

If this were a city contract and a city councilmen won the bid and voted to approve it everyone would be screaming foul. How could the board of the Madera National Little League be so arrogant to think they would get away with this and no one would say FOUL?

Not to mention that the photo prices are all higher this year then they were last year. And last years photographer's bid this year was less than the one that won. Most of the packages offered this year are marked up over 500 percent. The largest package sells for $33 but has a print cost of only $6.50.

If your kid plays for the Madera National Little League you need to start attending board meetings. You need to start getting involved. This is your league and these are your kids. Get involved or get run over.

Interesting side note. My kids team decided to have me shoot their individual and team photos. I worked a nice package up for them that cost me around six bucks. The parents paid $10 for it and we put the extra four dollars in a fund for the after season party.

I requested that each player take their OFFICIAL team photo with Gomes Images and after I saw the set up suggested each parent buy their team photo. It looked nice.

When I went up to pay for my kids team photo Mrs. Gomes came up and told me to leave her booth. I told her I just paid for a six dollar team photo to which she said I paid for nothing. She then ripped up my form. I showed her my receipt that was signed by her daughter and said what I paid for with GOMES IMAGES on the top of it.

Lets see if she fulfills the order or not. Got to love the professionalism of those that get caught being bad.

Interesting note to this story. Many of the photos this "professional photographer" took had to be re-shot. Several teams had to come back another day because this "professional" messed up the original shoot. Funny I don't remember that happening last year or the year before that.

Maybe the board needs to redefine what they call PROFESSIONAL.

The BVN team had to reshoot their photos three times. I don't remember last years photographer being this bad. I hope this board will rethink who they chose next year and not use this to pay off a fellow board member.