After years of paying rent and playing on Merritt College fields, the Montclair Soccer Club was told abruptly last week that it was barred from using them. Faced with the loss of one of its prime facilities, the club moved games and practices in a mad scramble to adjust.

On Sunday, Merritt announced it had reopened the fields — a subsequent rainstorm, however, temporarily closed all natural fields used by local soccer leagues. A concern now is whether the fields will stay open. Barring weather concerns, the club hopes the Merritt fields remain available at least through the end of the current season in November.

The club now is looking for a short-term reprieve, but also seeking a long-term solution.

"We're neighbors of Merritt College," said Montclair Soccer Club President Meredith Brown. "A lot of us live within 5 or 10 minutes of the college. We have a partnership program that allows players to take classes at the college for high school or college credit. We're regular users, we clean up the fields and we bring enrollment to the college."

Merritt College President Robert Adams, who Brown says is a proponent of her club's continued use of the fields, was out of town this week and unavailable for comment. Other representatives of the college and the Peralta College District either would not comment or could not be reached. But Merritt reportedly closed its fields after parents of a Montclair Soccer Club player complained

After some maintenance work and a walk-through by Merritt College officials, the college officially reopened the fields on Sunday. Currently, the Montclair Soccer Club is looking for a long-term contract with the college to prevent future field closures. Representatives of both the club and the college were to have met Monday at Bishop O'Dowd High School. But Merritt officials canceled because of another unscheduled meeting. The two sides will try to meet again on Nov. 9

A sticking point in the negotiations involves the maintenance of the fields. In past years, Montclair Soccer Club members provided both the materials and manpower to maintain the Merritt fields — this in addition to the rent paid by the club. But Brown and some fellow club parents say the college now argues that such work must be reserved for the school's union workers.

"We respect labor," Brown said. "My uncle is a longshoreman in Oakland and we have union leadership among our soccer club parents. But doing volunteer work once or twice a year is not contracting out. It would be great to sit down with the union and explain that we're not out to take anyone's job."

Labor questions aside, the overriding concern, some parents argue, is that the fields are not being properly maintained by anybody at this point. Broken irrigation pipes and sandy ground lacking topsoil don't help matters, either.

Still, the long-term vision is to convert the current status into a win-win situation for both Merritt and the Montclair Soccer Club.

"We have nowhere else to go," Brown says. "We have 1,200 kids and it's growing. We need to know that we'll be at Merritt long-term."