Anderson Memorial Stadium received a makeover courtesy of the South Coast League of Professional Baseball, which contracted the Equip-It company out of Atlanta to install chairback seats in 2007. Almost a year after those seats were installed, however, they have yet to be paid for.

Although Tuesday the SCL officially suspended business operations for 2008, the trail of bad debt continues to follow it. Now Equip-It owner Jon Willis and Anderson City Parks and Recreation director Bobby Beville are pondering ways to rectify the situation.

Willis is still owed close to $70,000 for the items themselves as well as labor costs, and Beville said he doesn’t see a scenario where they can remain at Memorial Stadium.

The ballpark is home to the Anderson University Trojans baseball team, and during the summer it hosts adult leagues and traveling teams.

“It’s put us in a tough spot,” Beville said. “The contract is with the South Coast League, but obviously the seats are in a city-owned stadium. And I know (Anderson University) is not going to be able to purchase those seats.”

Willis has no quarrel with Beville or the city of Anderson. It’s the SCL that has caused him headaches — and hit him hard in the wallet.

“The SCL did eventually pay 25 percent of the cost, but the first check they sent bounced,” Willis said. “And after they were 90 days past due I talked to (former SCL chief executive officer Jamie Toole), and he said they wanted to pay them off in three installments. But I never heard back from the league.

“My assumption is (the SCL) will just go bankrupt and I’ll have to come down there, remove the seats and resell them. I hate it for Bobby and the folks in Anderson — they’ve been great to work with and have done everything to help me out. We all just kind of got left holding the bag.”

When the South Coast League came to Anderson, one selling point was sprucing up Memorial Stadium. Aside from the seats a “party deck” was built beside the bleachers on the first base line, and a John Deere tractor was purchased by the league to help prepare the field.

The tractor has long since been repossessed, and Beville said he isn’t sure of the status of the deck.

“The SCL also has some utility and light costs they never paid,” Beville said. “A month or so ago I asked Jamie to post a plan of how these debts would be paid off, and I never heard back from him. Everything kept snowballing.”

Beville said Anderson isn’t the only city left to pick up the pieces.

“It wasn’t just us, it’s every town in the league that’s had to deal with this,” he said. “And I hate it because I think the Joes were good for the community and people enjoyed it. But then once we started to hear about all the financial problems, we knew the writing was on the ball. We held out hope for a while, then it became obvious they wouldn’t play this year.”

The SCL hopes for a restart in 2009, but Beville said it has much work to do if it wants to come back to Memorial Stadium.

“They’d have to pay off all their debts from 2007 and pay up front for 2009, otherwise we simply couldn’t let them come back here,” he said.

As for Willis, he simply hopes to recoup some of his losses.

“I’m a small business and this has really stretched me,” Willis said. “Bobby and the city of Anderson have worked with me every way they can — it’s the SCL that has caused these problems. Like I said, the league will probably go bankrupt and I’ll just have to sell the seats and try to get as much money back on them as I can.”