During the inaugural season of the South Coast league of Professional Baseball, the La Quinta Inn and Suites served as the home away from home for opponents of the Anderson Joes. This year when they come to the Electric City, the Aiken Foxhounds, South Georgia Peanuts and Macon Music will have to find another place to stay.

Tina Anderson, assistant general manger of Anderson’s La Quinta Inn, said the league still owes the hotel $37,524.35.

“I’ve called over and over again and e-mailed them over and over again, and they just ignore it,” Anderson said. “I’ve had it. The last correspondence of any kind I had from them was last November, and it just crawls all over me when they say they’re trying to pay off debts but won’t even respond to us.”

The La Quinta Inn has received two payments from the SCL — one for approximately $5,000 and another for $15,000. But the balance has yet to be paid and Anderson isn’t hopeful that it ever will.

“Other hotels in league cities have had the same problems,” Anderson said. “But I’ve already made it perfectly clear that they can’t come back here. They just have a blatant disregard for their business responsibilities.”

Anderson says she has tried to contact both Jamie Toole, the chief executive officer of the SCL, as well as Garrett Ball, the vice president of South Carolina operations for the league. Ball sent Anderson an e-mail on November 7 stating the league fully intended to pay La Quinta the money, and was trying to generate revenue to do so. The e-mail stated that if Anderson felt her calls were being ignored, it was because “. . . we are trying to generate that revenue (to pay off the debt) instead of taking phone calls about money we already know that we owe.”

Since then there has been no response from either league official, according to Anderson.

“Supposedly they have some new investors, but they haven’t bothered to take care of the debts they owe us,” Anderson said. “Don’t get me wrong — for the most part the guys on the teams that stayed with us were great. We didn’t have any problems. But this is a business, and since the league won’t pay us we won’t host any more teams. I understand they were supposed to pay us by late January, but obviously that didn’t happen.”

Toole received an e-mail from La Quinta Feb. 26 asking if the league had plans to clear up its debts from 2007. He said the SCL is currently working through a collection company to work out an installment plan for the season “once our cash flows improve.”

The SCL will play its second season with four teams beginning in May.

Anderson is scheduled to open against Aiken May 15 at Anderson Memorial Stadium.