Stadium lighting talks continue for committee
The Parks and Playgrounds Committee met on Monday to discuss with representatives from various youth football groups that want to add more lighting to the Skip Baughman Stadium and other issues involving practices.
Councilmen John Bubp, Bob Fitzgerald and Todd Fleagle talked with members of the youth football groups about some requests they want to put through when it comes to improving practice for the kids. One of the main issues that have come up is with lighting as the days get darker, resulting in practices being played in the dark.
The Youth Football Group (as designated by Bubp) have had some problems when it comes to holding proper practices since fall hit, with things becoming darker much earlier. The practice field and the Skip Baughman Stadium are difficult to use because of this. The issue can’t be easily resolved since, according to the committee, the lighting systems were taken out at the stadium.
“It would take a lot of money, a lot of time,” Greg Foxhoven, director of public service and safety, stated after being asked what it would take to get something functional at the stadium ready. “We have a lot of interested folks in different types of facilities that they think should be there.”
Some of the groups present, the Roughrider Touchdown Club, are willing to help with costs if it means having some issues with the stadium settled, but the situation is complicated right now. Foxhoven and other members of the administration are not sure exactly where everything should go, so plans are still up in the air right now.
Talk of a temporary solution, such as temporary lighting, was brought up during the meeting, something which the youth groups are willing to help with. There needs to be more discussion and more planning before something can officially be done first, though, meaning it probably won’t be settled immediately.
“We’re going to investigate lighting and we’ll get back to you on that then,” stated Bubp. He mentioned that they will also look into other places for the groups to practice to make sure use of the stadium is only for games. “I know you want to keep one field as a nice field for your games. You don’t want to practice on a game field.”
The situation has been put to the side for now until more information can be gathered at this time. A project will most likely be done to help with the practice field situation as it is stated by Foxhoven to be “low-hanging fruit.”
In other news, the St. Marys City Council met following the Parks and
Playgrounds Committee concluded its business. Some focus was given to the Ordinance 202137 and Resolution 2021-24 as it was on its second reading, but it was set aside to be discussed later.
However, a new piece of legislation came was introduced as Resolution 2021-25, with the main focus being an application for funding from the Clean Ohio Fund. The resolution is related to the treatment train project the city is involved in, according to Manager of Industrial and Community Development Mike Burkholder.
“What this resolution will do is authorize Greg to submit with Clean Ohio to purchase the property where we’re going to put the treatment train,” said Burkholder. Filed as an emergency resolution, the city needed to have this approved in order to get the application in as soon possible.
The rules were suspended in order to pass it after its first reading.
The meeting was concluded soon after the resolution was passed. A request for the Finance Committee to meet on Dec. 6 was approved for 5:15 p.m., as well as a rescheduling of the Dec. 27 City Council meeting to Dec. 29 at 5:15 p.m.