{"id":23489,"date":"2025-01-22T15:18:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T20:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=23489"},"modified":"2025-01-22T20:05:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T01:05:53","slug":"park-board-decatur-city-council-not-on-same-page-with-ball-field-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/22\/park-board-decatur-city-council-not-on-same-page-with-ball-field-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"Park Board, Decatur Board of Works not on same page with ball field lights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do ball fields need lights during Daylight SavingTime?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord wants you to know he’s not against kids playing ball nor lacking appreciation for a major donation. But he’ll also explain to you that he wants taxpayer funds spent as wisely as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m not against it all all. But I just think the money (donation) could be spent more wisely,\u201d he told WZBD.com after Tuesday night’s city board of works and safety meeting in City Hall on a frigid night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subject came up when Operations Manager Jeremy Gilbert, among whose numerous duties is overseeing the parks department, told council that the city’s park board would like to accept a $125,000 donation from Adams Health Network (AHN) to help light Field 3 at the REV Sports Complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effort will require $144,500, but the park board is willing to make up the difference of almost $20,000 and would like the board’s permission to proceed, according to Gilbert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sparked a discussion among the board \u2013 Mayor Rickord, Craig Coshow and Tyler Fullenkamp \u2013 about the need for lights given the long hours of daylight in the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Daylight Saving Time (DST), the mayor said, it’s rare that lights are needed. He said he’s talked to coaches who agreed that the need is not great, and that some members of the park board oppose the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also pointed out that his son played ball at the REV complex for four years \u201cand there was only once when we could have used lights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just wonder how responsible it is to keep lighting fields at $150,000 apiece,\u201d Rickord said. \u201cIf we don’t need lights, then it is a waste of money. I don’t mind lighting a couple of fields, but there are other things we need help with,\u201d he added, pointing out that he is positive AHN would donate the funds for another use, if asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lights have already gone up, through donations, at fields 1 and 2 in the complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, Fullenkamp moved to go forward with the lighting and Coshow seconded, sealing the deal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fullenkamp also called for meetings with the park board to develop a better understanding of its plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to talk more about this before we go forward,” Rickord said, adding that he wishes the park board \u201cwould come to (city) council so we can see what their plans are”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do ball fields need lights during Daylight SavingTime? By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord wants you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-23489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Outlook-fw222sjp.jpg?fit=602%2C371&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23489"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23500,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23489\/revisions\/23500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}