New Lights, Scoreboards for Pope Field Park

The Pope Field baseball park will be getting some new lights this summer.

City Council unanimously approved a resolution awarding a $39,000 contract to Ward Electrical Monday night.

Ward Electrical will be placing new field lights and scoreboards on fields one and two at Pope Field.

City Administrator Fox Simons said the city was awarded a $65,000 grant from Major League Baseball's Baseball Tomorrow fund.

That grant required a $65,000 match from the city.

“This is part of our contribution of that $65,000, the installation of the new lights,” Simons said. “The (current) lights are thirty years old, give or take, so (new lights are) desperately needed. It's a fairly reasonable cost, $130,000 is still a lot of money.”

The new lights have not arrived yet. Work should be completed by the end of August, in time for fall sports.

Mayor Larry Bagwell asked Recreation Department Director Gregg Powell if anything needed to be shifted at the park before the lights installation began.

Powell said field one would be turned in order to allow for the football field to be turned into two smaller fields.

“You could have four small 10-and-under,” Powell said.

Councilman Chris Mann said Pope Field is “still one of the best fields we've got.”

“Especially for my son and kids his age,” Mann said. “That is a great field they play on.”