Lions Club Making Donation to Improve Russell Field Lighting
ADAMS, Mass. — The Lions Club has agreed to make an unspecified donation amount to help light up the new Russell Field.
"They want to help out sports in Adams," Parks Commissioner James Fassell said at Monday's meeting. "They have enough money to do that."
However, with an estimated cost of $65,000 for lighting, the question was how much were the club is willing to donate.
"My breath was taken away by that price," Fassell said.
The field renovation project did include repairing existing lights, but with the recent news of a potential donor, Director of Public Works Robert Tober said the town explored installing more efficient LED lights.
"They are much brighter and use half of the electricity," he said.
But this, unfortunately, comes with a higher upfront cost.
Commissioner Jacob Schutz said the Youth Football league also used the field and needed lights. He said the commission may want to see if it was possible to include football lights in the estimate first. If the entire cost cannot be covered, he felt it may be worth revisiting the plan.
Tober said they will have a better sense of lighting options for the football portion of the field once they can walk the field and map out playing areas. He thought it may be as easy as redirecting some of the existing lights.
Fassell said he will meet with the Lions Club to see how much it is willing to donate. If $65,000 plus is too big of an ask, the Parks Commission will put together a Plan B.
"We will keep our fingers crossed," Fassell said.
But the commission was more confident that the Lions Club would have the funds necessary to update and repair two donated scoreboards for Russell and Reid fields.
These two boards, donated by Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, should cost around $4,000 to make them game-ready.
In other business, the commission heard from Mike Mucci, president of the Youth Football League to talk about Russell Field usage.
The revamped field cannot be used this spring in order for the grass to properly set. Regardless, DPW staff were concerned about overuse, specifically by football.
Tober felt the league could still be accommodated and that football could utilize a section of the field near the tennis courts. With field rotation, he hoped there would be minimal impact to the softball outfield.
Mucci felt this was a viable solution but was still concerned about space. He said they need room for the juniors and seniors to play at the same time and that lighting would still be a concern.
"There aren't too many options for youth football," he said. "Youth football needs lights, it needs a decent size area. Russell Field has been a great asset for us ... and I think we can work through some of these particulars
This lead to the aforementioned discussion about including lights in the possible donation.
Tobin agreed they would have a better sense of space once the snow melted and agreed to walk the field with Mucci once this happens.
Before closing, the commission noted it is now taking field usage requests that previously had been held off because of the pandemic.
Tags: parks commission, playing fields,
