School Beat: Evansville School Board Discusses, Approves Donation of Soccer Field Lights

(Ed. note: Full video of this discussion is pending and will be posted on Thursday.)

The Evansville School Board on Monday night was presented with the following information on the soccer field lights:

"The soccer program has been discussing the need for lights on the soccer field for the last three years. We received two proposals in December of 2004; one for $83,000 for total completion of project and one for $45,000 for material and partial installation. Since that time the Soccer Club has been doing some fund-raising and we have all been keeping our eyes out for ways to make the project doable. At one point we were hoping we could rent space on a pole for a cell tower, but that didn't work out. The local soccer group believes they have now found a solution and would like permission to go ahead with the installation.

With a combination of donated labor (over $10,000 from Ron Buttchen alone), used poles that are like new (4 are needed) and the likelihood of reduced costs of the hold-boring/post setting by piggy backing with the equipment that will be in the area for the new electric substation and the biodiesel plant this summer, the cost for the project would go from $83,000 to $55,000.

The soccer group believes they will be able to raise the money over the next several years. They will have a loan available to use until the money is raised. The expenses would be run through the District since this will be district property adn woul dnot need to pay siales tax if we were doing all the work ourselves."...

"This will be a great benefit to our program because it will provide much more flexibility in scheduling games, allow us to have evening games which will allow more community members to attend, and make us even more attractive as a host for other soccer events."

The school board discussed "Who" and "How". They decided that this would have to be a donation by the soccer club secured by a loan they secured. The equipment purchased for the installation would be subject to competitive bid under normal purchasing rules of the district. All funds would have to be in hand before the purchase orders are issued. In summary---this capital expenditure would not come from the taxpayer, although it appears that the taxpayer would be paying for the electricity expense. It is not clear if admission would be charged for the evening games and how the revenues would be allocated. Stay tuned.