Commissioners shoot down $500K request to fix ball field lights at Bicentennial Park

GILLETTE (WNE) – Campbell County Commissioners rejected a $500,000 project request to install new field lights at Bicentennial Park.

It wasn’t that the commissioners were opposed to the project. But they wanted to see a proposal that had more foresight.

Bill Beastrom, interim director of Public Works, and Kevin Geer, parks superintendent, presented the project to the commissioners last week. Just two weeks earlier, the commissioners approved a design contract for a landscape architect to come up with a solution to fix the drainage issues at Bicentennial Park.

In this most recent proposal, the county would replace the halogen bulbs at some of the ball fields with LED lights, which would be a cost savings for maintenance and power costs. But it would not replace all of the field lights at the park.

Geer said that out of the roughly 150 lights, 51 of them are out. Last year, parks staff were unable to get to them, due to the fields being “extremely wet,” and over the winter, more lights failed.

With the new lights, which would be controlled through an app, it would take less time for them to be turned back on, Geer said. Currently, when power is lost “it takes 20 to 25 minutes to come back on.”

Those lights have been in place since the early 2000s, Geer said, and replacement parts can still be bought.

The project included a request for $500,000 for the installation of new ball field lights at Bicentennial Park. The lights themselves cost $335,000, and the installation would cost $160,000. The project would have required a budget line item transfer, moving around money that had already been budgeted.

This story was published on March 25, 2025.