By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
Stouch Lighting are anticipated to begin work on the ball field lighting project Monday, July 7th, according to City of Parsons City Manager Michael Simmons. Simmons gave the update on the project to the Parsons City Council as part of the Council’s July 1st regular meeting.
The company have ran into issues securing storage, Simmons said. While there are U-Haul facilities in the area, there are no facilities that will deliver containers to Parsons, according to what the President of the lighting company informed Simmons.
“They do a lot of national work and have never ran into this before,” Simmons said.
However, the City recently erected a new storage building at the site that has enough empty space still available for what the company will require. Simmons says the company will be utilizing the City’s storage building for the duration of the project for their use.
“He said they needed like an eight by 10 area,” Simmons said. “So I told him they could put their stuff in there and we would lock it up at night.”
The City has also had difficulties securing fencing companies for the project. The ball field project requires the moving of the fencing surrounding the ball field.
“We’ve contacted four, five,” Simmons said. “At least five.”
Simmons said that companies have been rescheduling or coming up with excuses. One company has had the President say they would love to do the job, just to have the tech come up with one excuse after another to not do it.
“One company in particular, the President of the company said he would be happy to do the job, scheduled his tech to come out, the tech would call and reschedule, he’d say he’s not available, then he’ll wait until the day he’s supposed to be here and then he’s called not once, but twice now and said, ‘we’re not in the business of doing this or doing that’ and they just don’t want the work,” Simmons said.
The ball field job, Simmons said, has been explained to these companies, could lead to multiple jobs within the City. There are several fencing jobs that are needing done around the City that will be contracted out in the future, according to Simmons.
“I explained to that gentleman who was supposed to be here today that it could be work in multiple places,” Simmons said.
With work scheduled to begin on the lighting project Monday, Simmons said that he is uneasy that the fencing will be done in conjunction with the project as was initially planned. If the placement of the fencing is to be done, it has to be marked so the lighting company knows where to place the poles for the new lights, Simmons said. The fence can always be moved afterwards, but it would have to be marked for lighting work, regardless.
“When it comes to ball field I’m a little uneasy,” Simmons said.
A fencing contractor is expected to be on site Monday. Council Member and Parsons Parks and Recreation Commission Member Seth Rosenau said that they would be seeking input from the company as to whether the fencing would be arched or straight at the back so the site could be marked for the lighting company to begin work.
“Seeing as you’re a fence company and you put a bunch of these in, would it be more cost efficient to go straight across the outfield or to arch it across the outfield” Rosenau said.
Rosenau said the Commission would also be discussing a few height options for the back fencing, as well with the contractor.
