The Vienna City Council recently discussed the need to replace lights on the ballfields at the Vienna City Park as the current lights are obsolete and use a lot of electricity.

At the city council’s March meeting, Utilities Superintendent Shon Westart reported they turned on the ball field lights that day and on the baseball field there were four outfield fixtures were out and they don’t have replacements. Westart said two of them are “real critical lights.” 

Mayor Tyler “TC” James said it would be good to have a couple extra lights on hand and he said the city will have some extra money for these types of expenses if city voters approve the half cent public safety sales tax, which is on the April 6 Municipal Election ballot. The half-cent sales tax for public safety is estimated to generate $55,000 to $59,000 of additional revenue for Vienna. If approved by voters, the sales tax collection for the new tax will begin July 1, 2021.

Westart said tree trimmers for Ameren are in Vienna and they could use their boom truck to replace bulbs. He said nobody uses this type of light anymore and the fixtures need to be replaced with more energy efficient LED fixtures and bulbs. Mayor James asked them to look around because, “There have to be grants out there for ballfields.”  Maybe they can seek donations. 

“This is a prime example of why we need that sales tax,” Mayor James said. 

The lights on the basketball court, softball field, and baseball field all are obsolete Westart said. The fixtures need to be replaced with energy saving lights. The current lights are expensive to run, costing $40 to $60 a ballgame to operate. Westart said he would like to use LED lights. He told the council he’ll have to talk to somebody who knows about this because “we have a lot of power to those poles” to run the metal halide lights. That much power won’t be needed for LED lights. 

The mayor asked him to get some numbers. Westart said right now with the pandemic its hard to get some things.