The City of Lisbon and Lisbon Schools have agreed to continue to a contract sharing the ballfields in Lisbon City Park and the Lisbon School building for Lisbon Parks and Recreation winter programs.
The contract has minimal language changes, mostly eliminating items that no longer exist. The only big change was making sure that a scoreboard is installed at Lisbon City Parks if the school were to vacate those ball fields in the future.
City administrator Brandon Siggins said the city’s use of those ball fields could change over the next few years, with two baseball diamonds being constructed in the first phase of the sports complex. Those diamonds won’t be ready for use this season, but may by next spring.
“It’s much cleaner language now, which is what we talked about seeing happen with this contract back in the fall,” said superintendent Autumn Pino.
Facilities manager Rod Kelley said that the working agreement between the city and school has been going well, and that the diamonds are in great condition this year.
“They probably are in the best condition they’ve ever been in the past three to four years before our season even starts,” Kelley said.
Siggins said that there is still some ground where the new lights have been installed that they are working to get seeded and graded correctly, but that the fields are ready for summer sports seasons to begin.
Projects for
school, cityThe school and city discussed ongoing projects each were tackling as part of the joint meeting.
City administrator Brandon Siggins said the project that is ongoing and impacting most citizens this year is the work on the water mains throughout the city. He gave a timeline of when mains would be completed. The project will be continuing along Washington Street through May 15. Work on Second Avenue will begin May 15 through May 31. West Market from the fire station to the dead end will begin in June.
The project will also be along South Jackson Street, including by the park in the later portion of June, which could impact the area where people park for baseball and softball games.
July 5 through 15, work will be going along School Street from Jackson Street to Walnut Street. Public works director Travis Bagby said that should not require the water to be shut off to the school, as the school ties into the Jefferson Street water main.
The project has been on schedule throughout the community.
School board Allan Mallie asked about the main the sprinklers for the practice field tie into, if that would be impacted by work on School Street, and that might be.
The reconstruction of the pavilion at the new sports complex, as well as seeding issues at the new fields, means they will not be ready for the fall sports seasons as originally hoped. Siggins also thinks it may not work to host Sauerkraut Days activities at that complex. YTT is finishing up design on the ball fields and will get those out to bid this year.
For the school, superintendent Autumn Pino said that the district has started an exploratory committee on expanding childcare/Lisbon early childcare offerings to see if that would be feasible or sustainable. That will be further discussed at May’s school board meeting.
The facilities committee is also finalizing, with Emergent Architecture, the plans for the new district facilities building. Construction will impact the southwest corner of the building, as well as the northeast portion of the high school wing, as work goes into installing a new weight room and the new middle school classrooms and career technical education space for the industrial technology classes.
The new CTE wing and weight room will be completed as part of the first phase of construction, hoping to begin by July of this year.
Facilities manager Rod Kelley said that during construction, the south parking lot will lose 15 spaces due to staging. Lisbon Early Childcare Center’s entrance to their parking lot will also be impacted and the district is looking to make that a two way entrance until construction is completed.
Public works director Travis Bagby said that the district might want to begin discussions with Mount Vernon-Lisbon Police staff on how best to address home football games, if people continue to park along Business 30 for events.
“It’s just a safety issue,” Bagby said. “You have a lot of young kids in proximity to the school and it would be nice to have someone helping to make sure kids and families can more safely cross that road.”
Pino said the district will be working with others for possible solutions to the parking issues during construction.