Port Townsend City Council parks committee gets update for lights at skatepark

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The wheels are spinning and plans are underway for the city of Port Townsend to potentially add overheard lights to the skatepark on Monroe Street.

Providing an update on the potential costs and scope of work to install lights above the city-owned skatepark, the Parks, Recreation, Trees, and Trails Advisory Board spoke on recent steps and information gathering for the project.

Port Townsend High School senior Samantha Stromberg first brought light to the need for nighttime illumination in 2021 with a petition on popular advocacy website change.org, and the petition gathered more than 1,600 signatures. With the sun setting at or before 5 p.m. most nights during Port Townsend’s winter months, Stromberg has been a champion for local skaters by asking the city to put up overhead lights for skatepark users to enjoy the park’s numerous bowls, rails, and ramps throughout the year.

The light project has since evolved into her senior project with the high school, and Stromberg was a guest at the advisory board’s Jan. 24 meeting.

“We did a site visit yesterday [Jan. 23] and walked the perimeter to figure out the poles and the locations,” said Parks Director Carrie Hite. “We’ve had Musco Lighting, which is a sports lighting company, out with [the] PUD.”

Musco Lighting is a professional sports-lighting company headquartered in Iowa.

“We did get a scope of work and a cost estimate from Musco Lighting, which was really expensive,” Hite said.

The initial price tag for the project is around $100,000, according to the city.

“The reason why it’s so expensive is because you have to have very tall poles in that location to be able to shine the lights down and show the depths of all of the skatepark for safety and liability reasons,” Hite said. “Samantha and I have spent a little bit of time talking about financing and how to fund it, and she knows that we need to roll up our sleeves because the city did approve already their capital improvement program for next year.”

“It’s not going to happen unless we actually come up with the money,” Hite added.

To cut costs the city is looking to shift from original plans of a three-pole design to two poles, and potentially switching from 50-foot poles to 40-foot posts.

Stromberg and the city are anticipating the needed money to fund the project will arrive from grants as well as community fundraising.

“I think our goal is to start some GoFundMe’s and maybe apply for some grants and walk around the neighborhood and surrounding residential areas and talk to them to make sure they’re OK with some light coming from the skatepark,” Stromberg said of future plans.

Previous concerns were raised about light pollution occurring if the lights are installed at the skatepark.

“I think it’s important that the poles are so tall, it will be focused downward, so it won’t be out hitting anywhere else,” Stromberg said in response.

As for the grant, “I’m working on a grant right now and Samantha’s going to write some of it,” Hite said. “Its a $50,000 grant from the T-Mobile neighborhood grant.”

Applications for the T-Mobile grant close at the end of March, and the city expects to hear back on whether or not it’s awarded in the April, May, or June time period, according to Hite.

To be efficient with energy used for the lighting, Stromberg and the city are considering a timed button for turning on the illumination.

“The timer, we figured out that it would just be a push button, so if no one needs to use the park on a rainy day or something, it wont go on at all,” Stromberg said. “But once you press the button, then they’ll automatically shut off at whatever time we decide.”

“It’s an environmentally good way to go as far as not burning out [the lights],” Hite said.

While city staff now has a price tag in hand, they have yet to put out a timeline for the project.