The first ever tournament at the Blacker Fields

The trees are greening. People have begun mowing grass. Trees are blooming. Yet the forecast has lows in the 30s for the next week. I was looking at weather maps last week and saw that middle Alaska had temperatures well below zero.

Spring means outdoor sports. This past weekend the Blacker Fields hosted its first tournament. There were 16 teams and next weekend 18 teams are expected. There will be tournaments on most weekends until mid June.

I did not see any games being played on Friday. On Saturday morning the teams were playing in light rain. 

Some games in the afternoon were canceled but the teams were back playing Sunday morning.

The high school track team was working the concessions booth.

It is clear that parking will be an issue on weekends with both tournaments and big reunions. 

The teams playing at Roth field do not have the fancy dugouts that those at the three Blacker fields have.

I was impressed by how well equipped the teams were. All the players had their names on the back of their uniforms and they all seemed to have big backpacks that went with the team uniforms.

Brookside Park has  a new building to house the equipment to maintain the new fields. 

It also has new signs.

Park teams will use these fields on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Staddon Field will be used by the traveling baseball team and a girls softball team will call Columbia field their home.

There was also a soccer game at Brookside on Sunday afternoon.

On Monday the City Council met. The roll call was interesting—there is a new superintendent at Weston Cemetery, Tony Baltes. He is a long time employee of the Park Department. Apparently there were several people shifting between those two departments.

The gas tracker for April will be a 1.5¢ increase per hundred cubic feet. 

The City awarded a preliminary planning contract to Commonwealth Engineering for a water improvement project. In about four months Commonwealth will issue a preliminary report on options for back-up electric generators for pumps and a water tower at the Interstate. They will also investigate funding options. The Mayor is hoping that the City will be able to get a OCRA Community Funding grant. 

At a recent meeting the City accepted a bid from FBI Builders for a new storage building for the electric department. There was an issue with a downpayment. Apparently FBI Builders wanted one but the City is not allowed to pay one. There has been some back and forth negotiation and the Council approved an agreement with an addendum by a telephone vote. The County ratified that vote in the Monday meeting. The State still must approve the plans before construction can begin. 

There were three requests for money from the public relations fund. The Council approved a request for $1500 for an employee picnic in August. Last year this picnic was canceled. It also approved a request for $500 for a scholarship that the Little Cousin Jasper Festival awards. After that approval, it also approved street closings for the Festival. The closings will be the same as in the past. Near the end of the meeting the Council approved a request for $500 for refreshments for those who work the May cleanup week.

Cruise Night is scheduled for July 10. The City-wide garage sale is scheduled for May1. The Fire Department will celebrate its 125th anniversary on May 8. The Indianapolis Colts football team will be doing something at the Rensselaer-KV football game next fall.

Councilman Watson noted that the Park headquarters is in bad shape and it floods when the river has major floods. There was agreement that there is a need for a new building, probably at a different location, but at present there is no money available. 

The new gas pipeline is in the ground and now must be connected to the current line. I asked the gas superintendent how this was done but I did not understand her explanation. I suggested that maybe I could find a video on the Internet and she told me to search for "bottom out stopper fitting" by the Mueller Company. What I found is here. In another two or three weeks gas may start flowing through the new line.

Street work funded by a Community Crossings grant will begin April 19. The Council approved spending up to $40,000 for sidewalks as part of that project. Twenty five of the trees that the City is paying to remove have been removed and when the rest are down, the company will begin grinding the stumps. The Police Department has received the cars it ordered in November. It has started issuing golf cart permits. The crossing guard at Van has taken a new job and the position may not be filled until the Fall. 

I listened to the latest Roots and Graffiti podcast that discussed the Dunns Bridge project. The company doing the work is Nextera, which is a huge company. Construction on Phase 1 will begin in August and is scheduled to be completed in late 2022. It will be followed by Phase 2, which is supposed to be finished in September 2023. When completed it will be the largest solar farm east of the Mississippi. You can find links to the podcasts here.

Finally, SR 114 is scheduled to be closed in Pulaski County for about two weeks for bridge deck patching and repairs on the bridge over the Hill Ditch.