FOLEY – An agreement between Foley and the Baldwin County Public School System will improve local school athletic fields and give city recreation teams more locations on which to play and practice.
The Foley City Council and Baldwin County Board of Education both approved the agreement. Under the agreement, the city would pay the cost of installing more lights and bleachers at the Foley High School practice fields. City teams would be allowed to use the sites when the fields are available for the next 20 years.
David Thompson, Foley executive director of leisure services, said the agreement will create needed space for city teams.
“It’s lighting for one of the two practice fields that they have over there,” Thompson said. “The other one is already lit and then it’s four additional bleachers. That will give us use for those fields with the Foley Youth Football Program that’s currently practicing outside in our baseball field as well as potentially a flag football program in the future for us.”
Mayor Ralph Hellmich said the agreement helps both the city and school system. He said the city will not have to build new fields and the school will have lights and bleachers that can be used for school activities.
“The neat thing about this is now we don’t have to deal with that,” Hellmich said. “By partnering with them, it helps them. It helps us.”
Hellmich said city and school system officials have been working on the agreement for several months.
“We wanted to make sure it was spelled out correctly and we were both happy with that,” Hellmich said. “We wanted to make sure that we were able to use the field the way that we feel comfortable doing.”
The estimated cost for the lights is about $350,000. The bleachers are expected to cost about $100,000.
The agreement includes the field at the high school track and the school athletic practice field to the southwest.