SPEAKING OUT — Councilman Royal Mayo, right, argues against doing a more detailed design for new lights at the Belleview Park ballfields, saying the projected $1 million plus the upgrade would cost is “insane.” -- Linda Harris

STEUBENVILLE — City Council agreed Tuesday to get a more detailed cost estimate done for the Belleview Park ballfield lighting project.

City Engineer Mike Dolak said the more detailed estimate — what he called a “60 percent estimate” — will cost around $131,000, he said. They’d originally set aside $50,000 for a less detailed estimate, but Dolak said he had about $57,000 left over from the Beatty Park bridge project that could be moved over. Council then voted 6-1 to use their ARPA lost revenue funds to cover the remaining $26,000, with Councilman Royal Mayo casting the only no vote.

Mayo for months has argued new lights are an unnecessary expense, claiming fewer kids are playing baseball and they’ve never played “a significant number of night games,” though he relaxed his opposition when he learned the city’s grant-writing consultant had identified some funding opportunities that could work to the city’s benefit. He renewed his opposition at this week’s meeting after learning that lighting all the fields could cost up to $1.5 million, which would require a much bigger local match.

“We were thinking it was going to cost around $350,00, $400,000,” Mayo complained. “Now (Dolak) is saying it could be $1.5 million plus another $130,000 for the design–that leaves us paying over $1.2 million. That’s insane. We don’t have it.”

But Councilman Ted Gorman, who helped resurrect the Steubenville Little League program, told him more than 300 kids are currently signed up and they’re looking to field at least 23 teams this year.

“We could get tournaments, we could get people in the park,” Gorman said, adding that big price tag “are the cost of doing business” nowadays. “I know it’s a lot of money but it costs a lot of money to do business. We just spent over $1 million on a bridge at Beatty Park. I’m not saying we have the money for it, I’m saying look at grant (opportunities).

Dolak pointed out the people making the grant award decisions want to see shovel-ready projects, so at some point they’d have to spring for the rest of the design work.

He also said it might make sense to do the work in stages — beginning with the lower ballfields, then turning their attention to the uppoer fields at some point down the road.

City Manager Jim Mavromatis assured Mayo he shares his concerns about funding, “but I don’t want to put us in a position of not doing the 60 percent design, because the only way this will be finished is with grants.”

“I don’t want to have my hands tied (by only doing) a 20 percent design when we’re going to need a 60 percent design,” he said. “I’d much rather go with the 60 percent so we can say, ‘this is what the project is, here’s the design.”

“There’s no grant in sight but we’re going to spend (more) on the design,” Mayo complained.

Councilman Tracy McManamon called for action, pointing out, “We just paid $75,000 for a (water slide) and we’re debating spending $25,000 for a baseball facility that hasn’t been updated since it was put in?”

“We’re talking about fixing the No. 1 recreational asset we have in Steubenville, the ball fields at Belleview Park. We don’t play games at night because we don’t have lights. I say we give them the money.”

Mavromatis said the more detailed design will put the city in a much stronger position in the grant process, though he admitted he hates the idea of “leaving money on the table” if they spend more for the design and then down the road decide not to proceed.

“I want to go after whatever we can get in (grant) funding,” he said. “I want to (give us) the best advantange … and 60 percent is far better than 20 percent.”