LYNN — City Council unanimously approved a budget of $2,350,000 allocated to install new lighting at McManus field and Fraser field.
The decision comes approximately four months after a multimillion dollar project to transform McManus field into a multi-sport athletic complex was announced.
“It will be a state of the art athletic complex, one of the best on the North Shore, right in the city of Lynn. The kids deserve it, the athletes deserve it, the people of Lynn deserve it, and I just want to thank everybody involved in this project,” Ward Six Councilor Frederick Hogan said at the city council meeting Tuesday, July 22.
Councilor at large Brian Field noted a significant number of high school football and soccer teams utilize the entire space at Fraser field for practice, causing the need for upgrades to the lighting systems. He also said the right pole at Fraser Field has gone down from 18 to 5 working lights in the past few years.
“This is much-needed work to make those two facilities reach their full potential,” he said.
Council President John Walsh also weighed in. “As a father of a student who plays sports, we travel around to a lot of different places. And to be honest, I get kind of envious of those places, and I wonder why we can’t have those things here sometimes. So I think when you run for office, you get to these spots when you’re a dad or a mom and a guardian — you want what’s best for your kids. So I think we’re in a position here to try to make some of those things better for everybody,” he said.
Walsh also thanked Mayor Jared Nicholson’s Policy Director Danya Smith and City Attorney James Lamanna for the efforts with the project.
“It takes a lot of people to put this together. We need another turf field with lights, and that’s what we’re going to get. We’ve been pushing. It’s not perfect — there’s a lot of bumps in the road. It takes a lot of work to get here,” he added.
The bond was included alongside various projects during the public hearing, as $1,232,750 was also approved to fund heavy duty snow removal vehicles and one ambulance.
“I think we’ll look back and say this was money well spent,” Walsh said.
