Dec. 20—After four years of being left in scoring position, plans for the new Tokay High School baseball and softball fields will finally be crossing home plate.
The Lodi Unified School District Board of Education on Tuesday unanimously approved a $7.9 million contract with Lodi’s AM Stephens Construction to complete work on the fields.
According to district staff, bids for the project were received on Oct. 1, and AM Stephens proposed the lowest estimate to complete the work at nearly $5.9 million.
However, during its Nov. 19 meeting, the board directed staff to add several amenities to the scope of work, including overhead lights and restrooms.
On Tuesday, staff returned with revised plans that include two-tiered seating in the dugouts, lighting and receptacles in the dugouts, stadium lighting for night games, softball and baseball scoreboards with underground wiring and landscape trees planted around the field entrances, among other amenities.
“We are excited about this project,” Tokay athletic director Jeff Johnston said. “We are excited about the opportunity to have competitive, playable ball fields at Tokay for both baseball and softball, with lighted fields that will allow for competition without respect to (time). That’s a huge boon for us.”
The two fields will be built on 512,000 square feet of the campus’ north end, and will have their home plates sited on the southern end of their respective diamonds. Warning tracks and outfield fencing, new backstops, fenced-in dugouts, bleachers and new scoreboards will be installed.
Tokay varsity baseball coach Scott Campbell said developing plans for the new stadiums had been a long process, and that the school was satisfied with the latest proposals.
While the fields provide Tokay the ability to host night games, Campbell said the same opportunities should be offered to the district’s other three comprehensive high schools.
“I think that’s very important when we look at what we want for all of our students,” he said. “This is not about Tokay versus Lodi versus Bear Creek versus McNair. We kind of need to look at it as what’s best for all of our students, not just one high school.”
Rodrigo Contreras, president of the district’s California School Employees Association, said while the fields were needed, the district needed to consider finding someone to maintain them.
“Our students really need good fields, safe fields, luscious green beautiful fields where they can play and practice,” he said. “But we need the personnel to maintain them. Lodi does not have the irrigation department to keep those fields safe.”
Board member Courtney Porter was also concerned with the fields’ maintenance, and remembered that school staff was tasked with maintaining the pool when he was Tokay’s water polo coach.
Porter said it was a “nightmare” for school staff because no one could agree on when to heat the pool or who was responsible for cleaning it.
Ultimately, he said the district’s maintenance and operations department took over.
“With the amount of money we’re putting in to this, it’s my belief that we should require (maintenance and operations) to do maintenance on the fields. We cannot ask the high school to do this.”
Board member Joe Nava said it was time to move forward on the project, and agreed with Campbell that the district should consider similar upgrades at other campuses.
“I’ve always mentioned this, coming from another area,” he said. “Some of the facilities at Lodi Unified are ancient. And anytime we have to improve these facilities … let’s do it at all four high schools. I think that will be a good thing to do.”
Superintendent Neil Young said plans are in the works to improve the fields at Lodi, Bear Creek and McNair high schools.