By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
HOWARD – The village board has approved a memorandum of understanding with the United Hurricanes soccer club related to funding a project that will light two soccer fields at the Akzo Nobel Sports Complex.
Village administrator Paul Evert informed the board the entire project is likely to cost between $390,000 and $400,000 with a grant through the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources funding 50 percent of the project and the United Hurricanes contributing approximately $100,000 along with the village’s $100,000 coming out of the Park Impact Fee fund for 2020, when the lighting project would be installed.
Evert said the United Hurricanes sought a written assurance that they will continue to receive priority scheduling at the complex as well as being allowed to sell naming rights for the two fields to be lit, though the overall naming rights to the entire complex will remain with the village to use for fundraising purposes.
“We have a good relationship with the United Hurricanes,” Evert said. “They do a nice job contributing a lot of in-kind labor (and) materials for the concession stand, and a lot of their people spent a lot of time working on it as well. So they really kind of helped make this soccer park a lot better than it was before. This (lighting) is kind of the next step in its evolution.”
Scott Frisch, United Hurricanes president, informed the board the lights would enable the soccer club to play and practice on the fields after dark.
“If we’ve got lights, we’re definitely going to be out there more,” Frisch said. “It will open opportunities to play more soccer out there.”
To raise the approximately $100,000 for the project, Frisch said the United Hurricanes will apply this year’s kick-off fundraiser towards that as well as sponsorships for the fields and uniforms.
“Businesses we rely on quite a bit – we put their business name on their T-Shirts for the spring, and then every year we’ll do that again, so that will be one source of the way we do it,” he said. “We’ve had an agreement with Aurora Bay Care on our competitive jerseys that we’ve been able to do. The two fields that will be lit the village gave us permission to get naming rights to them, so we can fundraise off of that.”
Frisch said the No. 2 and 3 fields would likely be the ones that will be lit at the soccer complex.
Though the United Hurricanes would have priority for the fields, Frisch said others would also be able to use them.
“We’re not looking for sole usage, necessarily,” he said. “If we’re investing as a club, we felt that it was important that we’ve got some sort of preference.”
The agreement includes the United Hurricanes paying for the cost of electricity when they are using the lights.
Evert noted only authorized users would have access to the lights at the soccer complex.
The village’s agreement with the United Hurricanes is for 10 years, and then would automatically renew for five-year periods, unless, 90 days prior to the end of a term, one of the parties sends written notice to the other indicating an intent to terminate the agreement.