{"id":332432,"date":"2026-07-07T23:01:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332432\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T23:01:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:01:52","slug":"safety-harbor-little-league-season-could-be-impacted-by-aging-lights-at-city-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332432\/","title":{"rendered":"Safety Harbor Little League season could be impacted by aging lights at city park"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Safety \"Safety Safety Harbor city park lighting outage frustration<\/a> <\/p>\n

More than 400 Safety Harbor little leaguers could be sidelined after dark next month. The city says the lights are too dim to meet safety standards, and replacing them costs a lot more than expected. FOX 13’s Kailey Tracy reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SAFETY HARBOR, Fla. – Safety Harbor<\/a> city leaders are rushing to secure a temporary fix for dimming sports lights at Safety Harbor City Park before the youth baseball season faces major scheduling conflicts this August.<\/p>\n

Safety Harbor park lights crisis <\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

Aging lights at Safety Harbor City Park fail to meet the necessary standards for safe nighttime play, putting the upcoming youth baseball season at risk.<\/p>\n

Little League organizers stated that the issues impact more than 400 young athletes and threaten concession revenue used to fund the league.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“On any given weekday night, we practice multiple teams on each field. With the lights not being functional, we’re going to have a huge cutback in the hours that we’re able to support this community,” Coach Sean Hackett said. “It doesn’t sound like much because right now the sun is setting later, but as we go on into the fall, as soon as that sunset time hits, we’re not going to be able to use the fields and that pushes all the way into the six o’clock hour at times.”<\/p>\n

Costly upgrades <\/p>\n

By the numbers:<\/p>\n

The technology dates back to 1999, making simple part replacements impossible for the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While officials budgeted $600,000 for a total overhaul, project bids returned much higher at nearly $900,000.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“Given the upcoming property tax reform that’s going to be on the November ballot, we’ve had to sharpen our pencils a lot and look at all of our expenditures and decide what some, you know, where we can spend money at this point,” Mayor Joe Ayoub said.<\/p>\n

The city is currently working to install new bulbs on fields one and four as a temporary measure.<\/p>\n

Little League scheduling impact <\/p>\n

What they’re saying:<\/p>\n

“It changes how we can operate as a league entirely depending on the lights,” coach Sean Hackett said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that the program is critical to the community for teaching both physical and social skills to local children.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to sugar coat it,” Mayor Ayoub said regarding the start of the season. “I think there will be a period where there is some pain where we’re transitioning and trying to get these lights fixed.”<\/p>\n

City commission voting timeline <\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

The bulb replacements on the first two fields will take about six to eight weeks to complete.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This temporary fix is expected to buy the city one to two years to evaluate tax revenues before committing to a full system replacement.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Commissioners will vote on July 20 whether to expand the short-term repairs to the rest of the park fields.<\/p>\n

Safety Harbor Little League said they\u2019ve talked about renting lights, but want to wait until after the July 20 meeting to make a final decision.<\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this story was gathered from Safety Harbor Mayor Joe Ayoub, who explained the city’s budget constraints and repair timelines, as well as Little League coach Sean Hackett.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pinellas County<\/a>Sports<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Safety Harbor city park lighting outage frustration More than 400 Safety Harbor little leaguers could be sidelined after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47,115,1157,110,135,137,136,628],"class_list":["post-332432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-fl","tag-news","tag-pinellas","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}