DUSD Repairs Stadium Lights, Gives Boost to Dixon Youth Football

Dixon Youth Football will be playing under the lights at the old this fall.

After a copper wire theft at the Rams’ old football field left the lights useless and garnered an initial repair estimate of $15,000 to $20,000, a closer look by Mark Jones of Country Bear Electric determined that the extent of the damage was just $975.

Facilities Director Cecile Nunley said the sub-$1,000 cost was managable. 

“It was reasonable; something that we could accommodate,” she said. “It was especially important to the community so I thought we could live with that. We went on ahead and repaired them at this point.”

The $975 cost covered all of the repairs expenses. League Field Manager Wendy Baker said she was certain that district would make the fix.

“There was only a couple of phone calls that I just made, asking if they were going to do it,” she said. “I was pretty confident the district, they were going to do it if they could find the funding, and they did.”

The original estimate was made by another local electrician who neither Baker nor Nunley were able to identify. Jones took a close look at the damage done by copper wire thieves, and said that the thieves only managed to pull a small amount of wire from under the conduits (underground pipes that house the house the copper wire) that run underground. The thieves spliced other parts of the wire but took only two to three feet of wire, and one of the conduits was damaged and needed repair.

Jones thinks the first electrician was under the impression that all of the wire in the conduits was taken. Jones believes that the first estimator peered into one of the ground concrete boxes and saw an empty conduit with no wire, and made the assumption all of the wire was taken.

With Country Bear having installed the lights on the field in the 1980s, Jones knew that the conduit the first electrician peered into wasn’t meant to hold wire, and was meant to be a backup conduit.

A long-term solution to avoiding the use of the old Dixon High fields would be to put artificial turf on new Dixon High field, but Nunley said that is too costly. She said estimates for the turf range from $250,000 to $1 million.

Nunley was happy the district took care of the league.

“It felt really good and they were so appreciative,” she said. “They brought donuts to district facility.” 

Follow Dixon Patch on Twitter: @dixonpatch

Follow Peter Fournier on Twitter: @P_Fournier

<<Don't forget to like Dixon Patch on Facebook>>

Want to advertise on Dixon Patch? Please contact Anastasia Pryor at (415) 264-6628 or anastasia.pryor@patch.com