{"id":15239,"date":"2025-12-12T19:57:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T02:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-city-council-approves-funds-to-look-at-ricketts-park-shade\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:46:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:46:43","slug":"farmington-city-council-approves-funds-to-look-at-ricketts-park-shade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-city-council-approves-funds-to-look-at-ricketts-park-shade\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington City Council approves funds to look at Ricketts Park shade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=33d8c4f3-f92a-5b3b-8cdb-564225fef5a8&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1250\" height=\"594\" alt=\"A rounded cantilever design for shade at Ricketts Park. Courtesy illustration\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A rounded cantilever design for shade at Ricketts Park. Courtesy illustration<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The Connie Mack World Series takes place in New Mexico\u2019s summer heat at a ballpark with little shade.<\/p>\n<p>That led Farmington Parks and Recreation Director Natalie Spruell to listen when a vendor approached with a potential solution.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are excited to connect with this vendor,\u201d Spruell told the Farmington City Council during its Dec. 10 meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Spruell requested $5,900 for the vendor, which she did not identify, to tour the park with city staff for a walk-through.<\/p>\n<p>The funds would cover an on-site assessment with the city team, including an environmental and safety review, to determine whether the city might fund the project in the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would then be included in the capital list and could be put on a list for grant funding as well,\u201d Spruell said.<\/p>\n<p>The vendor offered two design proposals:<\/p>\n<div class=\"naviga-element naviga-x-im-unordered-list\">A rounded cantilever design for about $1.2 million.A flat cantilever design for about $1.4 million.<\/div>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=27efa275-65c5-5a59-bbc2-8e9f0b472725&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1240\" height=\"496\" alt=\"A flat cantilever design for shade at Ricketts Park.  Courtesy illustration\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A flat cantilever design for shade at Ricketts Park.  Courtesy illustration<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>City Manager Rob Mayes told the council the project is \u201cnot even on a wish list,\u201d but \u201cmore of a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spruell sought funds to ensure the project would be safe and feasible should funding become available, Mayes said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think it is worth exploring private funding,\u201d Mayes said. \u201cThis is a very, very initial phase of feasibility.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Nate Duckett said he has been contacted by people who want to help pay for shade at Ricketts Park.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought it would be good to go out and explore what this would look like,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cI see it as that next step of the evolution of Ricketts Park.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Duckett said people in the community are \u201cpassionate\u201d about baseball, so he believes the city could find some \u201cvery willing donors\u201d to help pay for the project.<\/p>\n<p>Councilor Linda Rodgers said, \u201cIt would be foolish if we didn\u2019t try to understand what this would look like\u201d for the cost. She made the motion to approve funding from the city\u2019s Community Transformation and Economic Diversification Fund.<\/p>\n<p>Councilor Herman Buck seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Project in \u2018very, very initial phase,\u2019 says City Manager Rob Mayes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15239"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19553,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15239\/revisions\/19553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15239"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}