For the 12 years Landrine Tumaini has lived near Keach Park, she’s gone for walks, shot hoops and played soccer there.

“Even though I’m not a really good player,” the 22-year-old NHTI student said. Her three brothers, in their mid-20s to late teens, all play soccer there, too.

For Tumaini, her family and many of their neighbors on the Heights and in East Concord, Keach Park is more than just its fields, courts, pool and playground. It’s a community center.

“It’s a place to feel safe, to feel welcomed,” she said.

Almost two years ago, the city approved nearly $400,000 to put lights on the field at the park. Or so she thought.

Construction was contingent on city officials approving a design for the project. The City Council will have the final say, but last month the parks committee unanimously voted to recommend the city “not to move ahead with the project of installing lights at Keach Park,” according to its minutes.

The city has already borrowed the funds for the project through a bond, according to budget documents. Tumaini and others fear the city will try to use that money for something else.

The lights were meant to extend the hours that the fields can be used for soccer and other field games, especially in the fall, as sunset creeps ever closer to the end of school and work days.

But, Tumaini said, “It’s not just the lights. It’s more than that.”

Residents in the area and community organizers — most prominently Change for Concord, a group including Tumaini that advocates for young people in the city — have tried to get the city to put lights in at Keach for nearly a decade.

“In the Heights, we see a lot of those issues happening because young people have no safe space,” said Fisto Ndayishimiye, a member and former lead organizer with Change for Concord. He’s also involved with Project STORY, a free kids’ programming group that relies on the park for activities.

The importance, he said, is “to make sure the park is safe and to make sure that those young people that work two to three jobs can come back home and be able to use the field after hours.”

Tumaini emphasized that increased park use at night would mean more time playing sports and building team bonds for young people, decreasing the chance they’d become involved with negative behaviors.

The lights – or lack thereof – are also a symbol of city leaders’ attention and investment in the Heights community. Per U.S. census numbers, it is among the most racially diverse areas in the state of New Hampshire. It’s also where many members of the city’s refugee and immigrant communities live.

“I appreciate the City Council in general,” Ndayishimiye said. “But we have to do something for Black people… Concord has never been good to us. It’s never been good to refugees, immigrants, minorities, poor people.”

When it comes to equity in Concord, the lights were a small step forward. They were a sign that people in power were listening. They were a start.

“We’re not asking for above and beyond,” said Tumaini, a member of Change for Concord’s leadership.

The meeting wasn’t recorded, which is common for Concord’s advisory committees, but the minutes state that limited parking capacity, increased grass maintenance and rental fee concerns motivated the vote against the project, as well as a “a robust discussion about the need for lighted playing surfaces and whether or not Keach Park is the right location.”

Most city projects hold public informational meetings and hammer out design details before they get approved — but this proposal did that in reverse, Parks and Recreation Director David Gill said.

The committee members worried that enhancing the area could create too much demand for the city to manage, yet wouldn’t generate enough rental income to pay for itself. They stumbled over the question of allowing the field to be used for free, unlike Memorial Field. These worries contributed to a resistance to the merits of the project by the committee, according to Gill and the minutes.

The committee’s chair Mary Miller did not respond to requests for comment. The seat on the committee representing Ward 9, where Keach is, sits vacant.

While free use and a large field are the ideal set-up for those who’ve been pushing for this project, they said, there are ways to find solutions on the details without scrapping the project entirely.

“Surely, we can find alternatives if we can work together,” Tumaini said. “It feels like they don’t want that to happen.”

The design for the lights calls for a smaller, youth-sized field to be lit rather than a full-sized one, because the latter would put a light post in the middle of the softball field. That could affect interest, Gill noted.

“The problem is not the fact that the project is smaller,” Ndayishimiye said. “The problem is that they’re not willing to do it.”

After the project was approved in the 2024 budget, Change for Concord organized a party to celebrate at Keach. Now that the committee has hit the brakes, they’re back pushing for something they thought city leaders had all-but guaranteed.

The city manager’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the status of project funding.

Mayor Byron Champlin said he is optimistic the project will move ahead.

“Ultimately,” he said, “it will depend on the will of City Council.”

Ndayishimiye hopes that city leaders will follow through, too. He doesn’t trust that they will.

“This is what we talk about when we talk about promises,” he said. “We don’t want them to just talk about promises. We want them to actually do work.”

 

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.