— The Staff Sgt. Lucian Adams Park is an obstacle course in itself.

The gravel drive is pockmarked with potholes and puddles of standing rainwater, and the fields are overgrown with weeds and grass and trash. There is no clear, paved path to the handicapped parking spaces adjacent to the softball fields, but that may all change with the help of a $100,000 grant from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.

The Port Arthur City Council approved a measure at its Tuesday meeting that would allow the city to move forward with the grant application process. The Parks Department informed the city July 5 that it would need to amend its lease agreement with the Port Arthur ISD, on whose land the park sits, in order to qualify for the grant. The lease did not have a term limit, and it was revocable with a 90-day notice. The department requires that the lease period be for at least 25 years and that the lease be nonrevocable.

“It’s a great partnership opportunity,” Johnny Brown, PAISD superintendent, said. “The state wanted to make sure it was a longtime partnership.”

And now that the City Council and the PAISD board of trustees have approved the amendments to the lease, the city may submit its Outdoor Recreation Grant request by Aug. 1, said Albert Thigpen, director of the city’s Parks & Recreation Department. The grant is part of the Parks & Wildlife Department’s Local Park Grant Programs, which help local units of government acquire and develop public recreation areas and facilities by matching a dollar for every dollar donated by the local sponsor. The City of Port Arthur intends to match the $100,000 that the Parks Department would provide, so the total grant amount would be $200,000.

The softball fields at the park are not at competition level, Thigpen said, so teams cannot compete in tournaments there. With this grant, the city could increase the size of the fields, replace the broken benches and possibly repaint the bright, burnt yellow concession stand. Regular maintenance could be scheduled for the park, as well, Alton Anderson, general superintendent of the park, said.

Only one of the fields has bases on it, and another is so scooped that it fills with water whenever it rains. And with all the rain lately, the infield has become a pond of sorts, Anderson said. But the biggest obstacles he has seen at the park are the uneven, unpaved parking lots and roads and the lack of care for the grass and park in general.

“They don’t take care of it. The lawnmower can’t cut the grass because it gets too long,” he said. “Someone needs to come out here once a week to cut it.”

WIth improvements, the park could allow teams to hold softball tournaments there, which would not only benefit the community recreationally but economically, as well, Thigpen said. The park is near area hotels, restaurants and retail stores, and tournaments would bring in tourism dollars. A former mayor once told Thigpen that tourism dollars are the cleanest dollars a city could earn.

The Outdoor Recreation Grant provides 50 percent matching funds to local units of government with populations less than 500,000, and projects are to be completed within three years of grant approval. The only obstacle for Port Arthur now is waiting for that approval.

bcrum@panews.com