Night surveys evaluate lights at parks, facilities in Manatee County

MANATEE -- Responsible for maintaining Manatee County's facilities and parks, the property management department's mantra is reducing both the carbon footprint and energy bill.

In the last four years, Charlie Bishop's department has seen success, reducing the annual $10.2 million Florida Power & Light bill to $8.6 million a year through sustainability and evaluation of assets.

As a way to potentially generate more savings for the county, property management staff members have been going to county parks and facilities at night to evaluate the lights. Staff typically can complete up to three evaluations in one night depending on the size of the park.

But instead of reducing the energy bill, the surveyors have found they need to actually need to add security lights.

"We are not going to be able to reduce our electric bill per-se, but we are finding out that we are increasing additional lights for safety purposes," Bishop said.

Most of the property management staff don't work at night, so they hadn't seen the need, Bishop said. They're working 5:30 p.m.-9 p.m. to complete the surveys.

Bishop's department staff is now armed with pictures of the dark areas, such as around pavilions and restrooms, so they can install needed lighting.

The county doesn't have a cost for the project yet as the evaluation process has just started, but Bishop said the money will come from his department's operational budget.

"We are very conservative on location and manufacturing type of lights," Bishop said. "We want to get the most bang for our buck there."

Through the night surveys, county staff has also discovered that a lot of the lighting is outdated and needs to be upgraded to LED lights. The county has converted the lights at Lakewood Ranch Park and Blackstone Park.

"We are in the process of working in seven other parks right now," said Carmine DeMilio, the operations manager in the property management division.

Those parks are Lincoln, Sylvan Oaks, Creekwood, Braden River, Pride and Whitfield.

"Not only are we taking advantage of the benefit of converting to LED, but we are also making this as a safety evaluation as well," DeMilio said. "Many areas are dark. Pathways are dark. Of course, we want to keep all park patrons safe and happy."

Claire Aronson, Manatee County reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7024. Follow her on Twitter@Claire_Aronson.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 2:03 PM with the headline "Night surveys evaluate lights at parks, facilities in Manatee County ."