Prescott Council OKs 25-year lease with OJB Football Club for Ken Lindley field

The Prescott City Council voted 5-0 on Oct. 14 to adopt Ordinance No. 2025-1912, approving City Contract No. 2026-114 with OJB Football Club (OJBFC), an Arizona 501(c)(3), to install and maintain improvements at Ken Lindley Park, including a synthetic turf athletic field under a 25-year agreement.

Council members and Parks and Recreation staff said the lease will allow OJBFC to fund and operate turf and related field improvements while the city retains ownership. “The campus itself has about 150 parking spaces,” Christy Diaz Trehan, the city’s parks and recreation director, told the council, and she said there are roughly 50 additional street spaces on nearby Willis and Washington streets. She said the department coordinates with the museum and other users to avoid concurrent large events to reduce parking pressure.

Residents and council members raised questions about tournament logistics, noise and long-term maintenance. Councilwoman Freeworth, who delayed a prior vote to allow neighborhood input, described concerns she had heard about parking, event hours and amplified sound from loudspeakers. Diaz Trehan said park hours will remain from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and that announcing would likely be limited to tournament play and handled in coordination with neighbors.

The council discussed environmental and lifecycle questions about the turf. A speaker on the dais noted concern about PFAS leaching from layered sand-and-rubber turf systems; staff provided a July 2025 study by Grady that the council said found the material “very stable” with a low likelihood of leaching. Councilmembers also asked what would happen if OJBFC ceased operations during the 25-year term; Diaz Trehan said that scenario had not been discussed and the city would later need to determine whether to fund replacement, seek grants or revert to natural turf.

Council members and residents emphasized water savings as a major benefit. One speaker corrected an earlier figure in the meeting and said the project would save about 2,000,000 gallons of water annually, which the council equated to roughly seven acre-feet per year. Council members asked staff to track cumulative savings (water, mowing and maintenance) over the field’s usable life to help compare future replacement costs.

Resident Kathy Rusing, who said she canvassed long-term neighbors across from the park, told the council neighbors generally liked living near the park and suggested improved signage, curb painting and clearer striping on resurfaced streets to reduce parking conflicts. OJBFC’s relationship with nearby Yavapai College was discussed as a potential source of overflow parking and shuttle arrangements for tournaments.

The motion to adopt the ordinance was made by Councilman Gamboge and seconded; the council recorded a 5-0 vote in favor. The ordinance approves the lease/contract and authorizes city staff to finalize terms per the contract language on file with the city clerk.

The council packet contains the ordinance and contract identifiers; formal contract execution and implementation steps were not described in detail during the meeting.