In April, more than a dozen young adults sat in the front row of Concord City Council’s monthly meeting, holding up signs calling for Concord to “Light up Keach.” But they didn’t get the chance to speak those words out loud.

What had brought them there — a promise that soccer field lights would be installed at Keach Park — wasn’t up for public comment. And their presence went unacknowledged during the meeting, save for the councilor who represents that area stating briefly that they were “not forgotten.” 

“I have a lot of frustration,” Concord High Senior Lawi Kahurwa said in an interview in April, just before the meeting. “Because this is something that's well overdue.”

Kahurwa is part of the leadership team of Change for Concord, a youth advocacy group that has been asking the city to light the soccer field at Keach Park since 2016 — when he was just starting middle school. The city borrowed about $400,000 for the lights last year, but this spring a committee recommended the idea be abandoned. 

Fast forward a month to Monday night. 

As a dozen city councilors sat in a circle, peppering the city’s parks and recreation director with questions about field use policy and rental revenue, a smaller contingent of people with signs about Keach sat in the audience. 

The lights were on the agenda, but still not up for public comment. So looking on, the group writhed in their seats with frustration at times — like when Councilor Jeff Foote suggested the money for the lights would be better invested in renovations to Memorial Field. At others, they applauded in relief — like when Councilor Ali Sekou noted he’d “never seen in my life scrutiny this level for a park light under a million dollars — under a half million.”

If they had been invited by city leaders to speak, those in the audience would have said that all they were asking for was to be able to walk to their neighborhood park with a friend and kick a ball around in the evening. To them, the long road spanning nearly a decade to get a commitment from the city was “pretty telling.”

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“The conclusion to do something that's clearly needed for our community shouldn't have taken this long,” Change for Concord member Kate West said outside the meeting. 

Ultimately, the Concord City Council stuck to what they promised back in 2024. The city will move forward with putting in lights on the youth soccer field at Keach Park, and they will be turned on four nights a week from dusk to 10 p.m. 

Still, the back and forth had done damage. Councilor Jennifer Kretovic knew that. 

“I really think that we've done such a disservice to Change for Concord, that brought this proposal to us in 2016,” she said. “We didn't really tell them the process, we didn’t tell them anything. We just poo pooed them away from the table.” 

Sekou, defending the lights proposal, was exasperated by the resistance the idea of lights at Keach had received from some living in the area and by the parks committee that voted against it. 

He didn’t just see things that way, he emphasized, as a representative of the diverse Heights neighborhood or as the first man of color to ever serve on the council. To him, making the park usable for more people would be a straightforwardly good thing.

“I think the whole process of this is to give our community members, the kids of our community members, or whoever attend the park, an opportunity to play,” he said.“Whenever a community look at the park that is a common good and make it ‘them’ and ‘I’, that will never do anything good in a city.” 

Councilor Jeff Foote knows the area well — as a kid he lived at what is now Wendy’s for a while — but he agreed with reservations about the lights because of his fiscal conservatism and background in public works. He worried about the added wear and tear on the field of expanded nighttime games, how responsible use and rent payments, if pursued, would be enforced, and the liability. 

Other councilors, including Kris Schultz, whose constituency includes Keach Park, thought that resistance was overcomplicating things. 

Kretovic acknowledged that parking and maintenance were fair concerns — as they would be on any field at any time, she said. “But is it possible to get a light on grass so kids can play?”

In voting, with only Foote in dissent, to disregard the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee and move forward, City Council determined that the answer to that question was “yes.”

“It sucks that it took us ten years to do it,” Steven Kidder, of Change for Concord, said outside the meeting. “And I’m so very appreciative, but it’s still not a safe bet yet. I will keep pushing for this until there’s cement in the ground.”

Editors note: This story was updated to state that Ali Sekou is the first man of color to serve on the Concord City Council. The the first person of color on the council was Grace Walker, who served for ten years.