OCEANSIDE —- City officials are planning to add a few more lights at three community parks this winter.

At its regular meeting Wednesday, the Oceanside City Council will vote on adding lighting to baseball fields at Capistrano, Lake and Martin Luther King Jr. parks at an estimated combined cost of $407,000. The cash would come from the city's general fund.

Michelle Skaggs Lawrence, director of the Oceanside Parks and Recreation Department, said Monday that adding lights will free up baseball fields at Landes Park in east Oceanside for the Vista American Little League.

Vista Little Leaguers used to play at French Field on Lee Drive just inside Oceanside's city limits. However, they were forced to vacate the 10-acre property in January after elevated levels of lead were detected.

"We are trying to hurry and get the lights installed this winter so it will be ready for the season opener … on the last weekend of February," Lawrence said.

French Field was home to a county landfill from 1944 through 1967. Decades later, in 2002, the state Water Resources Control Board required Vista, Oceanside and San Diego County to share the cost of testing the property for contaminants.

Preliminary test results were positive for lead on the property's edge closest to neighboring Loma Alta Creek. Though tests on the baseball fields came up negative, Little Leaguers were forced to find new fields.

To accommodate Vista Little Leaguers —- about 40 percent live in Oceanside —- Oceanside will move baseball operations out of John Landes Park on the city's eastern border.

Last season, both the Oceanside National Little League and the Oceanside Girls Softball leagues played at Landes because its field has overhead lights allowing night games.

However, with new lights installed in Capistrano, Martin Luther King Jr. and Lake parks, Landes can host Vista teams.

"We are anticipating that French Field will not be useable for at least three years," Lawrence said.

She added that all Oceanside National Little League home games would now be played at Martin Luther King Junior while Oceanside Girls Softball games would be played both at Capistrano and Lake Parks.

Oceanside City Councilman Jack Feller said Monday that he supports the move.

"We're being neighborly for the league," Feller said. "Hopefully, this makes the Oceanside players feel real good about helping another league."

A Parks and Recreation Department report on the finances of adding lighting to the three parks states that the lights themselves would cost $160,000. City officials are asking the City Council to approve $565,000 for the project, or enough to cover the purchase of the lights plus design and installation costs.

"The cheapest part is buying the lights, believe it or not," she said.

The same report estimates the total cost of the lighting installations to be $407,000, leaving a $158,000 gap between the amount of money to be appropriated and the amount that is to be spent. Lawrence said Monday that she would investigate the discrepancy, but suspected it was a typo.

Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.