The Bowling Green Municipal Utilities board agreed Monday night to lease its parking lot for night and weekend use by Bowling Green Hot Rods fans. The price? Ten season tickets.

The downtown authority overseeing redevelopment, including the baseball stadium that opens April 17, will be responsible for all signs, cleanup and liability in the lot, with 10 spaces still reserved for BGMU’s after-hours use, according to the agreement. The authority is trying to secure similar deals with owners of about 1,600 spaces in the several blocks surrounding the stadium, since a planned parking garage won’t be ready until at least the end of the first season, and wouldn’t have nearly enough spaces for fans anyway. Team owner Art Solomon offered 100 free season tickets as incentives for use of privately owned parking lots.

According to a memo from BGMU General Manager Mark Iverson, utility executives won’t keep the tickets for themselves. The utility will hold a drawing or something similar to give all BGMU employees a chance at the tickets.

Pay reorganization

Iverson presented a dozen changes to the utility’s organization chart, mostly moving people around to different departments to fit changing job responsibilities. But the recommended changes would mean possible pay upgrades for four employees of perhaps $1 per hour to as much as $7 per hour, and that caused hesitation.

Board member Brian “Slim” Nash said he certainly wants to pay BGMU employees fairly for their work, but also wants to be “more sensitive” to the numerous utility customers who may have recently lost their jobs yet still have to pay BGMU bills. He asked that the changes and any reconsideration of pay be delayed until BGMU does its annual budget in June.

The measure was tabled until then, and Iverson said BGMU employees across the board aren’t looking at much of a cost-of-living raise, if any; the annual inflation rate has been figured at a negligible one-tenth of 1 percent.

Executive review

Iverson got a glowing annual review from the board, with board chairman Mac Reynolds praising his work after Iverson’s evaluation was reviewed in closed session. Normally, after such a high rating, Iverson would receive a merit raise – but Iverson “graciously declined” the offer, Reynolds said.

“We appreciate that gesture very much,” he said. “In these hard times, it means a lot, Mark.”

Stimulus money

The utility is angling for some of the recently approved federal economic stimulus money, Iverson said. BGMU has submitted a list of projects to the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority, which is the “state clearinghouse” for the relevant federal money, he said.

There’s $50 million available for wastewater projects, and $20 million for drinking water, but every city in Kentucky is competing for that, Iverson said. Rules haven’t been finished for seeking broadband Internet funds, but BGMU has several requests for projects in that area, too, he said.

Utility sales

The utility’s managers are still trying to figure out what the nationwide recession is doing to BGMU sales, Iverson said. BGMU is “doing OK” in household and small-business electric sales, but saw a 13 percent decrease in sales to large customers, he said. Much of that may be due to Western Kentucky University’s three-week shutdown over winter break and the sudden closure of DESA, which went bankrupt, Iverson said.