Dimly lit recreational areas like skateparks, basketball courts, and walking trails may finally get better lighting using the power of the sun: solar lights.

It's part of the Guam Energy Office’s $1.6 million federal grant funded project that initially would have just installed solar lights at village mayor’s offices.

“However, over the course of the last year, I've been hearing a lot of different needs from the mayors’ offices. So I’m here now to give you the opportunity to maybe re-prioritize this,” said GEO Director Rebecca Respicio.

Respicio further pitched it as a higher priority, saying, “We have this skatepark. I noticed that there were only six posts there. I live in Dededo and drove by the other day to look because you had a wonderful event there. And my understanding is it does need proper lighting at night, most especially there have been some unfortunate things that have happened in that area.”

She hopes village leaders take this idea and make it a reality, like the newly lit Tamuning skatepark.

As we reported, their solar lights were recently donated by Go Solar after advocates in the skating community said enough was enough.

The proposal couldn’t have come sooner.

Just last week, vandals took advantage of the dark to vandalize the freshly painted Dededo skatepark, just before a big event.

It had Avery Tyquiengco and Clayton Duvall, the same advocates that made the Tamuning skatepark lights happen, speaking out.

“Our lights are very unsatisfactory. I come here almost daily. Once it hits 6:45 p.m. and the lights go out, its very limited visibility. It's poor,” said Tyquiengco.

“We would really love to improve our facilities with new lights. They’re insufficient. It kind of breeds that negative attention and negativity at night. So people don’t want to come here at night. But look, it's a beautiful skatepark,” said Duvall.

Others in the skating community also said event organizers for the recent Skate and Create competition had to bring their own lights.

For now, Respicio said it won’t be an overnight solution, but once mayors finalize where the solar lights are most needed, she hopes the project gets going before the end of the year.