This is a local Palos Verdes issue, but I guess there is yet another attempt to install lights on the Peninsula High football field. This doesn't affect me personally, as I live several miles from the school; but if you live less than a mile from it or have a view of the City, you'd better pay attention to the effect this will have on you. Have a look at www.darkskiesinpv.weebly.com.
This has been brought up several times during the life of that school, which has never had lights on that field. Each time, including when the school was built, lights were dismissed out of hand as far too big an imposition on the surrounding neighborhoods -- the noise far into the night, the view obstruction of bright lights on 80' poles, scads of cars parked in the surrounding neighborhoods, the traffic and screeching tires, the bands, the fans, the PA -- all will be audible miles from the school, especially at night. My father, Cliff Graham, was on the School Board in 1964 when that school was built, and there was hardly even a debate about installing lights: the disruption to the surrounding neighbors was too onerous and obvious to admit discussion of lights, and far outweighed any hypothetical benefits to the school or kids.
The proponents are disingenuously suggesting that the lights will only be used 5-7 nights per year. Does anyone believe that $500,000 lights are only going to be used 5-7 times per year? They will be used for every excuse. And, by the way, $500,000 spent on lights when the District is discussing laying off teachers? This is a school, not a sports franchise.
The kids will be there for a few years and they and their parents will move on. The surrounding neighbors (of whom roughly 1000 are against this by latest count) will be sentenced to the late night noise, traffic, nighttime view obstruction, security concerns due to all those cars parking on their streets late into the night, etc, for the rest of their lives . . . or until they have to sell their house at a discount because of all of it.
The governing bodies of the past 47 years have all clearly recognized how unfair lights would be to the people living in the surrounding neighborhoods, none of whom bought their homes with the significant baggage of lights on that field, as did none of the light-favoring parents of kids whose high school experience will now somehow be less fulfilling by having to play/attend games in the afternoon. I was one of those kids, and I survived. The negative effects of lights on the owners of those surrounding homes today would be no different than they would have been every time they've been declined since 1964. Are the kids and parents that much more special now than they have been (or than we were)? Are the neighbors commensurately less special? What, exactly, has changed?
Proponents of lights are asking a large number of surrounding homeowners to bear a significant burden for an infinite time period, for the sole, temporary, theoretical, and minor benefit of those who share no part of that burden. It's as unjust and unwise now as it was in 1964.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What's amazing to me, is the small number of (vocal) proponents of lights. A neighborhood poll was run some time ago, showing 10 neighbors AGAINST the lights, for every football parent who's for them. But wow, those football fans can make a lot of noise. (Not raise money, mind you,...but make noise.) And they're good at bashing the opposing team...which in this case, is the community that supports the school.
ReplyDelete