Readers of this blog know I don’t have much love for so-called “neighborhood activists.” Most are just unhappy grinches who like telling other people what to do. I see that all the time on the Trinity Park listserv. Now comes the controversy over lights at the NC School of Science and Math’s soccer field. The school has decided they will contract with Musco Lighting of Oskaloosa, Iowa, to light the field, at a cost of $115,937. That’s $84,000 less than the next highest bid, $199,999 from Soft Lighting Systems of Bellevue, Wash. The Watts-Hillandale neighborhood grinches prefer Soft Lighting. I have a feeling that if a company called Sensitive and Caring Lighting had bid, they would have preferred that company.
Musco, by the way, is a pioneer in stadium lighting. If you recall, in the early 1980s they were the company that trucked lights around the country to light stadiums for night TV football games. That was in the day when many stadiums had no lights. Hard to believe, I know. So I think Musco knows what it’s doing. The difference between Musco’s lights and Soft Lighting’s lights can’t be great. Certainly not $84,000 worth of difference. And anyhow, what happened to the notion that happy kids playing a sport on a lighted field at night might actually be a neighborhood enhancement? Lighten up, people.
Now the grinches are trying to get the legislature to pay the difference for Soft Lighting’s lights. Rep. Paul Luebke, whose natural constituency is Watts-Hillandale, has been brought into it now. He called the decision by the school arbitrary. Taxpayers might call it sensible.
UPDATE: Edited to correct the typo in Paul Luebke’s name. I know how to spell it. I just can’t type it.
