Dark skies round two

It wasn’t on the agenda, but it was certainly on everyone’s mind.

For the second week in a row, the Town Board wrestled with dark skies legislation at its work session.

Last week the board discussed new regulations, drafted by Town Attorney Laury Dowd at the request of the Zoning Board of Appeals, which would ban certain types of light fixtures – especially those shining up rather than down – to prevent what’s been called “light pollution” and “light trespassing.” The discussion by the board and members of the public had been spirited on whether new regulations were necessary or it was a government overreach on citizen’s rights.

Tuesday the issue wasn’t on the agenda, but at end of the work session during what’s called “Around the Table,” where council members speak about non-agenda issues, Councilman Peter Reich started it off. He believed regulating lights was similar to regulating automobiles. His idea (See Your Letters, page 9) is that dark skies regulations would affect all new construction, but residents can keep current lighting until they have to replace them and then conform to the code, just as owning an old car doesn’t require up-to-date regulations.

Councilman Ed Brown asked Mr. Reich if he could “throw in an analogy of 24 ounce Slurpees.”

Councilwoman Chris Lewis, who championed dark skies legislation in the past, said the first step is for the board to discuss the issue “and if we agree we’re going to do something in our code then we draft what we want, set a public hearing and then hear what the public thinks about it.”

Ms. Lewis, concerned about a rush to judgment against the legislation said, “I don’t think just keep saying ‘no’ — unlike drugs – is the answer to this problem. I’m getting a lot of phone calls and lots of comments.”
Mr. Brown said he had been getting an earful from the public, too. “And I’m hearing a lot of ‘no.’”

Councilman Paul Shepherd had been receiving extensive public feedback as well. “As I said last week, I’m not saying ‘no’ to doing something about the issue,” Mr. Shepherd added. “I want to address these things aggressively so we can put paid where people are losing sleep at night.”

Ms. Lewis noted that light trespassing doesn’t mean that a neighbor has a light on, but is about a neighbor’s lights shining into other people’s houses.

“People are enduring great discomfort because neighbors are not cooperating,” she said. For those who believe a neighbor’s lights can be solved by just knocking on their door and discussing the problem, “they haven’t knocked on any doors lately.”

People rejecting the proposed legislation, Ms. Lewis added, were demonstrating “a knee jerk response” due to lack of information.

Mr. Brown took exception to that. “I don’t think this is a knee jerk response. This has been on the table more than once.”

Ms. Lewis then referred to a comment by Mr. Shepherd last week that he “was hired to challenge every infringement on people’s property rights and liberties.”

“I was elected to represent the feelings of all people,” Ms. Lewis said, “not just the ones I agree with or the ones I like.”

“Are you suggesting I’m not listening to all people? That’s unfair.”

Later in the meeting, Mr. Shepherd returned to concept of listening to residents’ concerns. “I don’t want anybody to think I have any intention of leaving anyone twisting in the wind who has a problem,” Mr. Shepherd said. “I’m not like that.”

A member of the public, Linda Holmes, weighed in, paraphrasing Oliver Wendell Holmes. “Your right to swing your arms stops at my nose,” Ms. Holmes said. “That’s what this is about. It’s not about people’s entitlement to have as many lights as they want.”

But Mr. Brown said there were issues of snow and ice on darkened driveways that require bright lights, and he’d heard from a constituent whose house was on a lower elevation than the street and needs lights shining up for safety.

Police Chief Jim Read said he had questions about enforcement of any new law and asked if there was any statistical data that would show “if this is a huge problem.”

Mr. Shepherd said it wasn’t necessarily a numbers issue. “I will defend someone who is in a minority,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be a big group.”

“I’m in agreement with that,” Ms. Lewis said.