Government

Letters to the Editor: Readers sound off on ‘dark skies’

REPORTER FILE PHOTO

To the Editor:

As spring mating season approaches I again would like to thank Jean Lawless for her tireless efforts protecting the piping plovers. Each year we give up a little of our personal freedom so these endangered birds have a quiet safe nesting area at our local beaches. This is sound environmental practice.

I see the dark skies issue as exactly the same. I live next to rental property where often the interior and exterior lighting is left on, sometimes for months at a time even though no one is in residence. Guess what? When the lights are on I never hear owls, when the lights are off, I hear our Great Horns hard at work. Night predators perform a huge service to the community, keeping the rodent and insect population at bay. (See this from UCLA: today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/travis-longcore-catherine-rich_light-pollution.aspx). Without them we might have to resort to chemicals and traps. Why bother when we already have the perfect solution?

In the coming years we are all going to have to pay closer attention to environmental concerns so we leave a healthy planet to the next generation. Shelter Island has always been engaged in these issues. Now may not be the time for legislation, but it would be of great help for the Town Board to appoint an exploratory committee to chart a course forward.

K.C. KAZMIERSKI
Shelter Island

Put it on paper

To the Editor:

It is clear that some number of Town Board members would like to place a “dark skies” ordinance in the town code. Call that the first step in a process. The second step would be to have a draft prepared for the board to consider.

Recently the Town Board has had dark skies on its work session agendum a couple of times. At one of those sessions it was very clear that there were at least two different drafts on the table, judging from exchanges among various board members. At another, it was acknowledged by the supervisor that what they have “needs some work.”

Surely there is no point in a work session discussing prospective legislation unless there is a single uniform draft in board members’ hands.

Furthermore, once a single uniform draft has been prepared, it should be made available to the public generally. Then, and only then, should dark skies be on the work session agendum. The third step, then, would be for the board to critique the draft and if necessary request a modified draft. The usual opportunity for informal public comment would be part of that conversation.

That may have to be repeated a couple of times, but unless a revised draft is made available prior to a scheduled work session, it shouldn’t be on the agendum.

The fourth step would be for the Town Board either to set a public hearing or to abandon the project.

DAVID DRAPER
Shelter Island

We will enforce

To the Editor:

Your front page story in the April 11 edition (“Blackout on ‘dark skies’ legislation”) may have been a bit misleading.

A Town Board member quoted the chief of police saying that the Police Department has only received four complaints about neighbors’ lighting in the past decade. Of course very few people would complain to the police if there are no regulations to enforce. That is why the Zoning Board of Appeals requested the Town Board to consider some form of dark skies legislation because the ZBA has received complaints with increasing frequency from neighbors when an applicant seeks a variance of some sort, according to a member of the ZBA. So the ZBA has identified that problems about outdoor lighting are increasing and that agency has sought to have this problem addressed.

My neighbor Lion Zust, in her letter to the editor (April 11) offers several very simple solutions to avoid intrusion of spotlights or floodlights onto a neighbor’s property: “diffusers” to soften beams; or “eyelids,” which direct light only at its objective, protecting a neighbor from excessive glare.

And to answer Chief Read’s question at the Town Board’s initial discussion of this issue, on who will enforce a regulation (whether it be by the Town Board or the Building Department) once it’s on the books, a neighbor will become the enforcer, once some sort of rules are in place, and a violation can be identified. If the offending neighbor doesn’t comply with a simple rule like “diffusers” or “eyelids,” then perhaps the violation becomes a reportable police matter.

The town could easily require that existing spotlights or floodlights be equipped with “diffusers” or “eyelids” and much of the light-intrusion problem would be solved.

As I reminded the Town Board at its first discussion of this matter, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said it best when he observed: “Your right to swing your arm stops at my nose.” That is what this issue is all about.

LINDA G. HOLMES
Shelter Island