The school district’s proposal for night lights for Darien High School sports just changed: Games and practices would regularly end by 7:30 p.m. rather than 8 p.m., with certain exceptions for even later games, and the policy would stay in place for five years.
That proposal, which will go before the Darien Planning & Zoning Commission, was unanimously approved by the Board of Education on Tuesday after Schools Superintendent Dan Brenner reached a new compromise with some residents who live close to the school.
The agreement, Brenner said, should help with the school district’s objective “to have lights up in the fall, with the goal that we could get approvals through [the Planning & Zoning Commission] and we wouldn’t be in an adversarial position with the neighbors.”
The Planning & Zoning Commission, while supportive of the general idea of night lights for high school sports games, has tried to limit their use in various ways over the years, sometimes with a lot of restrictions, in order to make the lights less disturbing to the school’s neighbors. If a large number of neighbors joins with the school district to present a compromise proposal to the commission, it stands a better chance of getting the commission’s approval.
Brenner did not say that the new compromise is supported by all the neighbors or how many neighbors.
From 8 p.m. to 7:30
“The [lights] turnoff time would shift from 8 o’clock to 7:30,” Brenner said in describing the new plan. “That shutoff time would be a hard and fast time for youth practices.”
But certain high school team games with circumstances beyond the control of the players or coaches — such as a game going into overtime or busses arriving late from other schools because of traffic problems — the athletic director or facilities director could decide to keep the lights on, Brenner said.
In those circumstances, teams “would be able to finish the game, regardless of when that time ended,” he said. Those exceptions, Brenner said, can be expected to be “few and far between.”
Five-Year Plan
The neighbors who spoke with Brenner were concerned that any new policy about lighting would be changed in a year and then changed again the next year, the superintendent said, so another part of the new agreement is to have the school district propose it as a five-year policy.
“What this does is, in one way or another, prohibits you from doing something [to change the lighting policy] prior to that,” Brenner told the board.
How It Happened
Brenner said the new compromise came about after “a neighbor representing several of the neighbors” of the high school called him to suggest some new ideas that both the district and the neighbors could support.
“In the spirit of cooperation, I felt it was appropriate to meet with the neighbors,” Brenner said. They came to his office at the district’s headquarters on Leroy Avenue twice to discuss alternatives to the district’s proposed 8 p.m. light shutoff time. The neighbors pushed him to set the shutoff time at 7 p.m., which Brenner said he wouldn’t do, so a compromise was reached for a 7:30 p.m. shutoff.
The idea of having a proposal to keep a policy in place for five years also emerged as a concern of the neighbors, he said.
Brenner and the neighbors then communicated by email. It was a challenge to him, he said, to go back to the Board of Education after it had already approved a proposal on lighting, but “I decided to do it [partly] inthe spirit of good neighborliness,” he said. He said it was also good as a way of “showing each side is compromising.”
“A Caveat”
Brenner told the board that he will need to review the new agreement with a lawyer before it can be brought before the Planning & Zoning Commission, so some details may need to change.
“I’m asking for approval for this shift with the understanding that I still need, in essence, to dot my i’s” and cross my t’s,” he told the board.
Board Members Support
Before the unanimous vote, board members said they could live with the compromise proposal. Three board members were absent from the meeting and therefore didn’t vote: Vice Chairperson Elizabeth Haggerty-Ross, Sara Zuro and Christa McNamara.
“I’m fine with the [compromise] amendments,” board member Michael Burke said. “For me to agree with a five-year freeze — for me is a big deal,” he added. “I’m willing to compromise.”
Chairperson Michael Harmon said, “I think that if we can do this in a cooperative manner, that helps us out.”
“As a five-year agreement, it seems excessive,” board member David Dineen said, but he added, “I think it’s a good compromise. It’s a good step forward.”
He suggested that the school district “have some kind of communication protocol in place” to have police and other concerned parties notified whenever the lights stay on past 7:30 p.m. Brenner agreed that it should be set up.
The school district will review how well the lights policy is working and report back to the board annually. The annual review will help the district decide whether or not other aspects of late games are working, such as rules for traffic, Brenner said.