M-A neighbors seek way to scuttle field lighting M-A neighbors seek way to scuttle field lighting (August 04, 2004)

By David Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer

To light or not to light the football field at Menlo-Atherton High School may be a question someday for the school board of the Sequoia Union High School District.

That day was not July 27, however, even though several M-A neighbors from Atherton and Menlo Park attended a board meeting that evening to protest the lighting plan. Because the issue was not on the agenda, the trustees would not comment.

The neighbors asked the board to reject a proposal led by the M-A Athletic Boosters club to privately raise about $165,000 to install 90-foot-high light towers around a football field recently upgraded with public funds.

"We'll have to look at those (poles) 365 days a year," said Gene Rauen, a resident of Oak Grove Avenue in Atherton, a town with zoning laws that prohibit streetlights and allow no man-made structures taller than 34 feet. "You can't light up a stadium and think it's not going to be glaring into the rest of Atherton."

The residents raised other concerns, including litter, traffic, the potential for violence, night games becoming more frequent with time, and night-time use of the field by unaffiliated sports teams.

But Anne Peck, a past M-A boosters club president, told the Almanac that M-A parents and students are missing out on a great American pastime.

The school should craft a "very thoughtful" plan to make the changes "the least intrusive" to neighbors, Ms. Peck said, but added: "I don't think that their rights override the rights of everyone else." The school would host four night games -- six in an atypical year -- from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., said Eric Hartwig, M-A's principal at the time. Winter practice sessions would use the lights until 5 p.m., Mr. Hartwig said.

The school and the boosters met with several neighbors in early June. "Their input sent us all back to the drawing board," said Eric Hartwig, M-A's principal at the time.

Schools are generally free from local government oversight, but must comply with zoning laws, Atherton Town Attorney Marc Hynes has said. But the school has an out: a two-thirds vote of the district governing board allows a school to disregard a local ordinance.

The Atherton City Council recently voted to send letters of protest to the Sequoia board members.

"We believe we're good neighbors to the school," said Oak Grove Avenue resident Larry Crouch to the school board. "Being a good neighbor is being consistent with the zoning ordinances."

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