Community members weigh in after CUSD School Board approves light project
CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, Calif. (KION-TV)- Carmel High's School stadium could soon be lit up for Friday night football after a very tense school board meeting where school board members approved the stadium lights project.
The lights are a very contested topic for the community.
For years, students at Carmel High wanted stadium lights to brighten up their school's football field, according to school board members and a former principal.
After Tuesday night's vote, four light poles will be added around the field.
Over the following months, CUSD will present a bid award to the school board.
“Each of them are a little different,” said Superintendent Ted Knight. “A lot of the major construction we won't be able to do till the summer till kids are gone. But the major construction project like the lights should be done next fall.”
The school district said the whole project could take between a year and 18 months.
Students at Tuesday's meeting were pushing to have the lights built so that they don't have to practice in the dark.
“Stadium lights are a benefit to Carmel high school in multiple ways, including safety,” said one student who spoke during public comment. “I play soccer, and I love to support our other teams, and I would love to be able to do that on Fridays.”
“I think it's just about an opportunity for games to happen after dark,” said Jack Lagier, who lives in the neighborhood.
KION spoke with neighbors who said they don’t mind the stadium is lit up but are concerned about the traffic.
“It's great the lights are going to bring events to the area,” said Rory Smith. “But they need to think about how they're going to handle the traffic and the parking and how that's going to affect the local neighborhood.”
“The increasing parking spots on site versus on the street are very important to our neighbors,” said Knight. “There's a lot of aspects to this project.”
People who have lived in the neighborhood surrounding the school believe the money could be used elsewhere.
“The sports are wonderful,” said Beth Ege. “But I don't think that kind of money could be used on putting lights just so students can play at night.”
The Carmel Unified School District received threats of a lawsuit from some community members if it moved forward with the project. School leaders said they did get letters from lawyers at the meeting, but haven’t heard of anything official since.
