By Will Collette
One of the several blockbuster issues on the Town Council
agenda for Monday, June 11 is perhaps the final vote on the final version of
the long-running saga of the ordinance to preserve Charlestown ’s
dark skies by regulating lighting on Charlestown
properties.
As Progressive Charlestown readers know, I am a big fan of
astronomy and truly do love our dark sky vistas. But as this ordinance drama as
dragged on, it became pretty clear that we were going about the issue the wrong way.
The Charlestown Planning
Commission, under the leadership of Planning Commissar Ruth Platner, followed
its usual impulse to try to create the most minutely detailed, invasive and
far-reaching ordinance they could think of.
They even seriously considered having Charlestown buy all the street light poles in
town so they could be chopped down. They actually discussed banning the little
solar powered lawn lights. I am not making this up.
Their gross over-reach provoked a backlash from
businesses and property owners, and for a while, it got very ugly. Just review
the annotated video of the March Town Council meeting, available only on Progressive Charlestown, to see for yourself.
Chastened, or more accurately, soundly whipped, the Planning
Commission began the painful process of deleting nearly all of the actual
regulations in the ordinance.
They grandfathered all existing lighting and made compliance
with the ordinance voluntary on single-family homeowners.
The document posted on Clerkbase contains the new version of
the ordinance as well as a previous version and a lot of material they had
included in the package they used to push the full-out version that was
trounced last March. They even threw in the anti-lighting letters from the
Interior Department that were used by the CCA and Ruth Platner as part of the “Kill
Bill” campaign to oust Town Administrator Bill DiLibero.
For all properties, except single-family homes, the
requirements to use dark-sky friendly light fixtures kicks in when existing
lighting has to be repaired or replaced, although how that will actually be
enforced still seems problematic.
They removed the 11 PM curfew that infuriated Charlestown businesses.
The one issue where the Planning Commission seems to have dug in its heels is
to set a 15 foot height limit on new lights on buildings other than
single-family homes.
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| Dr. Lew Johnson appeals for common sense at March Council meeting |
Most of this mess could have been avoided if the Planning
Commission had consulted with other town commissions and listened to some of
its own alumni, such as Dr. Lew Johnson, long-time dark sky champion.
If the Planning Commission had only approached this as a
community issue, rather than another topic that needed to be minutely
regulated, they could have easily won near consensus support for a dark sky
policy that relied more on public education, technical assistance, group
purchasing to take advantage of available discounts and peer pressure.
Highlight town businesses that are good “dark sky citizens,”
(e.g. Charlestown Liquor, Atlantic
Animal Hospital
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| At Charlestown Liquor, dark-sky friendly lights still provide adequate security |
You don’t have to be an astronomer to enjoy watching the
stars. But you don’t always have to react to every community problem by
legislating it to death.
This Planning Commission simply has no trust in the people
of Charlestown
to do the right thing unless they, the Planning Commission, make it against the
law.
So perhaps, this time, the dark sky ordinance will be
adopted. Why not? Except for the arbitrary 15 foot height limit, there isn’t
much too it. Then Platner can say, “see – we passed a dark sky ordinance” even
though we all know the truth.
Maybe over time, Charlestown
residents will forget this long, painful and unnecessary battle over an
over-reaching ordinance and a community consensus for sensible measures to
preserve our dark skies will emerge.