Willow Glen Resident

News

Night lights at WGHS are heading into final stages of approval

By Mayra Flores De Marcotte

After much discussion and a little legwork, San Jose Unified School District has identified ways to make the proposed stadium lights project work at Willow Glen High School.

The district had its third and final community meeting on March 13 to discuss the results of the California Environmental Quality Act study and the proposed stadium light project.

The project consists of the installation of four 90-foot-tall stadium lights at five high school fields, including Willow Glen High School. The infrastructure is already in place. San Jose High Academy had stadium lights installed during the summer of 2006.

The lights will use photometric technology. Each light will shine down into the field instead of across the fields or a resident's yard.

District officials said the goal of adding stadium lights to the high school campuses is twofold: To offer the community a way to rally behind its local high school and create an opportunity for the high school to have more home games.

The district's school construction manager, Ty Williams, said the lights would be used for only 10 games per school year, and outside organizations using the field would not have access to the facility at night.

Although nearby residents were initially worried about increased noise, traffic and parking, Shaw Environmental CEQA consultant Caroleen Toyama said the impact on the surrounding area could be mitigated through project revisions.

These revisions include directing speakers toward the stadium to reduce noise; the development of a traffic-control plan between the city and district for "at capacity" events; and adding traffic-control staff from the school and district during events.

District officials walked the campus and surrounding areas and identified 719 parking spaces, none of which were in the neighborhoods. These spaces included parking along Dry Creek Road and Cottle and Cherry avenues, as well as parking on campus, Williams said.

According to the traffic studies conducted for the project, there are 720 trips made before games and 980 trips after the games end. Of those about 100 are drop-off and pick-up, Williams said.

The issue of parking is more of a practical matter, he said. The stadium is on the west side of the campus while the majority of the parking is on the east side.

Williams said in order to make parking more convenient, the district will have available parking clearly marked and traffic control staff directing the flow of cars.

Another possibility to alleviate parking issues is to have temporary barricades along residential streets to discourage illegal parking.

"We just need to discuss what is the most appropriate approach in each situation," Williams said.

Lastly, Williams mentioned that the ticket booth location may be key to smoothing out the details. If the booth is moved to the east side, it can encourage people to park on that side of the campus, where most of the parking is located. Currently the ticket booth is on the west side of the stadium.

Willow Glen resident Becky Jones was pleased with the district's efforts to make the neighbors happy.

"I completely support the project," Jones said.

However, she added that the project's success relied on not only the district's involvement but also that of the residents.

"As neighbors, we have an obligation to work with the school," she said. "We have to work with the district, not be obstacles for it. We will all benefit from this project."

Not all residents, however, echoed Jones' sentiments.

One neighbor expressed his concern over the guarantees that there would be only 10 night events per year.

Williams assured residents the 10 nights are part of the conditions of approval for this project and that there were consequences if this was breached.

Other neighbors were still not convinced that the district's plans to control the traffic and parking were enough.

Williams said this plan would include a tiered response from the district, the school and the San Jose Police Department.

"This will be something that evolves as we go," Williams said.

District officials are also looking at installing a fence around the fields' designated parking lots, making them more distinguishable. The goal of this is to ease the direction of traffic at the beginning and end of sporting events, Williams said.

According to Williams, it will cost $250,000 per site to install stadium night lights, with the funding coming from Measure C, a $165 million school district bond measure approved by voters in 1997.

The district will publish the final report and make it available to the public on April 2. The stadium lights request will go before the school board, 855 Lenzen Ave., May 8 at 6:30 p.m.