Thank you to Mayor Kavanagh and the Town Council for listening to our concerns about the bollard lights in Fountain Park. And thank you, too, The Fountain Hills Times for covering the story. It is the hallmark of our community that citizens may have their concerns heard openly at a public meeting.
I remind the mayor, council and town residents that our group is not opposed to lights in Fountain Park; we want fixtures that put the light on the path where it is needed and not into the eyes of those walking around the park, into the sky, or onto nearby properties.
The bollards that were installed were not the “zero-uplight, full cut off luminary, nighttime friendly” fixtures described in the manufacture’s specifications. The result is a walkway that emits glare and light pollution, not a safely lit walkway that allows pedestrians to enjoy the night sky.
Imagine that you purchase a new refrigerator. You have it installed and pay for it in full. Then, when you turn it on you discover that instead of keeping food cold, it freezes everything. Frozen milk, frozen lettuce, frozen eggs. You would rightly demand that the company replace your purchase with what you had paid for – and to do so at their expense. You hadn’t wanted a freezer, you had wanted a refrigerator!
This is also the situation the town faces. We paid for “zero-uplight, full cut-off luminary, nighttime friendly” lights. We got glare, uplight and light pollution. We didn’t want a landing strip, we wanted a safely lit walkway.
I urge the Council to insist that the companies we hired to design and supply the park lighting be held responsible for replacing every one of the bollards with truly “full cutoff” fixtures, without further cost to the Town.
