Lights Out

Page 1 headline story in the Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff, AZ by CYNDY COLE, Sun Staff Reporter, 2/02/2006
© 2006 Arizona Daily Sun

The city of Flagstaff is getting serious about seeking out businesses and homeowners that add more or brighter lighting.

The city will commit $10,000 to finding and fighting homeowners or businesses that add lighting in violation of the region's ordinances in favor of dark skies.

Businesses up and down Route 66 and Milton Avenue will be photographed at night and entered into a database. The photos will be used when businesses dispute whether their lighting has been brightened or new lights installed.

Notices sent to homeowners that add landscaping lights or more could also become a more frequent reality, at the behest of the Coconino County Board of Supervisors and City Council.

"We're getting pretty good compliance, basically," Flagstaff Community Investment Director Michael Kerski said, typically after sending out a notice.

Fifty notices were sent to homes and businesses last year.

Enforcement of the rules mainly happens now only after someone complains.

The city and county have asked those who enforce the lighting ordinances to intensify its campaign to the public outlining what's acceptable and what isn't, giving the public a Web site and examples of good and bad lighting.

Staff is expecting 400 to 500 homes and businesses alone are in violation of the law for having light bulbs with mercury vapor, which are prohibited statewide. The cases have not gone to court in recent memory.

"Lots of people have certainly violated the codes. Many times it's inadvertent, but sometimes it certainly isn't," U.S. Naval Observatory astronomer Chris Luginbuhl said.

Luginbuhl helped write the city's lighting ordinance in 1989 and dedicates part of his career to nighttime lighting, design and studying a city's brightness, as well as measuring the distance to faint faraway stars.

The city is brighter now than it was in 1989, but only half as bright as it would've been without laws to prohibit more lighting in new houses and businesses, he said.

And if all of the pre-1989 lighting that wasn't up to code were removed, Flagstaff could double in population without having an appreciable impact on local observatories, he said.

But that's not on the city's list.

The statewide astronomy community is perennially looking to the glow of Phoenix, Luginbuhl and others have said, asking what can be done to keep Arizona from losing its rank as one of the top three places in the world for astronomy.

"You can see Phoenix all the way from Gallup to Holbrook along Interstate 40," city councilman Joe Haughey said.

For more information, see www.darksky.org.

Cyndy Cole can be reached at ccole@azdailysun.com or at 913-8607.