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Councilman Berates Citizen Below is a copy of an email exchange, including my email (scroll to the bottom) to Mission Viejo City Hall about the wastefulness of lighting sports fields when the fields are not in use. A city administrator's lengthy response about the city's theoretical model for turning off lights includes acknowledgment that the system is not reliable. Please note the official response from Councilman Dave Leckness. Lamar Kelsoe From:Dave Leckness Hi Lamar, Do you have any idea how ridiculous you come off? When you type in all capitals and say stupid-ass things in your email it makes it hard to take your comments seriously. To ask for someone to be replaced because lights were on our fields and only a few people were there is nuts. You don’t have all the facts and your running-off your mouth. -Dave [Original email from Leckness includes his title and the official city seal.] From: Kelly Doyle Dear Mr. Kelsoe, Thank you for bringing the sports field lighting this past Saturday to our attention. We appreciate it. It is the responsibility of the various sports leagues to turn off the sports field lighting if they are not using the fields as scheduled. We have been able to follow up with the leagues for that night and most had not turned the lights off. So we specifically sent notices to all the leagues reminding them of their responsibility to turn the lights off when they are not using them. While I know that you may already know the procedures that are followed for sports field lighting use, I’d like to reiterate these procedures. As mentioned earlier, it is the responsibility of the various sports leagues to turn off the sports field lighting if they are not using the fields as scheduled. The lights on each of the sports fields are programmed by a City staff person through a computer software system here at City Hall. Each sports field has it’s lights set on a time frame that allows the lights to come on at dusk, or as requested, by a particular organization. The turn off times for each of the sports fields lights are then programmed to coordinate with an organizations’ time that is listed on the permit. They turn off automatically. We allow the lights to be on for 15 minutes past the permit time to allow the players time to pick up and leave the fields. Organizations that have a permit allowing lights are usually given a toll free number along with a password for the lights. This phone number and password can be used to call the 24 hour answering service offered by the software scheduling system to turn the lights off. Thus the lights can be turned off by the user prior to the automatic timer turning them off. In general when we are made aware of lights being on and no one being seen on the fields we follow up by contacting the respective group. We ask them if they even need the time as we could assign it to other groups. In addition, we remind them that they are to call and have the lights turned off if they are not using them. For the most part the follow up contact and reminders are usually effective. Most of these groups have volunteers who run the organizations and turnover is high. Thus retraining and reminders are necessary. As a note, we’ve recently begun using a part time staff person each night to travel the sports fields monitoring the lights and turning them off as necessary if no one is using the fields, or has left early and not turned them off. The staff person then reports back and follow up action is taken by notifying the respective leagues. We have just recently asked this person to travel the fields twice starting a bit earlier to double check on the use. Hopefully this helps answer any questions there may be about the processes followed for use of sports field lights. M. Kelly Doyle From: Trish Kelley Mr. Kelsoe, I will send this to Kelly Doyle and he will follow up with you regarding our procedures. We will be sure to notify the appropriate people. Thanks for letting us know that you have observed the lights being on. Trish Sent from my iPad On May 26, 2012, at 8:40 PM, "lamar kelsoe" <kelsosigns@cox.net> wrote: JUST CAME BACK FROM VISITING BEEBE, CURTIS, AND GILLERION PARKS. ALL THE LIGHTS WERE ON IN ALL 3 PARKS AT 7:35. THE SUN HAD NOT SET. NO TEAMS IN ANY OF THE PARKS. ONE PERSON WITH ONE YOUNG CHILD WAS IN THE BATTING CAGE IN THE GILLERION PARK. IT IS NOW 8:40 PM AND ALL THE LIGHTS ARE STILL ON. ALSO I DROVE BY THE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL ON LAPAZ RD AND THE LIGHTS WERE ON IN THAT BALL FIELD AS WELL AND NO ONE THERE. IF KELLY DOYAL IS THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING SURE THE LIGHTS ARE OFF WHEN NO ONE IS THERE, HE NEEDS TO BE REPLACED WITH SOMEONE WHO WILL DO A BETTER JOB. HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON AND HOW LONG BEFORE THE COUNCIL ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOLVING THIS PROBLEM. THE PROBLEM ISN'T GOING TO SOLVE IT'S SELF.THIS PROBLEM IS COSTING MISSION VIEJO TAX PAYERS THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS THAT COULD BE PUT TO BETTER USE. PLEASE ADDRESS THIS PROBLEM. MAYBE THE CITY MANAGER IS NOT DOING HIS JOB AS WELL. WAKE UP THOSE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO WORK FOR THE TAX PAYERS AND TELL THEM TO GET OFF THEIR BUTTS AND DO THEIR JOBS. MAKES ME WONDER WHAT OTHER SITUATIONS LIKE THIS ARE GOING ON THAT WE ARE NOT, "YET", AWARE OF. LAMAR |
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