Let there be lights, panel says

Permanent lights proposed for two fields at the Farm Sports Complex in Costa Mesa cleared one hurdle Wednesday, when the city’s parks commission voted to request $1 million to pay for the lights.

Now those who want the lights and those who don’t will take their battle to the City Council, which will discuss the project in June as part of the 2006-07 budget.

The issue has been a tug of war between those who say the lights will add much-needed practice time for youth sports and homeowners who believe their quality of life will suffer from the lights and greater use of the Farm’s fields.

Sports supporters have long complained of Costa Mesa’s athletic field shortage. Of the 68 fields available in the city, just four have lights, recreation director Jana Ransom said.

That includes two of the Farm’s six fields. The parks commission in March voted for a plan to eventually light the four dark fields, and commissioners decided Wednesday to ask for the $1-million cost of lighting two fields in next year’s budget.

But some residents who live near the Farm in the Mesa Del Mar neighborhood have said the city promised them no more fields would be lighted. In a letter to parks commissioners, resident Michael Dilsisian wrote that homeowners “will lose their right to enjoy their homes in reasonable peace and quiet.”

Parks commission chairwoman Wendy Leece sided with the homeowners, and some fear council members will too.

The lights were part of a $14.3-million list of projects proposed for next year. The council will consider that list as part of a $124-million budget, which is up about 6% from last year.

The Farm lights will likely be voted on as a separate line item, and Councilwoman Katrina Foley will recuse herself because she lives within 500 feet of the sports complex.

The other four council members will have to decide where the $1 million for lights fits in among other requests, such as $200,000 to complete sidewalks on Broadway, $200,000 to design a second skate park, and as much as $26 million to renovate and expand the police station.

They’ll also likely be lobbied, for and against, the lights. Those who want lights at the Farm already have been sending letters and e-mails to council members for about two weeks, said Chris Sarris, director of the Newport Mesa Soccer Club.

Those who oppose the lights have valid concerns, Sarris said, but with little or no vacant land in Costa Mesa, the complaints would likely be the same if the city looked elsewhere.

“Anywhere you go and anything you try and do, it’s going to be that neighborhood that doesn’t want it there,” he said.