Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Evening and welcome to the May 13 special PNZ meeting. Pursuant to state law, there will be no physical location for this meeting. This meeting will be held electronically and live streamed on westportctp.gov. This meeting will also be shown on Westport's Optimal Government Access channel 79 subject to availability. The public may attend and offer testimony during the meeting by using the meeting link published on the agenda prior to the meeting.

The meeting agenda is available at westportct.gov on the meeting list and calendar webpage. Written comments may also be received prior to the public meeting and should be sent to pandzwestportct dot gov by 12:00 on the day of the meeting, if intended to be distributed for consideration by members of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Written comments received after 12:00 on the day of the meeting will be entered into the record but will not be distributed until the next business day. Meeting materials submitted are available at westportcity.gov on the Planning and Zoning Department webpage under P and Z pending applications and recent approvals. I am Michael Katmire, and I'm the acting chair today.

And with me, we have Brie Anjeski, Mike Kalis, Nicole Laskin, and Craig Siobhan. And we are waiting oh, and Patricia Kuzukarov, Commissioner Zukarov is with us as well. So that being said, we also have our planning and zoning staff director, Michelle. And is there anybody else with us that I need to announce on the record? I don't think so. That being said, our secretary, Breenjewski

Yes.

I turn this over to you.

Alright. First item on today's agenda in the public meeting is municipal improvement.

Actually, before let me actually, sorry about that. One thing I wanna do before we go into the public meeting. I think our agenda needs to be changed a little just in order, not what we're talking about. So to the commission members, we have the first item is the 824 For 20 Jessup Road. That's fine.

The second item is 824 For 60 Campo Beach Road to 260 Campo Beach Campo Road South. That's fine too. The third item is an 824 For 70 North Avenue. That's fine. The fourth item needs to be the number five on our agenda, which is the special permit site plan application for 70 North Avenue.

So we're gonna do them together or and then the special permit site plan application for 170 Riverside. Now I know we do have text amendment eight sixty eight after that and then 455 Post Road East after that. No promises that we get to that, Rick, if Rick is on there now. So that being said, so I guess we're just switching those agenda items. So do we need to vote on switching agenda items like that?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Mhmm.

Okay. So I'll make the motion to move the agenda items the way to what I just proposed.

I will second that.

Thank you. Can we get a all in favor? Mike Kalias, it's I can't see you because of the virtual background, but we'll come back to you. Now I can see you. Nicole Laskin.

All in I'm in favor. Greg?

I'm in favor as well.

Patrizia?

No objections.

Thank you. And Mike, Khalise? You're muted.

That's fine.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. So now, Brie, you can take us to number one.

Right. Item number one on the agenda is municipal improvement at 20 Jessup Road, application number PZ2600269, request for a report from the Planning and Zoning Commission submitted pursuant to CGS section eight twenty four municipal improvement by Paul Davis on behalf of the first selectman for public art display at the Westport Library located in the residence of A A District, PID number C09130000. Must issue report by May 29. Applicant's presentation time is ten minutes.

Who do we have? There's

Mr. Davis is here. Yep.

Okay. I'm here.

There you are. Okay. Litter up.

K. I'm not sure how you do the, the presentation. There are only three slides that I think you're gonna wanna see, and they're all on your website.

Michelle, how do you wanna do that? Should he should

I don't mind.

You wanna I don't mind sharing my screen if that's the easiest thing.

Okay. I'll make

it there.

We've already seen the the application. It is to install a bronze sculpture at the Westport Library at the backside, and I'm gonna we'll show you a picture of both the sculpture and where it is to be placed In in a moment, the sculpture is called circle of peace, and it depicts three children in a circle dancing. It is to be placed on a six foot diameter concrete base, which will be affixed to the ground. So even in the very unlikely case that water should come up over the the ground there, which is quite high relative to the river, it won't go anywhere. Let's see.

Is there anything else that it's

I can show the picture whenever you're ready or in the location.

Please, yes. Please do it. It's

actually called

sculpture picture.

Sculpture? Okay. Hold on. Let me get that one. Okay.

Can everybody see it okay?

There it goes. Okay. You get the idea there.

Yep.

So we're gonna put that you wanna put that sculpture Okay. Right at the corner front of the front

of the corner, and you can see more specifically by looking at sculpture location.

Mhmm.

I think it is. There's actually a photograph of that area.

Can you see it? I have that one up. Oh, this is the GIS. And then The GIS. This is the location.

That's good. That's good. That's the cafe you see behind the back door. The that ball, that large ball that you see there will be moved to the to the left, and the sculpture will go basically where the tip of the arrow is. The just so you know, the sculpture has been donated to the town.

It is now officially part of the Westport Arts Collection, which of which Kathy Benowitz is the curator, and it's been approved by the for inclusion in the collection by the first electman's office. The library has enthusiastically supported its being installed here. One thing that you're not aware of, but you should be aware of requested to remain anonymous. And he has also agreed to take on responsibility for maintaining and cleaning it as needed. And I think we've covered everything else.

The Butters letters went out, and I'm not aware of any written responses. He may have gotten seen something that I haven't seen. We have heard verbally that a lot of people like the sculpture. The the artist, by the way, is a fellow named Gary Lee Price, who is a quite well known sculpture a sculptor living in in Utah, and he's done quite a few of this type of sculpture sculpture. This particular one at one time was located at the old Save the Children facility on Riverside Avenue. I guess it's actually Route 33 when you get up there. But if you have any questions, please.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Commissioners, staff first. Michelle.

Yeah. Thanks. So, as stated, this is a request, from the first selectman. Again, the sculpture was donated and is named Circle of Peace. The Planning and Zoning Commission is acting in its planning capacity when reviewing an 08/24 request.

Therefore, guidance from the 2017 Plan of Conservation and Development should be considered. POCD states that public art

I'm

sorry, that continue to support and encourage facilities for the arts and theater, both public and private, and therefore it can be considered consistent with the POCD. There were no comments from any town departments with any objections. I'm here for questions. Thanks.

Commissioners, let's go around the room. Start with Atrizia.

Hey there. Thank you. I like it. I think it's great. I'm excited to see it at the Westport Library. I don't really have any additional comments, so but it looks great. Thank you.

Great. Yep.

Also supportive of this. I think it'll be a nice addition to the library. No questions.

Greg?

I'm supportive as well. I'm glad that it was not stockpiled and or, archived, and it's back from Save the Children to a public location.

Nicole?

Thank you to the donor. I think it's great.

Mr. Calise?

Yes. He's very, very attractive, I think it'll be a real asset to the landscape of the library.

And I echo my fellow co chairs as well. Back to the applicants. Sorry. Public comment. Anybody in the public have anything to comment on this?

Raise your hands. Seeing none, back to the applicant for final commentary.

Well, thank you very much for the for the review. This is one of several sculptures that are being put in around town parks, but this is a particularly lovely one. And if you look at the appraisal of it, you'll see it's also rather valuable. So we really appreciate the the donor in this case. He really has done something marvelous.

Okay. Yes. I will make a motion to close this.

Second.

Thank you, Nicole. All in favor of closing, Mr. Kalis. Nicole?

Yes.

Craig?

Yes. Gray? Yes.

Patricia?

Aye.

And I I as well. Going out of order here just because of the way that the agenda is tonight, I want to we don't have to write the second, but the items number one and two, I'd like to vote on those before we start item number three. So quickly, just because it's fresh in our heads, if we could move, Michelle, do we move to work session to vote?

Yes.

Okay. So I'd like to move to go to work session.

I will second that. We just go.

And we go to work session. Let's vote on number one for the night.

So motion for a favorable report.

I second that motion. All in favor? So Nicole is an aye. Michael is is Aye. Aye. It looks like we're all through Patrizia.

Aye.

Okay. Unanimous. Positive vote. And now I'll make a motion to go back to public meeting.

Alright. I will second that, and we are back in public meeting.

Great. Great. Number two.

Item number two on our agenda is municipal improvement at 60 Campo Beach Road and 260 Campo Road South, application PZ2600287, request for a report from the Planning and Zoning Commission submitted pursuant to CGS eight twenty four municipal improvement by Eric Barbieri on behalf of the first selectman for a new lease for food and beverage concessions at Campo Beach, Longshore Pavilion, and the halfway house at Longshore Golf Course. 60 Campo Road is located in the Residence A District, PID D 03164000. 260 Campo Road South, Longshore Park is located in the Residence A A A District, PID number C 04001000. Must issue a report by 06/04/2026. Applicant's presentation time is ten minutes.

Applicant. Okay.

Good evening, everyone. Eric Barbieri, Parks and Recreation Director. Very excited to be here tonight to present, this to the commission for consideration. As you are all aware, we are in need of a new concessionaire for these three locations. A big time crunch is in existence right now.

Memorial Day, believe it or not, is a little more than a week away, which is, crazy, but this is where we are. And really we're really working hard to try to get this, recommended vendor into these locations for Memorial Day weekend. So just a little bit about the process so everyone is aware. RFP number 26Dash165T, food and beverage concession lease for Westport Park's properties was posted on 02/20/2026. A mandatory site walkthrough was performed on 03/10/2026 at 10AM.

I really wanted this to be mandatory so that any potential vendor understood the nature of the buildings, the locations, any potential staffing issues based on the sizes. So, we did have three companies in attendance that day. We had a a question and RFI submission period of 03/17. So, any questions from the vendors, that was their deadline. And then we opened the RFPs on 03/23 at 11AM.

We had two submissions. NG Entertainment, and Braxton's were the two that were submitted. I will share that we felt that both submissions, were capable of doing the job. However, NG Entertainment stood out, on behalf of the committee, and let me just explain who that committee was. Myself, Mike Ginta, who is our operations superintendent with the Parks and Recreation Department, we had a member of the Board of Finance.

We had one member of the Parks and Recreation Commission, and we had a member of the RTM parks and recreation subcommittee. So those five people interviewed the two candidates, went through a series of questions that included a lot of information, and it was unanimous by all five at the end that, NG Entertainment be, put forward, and I'll go over a few of those reasons. First, and this is certainly not foremost, but it should be mentioned that it was the higher rent that was proposed of the two, approximately a $100,000 a year. One of the bigger items was experience in this nature of work. So, Nikki Glickus, who is the owner and operator of, NG Entertainment, operate multiple, sites similar to the one that we operate.

Wheat Beach is one of them, the Narotan Yacht Club, and she also handles Chelsea Piers. And while that's not a beach venue, it is a incredibly high volume venue, which impressed me because we need to be able to get people in and out quickly, as I've heard from from residents and participants of the beach area. We did an extensive research, on references. All of them were very good that the and I was specifically interested in quality of food and food service. Those two items came back, very high, which made me happy in regards to being able to feel good about putting it forward to both the board of finance and yourselves tonight.

I've also received an incredible number of catering compliments, folks who had used Nikki and her her companies for their catering events. Obviously, she is a West Porter. She is a local operator. So everything as far as feedback was really, really good. In addition, the menu, the options that she was talking about, and and she is on the call, I mean, on this Zoom tonight.

So I would like, if it's okay, Michael, to give her the opportunity to speak a little bit and talk about her plans for location, the menus, her plans for grab and go options, healthy options, ordering ahead, that kind of stuff stuff that I heard from the pub really interested in having. And last, before I turn it over to Nikki, I, the financial reviews, that were performed by both the finance department and our legal team all also came back, in good order. So I feel really good about recommending, this particular vendor to to handle these three locations, which are high volume, long overdue. We're looking forward to it. And before I turn it over to Nikki, would just like to say that her energy and passion to get these three locations has been off the charts.

She

she wants to be there. She's excited. She's been sharing with me her designs and her menus and her signage that she wants to do. It's it's really been all really positive. So with that, I'm hoping that, Nikki, are you on the Zoom?

I'm not sure I saw her name on the Zoom.

Okay. Let me text her to

see if she's on.

She Standby.

She might be having technical difficulties.

While we're waiting there, Michelle, normally, would come in.

If there's any questions, I'm happy to to also answer in the meantime.

Fine. In the meantime, Michelle, you be up next.

Okay. Nick could dial in, couldn't she? Does she know about the phone number?

She she is texting me right now, but

if we wanna move on to the next, she is aware.

Okay. So, Eric, if can if can communicate with her and get her on, that's fine. In in the meantime,

let's try. She's very close.

That's fine. Michelle, why don't you we'll just get we'll come back.

Thank you. Yes. Again, this is an 08/24 municipal improvement request, this time related to the proposed lease between the town of Westport and NG Entertainment LLC, again, for the provision of exclusive food and beverage services at Campo Beach, Longshore Pavilion, and Longshore Halfway House. You have a report. My staff report has been on the website, and it explains that the arrangement is intended to provide coordination, consistent concession services across key town owned recreational facilities.

No new construction site expansion or significant physical modifications are proposed as part of the lease agreement. Again, you're acting in your planning capacity and should take guidance from the POCD, which does explain that the template emphasizes the need to maintain existing facilities and improve those that we have in a cost efficient way. Therefore, this proposal would support the goals of the POCD by enhancing recreational amenities, improving services, and promoting effective use of public facilities. We did send a referral to all town departments, there was no objections. And that's all I have.

I'm here for questions.

I think she might be in the waiting room now maybe.

She's sitting next.

She's on okay. Here we go. She is.

Sorry. Running around. Hi.

Hi, Nikki. Can you give everybody on the PNC call just a little background of what you are looking to do?

Yeah. Of course. So we are looking to take over all three locations. We're gonna name them the sandbar, sandbar on the green, at the pavilion, and on the beach. We plan on bringing our expertise of, high quality food, great service, family friendly.

Our plan is to open at the beach to make sure it's a community friendly location. So we're planning on doing dinner at the beach, staying open late, having ice cream, all the staple items, smash burgers, chicken tenders, french fries, all of that. But my idea is to really bring this, and really up do a little bit more upscale so families can enjoy moms and dads as well. Fresh made salads. We're gonna have a grab and go. I just had a meeting today. We're doing freshly cut gyros. It's gonna be lamb and beef. We're doing chicken souvlaki. We're gonna you can add it to a salad.

You can have it in a wrap, homemade tzatziki. You know, we're really trying to make it so it's family friendly, but also I just wanna make sure that we're really getting, like, that high quality and that people wanna keep coming back. We'll have soft serve ice cream, novelty ice creams, all of that. We also are planning a to do a catering menu because we are so big with our catering and our restaurant, expertise. So our catering menu will be available immediately so families can start ordering for fourth of July.

They'll be in small and large trays. You can order salad, sandwich platters, chicken souvlaki platters, all of those fun things, to make it, you know, a destination for everybody. I also wanna bring in the community. So any other vendors that are selling things in the area, I've talked in I've talked to a bunch of people that have local businesses. We're gonna try to sell their items there too. I wanna make it like a community place so that you can keep coming back.

Thank you.

Let's go.

Commissioners, go around the room here. Remember we're start with my police. Let's Mike, when you're ready, just unhit the mute in your turn. Okay. You go. Okay.

I I wanna say that, I like very much the profile of of the proposed tenant. It's this is really a small business venture, and it's to serve the community more than to be a plan beyond that. My my grandparents ran a concession at Campo Beach for many years from a local Westport Place business, and we're very successful at it. And one of the things they did do was serve full meals in the pavilion, which is now on grade, but was one story up when they had it. So I wish these people great success.

I have to say that I do have one concern, and that is the projected rent roll. And I'm wondering if Eric can enlighten us about the numbers as they see it in terms of the tenant being able to a business of the scope being able to to undertake that rent roll. I I point out that the two prior tenants and possibly even one before that ended up in a seriously in arrears in a rent. So I just have that one concern about it is after all a very short term. It's only three or four months in each calendar year, and it's highly dependent upon weather.

But in any event, I I'm very pleased with the profile of the projected proposed tenant, and and the lease is certainly a workable lease. But I do have that one concern. Thank you.

I guess that's a question for Eric with he is concerned with the tenant being able to make the rent roll. But I will say this. Wait. Let me just say this for a second. Technically, Mike, that's not in our scope. The board of finance deals with the money, and board of finance approved this last night, if I'm not mistaken. Is that right, Eric?

Yes. Monday. Yeah. Monday

night. Yeah. Monday night. Okay. Yeah. So so my valid concern, not sure that it's in our purview to ask about rent. Our task is, is this a good use of town on property tech? Like, that's our general scope. So if the board of finance was fine with the rent, that's what they were likely to do. Not that we can't have that concern, of course, but I think that that's not that's in their scope, and we have to delegate that to them.

Well, I was essentially commenting on the tenant in the lease, and I just made that comment as

Okay.

Yeah. My part.

Valid. Valid. Totally valid. You know? And especially coming from me, you've been here for you know, you've got the experience here. So, but I don't as as a commission, I don't think it's our for you to, like, grill it on that. But thank you. Nicole?

Yeah. I think this is a great use of the property. I wish this, concessionaire lots of luck. Just a quick question because the concession has typically employed a lot of young people from the community, and I was just wondering if it will continue to do so.

A question to Nikki on just the intention with regards to employing young people in our community.

So we have a I don't managers. We do have some younger Staples kids that will be working there, but they won't be full supervision at all times. So no all of our chefs are are chefs from other locations, so they're all adults. And then the only younger people will be just the cashiers or the ice cream kids, but all supervised. I mean, I think it's good for them to learn, but I don't want anybody to be there without adult supervision.

Perfect.

Great. Thank you. Greg?

I'm like, Michael, I am impressed with the track record and the profile of the applicant and look forward to seeing what they can do in this space. Overall, having reviewed the lease, and I would say that it's the proposal and the proposed lease is consistent with the town plan and the POCD. It seems to have checked off all the boxes that we as a commission need to be concerned about from signage, trash removal. It was a little light on lighting, and maintaining the current structures as they are. So I think it's a great proposal.

Alright. Great.

Yeah. Also very supportive of this. I think that the plan that they have in place, will even though I know the financial part isn't necessarily within our realm that, you know, it's an issue of, like, how the how the property is used and if it's able to continue operating and serve the public. I I think that this plan to have the catering option, or the catering service as well, I think that's great. And then also to bring in other local vendors, to really make it a community focused place for people to go, all will contribute towards, the financial success and the long term success of of of this concession, and I think this is a great plan.

Thank you. Patrizia?

I don't have any comments. I wish the, I wish the tenant, good luck.

Thank you. And I'm in the same camp. I did have one question more so with regards to hours of operation. I see that is it go till about seven or 07:30, something like that, with different hours? Nikki, a question for you is, you want to go till later and the lease doesn't allow for it, or is this a Nikki and Eric discussion? That's the only thing that that stood out to me was hours of operation. If in the peak summer times you wanted to go later, are you allowed to go later?

Yeah. We we talked about this before, and Eric and I have already been working very closely, and he will tell you. I my plan is to open later. So we're just gonna you know, in the peak summer hours, we're gonna stay open as late as we can. I mean, I just don't wanna I wanna make sure we capture the full dinner scope.

I also plan on having a, an Instagram that we will set up very soon, and we'll try to get as many town people on Instagram because that's where we'll post you know, if there's hours, for the month of June or July or August, we'll post it there so we make sure that we're consistent. The whole thing is my success in the other locations was consistency, and that's what I want to bring here again.

Okay. Yep. And if I

could just add, Michael, the lease has a requisite number of hours that she needs to be open, and that's really for me as the manager of the lease to make sure that the tenant is is open when she's supposed to be open and those kinds of things. But there is another section of the lease that allows her to expand her hours and and modify them with my permission. So she has already asked about that. Certainly, I I want someone who's down there and there's the need, the desire, her ability to to make money in those scenarios, I would be supportive. So, certainly, we're we'll be supportive of that effort, on her behalf.

Great. And then the same question goes for the beverage cart on the golf course. So that only goes till 5PM. Can that go later, you know, when it gets light out and people playing golf till 07:00 at night, or is it not necessary? Is it that that discussion of the two of you to to figure out?

Yes. We can have that discussion. I think we were trying to make sure, again, mandatory hours of the cart to make sure that, you know, the the main part of the day is covered. But if the tenant would like to have that option to remain longer, we would welcome that to service, the golfers and also those in around the pro shop and that kind of thing, maybe their post round or whatever. So, yes, there's other opportunities there.

Great. That's all I have. Oh, sorry. One more question. Sorry. Delivery. Did I'm not sure if I missed it, but deliveries at Campo, is there like, because I I said there's, like, specific time of days at Longshore. Are there specific time of days at Campo? Is it what's the plan there? Does that matter? Does

it Yeah. There's not there's not we're not the delivery part of the of the lease is gonna be removed, especially by cart. And and Nikki, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but she's not looking to do deliveries right off the bat.

Oh, not not deliver not Nikki delivering food. Sorry. Nikki receiving.

Oh oh, deliveries. Yes. There were certain times of the day. Correct. Yes. Yes. Yes. That is spelled out in the list.

I don't think it was spelled out for Campo. Just bringing that up. But I don't know if I'm assuming, obviously, Nikki doesn't want the her to receive stuff that that

When she's operating.

That would get worked out anyway.

Right. Right.

And and I think the last thing to to point out here is that being that Nikki is very involved in the community, you know, I think she wants a success, which I think is a win win for Westport on this. And she wants to make it, you know, a good good thing. So I'm I'm all in favor of this. Alright. I have nothing else to say. Let's go to the public. Janine Scotti.

Hi. Nikki, I've never met you, I don't think, personally, but a shout out to Dan Wu for posting your name and picture. So I saw it was a Greek name, so I reached out to my Greek people. And you got a big thumbs up from people in the food industry, in the Greek community as a hard worker, really great product. And when I meet you, I'll tell you who it was. But that was all I needed to hear. So I also wish you luck, from another food industry person. I'm really looking forward to it. And I would say to maybe, to address something Michael Glee said that, hey. If it was a rainy day, but the food is really good, I'll be eating in my car with that great water view.

So I think there's a way to, drive business down there when the food's really good. It'll be really no traffic. Go down there. Great location. Be good old drive in. Right? So goodbye.

Thank you for that. We'll have a QR code so you'll be able to order ahead of time. Cool. Anyone

else in the public? Seeing none, bring it back to the applicant.

Yes. So, again, I think you can feel a little bit of the energy here. Everyone seems to be in favor. I I will say that, again, it's a very tight time frame, so, we appreciate everyone's, support on this so we can get her moving as soon as possible. And the goal to be up and running for Memorial Day weekend.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. I'll move to close.

Second. Second that.

Thank you. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Mike, you're in favor of closing?

Yes.

Great. Patrizia, your favorite closing?

Aye.

Great. Thank you. That being said, let's move to work session.

We are

in work session. Okay. And let's discuss number two of the night. I'm not sure if there's much to discuss, but, I'll make a motion to approve. So

I'll make a

motion for a positive eight twenty four.

I will second that.

All in favor. Let's go around the room. Patrizia.

Aye. Gray? Yes.

Craig?

Aye. Nicole? Yes. Mike?

Yes.

And I'm a yes as well. So, Nikki, good luck. Go get them.

Thanks, guys.

Brie, let's move back to public meeting.

Alright. We are back into public meeting with item number three and five, that we will open together. Item number three is municipal

Before you do that, I would just wanna quickly talk about this. Because we have the we have 70 North Avenue and 170 Riverside Avenue, just for the public's general knowledge, the the will be continued. So wanna make sure we give enough time tonight for the set for 170 Riverside Avenue as well. So we're just gonna judge the clock and see how we go and see how this works. And we may, you know, at some point, just say, okay. We're gonna pause for the night and move to the next one. Go. Sorry.

Okay. Alright. Item number three is municipal improvement, at 70 North Avenue, application number PZ2600277. Request for a report from the planning and zoning commission submitted pursuant to CGS section eight dash 24 municipal improvement by Eric Barbieri on behalf of the first selectman for installation of athletic field lighting at Wakeman B Field consisting of four seventy foot poles with LED fixtures to support school and permitted community athletic activities located in the Residence A A A District, PID number F12077000. Applicants presentation time is twenty minutes.

And opening item number five, which is 70 North Avenue, special permit site plan application PZ2600275 submitted by Eric Barbieri for property owned by the town of Westport for installation of the athletic field lighting at Wakeman B Field consisting of four seventy foot poles with LED fixtures to to support school and permitted community athletic activities located in the Residence A A A District, PID number F12077000. Applicant's presentation time is twenty minutes.

Before we start, quick question to, Michelle or and or Ira. Number five is under public hearing. Number three is under public meeting. Is that which one are we how do we distinguish which one we're in and how we do that?

So I'll try that one. Ira Bloom, town attorney. An eight twenty four technically only requires a public meeting, a meeting in public. It doesn't it doesn't require public input. We never treat it that way. We treat it as if it was a public hearing and always have public comment. So so we always do it that way anyways. We're combining the two. The two are just read in, so they're they're both opened. We'll have one discussion.

The evidence that comes in, the testimony exhibits, etcetera, will will be used for both the eight twenty four and the special permit with regard to Wakeman, and he'll do the same thing with the PJ Romano Fields also on Riverside when you get to that. We'll treat it though, Michael, as as a public hearing. The the main difference for our purposes is, you know, you'll take public comment, of course. And so that's that's how we'll treat it. And I don't think and I think that's fine.

We do that commonly. When it comes time when you complete all this, whatever the date is, then you will have two separate deliberations and two separate votes because they're they're different legally. But for purposes of getting the evidence in, we'll do it all together, and, people can speak to both. But but, you know, effectively, they're they're talking about the same project, obviously, and we'll treat it as a public hearing.

Okay. So two applications, one public hearing. When you're talking, you're talking about that project, but it the the your comments are on record for both the eight twenty four and the special permits upon application.

Correct.

K. Alright. Eric.

Okay. Eric Barbieri, Parks and Recreation director. Thank you to for the opportunity to speak about this tonight. With me on the call tonight are Carmen Rhoda, who is our recreation superintendent. He is in charge of our field scheduling both for local sports, youth sports, but also the high school.

So has intricate knowledge of of how we schedule, when we schedule, and the numbers involved there. We also have Vijay Cerullo, our athletic director, as well as Mike Mahoney from Musco Sport Lighting, who is a potential representative of of what we could install, but, has some expert knowledge that I think will be important to share, with the, with the group. So, I'm going to give kind of the 30,000 foot view, and then we'll get into to Carmen to get into some details as well as as Vijay and Mike. But, I will tell you that in my short time here of fourteen months, there have been several items that have bubbled to the top consistently, often, and of a, when I'm speaking with these individuals of a urgent nature. And one of them is the lack of playing time and not just playing time in field usage, but quality, field usage.

So when I say that, I I'd like to just kinda discuss, you know, artificial turf and natural grass a little bit. Obviously, we have several natural grass fields. Those are wonderful, and I I'm in favor of them. I will tell you that virtually all of our natural grass locations need work. If we want them to be quality, we're going to have to address the needs for irrigation, for drainage, for laser leveling, for some kind of rest at some time to be able to let them recover.

However, that being said, we know that we've had several years of significant rains, with natural grass. If we get that either consistently over time or a heavy immediate rain, then we are forced to close fields. And usually, those

are

both, for a couple reasons. One, primarily is safety, but two, also to to try to protect the field so it doesn't get destroyed in one evening, and that it's it's serviceable for a season. So when I talk about quality and we talk about trying to expand the use of our fields, our our artificial turf fields that we have available to us, to light those and be able to provide additional hours would be incredibly helpful. We have a large number, and I'll leave this to a little bit to to Carmen, but our youth numbers in sports have just been exploding. And and I will say not just in the expected, our usual sports, soccer, baseball, whatever you wanna call it, but there are also new sports like flag football and rugby, and some of the popularity of of other sports, but they're just going through the roof.

And the demands and the requests, and I talk to Carmen every day, we just can't give folks what they want. So we're trying to be creative and find ways to to increase the number of hours in the fields that we have. Lighting these things would be one way to do that. It's obvious, being able to get, go longer in the day in addition to, this the November through whatever you wanna call it, February, there are high demands to use artificial turf fields in those time frames, weather pending, and we should be able to to to offer that, which which many towns do. And if if the lighting is something that can help, that's that's wonderful.

In addition to the youth and the high school, which, you know, that's kind of what we handle primarily, I think it's important to note that we have a increasing number of of adult leagues in in many different sports that also would like to have a quality field available to them and and not have to cancel if there are rain events, and they're on a natural grass field. So these are all things that I just want people to understand. The the the demands are just going through the roof, and I feel it my job to try to address that every way I can in lighting some of these artificial turf fields is one way to do that. In the request, you will see that we have tried to address some of the concerns from the past, including, you know, primarily noise, traffic, things of that nature. We will we will do our best to make sure that we address all of that, and we know that that's gonna come up.

We know it's going to be a discussion that we need to talk about, we're looking forward to having those discussions and making sure it's something that's palatable for everyone, in order to to move this forward. Obviously, we are still in the phase of of folks looking to raise money and donate to the town. We're talking about a little over 1.2 to $1,300,000 to light both of these facilities. And we have verbal commitments from numerous groups, which I'll let Carmen get into a little bit, but I feel confident many have already raised a significant amount of money. Others are are aiming to do so.

So we will not be moving forward with anything until we know we have the money in place to do so, clearly. And and before I turn it over to Carmen, one additional thing that has been talked about specific to this location is the safety of people leaving a potentially lit field at Wakeman B, being able to get to their cars, being able to get to sidewalks if they walked or biked to the location, being held potentially, and again, is just a discussion, some low level lighting, bollard bollard side lighting to just be able to get back to where they're going, safely. But something that we know needs to be discussed, and we're looking forward to having that discussion. With that, I would turn it over to, Carmen Rhoda to discuss a little bit more about the numbers and some of the details of the request.

Thanks, Eric. Thank you everybody for allowing us the opportunity to bring this before you this evening. My name is Carmen Rhoda. I'm the recreation superintendent for the parks and rec office. A little bit back about myself involving the community.

I've been volunteering in Westport, since 1996. I was part of the original, committee to bring lights, to our some of our properties to expand, the usage of our assets in the town of Westport. Earlier, what caught my ear is when we say, what is a good use for this committee of good use of property? Having lit fields is a very good use of property. It's expanding our lighting situation for the growing number of teams and athletes that wanna participate on our fields as well as, to be honest, there's some people who would like to do a birthday party in the early evenings that can't because of of the lightings.

As Eric indicated, our numbers have been increasing. In 2023, we had over twenty two two thousand two hundred and, 82, participants. Actually, I take that back. My apologies. 22,000 participants working on, being part of all of our athletic programs.

We are seeing a continuous growth with that each and every year. And since we were able to use, temporary, lighting as well as permanent lighting for some of our events, we were able to expand the day a whole lot longer for our athletes to participate. One of the issues that makes this even much more critical for us is that when the board of education changed their hours of dismissal for, for school, That means the high school coaches can't get onto the field until later, which means they go later, and it slowly shrinks the usage of our youth sports groups that are continuously growing. In 2023, we had seven thousand six hundred and eighty three hours of use. In 2025, that hours of use went up to eight thousand one hundred and fifty two, and that was a direct result of us being able to use lighting in a further, capacity than we have.

One of the things that has always been very sensitive to me, since being involved in the lawsuit in 2011 when it was settled is, the neighbors' concerns. And when we looked at this ordinance and it was brought up to planning its own previously, We tried to do everything that we thought we can do to help, adjust and make sure that we were listening to what the neighbors were were discussing, and their concerns. For example, noise. We kept the same standard in the application for Wakeman b as Staples High School has currently, which the PNC has approved and was approved previously in the settlement. And further for PJ Romano, we had put in there that there will be no amplified music whatsoever.

The only noise will be spectators' whistles. And because when lacrosse boys and girls lacrosse use the facility, there's horns, for periods. That would be the only noise factor that we limited. We didn't want to amplify music. We didn't want announcing the games.

Again, trying to respect, some of the concerns that were brought up currently and in the past by our neighbors. One of the other things that we felt very strongly to do that if this application on both fields, are granted, if there is traffic issues, one of the things that we were talking about and recommending that the user group who will be using the fields at night with the lights and there's traffic issues, that they will have to hire a traffic agent or, off duty police officer there to help with those traffic issues in order to, again, try to be those good neighbors. When it comes down to the scheduling of the, fields to be lit, those will be controlled by the lighting technology, for whether it's Musco or anybody else that they won't be turned on and off by an individual. We will have technology to be able to turn those off and on and dim them accordingly where they will be preset, and there'll be no questions of whether they could still linger on. We also will be addressing on BJ and I have worked recently on a concern from one of the parents, over in the Staples area about teams leaving and the lights staying on.

So we're in the process now of looking how to address that. So for example, if somebody has says we're gonna use the field six to eight and they leave at 07:00, we're trying to work on, ways to ensure that we can get the lights turned off, sooner than later. We're looking for strict controls on who gets on the field, how long, and, the usage. Vijay and I, right now, representing the board event in Parks and Rec, have the only access to be able to turn on the current situations at Green Farms and Staples, and this will be an extraordinary benefit to us. This will help utilize our assets.

As Eric said, we're looking to raise money privately as we did with the artificial turf fields for the first installation that became extremely successful. We have a lot of enthusiastic people, who wanna join this endeavor. And more importantly, it's why. Is this a need or a want? Well, it's not a want.

We have a need because there's going to be a point where we're not gonna be able to offer a lot of different sports, a lot of different activities, positive activities to help keep kids out of trouble. I spent my career in law enforcement, and it was very obvious that when kids don't have positive outlets, they tend to get in trouble. There's statistics regarding that. But, again, this is a partnership. We are looking to help get more athletic kids on the field, more time so they're not getting pushed off, but also being respectful to our our neighbors.

This is a community. It's a community endeavor. Recommendations will also be made about having input from neighbors as this time processes goes on. If there's a concern, they can call Parks and Rec or the athletic director at Staples. They have the avenue for planning and zoning. They're RTM member. Things that we can get and act on immediately. When the lights are on as of right now, my phone my work phone's on. So if there is an issue or concern, I can get I can take care of it as quickly as possible. That's our commitment.

And that's the commitment of our Department of Parks and Recreation. We wanna make sure that we're able to meet customer needs, our neighbors, and be respectful. And, again, they'll be give and take on, I'm sure, on both sides. But our numbers are increasing where it's not like we have a whole lot of properties to be able to to utilize, to put on sports for kids, activities. And this will also help the the board of education and the schools.

PTAs that wanna do later activities in the fall outside. They can't. And it could be a beautiful fall day, but at 04:00 in October, November, they can't go outside because there's no lighting. Also the same at at Wakeman. As Eric said that, you know, in looking at some of the public comments, we looked at and heard and made sense that there might be a need for lighting for more safety for leaving Wakeman property.

We're we're already in the process of looking to see what kind of recommendations that that can be made with that. I didn't see any objections from any of the town boards, whether it was, DPW, conservation, or, the police department. But if there's any concerns, I'm more than happy to answer some questions. And then if there's no questions, I'll turn it over to Vijay Surril, Vijay Surril, the athletic director at Staples High School. Thank you.

Thanks, Karam. Yeah. I guess you guys should, as the applicant, you, Vijay, Arun, if you need Musko to, talk, and then we'll

go with

questions. Yeah.

Yeah. And then we'll go with questions after that.

Okay. Vijay?

Alright. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for, for for having us here tonight. And, just to touch base on a few items that Eric and Karma touched on and and just expand on that a little bit from the high school, point of view. You know, we're up to, at the high school, 43 different programs, and the majority of those programs have, two or three levels, freshman, JV, and varsity.

So we have over 80 teams in those 43 programs that participate. Majority of those in the fall and in the spring participate outside and and on these fields. So this year alone, we have 1,046 individual student athletes participating in our sports programs at Staples High Did you did you guys get me?

Yes.

Okay. Sorry. 1,046 student athletes, participating in our programs, at the high school. So that's an incredible number. Almost a one, 100 student athlete increase just in the three years that I've been at Staples.

But when you look at at our facilities, you know, in our stadium field specifically, you know, is where we have the lights right now, and that's able to accommodate our Friday night football games in the fall. But because of space issues and the way the fields are aligned and lined, in in the fall, only football really gets to utilize the lights. And then, in the spring, we really while while we utilize the lights, especially early in the spring when our games start at five or 05:30 and and, you know, it gets dark out a little earlier, we really don't have any dedicated night games. And one of the things that has been a and a a focal point for the athletic department, the school, and the school district as a whole is to increase the equity within, within our programs. And to be if we were able to, get lights up at Wakeman B, we'd be able to provide some extra opportunities for our female student athletes, specifically for girls soccer, in the fall.

Our as Carm and Eric mentioned, our partnership with, Park and Rec, is just absolutely outstanding. We're in daily communication with each other to do the best we can with, as as Carmen Eric said, with our high school programs going right after school. And, again, our dismissal's at 02:40. So our practices, do not start until three. Our contests do not start until four.

So that really limits, especially in the early spring and the late fall, that really limits the amount of time that the park and rec programs, whether that be youth or, as Eric mentioned, the increase in adult programming, that really limits the amount of time that, those programs can utilize our fields without without the lights right now. I think one of the things that's important, I know it's in the, the narrative and the application. I think oftentimes when you're looking at increasing lights, facilities, the the thought is noise and increasing the number of games, and it's really increased we're not really looking to do that. While there may be additional night games if there are lights, we're really looking to just increase the access, for all of the programs in town, whether that be high school, youth through the park and rec program, or adult leagues. And a lot of that is going to be practices where right now, you know, there are shortened practices at the high school level in order to get games in before it gets dark.

There's, shortened practices at the youth level because of, again, because of the light situation. So it's really increasing the opportunity for practices where, again, the noise, you know, we we limit as best we can. There's no amplified music, etcetera, when we have, these practices. You know, I I would say the most important thing for us is, of course, we want the increased the the lighting. We think it's good for from the youth level all the way through the high school level and adults.

But the most important thing is that we're gonna do it responsibly. Carm talked about some of the specifics that we have in place right now, such as being able to, you know, Carm and I have the control of over when the lights are on or off, and we continue, as he mentioned, continue to look to refine that. But our number one our number one goal is to be good neighbors. It's it's that's our number one goal right now, and that's our that's gonna going to continue to be our number one goal if if, you know, we're successful going through this process. So, you know, we're just looking for the increased flexibility with the number of kids that we have.

You know, we really, we really feel that. And and especially when looking at from the high school level, some of the other talents and schools that we compete with and and what their, situation is with the number of fields that have lights compared to ours that we're looking to compete with on a daily basis, both in our league and our DERG, which is, you know, our DERG is is the other Fairfield County schools, in our league, including, Weston, which is our neighbor. They're not in our in our conference, but they they're in our, DIRG, which, the state department puts together based on, economic status of the town. And and we are just simply just behind on the number of fields with whites, and therefore, I think just behind on the the opportunities that we're able to provide. And, you know, of course, just, looking forward to having further on it and and hopefully, increase that accessibility for our kids.

Thanks, Vijay. Mike from Musco, would you like to, contribute anything since you, currently have lighting in our community and other communities and, gave us some insight on how lighting would work here in Westport with those two properties?

Sure. Thanks, Carmen.

Wait. Mike, will you just just focus on Wakeman now? And then when we go to the other application, then we'll talk about the other one, if that's okay.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Thanks for your help, please.

So for the record, Mike Mahoney, Musco Sports Lighting. Musco, this is our actually, year 50 this year. We're a company, small town based in Iowa, manufacturing and corporate offices in Iowa. So it's a made in The USA product. We currently enjoy the widely acclaimed title as the best in class as far as sports lighting.

And aside from the quality of product, I'd say our ability to control light has been the primary driver in us be being as successful as we have been. We are committed to ensuring our night skies are protected. We, as a company, hold a spot on the, technical committee for International Dark Sky. We're very involved with them. We've worked closely with them to develop, and provide technical assistance in their, pursuit of and publishing of their guide to community friendly sports lighting.

And Wakeman B would meet that criteria. So once again, you know, our our focus, always is on lighting what you want us to light and not lighting what you don't want us to light. And actually to a fault, once we when we came out with LED and started lighting facilities, people were so used to spill light being there being helpful as far as getting people as far as ingress and egress, you know, they were using the spill light, but once with LED, the cutoff is so dramatic.

Have you bought Sofia's guest? He's on my computer. Yeah.

Go ahead. Sorry,

mate. Sorry. So and I think Eric mentioned, you know, an overall lighting strategy for any facility is certainly critical because if you don't tell us to light an area, it will be dark. We are lighting that rectangle only. Locally, we did a project with the city back, it was probably two or three years ago, Greens Farm Softball Field.

There's also Musco LED product in the air in Fairfield, Norwalk, Wilton, Ridgefield, Darien, Stanford, New Canaan, Greenwich, and that's just the short list of, neighboring communities. Pretty much, you know, nine out of 10 projects that go forward because Connecticut, are protective of our night skies. We do value proper lighting. We have been successful in these areas and been to a lot of these types of meetings and certainly have lots of local projects for you to look at. As far as Wakeman specifically, if you want to allow me to share

Michelle can set that up, or I can actually. Oh, you have you

should have

been able to share.

You should be able

to Yeah.

Just let me know when I can

Go for it.

You can see that?

Not yet.

Okay. What's gonna appear, hopefully, is Wakeman's lighting design. It's a four pole system. So

Try it again. It's not coming up.

Let's see. Share.

There we go.

Okay. Alright. So here we are at Wakeman, four pole system. So the lights on each of the four poles are responsible for lighting one quadrant of the field. So the lights on this pole here, s one, need to light this area here.

So first of all, let me say, if I could sell shorter poles, my job would be a lot easier. I'd have a lot more nights off, but we wouldn't be, as valuable to the dark sky folks. So these poles are proposed at 70 feet in order to meet the off-site criteria required by dark sky. So the reason the way we get to that 70 feet is we take the distance from this pole location,

and

you notice we scoot it up as close as we can to the edge of the field. And the furthest distance that it will shed light is about a 140 feet. And we know that if we want a at least a 27 degree aiming angle, so we want those light fixtures at the top of that pole to be aimed downward at a minimum of 27 degrees. We apply a of 1.963, and that gives us the 70 foot mounting height. So, again, could we do it with shorter poles?

Absolutely. Would it be detrimental to the neighbors? 100%. So 70 feet is the the sweet spot where we're having the least amount of impact off-site, still providing a safe amount of light and playability on the field, and that's, what we have. So, again, we average 50 foot candles, which is a kind of an industry standard for soccer, lacrosse, and we have a uniformity ratio.

So the brightest point is no more than two times the darkest point. So it's a smooth amount of light smooth distribution of light. Over here, you see, we've isolated the property line. We've got zero over here. And then,

Mike, what does zero mean over there?

I'm sorry. That's a zero oh, go back up.

Yeah. Just to there. That line where you have the zeros, what does that mean?

That's zero. Every 30 feet, we've taken a reading three feet above grade, and that's zero point zero foot panels on a horizontal plane.

Which means that there's no light at that spot at the three foot level?

Yeah. And then what we did here is dark sky, as far as their criteria goes for their community friendly guidelines, they look at, glare. So glare is if I was a neighbor, I'd be much more concerned with glare than horizontal volcanoes. Glare, the the most extreme example would be a lighthouse. You if you're five miles out to sea, you can see that lighthouse.

You can see that light, but you can't it's not generating any foot candles on the at your boat. So glare is what you experience, what you feel. And you can see here, we are zero point zero. So that's telling us nobody could even see the light source from here. And that's at a 100 just a 150 feet from the edge of the field.

This is Candela. Again, another source, another measurement of glare. You're looking at, like, a tabletop. A lamp is about 400 candela, which is what you're getting around here. So very, very minimal impact all around the the field.

And then if you wanna see this is a representative quick video of a very similar installation. Although this one was actually done in 2018, so eight years ago. So the the the technology has gotten even better, but you can see I mean, even over here in this little, maybe a concession stand or something, they need some lights out here because it it is dark. And I'm gonna play this short video.

Well, right now, we're in Bethlehem Soccer Complex, a brand new facility that's open on Saint Croix, the center of the island of the Saint Croix, US Virgin Islands. We officially opened 08/11/2019. Chief of president came here with an entourage of delegates from around the region and opened the facility. It's a sport that is growing, and we have tremendous numbers at the youth level who's actually interested in the sport. This facility, when it's first when it first opened, you see that our attendance had doubled in the first couple months. So it is well needed, and we are making good use of it. This facility

is

the first of its kind in The Caribbean. We actually have the highest rated pitch, FIFA pro pitch, and also with the LED lighting system is is also one of a kind. Basically, it's needed because of a lot a lot of our players who play the sport are amateurs, and most of our events are held in the evening time so that they can actually

Alright. I won't subject you to the whole video, but you get get the gist. And that was, again, a very representative four pole system, 70 foot poles. So very similar to what you would expect to see at Wakeman, although you'd have fewer individual fixtures because of, the advancements in technology. Also worth mentioning, there's dimming on the, any of our systems.

So there's high, medium, low. So while the varsity is playing a game, obviously, you're gonna want it on high. But if you're just having a practice or maybe you're renting it out to a youth group, different skill level, you can dim it down, save energy, etcetera. And also the the wireless controls. So I know Eric and Carmen are familiar with the the control system, so there'd be a hard off time to ensure that the the lights are not left on.

So that's the overall guide to Wakeman b. If there are any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Thank Just just one thing. Do you

wanna take the screen share down now, or do we still need that up? I can stop. Screen share down. Yes. You very cool. Thank you. Carmen, go ahead.

Just two just two things. I think that, you know, what we've done so far with the properties that we have lights on is when the, you know, game is over, we dim them down automatically and get people to put them on low so they can have a, some kind of safety lighting to be able to get off the field. I didn't if I didn't emphasize it enough, we are going to pretty much take a hard stand, for people who are not being good neighbors, especially when the use of lights. It's not uncommon for us to pull a permit for somebody to use the field. We've done it before.

It's a privilege, and with that privilege, there's responsibility that goes with it. And that's our commitment whether, from Eric, our director. That's his marching orders. That's how I feel. And with Vijay, we are all in same agreement that, this has to be a partnership. We've met with several neighbors who called and said, hey. Can you come see my property? Sure. Not a problem. Calls on the weekends.

But I think with, you know, the communication, we checked I believe we checked all the boxes that were required by the owners to be able to get us here and the continued support. Last thing, Eric has authorized us and my department under parks and rec to send staff to see how people are utilizing the fields, if they're utilizing what they're requesting for, how they're utilizing them, and, quite honestly, to see what goes on on the field so we could have that direct input to how to make it better. He's been very forward thinking on this, and, his expertise brings us a whole lot to be able to blend that public private partnership even more than, we're doing now. So, again, I'll answer any other questions. The the committee seems appropriate.

Thank you. Michelle.

No. Thank you.

This application there are two applications. One is for an 08/24 municipal improvement report from the Planning and Zoning Commission to the first selectmen for use of the property. And the second part of the application is the special permit site plan approval, both for installation of athletic field lighting at Wakeman B consisting of four seven 70 foot poles with LED fixtures to support school and permitted community athletic events. As you recall, in February, the Planning and Zoning Commission adopted text amendment number eight fifty, which amended the zoning regulations to permit the establishment of permanent lighted athletic fields on town owned public school property. This regulation became effective, 03/17/2025.

Currently, the town has three lit athletic fields on town owned public school property, one at Greens Farms Elementary School, softball field, PJ Romano field at 170 Riverside, and Staples Stadium at 70 North Ave. So that's what's existing. The text amendment now is putting into the regulations, the standards for installation of those lights by special permit review. The requirements all all of the requirements have been complied with as was noted in Amanda Trionovich's staff report on the website. The polls are compliant with the setback, the 25 setback from residential property lines.

The height is allowed up to 80 feet, and the proposed is 70 feet. The operating hours, the the lights are permitted to operate until 9PM Monday through Saturday and allows for dimming of the lights for thirty minutes postgame to allow for the safe egress and cleaning up. The proposal is to use them for six months in two periods, one between March and May, and the other between September and November. Then practices and games are proposed to conclude at 9PM, Monday through Thursday, and practices and games are proposed to conclude at 10PM on Friday and Saturdays. Just to be aware, the applicant is requesting pursuant to section thirty two nineteen point five g I, requesting an end time of 10PM on Friday and Saturday, which you would have to authorize on that request.

There'll be no practices or games on Sundays. And again, the field lading will be dimmed thirty minutes following by no more than thirty minutes following the conclusion of the activities. Regarding sound and noise, the regulation allows that public address system and amplified music can be used for Staples High School games only, but no amplified music after halftime and no amplified sounds and music during practices. As was described, for practices, they're proposing no amplified sound, or public address system or amplified music, only coach, verbal instruction, whistle use, usual player commentary. For Staples High School games, the public address system and amplified music will be used, but there will be no amplified music after halftime.

Varsity games, a portable speaker and microphone may be used for game administration and player introductions. If used, music will not be played after halftime. Then air horn use is limited to leak required substitution signals, all other air horns and amplified devices will be prohibited. So all all of those proposed all of that proposal is permitted as part of the regulation. It's all compliant with the requirement.

Lighting, just wanna know about that. The requirement is that the lighting be down directed to avoid light spillage. So, the lighting must meet a 150 feet. At a 150 feet, it can't exceed a 100 candela, and that's compliant with the recommendations well, it must be compliant with recommendations of the Dark Sky International as well. The photometric plan submitted does show that the lighting will comply with all those requirements.

The light intensity at the 150 foot from the playing field doesn't exceed a thousand. The maximum value is 931 candelas. It's also down directed and shielded as required. I guess lastly, the conservation department has issued comments dated May 4 indicating the application will be eligible for an administrative permit, and all other departments indicated they had no comment or objections. There were quite a few letters, again, some in support on the website and all that have come in before 04:30 today have been uploaded to the website, and there's more that will be uploaded tomorrow.

The commission must issue a negative or positive report by May 18, and I understand that. This will be continued, to allow additional time for public comment. And, I think that's all. I'm here for questions.

So does that mean procedurally, just based on the last thing you said with the 08:24, needs to be resubmitted to reset the clock?

If it's continued, yes, past if if the application is continued past the eighteenth, which would be the next meeting would be June 1, the application would be withdrawn and resubmitted to restart the thirty five day clock.

Does that affect the testimony that has been given so far? They don't have to come back and repeat what they just said to

No. I I can simply write a note to the file that all the, will incorporate all of the materials from the previous 08/24 into the new one. So nothing nothing different would have to occur.

Michael, can I just add something at this point? Yes. Please.

Please. Please. Please.

Yeah. Just to fill in about the 08/24 since we wanna synchronize, so to speak, the 08/24, decision by this commission approval or not, with a special permit, ideally. So, the clock is different for the a 20 '4. As Michelle just said, you have thirty five days. I guess that expires, on Monday of next week.

So I think, what my suggestion is that, we ask the first electman to withdraw his 08/24 request, the current one, and reissue it so this commission has more time, essentially to to do it that way. I don't think you wanna make a decision on the 08/24 as early as Monday, when we're not finished. So that's number one. Number two, I I think we we should put out there so everybody in the public knows that, I I think I think there's, almost a certainty that with with certainty that there will be another public hearing on this application on June 1. So I think you should plan on that.

I'll just put out here on the record that attorney Green, who represents some some neighbors to the property, will at that point, he has told me have he'll be ready to make his presentation on behalf of his clients. I believe he will have a consultant, and he he needs he has asked me, and and I'm passing it on to the to the commission, to ask that it be extended to June 1. And and so I think that's the plan of the commission if if you wanna just note that on the record. So I gather from what you said, there'll be another hearing on this Monday, May 18, and the third will be June 1.

Okay. No. Thank you, Harry, for clarifying that. So that means that attorney Green was retained by various residents of Westport, and there's a letter on file from him. So everybody can read that on the PNZ website.

Basically, he he just trying to can you summarize his letter just so everybody's clear on what it what High level? Yes. If if you can just high level give a sentence on who attorney Green is and, like, just some people on this because there's bunch of people that can understand that.

Yeah. I I I don't wanna summarize his letter, but, he is a local attorney, and he is representing some neighbors. I I I do not have their their names or addresses, but he will presumably have that. And they they have some comments to make, about this application. I I I don't wanna characterize it.

It's fine, but he's Good enough. Yeah. Yeah. No. He doesn't think yeah. But if you if anybody wants more information, his letter is posted on the website. Thank you. Okay. Commissioners, let's go around the room and discuss this, have any questions, clarifications that we need. And then I certainly obviously, there's 83 people on this Zoom. I'd love to hear what people have to say about this. So let's start first. Mike Kalise, we're going around the room again.

I'm I'm obviously pretty well versed on this because I was part of the original legislation. I do wanna point out, and I'm sure the applicant has not lost sight of it, one one of the major concerns of the neighboring properties was the noise factor, and Michelle spoke to that just recently. But I do do think it's a critical element of this application, and we do need to have a clear understanding that the applicant fully agrees with and attends to the noise controls. Thank you. Thanks,

Mike. So just taking a pause on that. Carmen, with regards to the noise controls and the regulations that are set forth, can you just repeat your thoughts on, first off, abiding by the noise controls that the application says that it will, But just so further we have it on the record of how to, if there's a problem, what what what we can do, etcetera.

Yeah. Carmen Roto, recreation superintendent, Westport Parks and Rec. I believe in the narrative, we used the exact, actually, I know we used the exact framework that we do currently at Staples High School that was approved in the settlement of 2011 regarding noise, and amplified music. As, the question regarding policy, although Eric has been here fifteen months, he is a policy and procedure hands down, and our instructions on anything within the parks direct department that we were able to abide by and enforce the policies and procedures that are recommended or voted on by any town body when it comes to parks and rec activities. Additionally, we will be sending staff periodically to check to make sure that things are exactly how we say that they're going to be.

And if I remember correctly, when PNC approved, us to go forward with permanent lights, there'll be, the name and responsible party who, people can contact, regarding lights being on or noise. And we will address it either immediately or if it's the next business day depending on the severity of the complaint. Again, I could speak for myself, since I'm the one doing it mostly at the after hours time with, you know, later on is that my number and name is on the websites with my cell phone. My cell phone is on 247 as I am on call. And if it's all if it's a noise complaint, we'll have people to be able to go and and get there immediately, and it will be enforced.

Violators will lose their rights to utilize that amenity.

Thank you.

I just can't say it's strong enough. It we're not going to lose this asset if it's approved because somebody doesn't wanna follow the rules. No matter what the reason is, it's going to be enforced.

Thank you. Mike, hopefully that answers your question. Going around the room some more. Patrizia?

Are we reserving our comments for just wake failed awaken at this point? Or

Yeah. Yeah. Because the yes is the answer. The way that we have or the regulation set up is one field, one application, one set of comments because they're gonna be so different for each field. So we're gonna focus our comments on just Weightman for now.

Okay. I I think probably my comments are probably the same for all of them, because I haven't really seen drawings on any of this. It seems to just be, you know, a lot of testimony and then the the one set of drawings that we saw from the lighting person. But, so I guess some of my questions are, did we do any kind of, like, photo simulation to see what the 70 foot would be in this area from various points around to see how tall 70 foot could be seen from neighboring properties. I'd also like to know specifically what the poles look like.

I assume they look like what was provided in that YouTube video, but I'm not entirely sure. So I would wanna understand what the view shed is for cars that are in the area or properties that are in the area. We probably should have an understanding of how power is getting to these lights. Where is the con the controlling feature? Are they are these automated?

Is, like, the the on off switch an automatic thing controlled from remotely, or is it on the contained on the pole? Is it gonna be designated in a specific spot? So I kinda wanna wanna understand that. And then, so it's good that we were walking through that lighting presentation. I probably would need some more time with it because I certainly didn't understand it when I was looking at it myself.

And so we probably need to walk through it again to understand basically the impact of the lighting, how far are we talking about, and, what does that mean when you say, okay. There's lighting here, and it's only three feet tall. I mean, I I don't know what that means in in the scheme of things to understand how that's gonna impact the residents and, you know, drivers or people walking on the street, what that actually means from a impact perspective. And then, I think lastly, I think the 09:00 and the 10:00 on the weekends is way too late from my perspective. I think 08:30 is probably the max I would be willing to go, although I I kinda question that a little bit myself.

But, certainly, in June and July and August, which I don't know how many people are practicing during the summer, right, it stays late out until 08:00. So maybe there's a need to stay until 08:30 or not. You know? Certainly not nine. I I can't imagine ten. I mean, unless we're having minor league baseball games or something like that. But, yeah, those are my thoughts at this point. Thank

you.

Thank you.

Michael, do you want any try to answer some of

those Yeah.

Questions point? Let's, I just took some notes on that. Do you wanna address time of day first? Working backwards there.

Couple things. One is the you mean how long we are requesting them for?

Well, Patrizia talked about nine well, first off, we're talking about the summer and how the sun stays up late anyway. So how much later do we really need it? But, with regards to Fridays and Saturdays, nine, 10PM, and Patrice, you said maybe 08:30 she could be comfortable with. Well So talk about, like, the time of day and how you plan on using it, etcetera. So,

I mean, understandably, the current right now, the current standard is what everybody's been following, really. Lisa, PJ was then 08:00, and we had that. Again, because of school being out later and the high school's getting out to the fields later, meaning if they're out at, you know, 02:45 and they're on the field at 03:00, 03:15, give or take, they're going until 05:30, 06:00, more like six. So to go from six to eight, we're not gonna be able to effectively utilize and get enough practices and and games for the people who for the amount of people that we have. The 10:00 is, again, just because on going Friday and Saturday to be able to ensure more games to be able to get in as we're not having as many during the day because there's other high school activities and more high school activities utilizing our fields.

We just don't have the resources. And, again, I'm going back to what was said earlier about is it a good use of property. Well, a good use of property is not letting it sit dormant when we can't use it, to me. The question regarding the timer, it's more on a computer program. There'll be no on and off switch located at any one of the properties. There's a program that we could set it, for example, at Greens Farms. The whole entire season is set up when the lights go on, when they go off. It could be by day. It could be by week. It could be by minute.

There's one section. I'll give you a perfect example. Tuesday night for softball, these lights go on at 06:00. They go off at 10:30, 10:10 thirty, and then, high level, then at 10:30 to 10:45, they go to a low level for safety purposes. There's not a on and off switch.

That is one of the benefits of the technology that Musco has in order to be able to ensure that they're not being left on or somebody can just go and use them as if there are any other alternatives that you have with temporary lights, etcetera, those pose more of a concern for people being able to go and turn things on and off on and off quicker. I'll leave the poll, question to Mike from Moscow. I don't know if the you know, he'll be able to let you know if they're comparable to what's at Staples, or he'll be able to give you some more information on that. But the point is is utilizing effectively the assets that we have. Again, if you're in a fall for a football game and you are in mid October, even early October, you're running a risk of people getting hurt playing on the field that that's not adequately lit.

So if you have to do a 04:00, a 06:00, and a 08:00 game, or a three, five, and 07:30, depending on when the we can get the referees there and the you know, everybody else we need to put on the game. That gives us a little bit more flexibility to ensure that we can get games in on more of an appropriate level.

And, Carm, on that on that topic, were you referencing PJ Romano, though, with regards to potential gain, or is it just anything with esports?

It's esports in general and fields in I mean, we don't, you know, Vijay may be able to answer on the high school level, what kind of, times our games are for night games. We do know that at Staples, you know, there is a trend with all high school sports that have more night games because, again, for a number of reasons, getting referees, scheduling purposes, you know, the whole nine yards, travel time. But, you know, he could answer more of that on a high school level. But on the youth side, again, if the high school is utilizing the fields, we come after the high school. There's a priority of who gets to use the fields.

Right? Especially on, board of ed utilized by the board of education.

Michael, I could speak to the high school level as far as night games. Yeah. And, as Karm said, one of the issues that we, are having at the high school level, and it's a nationwide issue, is act availability of officials and the number of officials, has decreased year after year. So just a couple of a couple times already this spring, we've had to move games from from days or move games from early to late, just to accommodate to to in order to play the game because we there were no officials available at the originally scheduled time. As far as the times that we try to utilize and what the general my general belief on on games.

Our football starts at 07:00, and that's simply because of the nature of the sport and the amount of time that the student athletes need to spend with the trainer, the amount of, time that our opponents need, for warm up when they arrive at facility. Those games start at 07:00 on Fridays. And and it's really because, we'd be able to start earlier. If we dismissed earlier, we dismiss at 02:40. And a few other of the, or a lot of other schools that we play, in Fairfield County also dismiss at the same time.

So starting any earlier than seven is really not a possibility in that sport. In the other sports, we try to have our night games at 06:00. That allows for the, ability to to have the night games, which is a a nice thing to have. But at the same time, it it would allow for especially on the on the weeknights, football obviously takes place on Friday with a with a, you know, a weekend right after. So any games that we were to do at at night and even now, for, you know, our volleyball games when we do senior night, we we do 06:00 starts.

So we we try to do that just to get the student athletes home at a at a reasonable hour, both our student athletes and those that are traveling, to us. So it's not like we would be starting our games at 07:30, 08:00 at night. We would be between that six and seven window and and more than likely, you know, on the earlier side.

Thank

you. I also think it's a fair note, Michael, that, if there's opportunities, the youth games always come after the high school games. So, again, we're putting the puzzle together based on when we have the open space. So, you know, when I hear Vijay and we and, again, I talk to Vijay. If I don't talk to him daily, there's a problem. He's off or something's happening because we're putting this puzzle together daily to try to keep accommodating the sports groups as well as what makes sense for the overall puzzle.

Carmen, Patrizia asked where the power is coming from. Can you answer that question? Sure.

So there it's it's not in stone, but the power will again, the project is privately funded. We will be, the committee will raise money for not only the electricity as well as the the lights. We are looking to pull power from UI at PJ or PJ Romano, and that's, Wakeman B, where there's two considerations to look at. One will be from Bedford Middle School, or, right from UI from the, Cross Highway. It's that's gonna look at cost and what's what can be worked out at that time.

But the there's already been we've already had two different elect electrical companies look at sites, how they're gonna pull the power, at PJ Romano. Let's get it off right now, because it'll be the same question is that we've been working with the Westport Police Athletic League and when they're designed for their building and looking to, work with them to when we pull if we get this approved and pull power that both entities will be working together. So we're not doing double the work and making double the, cost for, the project.

Okay. So to answer the question, it's either coming from Bedford or from Cross Highway depending on cost.

Cost and cost and approvals. I mean, everything is the same, but, you know, we're looking at all different options. And, again, publicly, I'll say to make sure it's on the record is that the most efficient way and the least intrusive for Wakeman B is pulling power from Bedford Middle School. That will be underground. Cross Highway, we're not sure that can be underground. However, there's been no confirmation from UI, but there's all those things looking for. And if it if it's not, we're looking to go underground.

Okay. Question to Mike from Muspel is is it possible to for you guys to provide to us a rendering of what this field would look like at, well, first off, what the polls look like at the top of the poll, and then a rendering of the field of what it would look like. I don't know if you guys have any tools to see what it would look like once the polls would be, you know, as if the polls were in still installed, some sort of, rendering?

Sure. If, I can meet somebody out there and take a picture from a certain defined point And utilizing that picture, we can, superimpose our structures onto that image to scale and provide that to you. That's no problem at all.

And would you be able to provide that for to us potentially by the eighteenth or by June 1?

I'm in sales, so I'll say yes.

Okay. Carmen, can you work with Mike on that?

100%. I will, we'll we'll text and have something set up by tomorrow morning.

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you.

As far as, you know, I would suggest driving down Post Road and just taking a look over at Greens Farms. The it's a it's a big difference having the LED fixtures, which are a lovely I'll call them a New England gray sky color, galvanized steel poles, are similar to what we've used for since '91, but they really do blend in extremely well. And, you know, those are 60 foot poles at at Greens Farms, so not a big delta to what we're proposing at the other facilities.

Okay. And then?

Just, Michael, sorry to interrupt you. But on that on that one point, are we gonna be able to see what it looks like from, like, a quarter mile away?

You tell me where to take the picture from, and we'll superimpose it.

Great. Thank you.

So, Catrizia, will you, send a note to Michelle? And I can think about it as well. And let's, like, you know, put the official request in about, you know, like you said, quarter mile away at, 70 feet, you know, and all sorts

of things.

Can see what

Landscape. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. Thanks. Okay. I think that answers all of your questions. As far as you asked about the lighting at three feet, what does that mean to, like what does that mean, Greg? I mean, I I I spent a lot of time reading the application. I googled a bunch of this stuff as well.

So maybe, Mike, can you give us a layman's rundown of off the field what the I think the term is what the glare might look like or the spill light spill would look like off the field and how you can tune the lights and how they're shielded and just kind of at a layman's terms talk about that.

Sure.

Let's see.

Glare would be the what you experience, and horizontal foot panels are what we're measuring on the field. So 50 foot panels is the average on the field. So we take a a light meter, and the industry standard is three feet above grade. So I set up a tripod, put a light meter on a horizontal plane, and our average across the entire surface is gonna be 50 foot panels, which would be similar to probably an average classroom. Classroom is probably maybe a little higher than that, because you've got reflectance, etcetera.

But, you know, if you look at, like, a Walmart parking lot, you're looking at maybe one an average of one foot candle or a half a foot candle. So glare is one thing. Glare is what you experience when you look at the light source. Horizontal foot panels are what you can measure. And, again, every person is gonna experience glare differently.

For example, high beam headlights are around 40 30 to 40,000 candela, Low beams and those you know, that high beam, that's irritating to our our eyes, our brains. Low beams are around 12,000 candela, and we can we can manage that. What dark sky criteria is at a 150 feet, they're saying no one point can be more than 1,000 candela. So way less, you know, considerably less than high beam headlights. I mean, it's from 12,000 down to less than 1,000.

So it's barely, you know, it's it's nothing that's gonna be a nuisance whatsoever, and that's how they came up with their criteria. As far as, you know, what you can relate it to, a standard 20 let's say, a standard four watt LED light bulb, which you would buy in the you know, for a desk lamp or something is around 250 lumens. Again, this is we're getting in the weeds here as far as the glossary of lighting.

We appreciate it.

Best thing I can tell you because it is so it's also very individual. My 62 year old eyes are a hell of a lot different than my 16 year old eyes, and I'm sure everybody on this call can relate. So we all experience glare and react differently to light sources. LED, especially, is a a really obnoxious light source. Let's face it.

It's it's extremely intense. But at the same time, we're much more proficient and able to harness that light than we ever were with a legacy light source like metal halide. And we've got, you know, throughout Westport, there you've got nearly every generation. We've been around for fifty years. You've been customers of ours for, I bet, forty.

And, like, the the lights down at Campo are I mean, those that's first generation. And then lights are staples or maybe third or fourth generation. Greens Farms is the latest technology, and you could drive around your town and and experience and see the the huge delta how far we've come in harnessing that light source.

Okay. I'm sure there'll be a few more questions on that. And one question that did come up. Carmen, you mentioned, what you'd like when when we hit the end time that the lights would stay on but be dimmed. Does that mean, like, there'll be 25% of or fifth year? Like, how how dimmed of the total will they go to so people can because that's what

I'm saying. I'm gonna tag this with with Mike Mahoney because the categories that they give us are high, medium, and low. And so high, we they're all on for practice or games. And, again, say 10:00 was the time that they were gonna be shut off. At 10:00 in one second, it's gonna flip and drop auto down to a low. We don't I don't even use the mediums for that. It's just it's more what they call a security lighting. Again, the technical part above my pay grade, I'll let Mike try to answer that one.

We don't know.

It's I

think in the video, you saw the the field being lit in the concession stand side, where that that low level lighting for the concession stand, that's what you could, equate it to. Right? Light the the field light was high. The concession stand was low. That's the best way I could describe it without

Mike, is that just it's super light?

Yeah. So, high, obviously, a 100% output. Medium, 50% output. So if we have a 50 foot candle field average on high, we hit medium, we're down to approximately 25 to 30 foot candles. And then at low, it's a 75% reduction. So we're down to maybe 10 to 12 foot candles as an average. All the lights stay on. They're just dimmed down to that percentage level.

If it's if it's 10 to 15 foot candles, what is that equal to in Well,

I mean, it it's because all the lights stay on, the uniformity or the the evenness of the light stays consistent. So, I mean, 10 foot candles 10 foot candles with a two to one uniformity is I mean, you could easily throw a throw a football around or a Frisbee. I mean, it you could easily walk and talk and read a newspaper.

Okay.

I don't know if you guys can hear me. Can I, ask a quick question?

No. When we get to the public, you definitely can. I'm assuming you're a member of the public. Right, Mike? Yeah. When we get to the public, you a 100% can ask. Let's could stay with the commissioners, and then we'll get to the public in a little bit. Thanks. Okay. So we got that for dim lights.

Next, commissioner. I think we're good here. Who wants to go next? Craig?

Sure.

Thank you so much for this in-depth presentation. First of all, my children played sports many years ago, and I was unaware of how aggressively the population participating in sports has grown. I also appreciate the technical information you've given us and, feel it's reasonably thorough. Thank you. That being said, I've had two concerns from the beginning, one which I think you have addressed being the lighting and public safety, after dark for people coming off the field.

The bollards is I believe or I don't know if that is the solution, but it's certainly working towards the solution. And I understand through that discussion that you are sensitive to this. And I also like the idea that if there are problems, you could hire an off duty patrol officer and readdress those issues later. My second concern is noise. I question whether the Staples High School field regulations as to amplified music, apply necessarily to this field.

And if that, you know, again, is a requirement, I understand the announcers and the announcement, but music, given the proximity of the neighbors, is a question mark in my mind. But so those are my two concerns, one which I think has been pretty much addressed, and the other one, is up for, in my mind, further discussion.

So, Michelle, what were the regs with regards to this field and noise?

So in terms of this field, the regulations Yes. Ahead.

Go ahead. No. With regards to amplified music PA system. Yep.

So public address system and amplified music may be used for Staples high school games only.

The Staples high school games at this field can use amplified music when it's lit?

No amplified music after halftime and no amplified music during practices.

So if the field is lit, they can use amplified music. Is there anything there about a PA system, or is that just part of that?

It's let me try my other one. No. I don't

And there's no amplified music during practices. Correct?

Yes. That's right. Airhorn is limited to league required substitution signals.

So youth sports that are playing at night cannot use amplified music, period. End of story. Practices can't use amplified music, period. End of story. The only Right. The only, Staples High School sport can use amplified music through halftime. So that's Yes. We need to just yes. Okay. So that that's where we're standing right now.

And Michael? Yes. And just to to clarify, for the sports that would play at Wakeman for Staples, if we were to have a night game, we would not use amplified music after the pregame. So once the game started, we would no longer use amplified music. Okay.

Okay. That's helpful.

Yeah. That's, very helpful. Thank you. And that was that was just for the record. Vijay Serrillo, the athletic director of Staples High School.

Okay. One more one more question. Are these is this field going to be reserved for students only, or is it available to accommodate adult, leagues at night?

Right now, it would be yes. It would be available to, anyone. We're primarily looking at, delighting to benefit the high school and youth sports, but it it could be. I will say that, with the current stats of spring and fall sports, it is highly unlikely. There'll be maybe some time.

I'm not gonna say never. But because of the, the utilization of the fields as we speak, it would be a very slim possibility that that an adult could get in there because of the volume. I will tell you in the spring, even in the fall, there's very rarely any time that those fields aren't being used. There may be times that people are away, but these sports groups are moving people around if, you know, one team's playing in the way or the other team will be home. And most of the youth sports that we deal with have multiple teams in multiple grades and multiple divisions.

Thank you.

K. Anything else, Craig? Are we good for now?

Mhmm.

Okay. I believe that takes us to Brie.

I think a lot has already been covered to the questions that I had. And, Craig, I think, somewhat touched on this when she was talking about bollard lighting, and I know it's been an issue that's been raised about pedestrian safety after games that are at night or after practices at night. And I'm just wondering if, Carmen or somebody could could talk about any plans that might be there for ensuring, you know, players are able to leave these fields safely.

Sure. You know, as Eric indicated before, he and I had a couple discussions regarding this. We looked at some of the comments that were, being presented, and that one's part to make sense. So we have talked that when the process if this is approved for lighting at Wakeman, that part of the discussion will be what kind of low level lighting, will be amenable for safety and, least, intrusive for neighbors.

Okay. Yeah. Because know that adding adding more lights is definitely not what I what I think the neighbors actually want, like, low level bollowed lighting that's directed downward, something like that.

Yeah. And and I think it's important to note, you know, like like Mahoney was saying, when those lights go off, it's dark. So, you know, there could be there could be people who ride their bike or walk to a potential, you know, athletic event. So it's not just getting to the to the parking lot, but getting, you know, out to the exit of the facility or wherever they happen to be going. I think we would be remiss at this location if we weren't addressing those two safety concerns. What the nature of the the lights are, the number, how high, that all has to be figured out.

Alright. And then I

think just, another thing is, again, just to reiterate the the game times and the practice times, it'll be a hard stop at nine or ten depending on what the what the outer limit is for that particular day. For games, I know practices are probably a bit easier to control, but a game, you know, usually needs to go through the whole game. Will there be controls to ensure the games don't start too late they'll be able to meet those deadlines, those cutoffs?

Yes. We traditionally even now, when we have games at other facilities, it's their hard starts and hard stops to make sure that we are off in a reasonable enough time so we're not worrying about going over the, the allotted time. Other communities have very specific designs like ours, 10:00, and that we're proposing, but they they're hard stop, so you have to schedule things accordingly.

Okay. Alright. And then I I think this was definitely been mentioned, but I just want to just confirm that there is an unmet demand for for these fields. I know I saw it in the parks master plan that, I think one of the key findings had to do with the facility deficiency and food shortages of athletic fields and lack of field elimination. And I just want to just confirm that that's that's what we're working towards here is to is to remedy that.

A 100%. A 100%. Eric could speak more on the on the plan, but the, you know, the consultant that we had talked to numerous sports groups, high schools, parents, user groups, and the, I'll paraphrase it. It was an overwhelming response.

K.

Yeah. I I it's it's there's no arguing the need. The the need is 100% there. There there's no sense that even you know, that that is just the input that we get from the community, the youth sports, the high schools, that that is all and that that led to the consultant to say, yes. You need more you you need more illumination, but you also need more fields, more quality fields. And and, you know, he was they are also pushing more artificial turf fields so that it's more quality and more time of the year being able to use them. So, it is an issue that we're dealing with, and this is one step in that process.

Alright. That is all the questions that I had. Thank you.

And Nicole?

Yeah. I think a lot of my questions have already been addressed. I did just wanna bring up one other thing, and that is that if there is a game or even if there is a practice with a a large number of kids, and you would think at the later hour, the kids going might have driven there themselves, and they might have parked along Wakeman, along the drive. And if that parking is full, which it fills up pretty quickly, they might have parked in the lot by the Wakeman Baseball Field. And there is absolutely no lighting there at night.

So I I think it's important that some lighting not necessarily end right at the Wakeman Turf Field, but maybe extend a little bit further. Additionally, I think some parents who might be picking up their kids even at, you know, six in the winter, let's say, in the in the late fall. They arrange for meeting points for their kids to wait for them at a certain spot. And if it's dark, it's very dangerous. I I speak from experience.

So it's just something else to consider, some parking there and maybe just a low level light also at the corner where there's a drive in between Bedford and the Wakeman Field next to the turf. Just something else to consider. I'm going to reserve the rest of my questions for after, public comment.

Great. Thanks, Nepal. So clearly, need to address pedestrian lighting. Carmen, Eric, maybe we can address it for the for the eighteenth or the first. Alright.

So now it's my turn quickly, and then I'd love to get to public comment. Addressing the need, I just wanted to ask the question as what and this is a question to Carm or Eric and Vijay. So there are three fields that have elimination on them, stadium, and we've got the softball field that in terms elementary, and you've got temporary lights over Pedri Romano right now. Can you just quickly tell us what sports play at which field so we get an idea of where the, distribution is? And maybe, start with Vijay on that one for the high school sports.

Sure. So excuse me. For our the stadium field, which is, the only, lit field that we use consistently. So in the fall, we have our, football program there. They're the only one that would have night games there, and the field is not, the appropriate size for soccer. Field hockey has their own field. So in the fall, it's football. Winter sports, are all inside. In the spring, we have, a variety of sports that are there. They utilize it. Track meets start in the afternoon just to

of the length of the track meets, but they may utilize the lights, especially early in the season if they go past 07:00. We have, boys lacrosse, that uses that primarily as their field, as well as boys and girls rugby for their home games. Girls lacrosse, this year is playing one game there, but we've been in talks about increasing the number of games that girls lacrosse would would be able to play in

the

stadium, as we move forward. And then for our softball program, we use Wakeman D, which is the, you the softball field up at Wakeman. We play one game at Greens Farms. Our senior night game traditionally is is there for, again, just one night.

So

Thanks. Wait. And then so just to round off the high school, fall sports, so girls soccer, boys soccer. I don't know what other sport what other field sports are there? I mean, I guess, tennis. But, those cannot play on the fields that have lights. They're not they're not regulation fields or they're not lined or was that what you said, DJ?

Correct. The the stadium field, is not, the appropriate size for a high school soccer field.

Got it. Okay. And then, are there any field sports that you didn't mention that don't have access in the spring? We've got lacrosse, rugby. It sounds like we have stadium access, but there's one field for everybody, and it's tough.

Yeah. And it's what what makes it, yeah, what makes it difficult is, you know, obviously, we obviously, we talked about before, we wanna be good partners with, you know, with direct, department and and Powell and, to just get to get our practices in to squeeze our games or our track meets in and still provide the opportunity, for, you know, rec and pal to to be there after our events are over with having only one left field is is obviously a challenge.

Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. Then from a rec point of view or not not high school athletics, I guess it's the same I'm just trying to get an understanding. It's the same challenges with the same types of sports where you can play lacrosse and football at Piedramano. Well, for we're not talking about Piedramano, but you can well, for lit, you can play lacrosse and football there. You can play lacrosse and football at the stadium. You cannot play it at Wakeman. You cannot play you can only play soccer at Wakeman, and rugby can go at the stadium. And I'm assuming rugby can go can rugby go at the other still too?

No. So at the high school level, the youth sports groups at the stadium will be PAL tackle football, girls flag, coed flag, modified tackle, boys and girls, boys lacrosse, rugby, boys and girls rugby. And I think that's it. So at Wakeman, only on the lift field there at Staples High School at the stadium. Now at Wakeman B, you have boys and girls you you have boys lacrosse.

You have, boys and girls soccer do a WSA. Flag football goes up there in a modified field, and I think that's it.

So but some of the sports that are played over at the stadium or PJ couldn't go on at Wakeman because there's no well, we can't play football. There's no line of sport there.

Right?

You can't it's too football's too small. I can't go on for tackle football. Girls, lacrosse, there's it's not lined for, if I remember correctly. PJ, there is lines for girls lacrosse.

Right. It's just just talking about the trying to understand the the need there.

So so, Michael Michael, let's I wanna make sure we understand. The need is not that we can't use it because it's not lined or regulation size. We can't use it for games, official games. However, all of our fields, I kinda look at them as multipurpose. So if we have to put somebody on a field that's a little bit shorter, you know, Wakeman B might be able to be used for the boys or girls lacrosse for little kids because you could adapt it a little differently compared to eighth graders.

You may not be able to. So I think when we look at fields in general, we we are very creative of making a multipurpose field except for what officially has to happen there. Does that make sense?

Yes. I understand that. I I just have one more question, then I wanna get to the public comment. I initially was thinking also, you know, after reading some of the comments, to ask the question of, hey, does it have to be 70 feet? Can we go to 60 feet? But it sounds like I just want to get your confirmation from, Mike on this from Moscow that that's more of a dark sky regulation and we're trying to stay dark sky compliant. Is that accurate?

That is a 100% accurate. Yes.

So if we wanted to go to 60 feet, would we have to go to three poles?

Six poles.

Right.

Yeah. You could do that. It's gonna drive up cost, and you're not really gonna see much benefit.

Got it.

Do you still have that set distance from the edge of the field where the poles are to the center? That really doesn't change. There might be about a 10 foot different ten, fifteen foot difference by adding the middle poles. But keep in mind then we're getting in right in front of the bleachers. So there's some diminishing returns there.

Alright. Thanks.

Hey, Michael. I'm sorry to interrupt. It's Patricia Zuccaro for the record. Can I have ask a question about that?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Great. Yeah. So my question on that is to I I I was wondering kinda the same thing. So if we went to, like, 30 feet, outside of the cost and the fact that we have more poles, are you able to cover the middle of the field with lighting at that height?

60 feet would be the absolute minimum we would go. If it went lower than that, we would have to, respectfully walk away. We can't put our name on something like that. The glare would be horrendous. It'd be dangerous for the athletes. It'd be really impactful for the neighbors.

Again And it's lower, and then it's shining, and it yeah. I get it.

I would love my job would be so much easier if I could sell short poles, but it's just it's just not not practical for this application.

Thank you. Okay. Commissioners, I think it's that time to go to the public. So to the public, we've got 75 people on this. I don't know if everybody's here for this application.

You do have a digital hand. I will call on you. I would ask that we tend not to cut anybody off at this commission, but if you have something to say that's similar to someone who already spoke, just, you know, briefly say I agree with that person, because we're just trying to be mindful of time here and try to keep your comments three to five minutes or less. I don't wanna cut anybody off. Like, we do we do not do that here, but we don't wanna be fair to everybody to get a chance to speak before we have to move on to the next application and continue this.

So let's get started and Brie will take notes as our secretary and we'll try to, you know, we're not gonna we'll write down all the questions. We might not be able to do the q and a that we just did. We'll see how that goes, but we'll get answers to everything. Alright. So in no specific order, Mike Volker.

Hi there. Couple couple of questions for me. I'm coming to this a little bit late, so I'm just trying to get an understanding. First thing I I wanna do, like, I look at Carmen, and everybody can see the backgrounds, behind him. And those lights are quite quite beautiful, and they don't look like they're 70 feet high. I'm curious as to how high those are. And, also, it looks like there's pretty dense forest behind him, and, I'm I'm curious about that. Second, you know, I am on Woody Lane, so I'm pretty fairly directed directly affected. And so I'm I'm curious about the noise. And then secondly, you know, as I said, I'm coming to this late.

I you know, I I can you give me a little bit more on the overall need for this? Right? If I look at Staples High School, right, we're number one in the state in football. We're number one in state in soccer. We're number one in the state in lacrosse. We're number one in we're near number one in in field hockey. I just wanna understand the, the pressing need for all this. Thank you.

Sure. We'll get back to that need because I think some as you hear more well, let's let's that's a great question. Carl Davis. Oh, and can you all state your name and your address for the record when you go?

Thanks. Carl Davis with Will Lane. We have three young kids. All have bedtimes well before post light end time, and we happen to be one of the three or four closest homes to Wakeman B. So this is really personal for me. You know, I want our kids to have every advantage, and I think sports play a key role in that. But I also know that most of our kids are playing to learn teamwork and keep fit and engage in competitive side without, in a healthy manner. So they're not going pro. They're not even competing for scholarships necessarily. So I think there needs to be a balance between what our town can do to provide opportunities for student athletes and balance the impacts the proposal would have on our neighborhood and town character, including traffic, road, pedestrian safety, and the health of the athlete athletes themselves.

I have some general concerns about the process. We were told the PNC review of this type usually took two months to get on the schedule, and it's about two weeks since we received the letter. I have additional concerns based on what I heard in Eric's initial comments about demand from adult leagues. I don't believe a for profit or even a beer league would be an appropriate beneficiary of this public land at the expense of our neighborhood and town character. Many of my neighbors can attest to the negative effects of adult league use of the Wakeman Fields.

We've had cases of public urination, alcohol on the fields during the day. I can only imagine how much worse it would be at night, so it's absolutely not a good use of this property. But I wanna specifically expand on how this proposal impacts student athlete health. With this proposal, athletics is effectively double dipping on our kids' sleep, well documented risk to their health and well-being. I find it interesting that Carmen's brought up the school start time adjustment from twenty eighteen a few times, implying that pushing back Staples start time to 8AM has been detrimental to the ability to use the fields.

Because in preparing for this meeting, I reviewed the recommendations of that commission, and it was clear that the medical science strongly suggested an 08:30 or even 9AM start time for Staples. But 8AM was chosen, as far as the record shows, solely because of the athletic department objecting to it being any later, saying that after 8AM would mean many early dismissals for athletes. They specifically cited the ordinance against lighting the fields as to why the kids needed to be in school at 8AM despite the medical research showing there was no benefit and plenty of sources of potential harm to starting that early. If we intend to keep these kids on the field till 09:30 or 10:00 at night, I would expect we're gonna see a renewed push for a later school start time to protect kids' sleeps, the kids' sleep and mental health gains that are associated with it. I don't think anybody wants their kids who've been up since 7AM or earlier on Friday morning driving home at 11:00 at night.

It's just a recipe for tragedy. Beyond that, I think there's a need to analyze the impact to student athlete health and the additional usage of the turf field. Turf fields have a medically demonstrable negative health impact, significantly increasing in ankle injuries versus grass, not getting getting into the dubious chemicals in the fill material or the increased ingestion of microplastics. So any reasonable analysis of impacts, proposal, and student health would also need to consider the underlying impacts of additional turf field. Based on what we've heard tonight, I also think there needs to be a significant due diligence around the necessity of the pull height.

It sounds like cost is a consideration, but poles that don't exceed the tree canopy by 20 feet and fundamentally change the nature of our neighborhood would be a much different argument. For reference, four seventy foot poles are the same configuration as Campus Field at Sacred Heart University, a division one football field that seats 3,000 people. Wakeman Field B does not need the same lighting as a stadium that hosts Villanova football. So I'd like to see an analysis that showed additional poles, poles set further back, less acute angles, something that could come for them to come down in height. Thank you for your time. Look forward to continuing the conversation and finding a reasonable path forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Diana.

Hi. So, yeah, Diana Masia here at Whippoorwill Lane. So my family has lived on Whippoorwill next to Wakeman since 2010.

We

are one of the closest residents in proximity to the field. I completely support youth sports. My son has spent countless hours on that field. You know, we really enjoy living next to the school complex and the peaceful nature of of of the school community. But I'm here in strong opposition of this current proposal to lightweight me lightweight pen.

My central concern is that this proposal was advanced without meaningful engagement with us, the neighbors who live closest to the field. Over the years, our neighborhood has absorbed more than enough expansion at the scale and intensity of use at Wakeman, which includes turf installation, expanded field use, and increasing activity. This proposal further escalates that in our neighborhood and our neighborhood burden, and extends organized athletics further into the evening introducing very large structures that extend beyond the tree canopy as Carl said and where neighbors do not have sufficient screening for this proposed scale. The current proposal would bring a significant visual presence along with increased nighttime activity, traffic concerns, pedestrian safety, which we've already heard noise, and this is a long established residential community. It started out as farmland, and, we're actually at this point now where we're requesting stadium lighting.

So, of course, it also extends this the schedules of our children, and the families, and we're already balancing very full lives. The fact that this proposal is technically feasible does not mean that it is the most appropriate solution for this neighborhood. So I'm asking you respectfully that you keep this process open, you engage directly with us, the neighbors, especially the ones most affected, and we require a plan that better minimizes the impacts. It is more compatible with this very specific site location and neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. Shelby?

Hey, everyone. Thank you for the time. The vast majority of the people on this call tonight, I think, want lights, even the direct neighbors who are impacted. I'm here speaking on behalf of for myself and my family, but others who are in Whippoorwill Lane and Woody Lane to the East Side of Wakeman B. You're gonna hear from other neighbors tonight who have different property buffers, and that's one of the reasons why we love that, in some cases, that we love that we're taking this a field by field basis.

We have a different buffer than you see on other parts of the, Google Earth view of the field. Our kids play sports. We love fields. We're very happy here. My son right here plays PAL football, basketball, and PAL rugby, and my younger kids most certainly will too.

But I will say, like, the applicants or maybe not even the applicants, but their supporters are painting this picture that unless we accept this application exactly as it is, that we don't support our kids, that we don't care about volunteer coaches, that we don't believe in gender equity, that we want them to be on screens all the time. And, obviously, that's not true. We just think that this plan would change our daily life in a way that's not reasonable. And it does sometimes feel that the way that this application has been rushed, especially after, like, getting to know each other a little bit a year ago, has felt a been in bad faith. So my ask is really clear.

I would love I I'm very grateful that you've already said you're gonna continue it, and you're not gonna vote on it tonight. I think we should schedule a community walk through so you can do the same walk I did a few hours ago with a tree person who was telling me about the specific diseases that our trees have and how the shielding is gonna deteriorate, and we'll talk about that in a minute. And then number two, I think we can revise this application and fix, like, four things to get to a yes. One is shielding for both light and noise. Two is revised regulations, hours, adult leagues, birthday parties, for profit tournaments, compliance.

All of those things make me quite concerned. Doing some due diligence on the post height. I know that there are deep pockets that we can be looking into to figure out more creative ways to light this field in a way that is appropriate given the size of the field and the tree lights. Respectfully, our representative from Musco said there's not that much difference between 15 feet. Well, actually, like, that is the difference in tree line maturity of the existing shielding right now.

So it is a big difference for us. And then, of course, traffic, pedestrian, and biking safety plan. I'm gonna go into detail just on shielding, and then I'll close-up. The existing application says shielding is adequate, but but it's not. If we did as walk through through our street and our adjoining property lines, it'd be really clear. Not much evergreen. I went through just a well, it was a few minutes ago. Now it's a few hours ago. Of those evergreen trees, they're dead, dying, or diseased. And the disease is spreading.

It's going to take down most of the spruces in the head the any of the spruces and many of the hemlocks. I've got a number of dead trees back there. As much as I can do to mitigate on my own property, which is really expensive to plant, irrigate, do pest control on, more importantly, I don't have control of the land that has the ability to shield. I can't plant green giants 10 feet over my property line, but you can. And Fairfield did that.

Fairfield University did that. When we did the Westport Water Towers on North, they were redesigned to allow for appropriate shielding. And then, like, the last thing I'll say is, like, on a personal note, I've heard I've been trying to engage the community. As you saw in Miller, it's not my favorite thing to do. But I've heard from parents who are who are not supportive of this plan, but they are afraid to speak up due to retribution on their children's athletics careers. Many of you know Ellis who has decided to join me, and I'm confident that the loving coaches at PAL Rugby and football and basketball would never treat him differently. But I just wanna say, like, you might not be hearing from as many people as actually feel this way. And Ellis wants to share one sentence here.

Which one is it? You you wrote it. Okay. For the record, I am very supportive of this proposal, and I look forward to my new 10:30PM bed what is oh, yeah. I actually do look forward to my new 10:30PM bedtime every Friday, Saturday night.

So it's a bit of a joke, but but, honestly, the bedtimes in our home are 7PM for our three year old, 8PM for our seven year old, and 9PM for our 11 year old. And we're a few 100 feet away from where these poles are gonna be, and the bedtimes are gonna change. And the lights come up when they come up the sun comes up when it comes up in the morning. I want him to have sleep. I want him to engage in athletics, And, I appreciate the time, and I hope that a lot of the things I heard us talk about, like, multiple points and renderings, sidewalks and crossing, hard stops and starts.

They need to be in the proposal. We can't stand here and say, oh, like, trust us. We're gonna turn the lights off at the right time. Trust us. We're gonna make sure that there's a hard stop. Right now, the proposal says that you could rain delay for four hours. So we just need to make sure that those are in. Okay. I'm done talking. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Appreciate it, Shelby. Chris, I guess you're good for it.

Hey, guys. I I wasn't even thinking about the late bedtime, so I I appreciate Alice making that making that point. But my my, my my wife and and neighbors have made a lot of excellent points so far. You know, I would say that I'm also in opposition to the current proposal for lights in Wakeman B, really just to try and find a better solution for for the nearby homes. You know, I'll give you give you a little background.

I have two kids, fourth grader and a a grader. And, you know, I've I've been in this home now for fifteen years, and I've I've seen the the fields change over from from from grass to to turf and now the proposed proposed lighting. So kind of a significant change from when we first moved in. I'm a big fan of of sports programs in Westport. I've coached rec baseball for four years.

I've coached rec basketball as an assistant coach for a couple of years. So, you know, I look forward to that continuing. And I would say I really appreciate the comments around the willingness to talk to us, and that that's the part that I guess we haven't really had a chance to do much of of yet. You know, my appeal is really to have a sit down and and walk the walk the the fields with the PNC commission and relevant folks to just sort of talk about those issues and and and come up with a better solution. I would say for me personally, a lot of great issues have been raised.

But for me personally, I would like to see the lights be kept below the tree line and and make some efforts to plants evergreen trees. And, like, as as a few of my neighbors have mentioned, we just don't have the same coverage as other areas. It's also a higher elevation in this field than than some other some other fields. So that's kind of my my main concern. Look forward to to discussing that. I know, you know, Mike's testimony, there's there's some issues with lower lower polls, but hopefully, we can come to a better better solution there. And that's it. Thank you very much for your time.

Thanks, Chris. Ellen?

Hi there. Ellen Notenberg, 10 Woody Lane. So I'm here really in two capacities. One is a neighbor of Wakeman Field. Secondly, a RTM representative from District 7.

And this field lies within my district. I have obviously, a lot of things have already been said. I'm gonna try not to be repetitive on that. But when this process started and, you know, the text amendment was passed and all of that, there was a promise of a robust conversation with neighbors in each individual case, and I'm glad to know that this conversation will be continued. But I agree with, some of my neighbors who said that we need to have, a meeting at the site so we can walk through.

Also, I think it would be great if there are fields that have, 70 foot poles somewhere in our vicinity. If we could be told maybe where they are, we could go and check them out and see what it really looks like. You know, obviously, renderings are helpful, things like that. But, perhaps if there are examples that people can actually go and see, in the dark, that would be useful. And, you know, as other people have said, my kids played sports too.

And and I just want the sports organizations and sports parents to recognize that we are not anti sports, and so please respect that and don't, you know, have ill will towards people other constituencies, they're also impacted by this. Obviously, you know, remember back when your kids were little and you wanted them to go to sleep at night at a certain time, and you had noise in your neighborhood. So that's something that impacts everybody. Also, there's Wakeman Town Farm, and, I don't know if there's anybody on this call from Wakeman Town Farm, but, they have not yet had an opportunity to comment. So in other words, they also have evening programs, and you don't want, you know, they usually reserve some parking in front of the farm, things like that.

But, you know, there's some consideration there. They haven't had a chance to weigh in yet, and, obviously, we'll be able to do so in future conversations. And I think that, you know, all the points have been brought up, will be, delved into more, and investigated. We'd to have those future conversations. And perhaps this is something where we might start with ending times that are a little bit earlier than maybe, the sports organizations would prefer.

But just to try it out, kind of see how it works, you know, and then later on, perhaps add, you know, time to that. But I think this is something where you won't be able to put the genie back in the bottle. And once you say, okay. 10:00, it's a little hard to enforce. I appreciate that Carmen Rota mentioned that he was very, very intent on enforcement and pulling permits and all that. But, again, once you've got people, scheduling time on the fields and you've got this whole full schedule, you can't really scale it back. But perhaps we could start out with a little bit, you know, lower aspirations and then add on, you know, as we go along. So those were just some things that I want to say, and I look forward to having a meeting, in our area with the neighbors. Thank you.

Thanks, Alex. John?

Hi. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to comment, and it's wonderful seeing our neighbors here as well as all the commissioners. We've been we hold a I live at 8 Mellon Patch Lane, and I think we actually are directly opposite Diane and Christopher as a matter of fact. If we're not the second closest home, we're definitely the third closest home to the lights.

In addition to this being in my backyard, I'm I've also been a PAL coach here in town for over ten years. And one of the things I just wanna back up as fact is that the town is under stress in terms of the ability to get practice fields. It's a real need. And, you know, I've heard our opinion dismissed a few times around, ensuring that the women's teams have a have a place to play that's of equal caliber to the men's teams here in town. And it's not something that can just be sorted out with scheduling.

You heard that there's a difference in the fields, and there's only so many, facilities that can be used, or that can be used by our women's teams. So I feel personally, as does my wife and some of my other neighbors, that, putting lights on this field for the women's soccer team as well as others to use would go a long way, in establishing some of the balance that should be there in sports. If there are other opportunities or other areas and fields that we could consider, we would be supportive of that too. But I wanna be very clear. I think I might be one of the lone voices on this call tonight.

We are in support of the plan as it is today. We do not believe that a 70 foot pole is necessarily for us to say no to for the entire town that needs this facility and the extra capacity. I am in agreement with my neighbors that additional discourse on this where there could be other options where maybe the lights are brought down to six 60 feet should be something that's looked at. And I don't you know, again, I'm not too familiar with when applications were filed and how quickly certain things moved. But I think that this evening's conversation is part of the outreach to help people understand both the need and that as far as being a neighbor or having this in your backyard, your life wouldn't be too dramatically affected for the overall benefits for the town, which for my family, and at least two other neighbors, that one that backs up on the field and one that is adjacent to our property, believe is more than okay with us to move this project forward because of the broader need.

I do agree with my neighbors. I'd love to do a walk through. Mike or anyone else that wants to come and take pictures and do a rendering, you can do one right from my backyard. Again, I think I'm either the second or third closest location to these lights. And for those that have small children, my my son's second story bedroom backs right up onto that field, looks right out into that field.

So, you know, I understand the bedtimes and things like that. But, again, children grow up. The town needs the space, the time, the extra extra practice time. I can talk to that both from a parent, a spectator, as well as a coach. And if it means that we have to make some changes to the neighborhood and to this field, I personally, my wife, two of my neighbors, agree that that's something that we should seriously be looking at.

So, just to summarize, we support the plan as written. We also agree with our neighbors that further dialogue discussion is probably a good thing. If there are ways to minimize the pole heights and or help with plantings and things like that with the town to mitigate the impact on others, we are supportive of that. But this is an asset that needs to be better used for the town. And I do appreciate those that rec represent Parks and Rec for being here tonight, sharing that information. I think it was quite thorough, and look forward to the next meeting where we can all continue to move forward on this project. Thank you.

Thanks, John. I wanna pause quickly on the public comment, and I have a question for our town attorney. Ira, how do we you know, we've heard that it'd be nice to have a walk through, etcetera, potentially with the must go rep with Parks and Rec, whatnot. How do we functionally do this if we were to do that?

So I I I was listening pretty carefully, and and I I think we can come up with a couple of ideas to get some some further neighbor input. You can certainly have a site visit now. It's customarily done before the public hearing. The the problem with site visits, you know, under the rules that we utilize for public hearings is that, it's not a public hearing. You can't go out in the NOVA field and have a public hearing.

It's it's not fair to others who might want to be there. It's gonna be difficult to transcribe. Like, you know, there's all kinds of problems. Well, you you can certainly have a site visit again if you haven't done it already. And you can you can walk the area.

You can have somebody there from Moscow to sort of give you some idea exactly where the the the light poles will be. You could probably do something that we do for cell towers, is float a balloon to show how high 70 feet goes. I'm just trying to think of some ideas. But you you can't have a a a debate out outside in the middle of the field like that. It it just it would violate certain rules and and rights of others. So what we do usually is we we have those site visits, and you get your bearings. Here's the pole. Here's this. Here's that. Let's let's look at the trees, etcetera, etcetera.