Enough. With regard to the recent letters that strongly support the installation of lights at the T. C. Williams football field, I ask you this: would you subject your spouse, your kids, your parents and grandparents to a loud speaker so obnoxiously loud that you have to give your kids earplugs to sleep? Would you subject them to 80- and 90-foot light poles seven feet from their property line whose light is so bright that they can read by it at night? Have them get out the next morning and pick up the beer cans and used condoms that were deposited the night before? Then repeat this scenario four and five times a week? All-year-long? After all, that football team from Maryland who uses T.C.’s field during the summer has to have a place to play. Can’t limit it to football, right? People have to play soccer and other sports at night too. And just for good measure throw in at least a 25 percent drop in their property values (nice, huh?).
Would anyone really subject their own spouse, kids, parents, grandparents, friends or family to this night after night, for years to come. Anyone? The answer is No. No one would ever do such a thing to their loved ones, their friends and family. Never. Not in a million years.
But, yet you are so willing to do just that to your very own neighbors, to me and my family. Thanks. I appreciate your lack of concern. I coached little league baseball here for years. I coached kid’s basketball at Francis Hammond and Cora Kelly. I stood on the sideline of the Sunday morning soccer games cheering on the kids down on Eisenhower. I shop around town. I go to the local church. I’m a neighbor and member of the community. You’d think those so in favor of lights would take a nominal look at what this issue is doing to their neighbors and community and say “wait a minute, no one should have to put up with this. Ever. Goodness, imagine what it would be like if it happened to me or my neighborhood.” Of course the response from the pro-lights movement is always “it won’t be so bad.” Well, my neighborhood is already living through this scenario and our experience is “Yes, it’s that bad. This goes way beyond bad, and we don’t want to have to live through this night after night for the rest of our lives, thank you.” We are the same neighbors who bought our homes because of the promise that the city made to us (and even wrote down and codified in the DSUP for good measure). The same neighbors who you will ask to pay for the lights through our real estate taxes ... all so that you can watch football games on Friday nights … and play soccer and other sports whenever you want, late into the night? And what if you are wrong? Will you then take the lights out? I didn’t think so.
Now, you clearly see where I’m coming from. You would be adamantly against these lights if they were put seven feet from your yard. You would never subject your spouse, kids, friends, family and community to this
ordeal. However, the “good neighbors” who live near T.C. Williams are fair game. But karma being what it is, you have a good chance of experiencing the same thing that you will be subjecting my family and neighborhood to. You see, the once the city rezones my neighborhood in order to put these lights in on 80- and 90-foot poles (yes, that is really tall), how will it be able to justify not doing the same thing to the neighborhoods around Bishop Ireton, Episcopal, and Hammond?
So, for those still in favor of lights at the T.C. Williams football field after reading my appeal, I’ll see you at the meetings. I’ll bring my kid’s earplugs.
You can try them on.
Frank Bires
Alexandria