Board of Ed should keep its lighting promise

Once again, the Board of Education is contentiously debating its lighting policy for the South Side High School field.

As they stand now, the rules governing the lights allow their use until 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until 9 p.m. on Friday. They can’t be used on weekends, between the fall and spring sports seasons or from the end of the spring season until Labor Day. And only SSHS teams may use the lights.

Trustee John O’Shea says he wants to get rid of the policy altogether. Trustees Liz Dion and Mark Masin say the board has to stick with the policy because it said it would. Mayda Kramer says it’s too early to see if it has even worked, so how can it be changed? And Gregg Spaulding says the policy should be changed to also allow community groups to use the lights in the hours delineated in the policy.

It is a highly restrictive policy, and one that the board passed only to mollify residents near the high school who didn’t want the lights at all (and who, despite the policy, sued the district to try to stop the lights from being erected).

The Board of Education should never have passed this policy. It was a reactionary, poorly thought-out response to a vocal minority of residents. To appease the few, who should have realized that living next to a high school brings with it the sounds and sights of students engaging in sports, the board is restricting the rest of the village’s access.

All of the trustees have valid points. However, as we wrote last time this issue arose, Dion and Masin are right: The Board of Education must abide by the promise it made to residents to not change the policy as soon as the district put up lights. Spaulding argued that the board of 2007 didn’t have the right to make that promise, and he’s also correct. But the deed has been done. Changing the policy now would only show residents that the board can’t be trusted to honor its commitments.

Although we believe the board has an obligation to abide but its promise, we also realize that policies can and should change with the times. If the board believes that time has come, then this is a decision that should be made by the community. To that end, we encourage the school board to hold a public meeting, separate from its board meetings, to allow residents to offer their input on the situation. Promote the meeting, in the interest of increasing the turnout. If a majority of the community wants the policy changed, then the board should listen.

Alternatively, a motion can be added to the budget referendum in May, giving the public the opportunity to vote on a new lighting policy.

The decision on the policy will affect the entire community. So the entire community should be heard.