Despite Objections Lights Will Go On Above School Sports Fields

Neighbors to Monta Vista High School who object to the addition of lights on the school’s sports fields reflected on why they bought homes in the neighborhood—neighborhoods they say are quiet at night now; something they worry will change when the lights go on.

“Some of us who moved here in the 60s and 70s remember that we were promised by Monta Vista High School that there would never be lights at the football stadium,” resident Pat Dentinger wrote the Fremont Union High School District Board of Trustees back in March.

Sorry Pat, but as the old idiom goes never say never.

With a 5-0 vote at a , the board approved the stadium lighting at Cupertino’s Monta Vista High School and rejected noise mitigating efforts to install, at public cost, sound insulating windows in resident’s homes and noise barriers along the school’s athletic perimeter, ending a debate which has divided the community for more than two years.

Contention was not over the lights themselves, the lights would stand 80 feet tall and use modern, spill-minimizing bulbs to mitigate the light pollution experienced by residents near the schools, some of whom live less than 20 feet away. It’s the late night games and band practices a lighted track and field would allow—and the noise the events would bring—the brought on the objections.

“I chose a home that (one) is not close to a stadium, (two) is not close to bands practicing at night, or (three) is not near a school with night activities,” resident Susan Camilleri said in a letter to the board. “I don’t understand how the district has the power to change that condition of my home, change the living values I esteem, and the overall tranquility of my neighborhood.”

The board has acknowledged the noise produced by a high school football game will exceed the city’s maximum levels for the community. The increase of noise will be especially jarring for a community, which is unaccustomed to nightly football games.

Monta Vista, which was built in the late 60s, was not constructed with field lights allowing night games or practices. It was designed, as one resident put it, as a “walking school” which permitted building houses directly against the school’s boundaries. Without lights, the schools track and field activities were bound by daylight, ensuring a quiet night for the school’s neighbors year round.

“During the night games there are drunken students at every single game that we ever attended,” Camilleri said. “These students throw up on people’s yards, yell, throw their trash, honk their horns, peel their tires, and absolutely disrupt the neighborhood’s dogs, family, peace, and tranquility. During the day I saw much less of this behavior.”

While the lack of lighting brought peace to Monta Vista’s neighbors, it also required student athletes to take fewer classes or leave the classes they did take earlier just to attend practice and travel across the city to other schools for home game events, something Monta Vista’s coaches, parents and students have claimed saps school spirit.

According to documents released by the district, the lights would “increase student school spirit and pride through being able to hold more Monta Vista events on their home campus,” an assumption not every resident agrees with.

“There [is no] evidence to support the district's assertion now that holding night football games is necessary to promote school spirit,” read a letter to the board by law firm Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger which represents the neighbors of Monta Vista who oppose the stadium. “The district cannot allow such an amorphous and factually unsupported assertion that only night football games will increase school spirit to dictate the ultimate decision regarding project alternatives.”

Currently, all night games for Monta Vista are held either at Cupertino High School or Fremont High School, both schools have updated tracks and fields with stadium lighting.

 The fact that Cupertino High neighbors suffer increased football games, along with the increased noise and traffic they bring, was not lost on the board.

 Board member Bill Wilson said there will be the same number of night games, with the same amount of noise, only “spread out” across the city instead of concentrated at one school and asked if it was fair for Cupertino High neighbors alone to shoulder the load of evening disturbances.

Board vice president Nancy Newton added, “There is a library at Fremont so everyone can go down there, we won’t build one.’ We wouldn’t say that.”

Almost 20 residents addressed the board during Tuesday’s meeting, with more than half supporting the measure despite the cost to the community.

The board said it felt compelled to approve construction despite the impact.

The $14.25 million for the track and field updates was provided by Measure B, passed by California voters in 2008. Measure B also provided money for solar panels over school parking lots and the update of tracks and fields at all Fremont Union High School District schools. Updates included replacing the football fields and gravel tracks with synthetic surfaces, upgrading bleachers and the installation of a public address system and stadium lights. 

“Measure B passed with 53 percent of the vote,” Newton said. “Three board members ran on supporting the measure and won over opponents who opposed it.”

“We don’t make this lightly, we don’t make this easily,” board president Hung Wei said before adding that the board was making a decision which would affect students for the next 50 years.