Getting Ready for Northgate High's First Friday Night Lights--Though Not Everyone is Enthused

Northgate High's Broncos face off against Dublin High tonight in the school's first ever Friday night home game, their gridiron plays illuminated by lights that are still temporary but that should be made permanent in a few weeks--if some legal issues are worked out.

The lights are part of a plan the Mt. Diablo Unified School District board of education approved last June for the the Walnut Creek high school. The $1.5 million project calls for installation of stadium lights as well as bleachers on both sides of the field seating 1,500 fans. A press box will also be built.

The complex is the latest fund-raising effort by the Northgate Community Pride Foundation. 

"The community is in support of this, and the students and players are so excited for Friday night lights," said Steven Cvitanovic. He's a San Francisco attorney who happens to be involved in this very local Walnut Creek community issue because he is representing the Mt. Diablo Unified School District against a lawsuit filed earlier this summer by two Northgate neighborhood groups that oppose the lights and stadium project. 

In the lawsuit, members of the Brooktree Homeowners Association Inc. and the Northgate Neighborhood Network asked a Contra Costa County Superior Court judge to vacate the district's approval of the project--or to issue a preliminary injunction or a restraining order halting any construction activity on the project.  

In the suit, the homeowners groups allege, among other things, that the environmental impact report on which the district relied to make its decision is inadequate and fails to meet the standards of the California Enviornmental Quality Act (CEQA).

The suit alleges that the final EIR prepared on behalf of the school district is "substantially defective because it failed to adequately analyze the significant environmental impacts caused by the increase in noise leels, traffic, parking needs and public safety concerns arising from the dramatically increased attendance of evening sporting events in a densely populated residential area.

One of the plaintiffs in the case is Roger Miller who lives adjacent to Northgate High School. He has a "perfect view of the 20-yard line on the Northgate High football field," as Walnut Creek Patch noted in a June 17 article.

Miller complained in June, and he aired his concerns in the lawsuit, filed July 16, that the stadium lights shining down on the sports complex would cast a glow right into his bedroom window. "This is going to ruin the peace and tranquility of our neighborhood. That's for sure," Miller said in June. 

Judge Barry Goode has not yet issued any stay or preliminary injunction. Instead the parties involved in the case will meet September 17 to, some hope, settle the legal conflicts over this project.

Cvitanovic said the district and the school made modifications to the project--in response to neighbors concerns.  For instance, he said, the district agreed to install the "home" bleachers, which rise 24 feet tall and have a capacity of 1,000, on the side of the football field closest to the school. The visitor bleachers, which are only 12 feet high and have a capacity of 500, will go up along Hutchinson Road. The district will also plant ivy and other vegetation behind the visitors bleaches as a natural sound barrier.

As for the lights, the district agreed to reduce the number of light standards--or poles--from six to four and to use a more environmentally-friendly system that limits night glow and light spilling outside the field, Cvitanovic said. 

For tonight's game, the school is bringing in portable 30-foot high 40,000-watt lights. The permanent 72,000-watt lights will stand 80 feet high, according to Ralph Austin, a parent and a member of the board of the Northgate Community Pride Foundation. 

The complex is the latest fundraising effort by the foundation, which has spearheaded drives in the past decade to raise $5 million to build a new track, gymnasium and little theater at Northgate.

The foundation already has raised the $500,000 to finish installing the new lights, which should begin in a few weeks, Astin said. The foundation needs to raise another $1 million for the rest of the stadium project.

Kassie Wenzel, the co-director of the stadium project for the Pride Foundation, was not going to be at the first night game at Northgate.  But, back in June, she told Walnut Creek Patch: "I can't begin to tell you how happy I am," she said, referring to the district's approval of the stadium lights project.

Wenzell has worked on the proposal since 2004, when her son attended Northgate. She says the lights will benefit all the school's athletic teams. The football squad will probably play a half-dozen night games there. However, the field will also be used for games and practice for soccer, lacrosse and other sports.

Cvitanovic added that the lights at Northgate will be shut off at 8 p.m., unlike at 10 p.m. at playing fields at other area high schools , including Las Lomas in Walnut Creek and De La Salle in Concord. 

Wenzell said the use of the portable lights tonight are something of a "test run" to see how evening football and other sports work at Northgate High.