• Weather
• Transportation/Traffic
• Consumer
• Education
• Environment
• Politics
• Election '08
• Real Estate
• Webtowns/Neighborhoods
• Under the Needle
• Obituaries
• Special Reports
• Corrections

• Election '08
• U.S.
• Washington, D.C.
• Africa
• Asia
• Australia
• Canada
• Europe
• Latin America
• Middle East

• Mariners/MLB
• Seahawks/NFL
• Sonics/NBA
• Storm/WNBA
• Sounders FC/Soccer
• College Football
• College Basketball
• High Schools
• Snow Sports
• Other Sports
• Art Thiel
• Jim Moore

• Boeing
• Microsoft
• VC Notebook
• Bill Virgin
• Real Estate
• Wire
• Tech Wire
• Personal Finance
• Sci-Tech
• Layoff Tracker

• Event Calendar
• Movies - Showtimes
• TV & Radio - Listings
• Restaurants/Dining
• Music
• Local Bands
• Books
• Video Games
• Theater/Fine Arts
• People
• A&E Wire
• Going Out
• Staying In

• Pets
• Food
• Seattle@Home
• NW Gardens
• Getaways/Outdoors
• Visitors Guide
• Health & Fitness
• Fashion
• Parenting
• MomSeattle
• DadSeattle
• Advice Columnists
• Horoscope
• Wheels

• Comics & Games
• Crossword

• Photos
• MySeattlePix
• Multimedia
• AP Video
• Buy Photos

• Editorials
• Letters
• David Horsey
• Forums
• Soundoffs
• Joel Connelly
• Robert Jamieson
• D. Parvaz
• Mary Swift

• Staff Blogs
• Reader Blogs
• Blog for us

• Home Delivery
• Mobile
• e-Edition
• E-mail Newsletters
• RSS Feeds
• P-I Reader
• Twitter

• Online ads
• Online text ads
• Newspaper ads
• Classified ads

• Classifieds
• Shopping
• Pets
• Personals
• Place an ad

Not all who live near parks are electrified by prospect of more lighted fields

Wednesday, February 7, 2001

By PHUONG CAT LE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

From the sidelines of the muddy field where his daughter tended goal one evening, soccer dad Warren Chapman noted one thing that could improve her game -- more lighted fields.

"It's like pulling teeth to get practice time," said Chapman, whose 14-year-old daughter, Laura "Boo," plays on a select girls soccer team. "They had to stop practicing in December because there weren't enough lighted fields. Is it really that much more terrible to have lights?"

But to resident Renee Barton, whose back yard sits across from a soon-to-be-lighted field in Meadowbrook, lights means increased use and potential traffic, parking and noise problems.

"The lights don't fit the neighborhood," said Barton, who wants neighbors to have a voice in how city and school athletic fields are used. "We understand that there aren't enough fields, but is this the way for Seattle to solve that problem?"

U-16 Lightning, a girls soccer team from the Green Lake area, practices under the lights twice a week at the Lower Woodland field next to Green Lake. Paul Kitagaki Jr. / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

Chapman and Barton are at opposite sides of a controversy that has been brewing for a year, as the Seattle Public Schools seeks to install taller light poles at its athletic facilities, which would be jointly used by the Parks Department.

It also comes at a time when Seattle's ball fields are in tight demand -- with usage increasing by 30 percent in six years and demand continuing to grow.

"We keep thinking that the demand will level off, but it hasn't," Parks Department spokeswoman Dewey Potter said.

City and school athletic fields are so overbooked that some teams must wait years to get weeknight play. Players complain of having to drive across town, even as far as Everett, to practice or play a game. And one decade-old softball league said it may fold this season because it can't get field time to accommodate its players.

The City Council's land use committee yesterday considered allowing the school district to increase its light-pole heights from 30 feet to 100 feet to improve lighting. With a portion of a $150 million 1998 levy set aside for athletic facility improvements, the district is in the process of upgrading four high schools -- Rainier Beach, Ingraham, Denny/Chief Sealth and Nathan Hale -- to include new synthetic turf and lights.

But some neighborhoods, particularly at Nathan Hale High School in north Seattle, are resisting. Residents there mounted a small but fierce protest, forming Seattle Residents for Fair School Lighting.

The group is calling for the lights to go out at 8:30 p.m. -- as opposed to the usual 10:30 or 11 p.m. -- and its members want darkness more days during the week.

School and park officials say the new taller light poles are part of new lighting technology that would shine down directly onto the field, unlike lights currently on city ball fields that tend to spray light and glare over a wider area.

But some council members wanted assurances yesterday that the lights would meet minimum standards and that there would be mitigation for neighborhoods. The committee approved a provision that asks the school district to hold a public workshop with residents to solicit their opinions. The full council will take up the issue Monday.

"We have to have some respect for the neighborhoods that are affected," said Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, who added that it wasn't unreasonable to limit the impact of the overall lighting on the field and the times they are turned on.

The school lighting controversy highlights the battles city and school officials may face as they try to weigh the needs of those who play on the fields and neighbors who live nearby.

The Parks Department is now looking at ways to maximize the use of its fields and expects to produce a report in late spring. It is studying how and where to increase field time, including putting in more or better lights, replacing grass fields with all-weather synthetic turf and improving drainage and irrigation.

"Sometimes we don't get a lot of shooting practice," Laura Chapman said after practice one night, her pants caked in mud, her brown hair tied in a yellow bandana. "Last fall we had to practice in the dark. My friends play on the sidelines because there's not enough space."

The team often shared a field with three other teams during the busy fall season, she said.

Youths get first dibs on city fields, then adults. With an increase in youth sports, adult games are getting pushed further back. Sometimes they don't start until 7:30 and don't end until 10:30 p.m.

"It's a tight market all around," said Phoebe Russell, who schedules games for 10,000 kids in the Seattle Youth Soccer Association and for 7,000 in the Washington State Women's Soccer Association.

On a recent Sunday, all 10 dirt fields at Chief Sealth High School in West Seattle were filled. One team had arrived late and couldn't find an open field, and ended up driving to Tacoma to play. Russell said she has started scheduling games earlier on weekends and later on Saturday to accommodate all the teams.

"You've got three or four teams practicing on one field," said Kathleen Warren, a Seattle Parks commissioner and herself a competitive soccer player. "A lot of times we don't even get to shoot on a goal. We're spending more time driving to games than playing."

An explosion in participation by women in the last decade has created a demand for more field time. For a long time, there were no sports for girls and women, Warren said, but Title IX changed that and helped bring more college women and girls to organized sports.

Organized youth sports grew 10 percent a year for the past several years, Russell said. In addition, Seattle Public Schools resuscitated middle school sports four years ago after phasing them out in 1975. That has dumped about 4,000 girls and boys onto ball fields.

"You're covering the gamut from kids aged 5 to adults aged 65," said John Bates, who scheduled 114,344 hours for Parks Department fields last year. "Seattle has a large population who wants to get involved in organized athletics."

All this demand plays out on old city fields in a city where the rain makes it difficult to maintain good grass fields year-round. At least several grass fields are taken out of commission to avoid overuse. Many more are equipped with old irrigation and drainage system.

Only about 10 percent of the city's 185 park fields are lighted, putting a crunch on the number of fields sports teams can use during the weeknights and winter season.

Fifteen new sports fields at Magnuson Park, including 12 lighted ones, would ease some of the burdens and create a sports complex for tournament-style games, Bates said. But he predicts that the demand will continue to outpace the need.

The Parks Department also has about $17.8 million from November's parks levy for fields in Judkins Park, Meadowbrook, Loyal Heights, Genesee Playfield and West Seattle.

"It used to be mothers would show up with kids. They don't do that anymore," complained Meadowbrook resident Steve Gossett, who lives a block from Nathan Hale High School, which had been locked to public use that evening. "It's taken away the community aspect."

Across town at Woodland Field #7 in Green Lake, Laura and Warren Chapman were packing up to leave her soccer practice. It was 7 p.m., and the next adult co-ed soccer team had already begun kicking balls on the fields.

"We need every one of them (fields)," Warren Chapman said.