Parks Commission Votes To Ask For Driving Range Lighting to Turn Back On

Tuesday’s parks commission meeting was saturated with talk of the Ruth Park driving range and the recent decision to turn off the driving range lights in response to complaints from a group of neighbors in August 2009.

At the start of the meeting, Ewald Winker, the interim director of the Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department, addressed an email from Parks Commission member Karen Palmer regarding the finality of the decision to turn off the lights.

“Well first of all, it’s not final," Winker said. "We’re working toward a landscape design. We’re working with a landscape design firm who, one of their charges will be buffering light. So, as of right now that’s correct, but it’s not forever and ever. It might be, but we’re looking in to see if we can do something.”

Winker went on to state that the landscape design firm, the Lawrence Group, will perform a kickoff meeting at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Ruth Park driving range. The public is invited.

The email from Palmer also addressed an alleged poll that Winker had given to the driving range neighbors.

“I did not poll anyone," Winker said. "I did send the neighbors  across the street from the driving range (a survey) asking them if they had any comments."

Winker said he sent the survey to all but the two neighbors who were on the committee, but that he didn't get any responses.

"Don’t know what that means," Winker said. "There was the Aug. 21, 2009...letter from the neighbors, that was how many complained in 2009.”

The August 2009 letter from the neighbors was signed by eight residents.

Toward the end of the meeting, Palmer asked that the Parks Commission once again look into the driving range lighting, as they were originally involved in approving the grant submission to the St. Louis County Municipal League asking for money to fund the driving range.

Palmer cited a memo that was sent on Sept. 13, 2010 from Nancy MacCartney, who at the time was director of Parks, Recreation, and Forestry, to City Manager, Lehman Walker.

In the memo, MacCartney stated, “The driving range was funded primarily by a Municipal Park Grant and the grant covered half the cost of the lights. If the lights were no longer used the Grant Commission could, by the agreement signed by the City, require reimbursement of $39,780.”

“I am going to make a motion, which I may not be allowed to do at this meeting," Palmer said. "In order to be in compliance with the St. Louis County Municipal League grant, which funded the driving range, I am asking that the lights be turned back on so that we avoid a penalty fee, avoid a risk of being ineligible for future grants and avoid any other legal action."

“I don’t know that we are in violation of the grant,” Council Liaison Lynn Ricci said.

Ricci said that the issue had also been addressed at the city council meeting the night before, and citizens charged the city manager with polling all the grants, including the golf grant, to see if they were in compliance.

“I’m saying that things are perhaps not being managed correctly and asking if we could take another look at that, by doing so, by making this motion,” Palmer said.

The Parks Commission voted 2-1 to ask to turn the lights back on.

Not brought up in the meeting, but also included in the September 2010 memo, MacCartney stated that a lighting engineer had been contracted on Sept. 8, 2010 to measure light levels at various locations with the range lights off and on.

“The engineer noticed that the shields we not properly installed and that the end lights were creating a glare. The next morning I had my staff, using a bucket truck, move the shields into the correct positions and we measured the light levels at various locations that evening,” MacCartney’s memo stated.

“As indicated in Chart #2 there is no light spilling off the range and the increase seen from sidewalk to sidewalk is from a street light on the south side of the street,” MacCartney’s memo went on to state.

Residents React

No residents were available to state whether they had noticed a difference after Sept. 9, 2010, although many residents have had something to say regarding the lights being shut off entirely.

“I think (the lights being turned off for good) is a great idea,” said a resident who lives directly across from the driving range on Groby Road, who wished to remain anonymous.

“It didn’t bother me. I had no problem with it. Naturally, it’s going to make some noise, but the noise they did wasn’t annoying to me,” said Mary Beverly, another resident directly across from the driving range on Groby Road.

“I just wish they were on,” said Jamie Reuter, a University City resident who said he hits at the driving range at night a lot.

“The lighting helps enhance being able to see how far your balls are going as far as the distance markers out there,” said Andrew Johnson, who comes from Bel-Nor to improve his game on the Ruth Park driving range.

“I do astronomy, and I was like, 'You’re going to mess up my starry sky,' but I have not had any real issue with the lights," said resident Maryanne Angliongto, who lives a block away from the lights on Groby Road. "And I know some people who work there and that it’s bringing in money, a lot of money, and we need that. Of course I’m not across the street from the lights… If they were shining into my dining room that might irritate me to no end.”