<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"> <style></style> </head> <body lang="EN-US" link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style="word-wrap:break-word"> <div class="WordSection1"> Dear Colleagues, Staff and Community Members, <o:p> </o:p>                                                           Ahead of our study session conversation about the street light acquisition from Xcel energy, I wanted to lay out some further context and questions about this proposal. <o:p> </o:p> The staff have done a great job and their memo lays out a clear case for the economic and maintenance justifications for why we should purchase the street lights. I want to draw attention to the benefits that come from modifying these streetlights to meet and/or exceed our current outdoor lighting standards. Doing so will have a dramatic impact on reducing light pollution and our overall light footprint. Here is an article that discusses what Flagstaff, Arizona has done regarding outdoor lighting and street lights in the era of LED’s. <o:p> </o:p> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/how-flagstaff-arizona-switched-to-leds-without-giving-astronomers-a-headache/">https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/how-flagstaff-arizona-switched-to-leds-without-giving-astronomers-a-headache/</a><o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> In my 20 plus years living in Boulder, I have witnessed the degradation of our night skies along the front range. I think it is time for Boulder lead on reducing our light pollution and showing other communities the path forward (especially along the front range). Boulder has prided itself in being a steward for the natural environment, is it time we extend and strengthen that stewardship to include our night skies as well? <o:p> </o:p> The proposed acquisition of Boulder’s street lights leads us to consider modifying our current lighting ordinance. The main reason is that street lights are currently exempted from the ordinance. So it may make sense for us to get rid of that exemption if the city thus owns that infrastructure. While we consider that obvious clean up, there are other considerations to the lighting ordinance that will help bring it to modern times. Our ordinance lays a good foundation and there are a number of cities that have recently passed strong dark sky ordinances from which we can leverage to adapt our own. I’d like to know from staff be it from the Climate team and/or PD&S what kind of work load and timing updating our lighting ordinance would take? <o:p> </o:p> To help our city understand its current light footprint and to measure the impacts and success of our lighting ordinances, I would like to ask that we consider a “lumen budget” for the city and/or subsections of the community. Think of this as an allowable amount a light per unit area. By knowing the baseline of our city lighting, we can focus on the lighting we want vs the lighting we don’t want. <o:p> </o:p> As the current acquisition plan calls for a “one to one” conversion of the existing HPS (High Pressure Sodium) lights to their LED equivalent, I think we can do better. I am concerned that by doing a “one to one” conversion we will waste money on this conversion to only replace them again shortly after with dark sky compliant lighting. Why not convert the existing HPS lights directly to the dark sky lighting? I would like to know the cost and time differences of doing the “one to one” conversion vs moving directly to more dark sky compliant lighting like PCA LED’s (Phosphorous Converted Amber LED) and/or NBA LED’s (Narrow Band Amber LED)?  Below is a chart showing the advantages of these PCA and NBA LED’s over their White LED counterparts in reducing light pollution. It is worth noting that a narrower spectrum (i.e. graph on the left NBA LED) does not mean dimmer light. <o:p> </o:p> <img border="0" width="743" height="283" style="width:7.7395in;height:2.9479in" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.png@01D8A195.F50D53C0" alt="A picture containing company name Description automatically generated"> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I also want to acknowledge the impacts changing our street lighting has on people’s perceived views and feelings on safety. Even though study after study shows that more and brighter lights have no measurable impact on reducing crime, it is important that we reconcile and are thoughtful about what makes people safe versus what makes people feel safe as it pertains to our outdoor lighting. I think that lighting along our main streets focusing on pedestrian, bike and vehicle safety are critically important. Putting the right lighting in the right places does not have to come at the cost of increased light pollution and the destruction of our night environment.  Could staff cover some of the issues and studies surrounding outdoor lighting and safety? <o:p> </o:p> Lastly, I hope we discuss enforcement of the existing outdoor lighting ordinance. As our staffing still limits our code enforcement capabilities, it does not address years of non-compliance around the city. Should we embark on an ordinance modification, I’d like to hear from staff and my colleagues about how we attain measurable enforcement? In my experience working on the Dark Sky Reserve in Idaho, I found that this kind of enforcement is not in perpetuity. It is a rather short period of strong enforcement to get existing lighting infrastructure compliant. Once that’s done there is very little enforcement needed on an ongoing basis. This is quite different from other code enforcement that is perpetually ongoing like noise, trash, etc.. <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> With gratitude. <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Matt ********** <o:p> </o:p> <div> Matt Benjamin<o:p></o:p> Boulder City Council Member<o:p></o:p> 303-453-9896<o:p></o:p> Pronouns: he/him/his<o:p></o:p> </div> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> </div> </body> </html>