03/18/2006: "A Bulb Too Bright!"

For a brief shining moment, there was light on the Memorial Park at the foot of Spring Street in Friday Harbor. Way too much shining light. The Guardian went down to take a peek at the new lights, and found a white blaze of light that washed out the park, and looked ever so much like a prison yard, complete with chain link fence and an inmate slowly walking around behind it; who, once our eyes metered down so we could actually see, turned out to be only the editor of the San Juan Journal, walking around in the blaze; perhaps he also had received a call from the public?. So what's up (as they say) with the white arc lights?

Town manager King Fitch told The Guardian that he also was surprised by the intensity and the whiteness of the light, "I think it's too bright", and put a call in to Dave Waldron, the architect, and one of those who have been working and contributing time to the project, and when King asked if David had gone down to take a look at the lights, David responded by saying "They're terrible!" and then asked "Can we turn them off unit we fix them?". Another call went out to Dana Baker, owner of FH Electric, the company that installed the lights as directed, and King suggested that the halogen bulbs and/or the ballasts be changed out and replaced with sodium lights. King explained that the soft orange lights used on the port docks and in the town street lights that illuminate with a soft warm light are sodium lights.

King joked that if they cannot get the lights off quick enough, we should inform our readers that "they are just construction lights". For now the lights are turned off, and the problem will be addressed so that the park will be the inviting place it is intended to be. As King said, "It is still a work in progress".