The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
First — small town kudos go out to the Titans. Congrats to the boys Crested Butte soccer team for an exciting journey to the 2A state championships where they brought home the hardware. According to sports metrics, they didn’t have much of a chance when they were down two goals after three penalty kicks in a five-shot shootout. But that’s why they play the game and high school athletes are high school athletes and anything can happen. And it did! Tying it up after five shots (who woulda thunk it?) the Titans scored on its sixth shot and Titan PK specialist Jakob Klemme made the save from the opposition and the Titans won. You can celebrate with them Thursday afternoon by coming out for our small-town parade honoring the team Thursday at 4:30 p.m. on Elk Avenue. Nice…
Just think what the team could have done if the new turf field was lighted! Oh wait…you might not be aware, but there has been a push to do that next summer. Huh? It made sense to put in the underground infrastructure to add lights in the future (unlike what didn’t happen with Big Mine ice refrigeration – but that’s another story) and I’d heard inklings some wanted lights ASAP but wasn’t aware it was in the approval process for next summer. The Crested Butte town staff turned down that push this week and made the brilliant (get it?) suggestion that as much as anything, a high-profile community outreach effort to discuss and debate the proposal should happen first. Absolutely!
My first knee-jerk reaction to throwing up 70-foot light poles (the nets on either end of the field are 30-feet tall BTW) that would light up the field from spring into November is to not allow that community character change. But I could be wrong. That’s where the public discussion comes in. Technology might be such these days that aside from making it easy to see the ball on the field, there would be no other impacts from that much light beaming down from six or seven stories high. Crested Butte’s safeguarded night sky might be protected, and the neighbors might see nothing unusual and the drivers on the highway could be in awe of the miracle of 21st century lighting technology. I don’t know. And that’s the point.
Hey, I like some lights and spoke out in favor of more holiday lights in downtown CB a year ago – but as a reminder, some councilmembers weren’t all that enthused about even those little LEDs. This is a different beast. To grouchy editor types it seems just one more amenity change chipping away at the reasons people moved here in the first place, but I might be wrong. Most people living here have an open mind and are willing to consider new ideas and change. But the major changes, and this would be a major change, must be explained so as to convince the community in general, not just the parents of student athletes. That takes targeted and intentional public communication which in this case hasn’t happened.
Yeah, I’m sure there has been the standard late-night discussions in school board meetings and through technical bureaucratic channels but that isn’t enough in our small town. It takes real effort and willingness to face pushback over what should be expected to be a somewhat controversial proposal. That is not done without a great deal of transparent community discussion…and as far as I can tell, that has not yet happened but needs to take place before it is seriously considered, let alone approved.
It seems to me this two-month-old field should be broken in and see how it works with plowing in the spring, with schedules throughout the summer and analyze the real need for lights. But to move there while what appears to be keeping the general public out of the loop, is the wrong approach.
Just think what the Titans might have done if that field was lighted! Oh, right, they won a state championship anyway. Look, in a small town, communication is key. We are still a small town. I am appreciative the town turned down the request to light the field next summer. It may or may not be the right, next move, but we all have to talk about it…you don’t push for a giant field being lit up at the entrance to town with 70-foot poles while keeping people in the dark.
See you at the parade…
—Mark Reaman
