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Hello,

Thank you for the additional information.  Would you be available to meet this Thursday at 6:00 pm?  

Hi Elizabeth,

Your quick reply is greatly appreciated. I'm glad to hear that you'll try to help us out.

Our address is 39 S Water St. There are 5 street lights and a parking lot light that illuminate the inside of our house. These are the 5 street lights starting from the corner of Ormand and S Water St heading towards Frost Avenue. The lights are so bright that even the 3 lights further away illuminate the middle bedroom, and because of the different angles through the window, almost an entire wall is lit up in that room. The one that is 2nd furthest away out of those 5 illuminates the inside of the rear bedroom. The parking lot light is the floodlight in the parking lot of the Police Station and City Hall. There is a mirror in that light that points directly into our rooms with bay windows, one of which is a master bedroom.

I still have other concerns of the effect the lights are having on the neighborhood. If you walk S Water St at night, for example, it's trivial to see that these lights are shining directly into peoples houses and through their yards, and the effect often looks like it is worse than what we are experiencing. Would you or someone in your office be interested in meeting me at the corner of Ormand and S Water St and walking a small part of S Water St shortly after it gets dark to see these effects? My hunch is that other residents may not know how to start a conversation if it is affecting them too.

I completely understand other residents safety concerns.  I have experience working with local governments on safe lighting and light pollution. A common misperception is that brighter and bluer light is safer than dimmer and redder light. The way that our eyes process light makes the opposite true. To demonstrate this notice how your ability to see on either side of the street is dramatically diminished when someone drives past you going the other way with brighter and bluer headlights pointed at you compared to the headlights that are dimmer and redder. For example, if a police officer were to drive down S Water St it would be easier for someone to hide in a shadow, or go unseen if trying to break into the side of a house, because the officer's eyes would be unable to see outside of the light cones of those street lights. Likewise, with dimmer and redder lights it is much harder for someone to hide in a shadow because the potential victim won't have their "night vision" too diminished to see what's lurking in the shadows. I can elaborate on the biophysics if interested.

I imagine the city spent quite a lot of money on those new lights. Sometimes those come with ways to adjust the brightness and the color, or are easily modified to do so. Whoever installed them would probably know. Also you might consider moving those to other parts of the city that you are planning to upgrade with new street lights, and replace the ones on S Water St with ones that aren't so bright and blue. In this case, if you would like to provide me with the specifications, I would be more than happy do some research and recommend some options for replacements.

Please let me know if there is anything that I can do to be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Jason