After hearing a resident complain about noise and light–a resident familiar to every council member who’s served since 2009–Palm Coast City Council member Charles Gambaro Tuesday evening got the presentation he requested on Ralph Carter Park. It did not go as he expected. The park’s popularity is too broad, the complaints about it too finite, to justify dimming the park’s operations in response to a handful of complaints, if that.
Gambaro requested the discussion to take on an issue that every council has grappled with since 2009, when the park opened: the park’s noise and light pollution on a few–very few, but shrilly vocal–nearby homeowners.
“I think there needs to be some consistency in the lighting based on the time frames that we set, and that’s a management issue,” Gambaro said. He wants quality of life assurances applied uniformly in the city, whether it’s noise or light.
The lights shining into residents’ properties “is not OK,” he said. “We can’t have a double standard and quality of life issues throughout the city.” He is also concerned about the definition of a neighborhood park “treated like a sports complex.” (In fact, the Indian Trails Sports Complex and Ralph Carter Park are zoned the same way, City Attorney Marcus Duffy said.)
Council member Theresa Pontieri, who has championed local youth sports and the city’s facilities enabling them, responded forcefully. The noise ordinance doesn’t apply, because the homeowners who are complaining are beyond the applicable limit, she said.
“I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t care about the residents around this park. I do. But there are things that can be done, such as blackout curtains and stuff like that to help with the light pollution,” Pontieri said, making a difference between the issues around Ralph Carter Park and the airport, which Gambaro also cited. Around the airport, residents can’t shield their homes from the noise, Pontieri said. “We’re talking about quality of life. But what about the quality of life of all of our families and all of our kids that play at that park?”
Pontieri, addressing Marion Petruzzi specifically–Petruzzi has been the one homeowner who’s led the longest battle against light and noise from the park–said she didn’t want to minimize her complaints. “But it is our job to govern for the people that are the most people that we can benefit as possible,” Pontieri said. “We’re never going to make everybody happy. That is an impossible, frivolous endeavor. We have to endeavor to do what’s best for the community as a whole.”
To Council member Ty Miller, it’s “fairly cut and dry.,” He cited the huge number of children using the park, as well as parents, as opposed to “some inconvenience” from homeowners. The city, he said, has been trying to address issues for years. “We can’t just keep throwing money at this in an attempt to mitigate it, when it extremely benefits our families and our youth sports,” Miller said. “I just don’t see any way how we can decrease that resource even more when we’re in a situation where we don’t have enough as it is. So I feel like there’d just have to be a super high threshold for me to even consider changes.”
With one exception, the several people who addressed the council, most of them users of the park through leagues, all spoke of the park as essential to their activities. One parent credited Mad Dogs Flag Football for saving her son’s life.
Ryan Smith, an owner at Flagler Dental, said: “I see a lot of these kids at my practice. Nobody likes coming to the dentist. But when we talk about Mad Dogs, the kids’ faces light up. The parents’ faces light up. This is an asset to our community, and it’s a shame that we’re even having this conversation. As a business owner, this drives business. This drives families to come here. That’s what we want, and that we’re having this conversation, like I said, it’s just a shame. So don’t take it out on the kids.”
There was a lot of applause from a full chamber as others spoke likewise.
James Hirst, the city’s parks and recreation director, has given that presentation before, as have his predecessors. Over time, he’s tweaked it to include facts relevant to the moment, such as research findings that equitable youth sports opportunities are of huge importance to families and to children for all sorts of reasons–improving physical fitness, developing teamwork and motor skills, developing friendships.
Ralph Carter Park has been one of the city’s major recreation successes, affording thousands of children and adolescents ample, safe and supervised space for team sports every year. It’s been so successful that the city has had to cap new members to the city’s sports alliance. As it is, an amalgam of soccer groups has some 830 participants, Palm Coast Little League has over 400, Mad Dogs Flag Football has 400.
The park’s large grounds have been maintained by the city. Its flood-lit fields have provided extra space and time for leagues that can’t be fit in at the Indian Trails Sports Complex. For thousands of others, younger or older, the park is a place for free play and relaxation. The role it plays as a community hub and pride point for the R Section is not minor, either.
But since its opening in 2009 the park has also been a sore point for a few–very few–of its neighbors, homeowners whose properties rim the north end of the park, where the noises of competition and the natural yelps of children can be heard, as the light from tall light poles can be seen. Year after year, those homeowners have caught the attention of council members, especially when there’s turnover on the council, and have attempted to limit the use of lights or restrain the amount of competitive play that takes place at the park.
For the city, the trade-off has not been fair to pursue beyond several measures the parks and recreation department has taken to manage quality of life issues, from light shields to shorter hours when lights are used to scheduling tactics. There’s also a limit to how much light should be shielded: it’s a safety issue if dark spots result on the field. (Retrofitting field lights with LED would cost $370,000.)
In the end, the park is used by too many people, especially young people, for too much benefit. Hampering the activities of thousands to placate the complaints of less than a dozen people has not seemed to be a fair deal.
Less than a dozen is likely an exaggeration. “From my perspective, there’s one person,” Miller said, accurately alluding to Petruzzi. Petruzzi has often referred to others, but they have rarely materialized, and if so, not for long. “She sends emails saying that she’s representing the entire our section, and I don’t find that to be credible,” Miller said. “It’s difficult for me to put weight behind something that’s said by one person where it affects potentially 1000s of families.” ((See: “More Sound and Fury Than Broad Problems as 3 Residents Complain to City of Ralph Carter Park’s Popularity.”)
Mayor Mike Norris also referred to a history of efforts to ensure safety in and around the park with lights, though he overstated the case when he referred to “gang activity” there. There never was gang activity there. (There were, around 2010, some white people who dog-whistled about other people as “undesirables.”) Norris said he lives a distance from the Indian Trails complex and contends with light and noise.
Lights are controlled only by city staff. The lights can be turned off remotely, and that at times happens when players leave early and contact city staff. But teams don’t have access to the light switches. Norris thinks they should.
That will be considered. The height of the light poles will be measured. Certain software options will be studied. But beyond that, the discussion ended just before where it had started: with Ralph Carter Park as a prized city asset, doing what it is intended to do. It is not about to see substantial changes.
Gambaro did not want to leave the wrong impression about his support for the park. “My whole life has been a team sport, and I think it’s important, but I just also think we need to do what we can to address resident concerns,” Gambaro said. “If there’s a way to do it, great. If there’s not, I understand. But no one here is arguing about taking away team sports. We’re not doing that. I’m not doing that. I brought this discussion up so we can have a conversation.”
Lacey j says
From what I understand it was just one
Karen that said she was representing the r section . The problem is I live in the r section three doors down from this woman who is complaining. There is absolutely no issue with the park or the people there . This is a person who moved from another town that thinks they can push others around .
How about respect you might get more done
By the way Karen ,pull up your big boy pants and move if you do not like your neighborhood . Stop bulling school children and wasting our tax dollars.
t.o. Doug says
Hilarious backtrack by Gambaro at the end there, after he realized he had taken up a VERY unpopular cause.
MFS says
I live near the park in the R section. I love seeing people enjoy the park. One mad and loud apple shouldn’t ruin it for everyone.
D says
I get so tired of hearing about things like this. This person knowing purchased a home near this venue and now they want to complain about it? The solution is then to move.
Skibum says
I love these comments from neighbors who live near this community park and know what’s what! Nobody should be forced to listen to someone who moves into any community, gets upset by whatever is already there that they don’t like, yells and screams incessantly and tries to change everyone else’s living environment instead of simply moving on and changing their own. The situation is no different from those who have been very angry and vociferous about the local airport, with the associated noise from aircraft and the planes taking off and landing there or doing touch and goes for pilot training. Thank goodness there are common sense neighbors in the R Section near that park who are speaking out and putting a stop to the nonsense. Maybe someday all the naysayers around Palm Coast might have an epiphany and realize it is up to THEM to get their butts up and out of there, packing up and moving on to greener pastures if they don’t like putting up with something in their neighborhood that bothers them.
Cosmic Karma says
Skibum: you just couldn’t wait to get your jollies off once again by
comparing park” so called noise” to over 180, ooo yearly flight school
business mills hammering our communities which is NO COMPARISON!
Here you are again undermining thousands of residents complaints
about their quality of life, safety ,along with thousands of people being
poisoned by over 700 tons of toxic leaded avagas fuel that is being dropped
over our city daily by the airport to nowhere as you in your past hx also undermined
hundreds of flooded victims through no fault of their own whose proprieties
and homes are being destroyed as you ranted to all your ‘JUST MOVE”
insensitive, callous, remark from your mirsable piehole. You clearly have
no respect for us nor for our council woman Theresa Pontieri when she said
there is a difference betwen the park and the airport where residents can’t shield
themselves from the noise, I will add to her statement nor can anyone in PC
shield themselves from the dangers of hundreds of thousands of student pilots
practicing touch and goes over homes, businesses, a hospital, a high school, etc
nor from the toxic effects and damages of lead poisoning, but we all can be sure of
one thing, seeing your incessant feeling of hatred coming out from your spiteful
malicious mouthpiece. It has become so transparent that you are a very angry
hateful person, WORK ON YOURSELF TRY TO BE A BETTER HUMAN!
Just say'n says
Kinda like trans kids in sports,so few trans kids but all sports must acomitate. So a few complaints about lights and noise we should probably shut down the park for sure for the better of the complaints don’t ya think?
Skibum says
Dear Cosmic Karma, thank you so much for the funny, but oh so dramatic and unsurprising retort to my comment. You certainly gave me a well deserved belly laugh this beautiful Sunday morning while perusing the online news and drinking my morning coffee. I only wish that someday you might finally be successful in your quest for a more peaceful and enriching life. I appreciate your concern for my wellbeing. I am just as hopeful that soon you will be able to trace that heavy chain welded to your metal ankle brace, and free the attached spike buried deep into the earth that prevents you from freeing yourself from captivity where you currently live. Oh, what a grand day that will be when you can at last stand on your own two feet and proclaim “I’m free to move, I’m free to live ANYWHERE I choose! Thank God, I’m free at last!” Halleluiah and Amen!
Gina says
Skibum: You are a complete joke! You couldn’t care less for me nor any
other human with your narcisstic overtures and people know you well
by now. A true liberal cares about their brothers and sisters, cares
about the environment, cares about the devastating effects of pollution
upon our flora and fauna, We thank the lord that you are off the beat
and retired indulging and living in your own little selfish bubble of what
is good for you and you only. The FAUX LIBERAL you really are always
comes shining through your lonely bitter mouth. We love fighting for
the little guy, our environment, our wildlife and all of the lords beauty
that phonies like yourself want to strip from mankind. We suggest you
go take a deep look inside yourself and “JUST MOVE” your mind
to a better place for your own sanity, and take your jealous evil eyes off of
innocent people. STOP quoting an American icon true activist, MLK,
who fought for the disinfranchised and marginalized comminites like ours.
MLK stood up and fought THE POWER like some of us in our communities
excluding you and your ilk!
Skibum says
Au contraire, Gina. You mistake my opinion for not caring about others when that is untrue. Having lived for nearly 7 decades now and learning from many things that life has thrown my way, I now have two primary philosophies that I try to live by. 1) Although sometimes easier to say than do, you can only effectuate things that are under your control, so to have a less stressful life it is better to let go of things that you have no control of. 2) Take control of you OWN life, your own surroundings and living environment, and your own destiny. Most people move several times in their lifetimes. I have moved a number of times, sometimes locally and other times completely out of state. Most of the time I have moved for a job opportunity or just to be in a better living environment, but people have to be open to actually taking the bull by the horns and doing what is best for themselves and their family. Those who dig their heels in, complain incessantly about things that bother them but NEVER take the initiative to actually change their own situation are making their lives stressful, and THEY are the ones who get mean and nasty. I’m merely bringing a lot of stuff to their attention, and if they, or you don’t see that, or don’t like it, you are free to move on to the next article or comment. I’m perfectly happy and the ones around me aren’t complaining like some online do about things they COULD change for the better if they could only see they have the power to change their own lives, but they do NOT have the ability to change what others do or how they think. I’ll just let that sink in… maybe you will get it, maybe you won’t. In any case, it has no affect on me personally. I consider myself a liberal with common sense. Have a good day.
Skibum says
One thing Cosmic Karma and Gina fail to realize and acknowledge in their comments is that the one resident who lives near the park and attended the council meeting, falsely purporting to be a representative of ALL of the local community, is that this individual represented nobody but themself. The park had numerous supporters, even one resident who lives just a couple doors down from the complaining “representative” who said that complainer has never even bothered to bring up the subject of the park, and other residents near the park agree there is NO issue other than the one or two complainers. So obviously it is NOT a community concern. That being the case, it is up to the complainer(s) to understand they should not try to impose their own will on the rest of the community. If those complainers are unhappy, it is up to them to stay and put up with it, or MOVE, not demand everyone else who isn’t bothered to have to make a change. That is ridiculous. If Cosmic Karma and Gina are unable to understand such a simple concept, I must wonder how they are able to get along with other people who obviously are not clones of them and have free will to live their own lives, so Cosmic Karma and Gina should follow suit and live their own lives without trying to impose their will on others. That is how people are supposed to live, but somehow, having to explain that over and over to some gets tiresome.
Gina says
Skibum: we understand the article loud and clear which is why Cosmic Karma said
“so called noise”, should have said perceived noise and the airport issues
are not one in the same. Kids playing sports are not causing pollution and safety impacts to
our environment and quality of life. This person can help herself with the light by purchasing
black out shades. I have lived in many diffferent places too and also out of the country.
We feel that you jump on any opportunity to undermine residents complaints,
people have the right to complain no matter how big or small and we are taking the
bull by the horn to MAKE necessary changes to improve residents quality of life.
I believe where the nastiness comes in is when the other side demeans and calls
names, I have seen it on social media and on ND and from some airport staffers,
flight instructors, tenants, etc. No one can sit down and have a intelligent grown up
conversation so they perpuate their own anger and hostility towards residents
valid complaints. “Just Move” comments that you rant, you should know better,
really hit home especially in todays dynamics with what is going on, our communities
are very mixed with hard working people who cannot just move and should not be forced
to tolerate any lesser of a quality of life then others who are more fortunate. Some
are afraid to come forward as they are afraid of repercussions. Residents are not is forcing anything
on anyone, you got it all wrong, it is the airport director and the county who are not
regulating their own safety rules, policies and procedures creating a hostile, unsafe, unhealthy
environment upon the taxpayers and homeowners.