ORANGE : City Pulls Plug on Golf Course Lights

After months of emotionally charged public hearings and negotiations, the City Council this week rejected lights for Ridgeline Golf Course--a decision that leaves the future of the city’s only public links and driving range in question.

Council members, who were lobbied heavily by citizens on both sides of the issue, were hesitant to vote on the plan which has divided residents in the semi-rural area. They finally turned down the proposal by a vote of 3 to 1.

About 200 people packed the council chambers to hear final arguments on whether to place 40 lights on the nine-hole course and driving range in east Orange.

Mayor Don E. Smith asked twice for a motion before Councilman William G. Steiner finally proposed that the permit for the lights be denied. Smith cast the dissenting vote. Councilman Fred L. Barrera was absent.

Steiner said that after visiting the golf course, he agreed with Orange Park Acres residents who argued that lights would increase evening traffic, an impact that would be “inconsistent with the integrity of that very unique rural community.”

Residents of Orange Park Acres, who have been fighting the lights since April, also worried that the plan would cause more commercialization.

But supporters of the lights feared that without them the city might lose valuable open space and its only public golf and tennis club.

Course owner David Freimann began to install the lights last March because extended hours were needed to make the course more profitable. Freimann said he had spent about $60,000 installing the lights when the city ordered him to stop work and get a conditional-use permit.

Now, Freimann said, he will “have to pursue the possibility of developing the property. There’s no sugar-coating that.”

Herbert Bieber, president of the lighting company hired by Freimann, said he intends to sue the city and recover $100,000 already spent on the project.