The Stargazers vs. We The People: Battling Over Orange Street Lights

The skies above, the politics below.

The San Diego City Council on the morrow is set to vote again on the bug light issue. That is, whether to stick with orange street lights and their sickly glow.

The professional astronomers on Mt. Palomar and Mt. Laguna prefer the orange street lights. They say orange light is easier to filter out so they can continue doing what they do.

They say the other kinds of street lights--the pinkish kind or, God forbid, the white light kind--cause a pain in their telescopes.

A decade ago the astronomers--with the help of Paul Peterson, one of the city’s best-connected lobbyists-lawyers-political fund-raisers--persuaded the council to convert the city to bug lights.

There are (disputed) cost figures that the bug lights are cheaper. Yes, but if a dollar figure could be put on ugliness, maybe the analysis would come out differently.

Stripped to its skivvies, the issue is this: How much should the working class sacrifice for the intelligentsia?

Homeowners from Normal Heights, City Heights, East San Diego and elsewhere say the orange lights make them feel unsafe because they can’t identify the car thieves, burglars and muggers who prey on their neighborhoods at night.

The city says prove it, show us your statistics, stop bellyaching, go get a Ph.D. and some political clout.

The astronomers are put to no similar burden of proof. The notion that stargazing is absolutely vital to American society is swallowed whole.

The politicians feel more comfortable with the astronomers (and their lobbyist) than with some neighborhood lowbrows. As a result, the city gets soaked in uremic light by order of the City Council.

Not for nothing has it been left to the council outsider, Bill Mitchell in 1980s and now John Hartley, to suggest that the astronomer-king has no clothes.

Robert Brucato, assistant director of the Mt. Palomar Observatory, says that, unless the city sticks with orange lights, stargazing will be like “trying to listen to chamber music in a machine shop.”

Bravo. Well said, Dr. Brucato.

Machine shops (and machine shop people) can be so ignorant of the loftier things in life.

Gee Wally, What Do Politicians Do?

You may have missed it amid all the other mayoral eye-poking, but a mini-furor has kicked up about whether Councilman Ron Roberts and his family are something out of “Leave It To Beaver.”

It started when Roberts displayed his wife and three daughters prominently in his first big campaign brochure and television commercial.

This brought a snippy response from Nikki Symington, the longtime San Diego publicist hired recently by the mayoral camp of Supervisor Susan Golding.

Symington allowed as how Roberts’ use of his kinfolk and his emphasis on “family values” is an artless dig at Golding, whose recent ex-husband, Richard Silberman, is in the federal slam for reasons that are well known.

To the Daily Transcript, Symington referred to Ron and Helene Roberts as “Ward and June Cleaver.” To the San Diego Union-Tribune, she mentioned their “cookie cutter kids.”

Roberts--and I’m not joking here--responded with an harrumphing press release entitled “What’s Wrong With June and Ward Cleaver?”

Saith the indignant candidate:

“Supervisor Golding may say what she wants about me. I expect that as a candidate. But I insist that she apologize for her campaign’s comments about my wife and children.”

So far, no apology.

But Symington has taken to calling herself Eddie Haskell and promising not to drop by the Cleavers’ house at dinner time. (Again, no joke here.)

Politics, don’t you just love it?

Celebrity Karate Chop

Parting shots.

* Actor-martial arts master Chuck Norris is set to attend Friday’s exhibition at the Convention Center of a new sport called draka (wrestling, boxing and karate).

Organizers want him to throw out the first kick.

* Look for the name Robert Alton Harris to pop up in lots of team names for this year’s Over the Line Tournament, the 39th annual.

* San Diego bumper sticker: I To Get Even.