Council Postpones Vote on Street Light Switch

After hours of emotional debate, the San Diego City Council on Monday delayed for three weeks a vote on whether to convert the city’s street lights from low-pressure sodium to the more expensive high-pressure sodium.

Proponents said high-pressure sodium street lights would help deter crime. But representatives from the Palomar Mountain and Mt. Laguna observatories said the brighter high-pressure sodium lighting would interfere with exploration of the galaxies.

Councilman John Hartley, whose district includes the high-crime area of City Heights, said the city needs to convert to high-pressure sodium lighting because it gives at least the “perception” of safety.

“I think, in this case, that truth is more important than perception,” said Councilwoman Judy McCarty, who favors the low-pressure sodium lights.

The low-pressure sodium lighting, adopted by San Diego and four other county municipalities within the last decade, may aid astronomers but it gives criminals the feeling that their actions are going undetected, Hartley said.

Scientists and their supporters said hiring more policemen and building more jails would deter crime more effectively than changing the city’s street lights.

Hartley suggested a compromise in which street lights south of Interstate 8, more than 40 miles from the Palomar Observatory, would be converted to high-pressure sodium.

A majority of the council appeared willing to approve Hartley’s measure, but Councilman Ron Roberts and others requested a more detailed cost analysis from City Manager Jack McGrory.

McGrory’s staff estimated that converting all of the city’s street lights to high-pressure sodium would cost $6 million to $8 million.