Rettler Corporation
For Ben Yahr, Lake Wingra is unique among Madison’s lakes. “It feels like you’re up north,” says Yahr.
As chairman of the Friends of Lake Wingra board of directors, Yahr feels a duty to protect the lake as a refuge for people and wildlife.
He sees a new threat from Edgewood High School. Located on a hill rising from Lake Wingra, the school has proposed converting an existing practice field into a stadium with a sound system, lights and expanded seating.
“Potential impacts from the lights of the Edgewood Stadium would disrupt that kind of peaceful, up north, remote feeling that Lake Wingra has,” Yahr tells Isthmus.
He also worries about how the sounds and lights of high school gridiron games would affect migratory birds, birds of prey and waterfowl.
Yahr has laid out his concerns to Edgewood High School and city officials. He plans on continuing to press these concerns as the proposal moves to the Madison Plan Commission and Common Council.
Edgewood has long wanted to build a stadium but the idea has never been popular with neighbors. And now that the school is formally moving ahead with a proposal, neighbors and guardians of Wingra are lining up in opposition.
Edgewood High School submitted its proposal to improve on the campus’ Goodman Athletic Complex in mid-November. The plan calls for installing LED lighting and a directional sound system, as well as adding more seats.
“We believe the time is right to upgrade the Goodman Athletic Complex to incorporate new technology that will allow our students to host a limited number of night home games at Edgewood like other teams in our conference host night games on their campuses,” wrote Michael Elliot, president of Edgewood High School, in a letter submitted to the city with the proposal.
Currently, Edgewood teams use Middleton High School for “home” games for football and other sports played at night. Elliot and other Edgewood officials did not respond to multiple requests for interviews. But they argue in their proposal that continuing to play at Middleton is no longer feasible, “not only [because of] Middleton’s own athletic program demands, but financial ramifications, safety concerns and scheduling for Edgewood’s athletes.”
The proposal also claims that technological advancements in lighting and sound systems would make the stadium less invasive to neighbors.
Many neighbors don’t buy it.
“That’s really nonsense” says Ethan Brodsky, who lives about 500 feet from the corner of one of the end zones.
Brodsky argues light can’t be precisely controlled, especially because it would reflect off the field. An electrical engineer who has worked with audio software, Brodsky also disputes Edgewood’s claim that sound would be around 60 decibels from the street, roughly the level of conversation in a restaurant or office.
“Edgewood is stating the sound level in a misleading way,” Brodsky says. He believes the school is estimating average levels over a three-hour game. Brodsky wants to measure peaks — which is exactly what he did.
He measured the sound at a Waunakee High School football game in October. From spots on a map that would coincide with front yards near Edgewood, he frequently measured peaks in the 80 decibel range, about the level of a garbage disposal or alarm clock. On one touchdown play he says he measured the crowd noise at 87 decibels.
At that level in his neighborhood, Brodsky says that he would have to yell to communicate in his yard. Even inside his house, he fears people would have to raise their voices to be heard when a game is underway.
Marie Trest shows a reporter the clear view she has of the Goodman Athletic Complex from her living room. “There’s no buffer between our home and the stands,” says Trest, gesturing out her window. “There’s no buffer between our home and the field.”
Trest and her husband bought their house before the practice field was built in 2015. She says she wouldn’t have bought it if there was a stadium there.
“Even today it’s really not acceptable the amount of noise and disruption that the field causes,” says Dennis Trest, via a video-chat with his wife and Isthmus from Afghanistan, where he’s deployed with the Army National Guard.
Edgewood’s campus master plan, approved in 2014, details the uses for the field as team practices and physical education courses, though the school holds daytime JV and varsity sporting events on the field. Trest and other neighbors believe that the language in the master plan prohibits even those daytime games.
Trest says one game got so loud it forced her family to end a video chat with her husband from Afghanistan.
The board of the Vilas Neighborhood Association — located northeast of the school — voted Nov. 28 to support the stadium. Since then, several Vilas residents have complained on the neighborhood listserv that the board discounted residents’ concerns. Board president Samip Kothari declined to comment, but emailed a statement: “Edgewood High School has been a good neighbor and has made reasonable concessions after input from neighborhood concerns.”
In its proposal, Edgewood maintains it would host just five home football games and up to three playoff games, increasing its total use of the field to 29 varsity athletic games or meets in the year and up to 11 playoff games.
Ald. Allen Arntsen, who represents the district, thinks it’s reasonable for a high school to have a stadium. But he would like to learn more specifics about the technology that Edgewood says would mitigate impacts on the neighborhood.
The Dudgeon Monroe Neighborhood Association says about 80 percent of neighbors are “strongly opposed” to the proposal. Arntsen has received emails from people on both sides, though more have been opposed. “It seems like the closer somebody lives to Edgewood the more likely they are to be opposed to it,” Arntsen says.
Opposed neighbors agree. “Many of the supporters do not live within earshot,” says Shawn Schey, who’s lived across the street from Edgewood for more than 30 years.
Schey likes Edgewood and youth sports, but she’s against the stadium. “It will change the tenor and fabric of this neighborhood,” she says.
The Plan Commission will take up the proposal on Jan. 14, when neighbors can comment.
Yahr and the Friends Of Lake Wingra have more questions as the proposal advances as well.
“At this point our official stance is that we would like qualitative assurances that the improvements will not have a negative impact on the lake,” he says.