Zoning Board Hosts Hearing on Chatham Field Lighting Tonight

The Madison Zoning Board of Adjustment has scheduled a hearing on the proposal to put up lights at Cougar Field for Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. at the at 50 Kings Rd.

Morris County Superior Court Judge W. Hunt Dumont ruled in April that the three towns which have land on Cougar Field – Chatham Borough, Chatham Township and Madison Borough – should be able to review the proposal for lights at Cougar Field, but stopped short of saying that the lights could not be installed.

Members of the Chatham Board of Education and the Chatham Athletic Boosters will attend, said retired Superintendent Jim O'Neill at his last BOE meeting on June 27, "to hear and understand Madison's contentions that they have jurisdiction over what happens in Chatham Township."

He also said that he was informed that the BOE's land use attorney and planner would be called upon to speak at approximately 8:30 p.m.

Madison residents who live in homes adjacent to Cougar Field t, saying an ordinance established to regulate the lighting of fields within the municipality was adopted under false pretenses. Their attorney, Robert Simon, said that the ordinance was adopted "for an impermssible private purpose."

The suit was filed by the Cougar Field Neighborhood Preservation Association, an association made up of .

"They [want to] put lights literally in our backyard," said Jocelyn Colquhoun, a resident of Barnsdale Road in Madison who is opposed to the lights. She spoke at a meeting of the Madison Borough Council in August, 2010.

"I'm convinced there will be a resolution in the not-too-distant future [to allow lights on the field], O'Neill said, but acknowledged that the goal of putting lights on Cougar Field has been made more difficult by the fact that the board needs to seek approval from Madison.