2014-12-18 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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Ms. Kelly: So who pays for that? Mr. Rolston: County pays for it, but the return on investments is two years. So anytime you get a return on investment in two to three years or even six months, you can get a return on investment by doing certain things within a year like… Ms. Kelly: And how long is the lamp last? Mr. Rolston: This lamp lasts longer than the low pressure sodium that’s currently being used and the good thing about LED technology will keep getting better and there will be more manufacturers. There’s only one supplier of the low pressure sodium lamp right now and the prices are very high for replacements of them; and they are not a very good lamp. They actually cause, we think they cause, traffic accidents because the light is the same color as the caution light. So when you come over a hill and see these low pressure sodium bulbs blaring yellow, they’re about the same color as the yellow that’s on a traffic light. So it’s hard to distinguish you’re coming into traffic. Another thing it helps with is distinguishing objects that, that glare does not give you full light spectrum. So you can actually see what an object is, if there’s a police situation that can distinguish what’s happening at that light versus the glare, it just doesn’t let you distinguish what’s what. Ms. Kelly: So tell me, I understand you correctly. So you install those lights, you recapturing investment within two years are saving costs, but then the lamp don’t last that long? Mr. Rolston: No, the lamps last longer. Ms. Kelly: Longer, five years? Mr. Rolston: We believe the low pressure sodium so, I’m not the lighting expert, but I’ll say it lasts 1.5 times longer. I think it’s like more like two times longer than the low pressure sodium. So less replacement, less manpower for replacing, so it’s a better investment all around. Ms. Kelly: Can you say that the traffic light, it may be an issue with traffic lights or intersection with light signal and traffic lights, is there any study on that? Mr. Rolston: Absolutely. There’s lots of accidents that have occurred due to the non-distinguishment of the low pressure sodium and the traffic light. Ms. Kelly: Thank you. Mr. Rolston: You’re welcome. The next slide discusses why the dark skies are important. Basically, Nobel Peace prizes are being won because of our astronomical center that we have the world’s leading telescopes currently and now with the 30 meter, near 10-20 years we’ll be the leaders in astronomy looking into the night sky. So in 2011, an astronomer proved Einstein’s theory that he worked on for about 30-50 years of his life that he thought was a huge failure basically discovering that 70% of the matter out there is dark matter and a fascinating lecture I went to in Hilo. So that’s a pretty cool 7