'I Was Actually Very Shocked': Neighborhood Battles Over Blue Christmas Lights Honoring Medical Workers
SARATOGA SPRINGS, Utah (CBS Local) -- A neighborhood in Utah is fighting over Christmas lights that a homeowner said he put up to honor medical workers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jeff Noorda, who lives in the Legacy Farms neighborhood of Saratoga Springs, still has Christmas lights strung up around his house. But the lights are all blue to pay tribute to healthcare professionals in the battle against the coronavirus.
"We've got hundreds of thousands of people across the country and the world that are dedicated to going to work regardless of their safety," he told KSL. "It's my one little way of saying thank you."
But Noorda's homeowner's association says the lights were suppose to be down by March 1 and sent him an email saying he has to take them down or face a $50 fine.
"Here we are in these unrealistic times, and to get a letter for having lights on my house to say, 'thank you,' I was actually very shocked," he said.
Joey Duckworth, president of the Legacy Farms HOA, said Noorda never asked for permission to keep the lights up and sent a very angry email after he was asked to take them down.
"The tone of the email that we received was so aggressive in nature and so combative that we didn't feel sincerity in what he was actually indicating," he said.
Noorda acknowledges that he may have broken the neighborhood rules.
"Sure there's rules that we all have to abide by, but these are times that nobody has gone through before," he said.
