Lorain: More than 500 street lights 'inoperable'

LORAIN — More than 500 street lights in Lorain were inoperable when reviewed by city workers last week. Of the 6,400 street lights throughout the city, 559 were deemed inoperable in a review by the Public Works department last week, Safety/Service Director Rey Carrion said Monday. The cause for so many street lights out remains under review — it could be the age of the light itself, or a malfunction, he said. A list was submitted to Ohio Edison and crews were out making repairs, Carrion said, though it is unclear if lights submitted on this list previously were submitted for repairs by city residents or Council members. A list of the street lights deemed inoperable by city employees showed the problem stretches throughout the city — from West Erie Avenue and downtown to the south side, throughout the east side, Baumhart Road, Tower Boulevard, Kolbe Road and Martins Run Drive. In a statement to The Chronicle-Telegram, Ohio Edison spokesperson Hannah Catlett said the energy company does not proactively patrol for streetlight outages, instead relying on customer complaints to initiate repairs. The company attempts to make routine repairs like bulb or photocell replacements within days of complaints, Catlett said in an email, but repairs may take longer depending on the severity of the damage or amount of work that needs done. The city pays Ohio Edison, a FirstEnergy subsidiary, about $64,000 each month for its street lights, Carrion said. That payment includes repairs to malfunctioning or burned out lights. What it will not include, Carrion said, is planned upgrades in four select areas that will see the lights converted from high-pressure sodium to LED. The four areas piloting the city's upgrade to LEDs were chosen based, in part, on the neighborhood's crime rate. Areas with high numbers of car crashes, shootings, burglaries and other crimes were targeted for the LED conversion, which will provide more light in the area than the warm, amber high-pressure sodium lights that are the usual street lights found in most cities. Those bulbs and other components are included in the city's pricing contract with Ohio Edison that has been in place since the late 1970s. The LEDs, while brighter and more energy efficient, are not included in that monthly price, Carrion said. Costs were not immediately available Monday for the LED replacements. Lorain police crime mapping statistics published in April, the most recent available, show portions of central and south Lorain included in the conversion zones as hot spots for shots fired calls and burglary reports. The zones to be converted are: - Zone 1 encompasses the heart of central Lorain, including the Stoveworks site, Hawthorne Elementary School and Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church and nearby Nativity Manor apartments. It will be the first area to receive LED lighting, though a timeline was not immediately available on Monday, and was the subject of a community cleanup on Saturday to kick off reinvestment in the area, Carrion said. "We brought all our (city) departments in and said we're going to focus on the Nativity Church district," Carrion said. "We're going to fill every pothole, clean every catch basin, run street sweepers, (and) make sure every light is repaired." Volunteers, city workers and at least one contractor spent much of Saturday morning clearing tall grass and weeds from Stoveworks and blighted homes in the area. Stoveworks originally opened in 1894 as the National Vapor Stove and Manufacturing Company, producing heaters, stoves and furnaces. Operations ceased in 1954 and the area was home to other industrial uses until it was abandoned in 1981. Since then, it has sat in various stages of vacancy and decay and seen millions of dollars in grant funds put toward its cleanup as a brownfield site. It must be turned into affordable housing due to the type of funds used to tear down the remnants of the factory in 2016. - Zone 2, also in central Lorain, surrounds Sgt. Samuel L. Felton Jr. Central Park, North and South Central drives, Beech and Oakdale avenues from West 30th Street to West 21st Street. - Zone 3 is in South Lorain. It encompasses the area between Pearl and Seneca Avenues from East 28th Street to East 36th Street. - Zone 4 is in downtown Lorain, encompassing Broadway to Reed Avenue from West Fifth to West Ninth Street. A portion of downtown already has better lighting through portable LED lights put in place first by the city, and now funded by Main Street Lorain until the regular street lights are replaced or other lighting is added by Ohio Edison. The goal of the four zones, Carrion said, is to provide on-the-ground support and environmental changes to better those neighborhoods and let residents there know they are valued. We just want to clean up these areas, we want the community to be involved and we want the same cohesiveness and community spirit we had in South Lorain," Carrion said. "People are more than willing to do so, we just have to be willing to engage with them. … Forget this nonsense that these are older or poorer communities." Residents may submit a complaint for a inoperable street light by calling (888) 655-4877 or filing out an online form at tinyurl.com/223s7k2v. The customer will need to provide their name and phone number, address where the street light is located, the utility pole number and type of problem with the street light such as if the pole is damaged, if the light is off or flickers at night or stays on during the day. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.