Lights out in South Portland

The stars are about to shine a little brighter in South Portland. Of course, that’s only because the city intends to permanently dim some of its streetlights – 235 of them, in fact.

The move is a cost-cutting measure, and follows a similar move last year, when the city flipped the switch on 107 streetlights.

“Streetlights, in the annual budget, is probably the largest, if not one of the top three largest budgetary items that we have,” said City Manager Jim Gailey.

City Planner Tex Haeuser said South Portland spends “about $330,000” per year to illuminate its streets. The dimming is expected to save $23,160, he said.

However, that savings is subject to change. Last year’s shutoff was accompanied by a 2.54 percent rate increase (to 6.54 cents per kilowatt hour) requested by Central Maine Power (CMP). Instead of saving $20,000, as planned, the city ended up paying $5,000 more than the previous year.

“But, at least we saved $15,000 on the increase,” said Haeuser, reassuring city councilors during a workshop session on the topic Monday.

Although some councilors suggested the rate hike may have been reprisal, CMP spokesman John Carroll says the company is in the middle of a five-year plan with MPUC.  Rates may be raised or lowered each year, but CMP cannot cite an external factor, like fluctuations in the number of streetlights it feeds, even if it wanted to, he added.

"The fact that we raised rates has noting to do with South Portland's decision about streetlights," said Carroll.

The lights-out program began in 2008 when South Portland’s planning department undertook an inventory of utility poles throughout the city.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t just ask the utilities to give us this data,” said Haeuser, “because they felt it was a homeland security issue, and they wouldn’t share.”

To date, city workers have counted 5,876 utility poles.

Lights cut last year were on major thoroughfares on the eastern side of the city, including Broadway and Cottage, Lincoln, Ocean and Main Streets. According to Haeuser, this year’s dimming will take place in and around those same areas, wherever it’s determined a light exists for no reason other than “somebody in the distant past decided it would be nice to have light there.”

Responding to a question from resident Jim Mesner, Haeuser said the planning office will take advice from the police department, but that decisions on which lights to cut are not being made with crime in mind.

“We’re not mapping for high crime rates, as such,” he said.  “I mean, I don’t know if we have high-crime rate areas to map.”

In the short-term, Hauser said, city workers will mark each pole where a light is to be removed. A public hearing will be held on those proposals, he said, “at the end of summer.” Residents are welcome to appeal any removal, either in person, or using a form that will be uploaded to the city website.”

“If you see any streetlight that you think it would be silly to remove, we are open to discussing that,” said Haeuser.

Councilor Tom Blake suggested turning the council’s ad hoc streetlight committee – formed last year to help pick lights to be shut, and to hear appeals – into a standing committee, with at least two citizen representatives.

To identify where lights may be removed, residents should look in the coming weeks for poles marked with either a yellow, or orange placard.  The city will make a one-time $25 donation to any affected homeowner who would like to purchase a flood light of his or her own. 

The long-term plan, said Haeuser, is to replace CMP’s remaining “rather inefficient and expensive“ cobra-style lights with city-owned, or leased, LED lights.

Preparatory to that, Councilor Tom Coward worked this year with the Maine Municipal Association to draft a bill (LD 493), sponsored by Rep. Lance Harvill, R-Farmington, that would have let each town to place its own lights on existing utility poles.

That bill died April 7 when the Legislature’s committee on energy, utilities and technology gave it a unanimous “ought not to pass.”

“We might try again next year with this,” said Coward. “MMA was very supportive of it, but apparently CMP has more oomph with the Legislature than the municipalities.”

“It’s interesting that Augusta rejected that proposal,” said Blake. “It just reiterates the fact of what we hear, that it is truly the lobbyists who run Augusta, not the elected representatives.”

"It was a poorly written bill and I think the legislature recognized that," said Carroll, adding that while it was considered LED lights, most towns lose their enthusiasm when comes to installation costs, three times the average for standard street lighting.  "People find that you can't make the capital costs back on energy savings," he said.