Late last year the Ballard District Council lined up a group of volunteers to check the street lights in Ballard. This is the letter that the president of the BDC wrote to Seattle City Light Superintendant Jorge Carrasco.
Dear Mr. Carrasco:
As I am sure you can appreciate, good street lighting is a major factor in providing a safe and inviting environment for everyone using our streets. The Ballard District Council, increasingly concerned about reports of non functioning street lights in our neighborhoods, asked for assistance from local volunteers to determine the extent of the problem. Seventeen volunteers walked the arterial streets in the Ballard district between December 21 and December 30 and reported 198 street lights out or malfunctioning.
We recognize that City Light is beginning the third year of a four year effort to relamp the entire city. According to the schedule, relamping will occur south of NW 65th St in 2010 and north of NW 65th in 2011. We believe well lit streets are safer for pedestrians and that 2011 is too long to wait for some areas.
The Ballard District Council is asking that your department address the street light deficiencies identified in the attached spreadsheet. The spreadsheet identifies street light deficiencies by location and pole number or inventory number. Also attached is a map which identifies those streets in the Ballard district which we surveyed.
We thank the City Light crews that have been responsive and already repaired some of the lights reported by the volunteers. We realize that the crews which perform this vital work already have a long list of reported street light servicing needs. We ask that they continue to prioritize our district’s arterials. Please let us know what timeline we can expect for addressing the remaining outages.
We now realize that street light repairs are driven primarily by citizen report. We encourage you to develop a system that does not rely solely on the random acts of citizens.
Respectfully,
Jennifer Macuiba
President, Ballard District Council