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DTE deal pulls out lights in Highland Park

Areas in dark after 1,400 street lights removed to settle bill

George Hunter/ The Detroit News
Last Updated: October 11. 2011 1:00AM

Highland Park— Most of the city's street lights have been repossessed because officials failed to pay a multimillion-dollar utility bill, giving rise to concerns about safety and crime in darkened neighborhoods.

DTE Energy crews have removed about 1,400 light poles from Highland Park as part of a settlement that allowed the city to avoid paying $4 million in unpaid bills going back several years. DTE, which says the work will be completed by Oct. 31, has replaced 200 lights with newer models on street corners, but most neighborhoods remain in the dark.

Highland Park, plagued by financial trouble, was able to reduce its monthly utility bill from $62,000 to $15,000, an amount officials say fits the city's budget.

But residents and business owners complain that the resulting darkness is like a welcome mat for criminals.

"After they took the street light from in front of my business, someone climbed onto my roof and stole an air conditioning unit," said Bobby Hargrove, owner of Hargrove Machinery Sales on Oakland Avenue, who also claims a police officer asked him for money to beef up his protection. "I feel like I'm being punished — I've always paid my bills on time, but they took the street light anyway."

Highland Park Mayor Hubert Yopp insists that crime has not increased since the lights were removed.

"I had the police chief work up the crime stats, and found that most of our burglaries are taking place during the daylight hours," Yopp said.

But resident Robert Davis, secretary of the city's school board, said three schools were broken into at night, right after the street lights were removed. "Thankfully, DTE agreed to put new lights in front of the schools, although they're not all up yet," he said.

DTE spokesman Len Singer said Highland Park is "a unique situation."

"We did everything we could to try to help the city come to a level of service they could manage," Singer said. "We wanted to work with the city to maintain some level of service, and do so in a way that would allow the city to cover the bill each month. They simply weren't able to maintain the costs for having all the previous lights."

Singer said the utility is under no obligation to maintain service to communities that don't pay their bills. "But obviously, we wanted to work with the city to provide some lighting for their residents and businesses," he said.

DTE began removing the light poles in August, rather than just cutting off the power, to avoid lawsuits and confusion, he said.

"Mostly, it was a liability issue; we didn't want to have poles there that were de-energized, and likely won't ever be energized again," Singer said. "Also, we wanted to avoid the confusion of having lights up that don't work. In the end, we figured it was better to just take them out."

Some cities own their street poles and pay DTE for the electricity. "But we own the lights in Highland Park," Singer said.

The old poles were sold as scrap metal, Singer said. The 200 new poles will be fed power via overhead lines, rather than underground, which makes maintenance easier, Singer said.

Hargrove claims a Highland Park police officer tried to cash in on his loss.

"He contacted me about a week after my air conditioner was stolen and told me he'd make sure my place didn't get broken into — if I paid him $650 every two weeks," he said. "That's like paying protection to the Mafia."

Hargrove reported the alleged incident to city officials. Yopp said he's investigating the claim.

"Our residents already pay for police protection; we'd better not be charging them twice," he said. "I'm definitely going to get to the bottom of this."

Jessie Flowers, 85, who has lived in Highland Park since 1947, said she's "not happy" about the situation.

"I'm concerned about people breaking into my house," she said. "The street lights should be on.

"I'm so flabbergasted I don't even know what to do."

Yopp said he understands the frustration and is trying to secure federal or state funding to restore lighting to the city's neighborhoods.

"We're no longer in debt, and our bill is lower each month," he said. "But I'm certainly not happy about the level of lighting in the city, and I'm doing whatever I can to work something out."

ghunter@detnews.com

(313) 222-2134

http://www.detnews.com/article/20111011 ... hland-Park

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"He contacted me about a week after my air conditioner was stolen and told me he'd make sure my place didn't get broken into — if I paid him $650 every two weeks," he said. "That's like paying protection to the Mafia."

Where I live, criminals use street lights to their advantage. Once they step on my property, they lose all advantages .

Broke is Broke in any Launguage

Spanish - Se rompió
Russian - ЛомалÑ

Detroit struggles to keep lights on

Copper thieves, aging equipment darken blocks in cash-starved city

Leonard N. Fleming/ The Detroit News
Last Updated: October 17. 2011 12:07PM

Detroit —Like many swaths of the city, Keith Wicks' historic Indian Village neighborhood has remained largely dark at night after vandals destroyed transformers in nearly every streetlight pole that powers them.

On a recent rainy day, Wicks, 64, a retired GM engineer who has lived in Detroit for decades, watched as city Public Lighting workers put new transformers at the top of the aging wooden poles. Just days later, those streetlights were out — again.

"We've still got a ways to go," Wicks said with a laugh.

The growing lack of public lighting has become a troubling problem for cash-starved Detroit, where entire stretches of neighborhoods and thoroughfares — such as portions of the Southfield Freeway — are feeling the effects.

"This city…it's dark without streetlights," said Wicks, who lives on Iroquois. "You look down Iroquois at night now, it's black. It's very dangerous."

The war to keep the lights on in Detroit is a serious one. Thieves, antiquated equipment and a lack of funding have made it impossible for city officials to catch up to the problem.

City officials estimate 15-20 percent of the 88,000 lights in the Motor City are not working, and they acknowledge that figure could be as high as 50 percent in some neighborhoods. Providing lighting to the city costs $10.7 million annually.

And often when they are fixed, they break down weeks and months later — or thieves steal the high-grade cable for its copper materials.

"It doesn't make me happy when I go into a neighborhood at night," said Chris Brown, the city's chief operation officer, who oversees the Public Lighting department. "We've got an obligation to get it done. In the next couple of years we will see a strong improvement of the lighting of those more dense areas, and that's where we're focused on, and that's what we've got to get done."

Mayor Dave Bing and his administration are considering privatizing the lighting department. DTE, which already provides electricity to the majority of the city's streetlights, has been weighing a possible takeover.

Plans are in the works for the city to prioritize fixing or replacing lights over the next two years in more densely populated areas as part of its Detroit Works program, which focuses on improving services to specific areas of the shrinking city.

"The question is, does the city have resources to really do it, and the answer to that is probably no," Brown said. "And so the issue is, what are your options?"

Although there might be some areas of the city that might not be lit "because nobody lives there," the goal is to fix the lights where Detroiters live, Brown said.

Fighting 'complex problem'

Some residents say they understand the city's lighting problem. Kim Schroeder of Midtown said she and others estimate at least 20 blocks are dark in her area, adding she knows it's a "complex problem."

"It's an incredibly more complex problem than people think, and that's one of the reasons that it hasn't been addressed, because it's huge," said Schroeder, 42. "There's absolutely no simple answer, and it's a huge amount of money to fix."

Schroeder said keeping up with "the theft alone is huge in every major city," and she has empathy for city officials who are struggling to light the city in economically tough and unsafe times.

"Lighting is core safety," Schroeder said. "If I was a police officer or a resident, I wouldn't want to go into a dark block. If I'm a thief or a criminal, I do want to hang out in a dark block."

Police Chief Ralph Godbee said to "lay some of the more systemic crime issues relative to Detroit at the feet of just lighting would be a severe simplification," but he agrees that keeping Detroit lit does help police combat crime.

"Lighting can enhance safety and security not only from a displacement standpoint, but from a perception standpoint," Godbee said. "You feel more comfortable in a well-lit area. It's more difficult for a potential perpetrator to go unnoticed."

Others aren't convinced the mayor and others can truly get a handle on the problem.

Darrell Stewart, 58, who lives in the Boston-Edison neighborhood, said a tour of Detroit found lights are out "long distance, short distance and in some areas where they have supposedly made upgrades, but they're still out."

"I don't understand some of the methods that they are using because they continue to say the same thing over and over," said Stewart, chairman of the Detroit Historical Neighborhood Coalition.

Crews trying to keep up

One of the city's premier neighborhoods, Indian Village boasts 350 mostly large, stately, eclectic homes that house diverse residents. The area is only three streets wide between Jefferson and Mack on the city's east side. But after thieves — in broad daylight and under the cover of darkness — stole every transformer on each pole, the area has been dark at night for months. The only light in the neighborhood comes from decorative gas lamps maintained by homeowners in front of their homes.

Public Lighting crews showed up to the neighborhood recently to repair 50 or so lights. Cornelius Johnson and a lighting department crew described the problem to neighborhood resident Wicks as he strolled down Seminole one block from his home. Transformers on every pole had been ripped out and wires hanging.

"One light at a time," Johnson told Wicks. "And pray nothing goes on anywhere else. This isn't all we do. But we'll get them on, don't worry about that. There's no guarantee that it will last, but we're giving it a good effort."

"It's good to see you here, I can tell you that much," Wicks told them.

The crew told Wicks that residents several blocks away had reported seeing a white utility truck pull up with a bucket-arm that was used to cut and steal wires to a newly installed transformer at the corner of Agnes and Seyburn.

"This is a tough city," Johnson said.

lfleming@detnews.com

(313) 222-2072

http://detnews.com/article/20111017/MET ... z1b2Y1Zdx3