Councilman not buying city's story on streetlights

City officials say they mistakenly left all the streetlights on around the Broadmoor resort and the affluent Old North End neighborhood despite darkening about a third in almost every other area of Colorado Springs to save money this year.

But Councilman Sean Paige said Monday that he has doubts that it was a mistake because of an e-mail written by Jim Thomas, a field engineering supervisor for Colorado Springs Utilities.

“We hoped to protect the Utility and the City Council by not turning off these lights while the homeowners are still paying for them on their taxes,” Thomas wrote April 20, referring to the Old North End’s ornamental streetlights.

Paige said his reading of the e-mail is that city officials were talking in past tense about earlier decisions.

“I read it as at least leaving a strong impression in my mind that this was a conscious choice, and they did it to protect City Council and the Utility board,” Paige said. “Protect them from what? I can only assume what they meant was protect them from the wrath of certain groups or neighbor groups or something. I don’t know.”

Thomas could not be reached for comment.

The city started turning off streetlights in February but skipped over the ornamental streetlights on Lake Circle and the first block of Lake around the Broadmoor as well as on Tejon Street north of Uintah Street, city spokesman John Leavitt said.

He said officials mistakenly believed that the Broadmoor and Old North End residents were paying for the operation and maintenance of those streetlights.

But after a complaint and further investigation, the city realized that wasn’t true, he said.

City traffic engineer Dave Krauth said there are between 30 and 40 ornamental streetlights that will be turned off around the Broadmoor and in the Old North End unless they’re adopted.

The lights are 100 watts and don’t use as much energy as regular streetlights, which made them less of a priority, Krauth said.

Leavitt said the city tried to treat all areas equally.

“We started in the Broadmoor Bluffs area to turn off lights and fanned out from there because we were very conscious of what the appearance could be,” he said.

The city has turned off about 10,000 of the estimated 24,500 streetlights in Colorado Springs, Leavitt said. The city plans to turn off about 1,100 more to meet a cost-saving goal of $1.2 million this year, he said.

More than 600 have been turned back on under a streetlight adoption program.
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