Haverhill Mayor James J. Fiorentini.
The director of Haverhill’s Division of Public Works (DPW) will lead the city’s efforts to repair broken streetlights, including those owned by utility provider National Grid.
Haverhill DPW Director Michael Stankovich has begun to coordinate “the overall street lighting program” of city and utility-owned streetlights with outside companies and consultants “to provide them direction,” according to Mayor James J. Fiorentini. He asked Stankovich to take on the task as he informed the city council of his decision to hire an outside company, Siemens Street Lighting Group, to repair malfunctioning city-owned streetlights.
“I share the council’s frustration with the broken streetlights downtown and in other locations,”Fiorentini said. “The vast majority of streetlights in the city are not owned by us. It is estimated that National Grid owns about 5,100 street lights, while the city owns about 700. The city-owned street lights are ornamental lights, which are primarily located on the downtown streets. However, there are also several hundred ornamental lights along the side streets throughout the city.”
Meanwhile, Stankovich has brought in an outside electrical engineer to assess street light load boxes in the downtown. He will be asking Siemens to conduct an audit of the city owned lights, including “regular night time visits to the lights,” Fiorentini said.
City Councilor Mary Ellen Daly O’Brien.
City councilors, including Mary Ellen Daly O’Brien, have spoken out over broken downtown streetlights since last September, including a recent council meeting and on WHAV’s “Open Mike” program.
“My concern was safety, quality of life. You know let’s just make downtown the most user friendly we can,” Daly O’Brien told WHAV.
“Some, but not all, of the streetlights on Wingate Street have been fixed and we have received a number of positive messages from the merchants there,” Fiorentini said. “Please be advised that in some instances, street light repair can take some time due to warranty claims process.”
Hopefully Haverhill can demonstrate some green leadership and convert to solid-state lighting like LED technology, such as was done in towns like Wellesley and avoid the mistakes of towns like Andover that simply turned off many lights. LEDs save both energy and maintenance.
If they really cared about downtown, they would eliminate the parking fees and actually show some support to the current businesses. Though bringing in a food truck to compete with these people that stayed downtown through thick and thin is more important to the inept Mayor.
And how about the meals tax too ??
And how about allowing us to park in the city garage for free seeing that “WE” paid to build it??!!!
This mayor is a GD thief if there ever was one…..
Who was the genius that decided to use the low intensity yellow lights in all the street lights ? I know the answer but was wondering if most other people do ? Those lights are terrible at actually “lighting” things up. It’s always someone else’s fault with this Mayor. He never takes responsibility for anything unless he gets caught red handed……..sounds awfully familiar doesn’t it ??
Jack, you are so right…as usual!!
It just goes to show, once again, how absolutely incompetent this mayor is. And why are we as taxpayers paying an outside company to evaluate street lights not owned by the city? How much is that going to cost? And where is the legislative clout in this city with National Grid? The mayor and/or Dempsey can’t push the right buttons to get NG in the city to fix all the problems. This is what you get in government…total incompetence and lack of any motivation.