Holaday said she has recognized some glaring problems with the maps not keeping with the criteria for shut-offs set by the Energy Advisory Committee. She said she was concerned that publicly releasing the maps would cause alarm among residents.
"I estimate that about 90 percent of the streetlights marked are wrong," Holaday warned in a note accompanying the electronic maps. "So, I passed ward sections of these maps to city councilors and asked that they review and return to me by Dec. 13 with their corrections and recommendations."
Holaday said councilors have not yet made their recommendations. The city paid $800 to a consultant to make the maps, said Andrew Flanagan, the mayor's director of policy and administration.
$800 and it's almost completely in accurate? I feel like I'm missing something, but that's how this entire process of shutting off the street lights seems to be going. I just can't figure this out. Is this a cost-saving measure or an energy savings measure? Both sound nice but at what price?
And how are we going to evaluate the impact of this fairly if we can't know with a great deal of confidence what street lights will be dark in the dead of winter when I'm walking home from work on the street rather than along our dangerous decrepit sidewalks?
Lastly, I don't know if this issue is linked or "de-linked" with the plan to purchase poles. The mayor says linked, one reader says de-linked. But I'm siding with the skeptics on the council. I see a utility company trying to unload some aging and increasingly obsolete infrastructure.
I'm willing to have my mind changed. But I wonder about this, if the city stands to save $100,000 a year by purchasing the poles, why is National Grid willing to sell them? Doesn't it stand to make $100,000 less? Why the charity? We certainly can't buy poles from a competitor.
The answer may be simple, so go ahead, someone make me look foolish.
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