Ed. Note: This is a copy of a letter sent to City Light Superintendant Jorge Carrasco by Jennifer Macuiba, president of the Ballard District Council.

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 nonfunctioning streetlights 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 Dec. 21 and Dec. 30 and reported 198 streetlights 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 Northwest 65th Street in 2010 and north of Northwest 65th Street 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 streetlight deficiencies identified in the attached spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet identifies streetlight deficiencies by location and pole number or inventory number.

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 that perform this vital work 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 streetlight 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