Stockton residents who have been left in the dark by untended streetlights can take heart with a multimillion-dollar initiative the city is launching.
The City Council allocated $2 million this month to the Light Up Stockton project, which aims to repair or replace broken streetlights throughout the city.
In a resolution authorizing the funding, the city noted there are 367 nonfunctional lights — about 2% of the 19,800 streetlamps throughout Stockton.
Many of the lights are inoperable because they have been vandalized or had their copper stolen, city officials say.
The repairs will come as a relief not only to those who live or drive on the darkened streets, but to City Council members who have had to field complaints about the problems.
“There’s lots of areas within my district that don’t have functioning lights,” Councilmember Jason Lee said at the Feb. 4 meeting where funding for the project was approved. There are “lights that have either been broken or people have stolen the copper out,” he added.
Some areas are more blighted than others. For instance, Public Works Director Chad Reed told the council that the city has “not been successful so far” in keeping lights working in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard underpass.
Reed said the city is experimenting with solar-powered lights. They would be less vulnerable to copper thieves, and also suitable for installations that are difficult or expensive to connect to the electric grid. But it remains to be seen how well the lights would work in inclement weather.
In addition to replacing or repairing the hundreds of non-functioning streetlights, Stockton also will convert 133 decorative metal halide lamps in the downtown area to light-emitting diode, or LED, luminaires.