Greenville Council discusses upgrading street lights

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GREENVILLE — City street lighting was a topic of discussion during the Greenville City Council meeting Tuesday night.

Safety/Service Director Curt Garrison presented council with a proposal from Miami Valley Lighting regarding a new contract with the city and a plan to upgrade the city’s street lights.

Greenville currently has two types of street lighting: Mercury Vapor (MV) lighting, which appears white, and High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lighting, which appears yellow.

MV lights have become obsolete and there are no longer replacement bulbs for this style. Miami Valley Lighting has offered to replace the MV lights with LED lights, which provide better visibility and are exceedingly more energy efficient. The switchout would be completed by 2020 as part of a 10-year contract with the company.

A total of 972 fixtures (691 MV, 281 HPS) would be replaced. Currently, the city with its existing mixture of MV and HPS lighting, pays a monthly fee of $8,862, not including the cost of steel pole replacement. Switching from MV lights to HPS lights would cost the city $9,564 monthly. In comparison, switching MV to LED lights would cost $9,190 per month, approximately a monthly savings of $400.

“We have two options: We replace [MV lights] with the yellow light, or we replace it with LED,” said Garrison. “Switching out to LED is actually cheaper than the yellow HPS.”

Garrison told council that switching all lights, including HPS lights, to LED would incur additional costs, whereas under the current set-up, when an HPS light fails, Miami Valley Lighting will switch it out for an LED light at no additional cost.

“It is my opinion, my recommendation to city council, that we keep the yellow light, the HPS, and do it as necessary,” said Garrison.

Miami Valley Lighting is also offering to replace 65 of the aging metal “cobra head” style light poles in the city with 23- or 30-foot spun aluminum poles. There would be no up-front cost and the city would be billed a monthly service charge of $5.75 per aluminum replacement pole. The city could also replace older steel poles with wooden poles, which would incur no monthly charge.

“I think it is a good package. It offers some options that we didn’t necessarily have in the last contract,” said Garrison.

Mayor Mike Bowers congratulated the Main Street Greenville organization on receiving its national accreditation from Heritage Ohio and reminded Greenville citizens about this year’s First Friday event, the “Culinary Tour” taking place on March 4. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at Brenda’s Beanery beginning February 8. Only 120 tickets are available.

“All of their events were very well attended in 2015, and we would like to see that carry on in 2016,” said Bowers.

The mayor also addressed concerns regarding reports of poor sound quality of council’s meetings as televised on GPAT Channel 5, the city’s public access station. Bowers said Time Warner Cable announced it is moving to an all-digital format beginning in April and he hopes the upgrade will improve viewers’ ability to hear the meeting’s audio more clearly.

In other business, council approved an ordinance appropriating money for swimming pool and park maintenance; an ordinance increasing street openings and reducing the bond for Vectren Energy’s gas main and lateral installation project; a resolution authorizing $5,000 in financial assistance to Union Cemetery; and a resolution authorizing submissions for federal and state grant funding, as well as elderly and disabled grant funding, for the city’s transit operations for calendar year 2017.

Council also authorized the purchase of one Light Transit Vehicle (LTV) with a wheelchair lift in conjunction with the 2017 grant application.

The Greenville City Council meets the first and third Tuesday of every month at 7:30 p.m. Meetings are open to the public. For more information on city happenings, go online to www.cityofgreenville.org.

By Erik Martin

[email protected]

The writer may be reached at 937-569-4314. Join the conversation and get updates on Facebook search Darke County Sports or Advocate 360. For more features online go to dailyadvocate.com.

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