Aldermen seek streetlight solution

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How many guys does it take to fix a streetlight?
The answer to that question probably depends on the number of city employees who get involved.
The city of Perryville is seeking repair or replacement options following an incident a few weeks back.
On Christmas Eve, Friday, Dec. 24, a downtown streetlight fell on a car.
This is the second time a streetlight has fallen down in the past three or four years, according to city administrator Brent Buerck.
“This time it landed on a car, a Honda Civic,” Buerck told the Board of Aldermen Tuesday evening. “…We’ve got problems down there. We’ve had two (lightpoles) fall on their own, we’ve had two of them taken down because they were dangerous. We’ve got 30 years on them, which seems to be the going rate.”
Buerck met with the vendor Jan. 4 to discuss the city’s options.
“We have to get an order in for some poles, and it looks like it’s going to take eight to 14 weeks, depending on the poles themselves,” Buerck said. “If the board is comfortable with us proceeding, we’d like to bring back some options on the poles that we would recommend, then place an order.”
While Buerck informed the Board of Aldermen there could be delays in ordering replacements, multiple aldermen appeared to prefer a repair option first.
“Do you know what’s causing the problem?” asked Ward 1 alderman Tom Guth.
“The reason they’re rusting, do you know why? asked Ward 3 alderman Prince Hudson.
City officials believe they have pinpointed the source of the problem.
“We think that it’s water in the base,” said Public Works Director Jeff Layton. “The base is rusting from the inside out and there is no place for the water to get out.”
“It’s not doing it on all of them,” Layton said. “It’s just been a few of them, that we can see. …We did a tap test and a visual inspection of all the poles and it’s scary because it can break and you wouldn’t know unless you hear a thud when you tap it….We don’t know how many of them are bad, how many of them are good. It’s a peculiar thing.”
City staff has retrofitted several of the streetlights, adding outlets, running power to the bottom of the light pole base.
“There have been a lot of things done to those lights,” Buerck said. “Folks we’ve talked to, 30 years is about what you get on these lights.”
“We’re not sure what is holding the moisture because we haven’t taken down all of the poles to see what’s inside of them,” Layton said.
Repair or replace will be the question that needs answered in further detail before a final decision gets made.

“If we’re going to replace them, shouldn’t we look at the engineering with these new poles before we buy them to make sure it’s not going to happen again,” Hudson said.
“I like the way they look myself,” Guth said. “I think they do justice to the atmosphere of what we’ve got down there. My personal opinion is that I think they could be fixed.”
Guth suggested placing support gussets on the base of each pole.
“If you do that, it would add so much more strength to that pole,” Guth said. “I don’t know how much all of this would cost to do.”
Alderman Curt Buerck suggested doing a thorough inspection of the condition of the streetlight poles in place now. Guth agreed.
“You’ve got an idea (of) which ones are the worst ones,” Guth said. “Take a half dozen of them down, give them two weeks to get them done, put them back up and move on…It’s going to take 14 weeks to even get the other ones…you may get them fixed before you get new ones.”
Ward 1 Alderman Larry Riney suggested using a “bore scope” to look at the inside condition of the light poles.
Guth sought an answer on the total repair or replacement cost, and asked if $275,000 would remedy the problem.
“I would like to bring the bid back but I believe we can,” B. Buerck said. “I think that’s an all-in price…Technology has changed. There are a lot of things different on the lights. I would like to have lights with a speaker built in for over where we do the Veterans Day presentations. If you’ve been up there, the people in the back, particularly the older people, have a terrible time hearing because of the acoustics. We could drop a couple of speakers in. I’d like to have them set up where we can have good power on them into of stuff we’ve retrofitted where we can continue to support downtown.”
“That’s a big number to me,” Guth said. “…They look fine, other than needing paint…I wholeheartedly agree, we don’t need any more safety issues. Unless you address the problem with these new poles, they’re going to do the same thing.”
Wednesday morning, at about 8 a.m., Layton and Buerck, along with two more public works employees and three aldermen (Tom Guth, David Schumer and Prince Hudson) inspected several of the poles.
Further investigation is needed before the city can get a “truer price” on the repair or replacement cost, according to Buerck.
Another alderman thinks there could be delays in getting the replacement lights, if that is the route chosen.
“My concern is what if eight to 14 weeks turns into four to six months,” alderman Doug Martin said.
Buerck estimated there are about 32 single-bulb streetlights and 16 double bulb versions.
“There is water that gets into the pole, it just doesn’t get out,” Buerck said.
“I bet you the ones on the interior of the courthouse lawn are in good shape because they’re not down in those pavers,” Guth said.
“This has been part of the (city’s) capital improvement plan for a little bit, we were always looking ahead to get to this point,” Buerck said. “I didn’t expect another pole to fall.”