by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
After voting with the Finance Committee Monday to approve City funding for historic street lamps on Bay Street, Council vice president Elaine Brown said she wanted to end a downtown standard.
Brown said she wants a consistent policy spelling out who gets the costly lights free and who has to pay. The City currently decides case-by-case who pays the bill for the lamps, which are required by downtown design standards. Brown said the $4,000 lamps could be a financial burden on small businesses and non-profits who get stuck with the bill.
Brown said she was preparing legislation that would define when the City pays. She wants downtown non-profits exempted, particularly when the City subsidizes their operations.
“We want to make sure that when these organizations receive City money that the money is spent furthering the work they’re supposed to be doing,” said Brown. “That money’s not supposed to go to pay for public lighting.”
For instance, Community Connections, which offers an after-school child care program and other family support, was originally charged $40,000 to install eight of the lamps in front of its Duval Street office. After Brown intervened the City agreed to pay. Executive Director Pat Hannan said the bill would have been daunting.
“We’re building a very small building, and the cost of the lights in relation to the rest of the project would have been quite a burden to pay for,” said Hannan.
“More than half our funding comes from the City, and then we were turning around and spending it on street lights.”
Hannan said she appreciated the City’s offer to pay the lighting bill, but Brown said other non-profits, without an advocate on the Council, could get stuck with similar bills in the future. By specifically exempting them, Brown said the City could remove a large hurdle to their success downtown.