City leaders this month bemoaned the number of nonfunctioning streetlights residents fund through assessments, but a $10 million plan now in its infancy would change all the bulbs to modern LED fixtures, The Blade has learned.

Paul Toth, Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, said the agency could finance switching the city’s 28,000 lights owned by Toledo Edison to LED.

“It costs $344 to replace a standard cobra-head streetlight with an LED,” Mr. Toth said. “On a high-pressure sodium light, the city pays $11 per fixture, per month for the light, the energy, and the maintenance.”

If the port authority pays the $344 upfront cost, the monthly cost decreases to $7.45. The city could use that $3.55 per fixture monthly savings to repay the port authority.

Mr. Toth said citywide LED lighting would make Toledo more attractive to potential businesses and residents.

“Absolutely if you go into a neighborhood that is all new, bright LED lights instead of that yellow hazy light, it will be better,” he said. “We have replaced all of our lights at Toledo Express in the parking lot and I think there is huge value.”

Mr. Toth said the citywide LED plan started when the port authority last month reviewed a $35,000 grant request from the Historic South Initiative, a neighborhood revitalization organization, to increase the level of street lighting in the Old South End along Broadway and adjoining cross-streets from the I-75 overpass to Danny Thomas Park.

The requested money would have funded the first phase of a $73,600 project to convert 184 lights in the area.

“They got together and decided they wanted to have better lighting to help make them safer,” Mr. Toth said. “That kind of checked off the whole idea of replacing lights with LED.”

Instead of providing that grant, the port authority is considering the citywide plan.

Assessments

Toledo City Council last week approved assessments on property owners for the cost of street lighting. The amount — $4.1 million for citywide lighting and $249,051 for downtown — doesn’t factor in faulty fixtures.

Several councilmen complained that the number of nonworking lights is excessive, which was based on observations.

Councilman Tyrone Riley cast the lone no vote against the citywide lighting assessment.

“Overall, I believe they are being neglected and not properly dealt with,” Mr. Riley said. “I get complaints left and right constantly about lights not on or not working properly and when I try to get some attention to it, it doesn’t get addressed in a quick manner.”

He cited the 1400 block of Macomber Street in central Toledo as a problem area. A Blade review of the area found several nonworking streetlights.

“The system that is in place doesn’t work effectively so the city needs to be responsible or we have to find a way we can address this problem in a quicker fashion,” he said.

Councilman Sandy Spang also questioned the number of nonfunctioning streetlights.

“I counted five on my way home,” Ms. Spang said after a council meeting. “The city and the assessed citizen pays the same rate whether the bulb is dead or not. That’s why it is so important that citizens report outages. Edison tries to get to them within a few days, but we need to encourage reporting, both by citizens and city employees.”

Numbers debated

The number of nonfunctioning lights is debated.

In 2010, a city intern wrote a report that claimed more than one-fourth of Toledo’s streetlights did not work, and another quarter did not give off enough light to illuminate the ground fully.

The nearly 1,000-page report, written by Stephen Leggett, who at the time was a University of Toledo law student and later worked for the city, estimated that 27.3 percent of all Toledo’s streetlights were out.

The Bell administration in December, 2010, acknowledged streetlights throughout Toledo did not work, but disputed Mr. Leggett’s figures.

Councilman Larry Sykes last week requested a more recent study of streetlights. Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson’s chief of staff, Mark Sobczak, said he believed the city had conducted a more recent study but the report was not located as of Friday.

Chris Eck, Toledo Edison spokesman, said the number reported in 2010 was grossly exaggerated.

“We think right now 0.004 percent are out ... so 99.996 percent are lit,” Mr. Eck said. “The caveat there is some of them are out and we don’t know it yet.”

Mr. Eck said the utility “usually gets to them in the same week” after a broken light is reported.

“We have approximately 116 lights reported as out of the 28,000 in the city of Toledo,” he said last month.

“As of this afternoon, Toledo Edison data shows 124 of more than 50,000 lights in the total Toledo Edison footprint are not in service, which is 0.025 percent from the end of [November],” he said.

“One reason the number grew is the change back to standard time,” he said. “People notice the outages more because they’re now out after dark more regularly. Also, we are sure there are lights out now that have not yet been reported, so the numbers will continue to fluctuate.”

The utility repaired or changed 95.5 percent of reported streetlight outages within three days, he said.

Streetlight outages can be reported by calling 1-888-544-4877 and saying “streetlight” after the greeting. You can also visit toledoedison.com and click on the “report lighting problem” option. The utility will want your name, phone number, the address where the streetlight is located, the number on the utility pole, and the problem with the streetlight.

Jodi Gross, community builder for the East Toledo Family Center and One Voice for East Toledo, said East Toledo streets are well lit.

“In my neighborhood, all of my lights are in working condition and they should be if we want safer streets,” Ms. Gross said. “You do have spots that need to be identified and people should report them.”

Despite the utility’s assertions, people living in some of Toledo’s oldest neighborhoods wonder why their streets are so dimly lit or why they are dark.

Tina Scott, a former Block Watch leader in North Toledo, said a well-lit neighborhood is safer.

“Some are too dim and don’t shine the way they should. It does make a difference for criminals because they hide and lurk in the dark,” Ms. Scott said. “They need to be brighter. Look at Parakeet Avenue right off Sylvania and you will see it is just terrible. There are lights but they are scattered and it’s impossible to see.”

Contact Ignazio Messina at: imessina@theblade.com or 419-724-6171 or on Twitter @IgnazioMessina.

First Published December 11, 2016, 5:00 a.m.