THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 6, 1996 TAG: 9610040171
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 45 lines
The dark ages may end in 1996 for residents of some city neighborhoods where street lighting has been on hold for at least five years.
On Tuesday, the City Council decided to brighten the nights of those residents by appropriating $310,000 to wipe out a long list of street light requests.
The money comes from the city's $20.5 million year-end surplus, which the council two weeks ago decided to divvy up among various municipal projects.
Included in the surplus spending plan were outlays of $355,000 for computers for the Virginia Beach Campus of Tidewater Community College and $385,000 to upgrade computer systems at nine city high schools and to furnish two-way radios for all city school buses.
The council also decided to hold out $7.2 million of the surplus for next year's capital improvement budget.
Since 1991, street light requests have piled up to a point where the city would have to spend $550,000 to accommodate them, said City Engineer John Herzke.
``Five years ago we were in a cash crunch and couldn't take care of street light requests, which we get every year,'' he said. ``Until last year we didn't have any money to pay for 'em. Last year we got $100,000. This year we got another $100,000.
``When the council had its retreat this year it decided to catch up on the street light backlog.''
That list of requests now actually numbers 136, but that figure is deceptive, Herzke said. It isn't an accurate count of how many lights ac tually are needed on streets and roads from Bayside to Pungo.
Some requests come from residents who simply want one street light, others are from neighborhoods or civic leagues that want up to a dozen lights to illuminate their streets.
``It's a pretty big list,'' Herzke conceded, ``but the backlog should be taken care of by the end of the year.''
Not everybody who asks for a street light gets one, Herzke added. Once a request is made, Public Works Department staff members are dispatched to determine whether or not street lights are warranted.
Among the factors considered in granting a request are things like neighborhood crime prevention and traffic safety.
``Our main purpose is to light up our roadways,'' Herzke said. by CNB