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Support for lighting district goes dark
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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Alice Marrow, of Austintown, stands outside her home on Thursday afternoon after commenting on the overturned street light issue.
By Elise Franco
Austintown
Support for a lighting district in the Meander Run neighborhood fell apart after Ohio Edison revealed the cost for each resident.
When a petition in favor of a lighting district was passed around the Austintown neighborhood several months ago, it garnered support from more than half of the homeowners, said township Administrator Mike Dockry.
Dockry said 55 of the 88 lots’ owners signed the petition.
But that support eroded after Ohio Edison did an engineering study to determine how much it would cost to install 23 street lights on 16-foot fiberglass poles along the neighborhood’s five roads — Meander Run, Edgewater Street, Backwater Cove, South Clearwater Cove and North Clearwater Cove.
Dockry said the district would cost each homeowner in the neighborhood about $315 for an installation fee and an additional usage fee of about $13 per year.
“When they sign the petition, they don’t know the cost of the project,” he said. “We provide all of that information at a hearing after the engineering study is complete.”
The drop in support prompted trustees during their Nov. 8 meeting to deny further pursuit of the lighting district.
Shelley Richards of North Clearwater said she and all of her neighbors thank the trustees for listening after they changed their minds.
“Every one of these neighbors is glad it was [voted down],” she said.
Dockry said because the lighting district process was initiated by residents and not trustees, it’s not a surprise that the board followed what those residents wanted.
“The board usually goes along with the residents. They’ve done what the majority wants in those instances,” he said. “This is not something that the board initiates or wants to do. It’s something that an individual has to initiate.”
Alice Morrow, of South Clearwater Cove, said she initially favored the idea of a lighting district and signed the petition, but an informational letter made her think twice.
“I decided that it would change the atmosphere of the neighborhood and make it less of a country setting,” she said.
Morrow said she spoke with several of her neighbors who opposed the lighting district because of the cost.
“People felt our taxes were already high enough,” she said. “That fact also made me stop and think.”
Richards said she was never in favor of the street lights, mainly because of that extra expense.
“Our property taxes are already too high in the first place,” she said. “We should have already had lights in front of our cul de sac instead of having to pay for it.”
Dockry said many other Austintown neighborhoods do have lighting districts, and the main reason for them is safety.
But a safety issue in the Meander Run neighborhood isn’t something Morrow said she worries about.
“It’s such a closed-off development that I never feel unsafe, even without the lights,” she said.