Posted by Dennis Herrick on January 29, 2010 at 10:32:30:
Wonder if Unitil is pulling this scam in southern NH, the seacoast and in the Concord area?
It's 11 PM! Do you know where your street lights are and more importantly what you're being charged for them?
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City gets 15 bills for streetlights
By Emily Devlin, edevlin@sentinelandenterprise.com
Posted: 01/29/2010 06:32:16 AM EST
FITCHBURG -- Department of Public Works Commissioner Lenny Laakso said Unitil Corp. has not accurately tracked 100 city streetlights during the last several months, which is causing a delay in turning the lights back on.
Laakso first announced a discrepancy between the city's light records and those of Unitil's at Mayor Lisa Wong's regular press conference Wednesday. Laakso provided more details on the problem Thursday.
The city receives 15 separate bills for city streetlights, which are broken up by geographic sections of the city, Laakso said.
In September, he started to notice that those bills were coming in higher than he projected, based on the number of streetlights in use after Wong ordered 63 percent of city streetlights turned off last March to save money.
Laakso estimated that lights were costing the city 4 percent more than they should have under Wong's reduction, which he said equates to between $8,000 and $10,000 annually.
Laakso said he brought his concerns to John DiNapoli, Municipal and Community Services Manager for Unitil.
"He's taken the ball and making sure they're addressing it. But it turned out to be a lot of work for them, because they have a lot of records that need to be updated," Laakso said.
Laakso said he hopes to hash it out with DiNapoli by the end of next week.
Unitil Spokesman Wesley Eberle said the discrepancy was likely caused by the "unique situation," the company encountered when Wong
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ordered the lights turned off last year.
He said it's possible that the city has been paying for lights that are not on, but also that the city has not been charged for lights that are on.
Eberle said DiNapoli and his staff will sit down with Laakso and his staff before two weeks is up to reconcile the records.
"We're talking about a very small number of lights," Eberle said. "If there is a refund due, of course that would be refunded to the city immediately."
Wong said the city has been diligent about keeping streetlight records.
"We've kept track of every single light that we want on and don't want on," Wong said.
Wong said she believes there are cases of lights that are on and shouldn't be, and lights that aren't on and should be.
"We're most concerned about the ones that should be on," Wong said.