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City leaders say 'seasonal spring thaw' to blame for streetlight outages in District 14

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Posted at 8:10 PM, Mar 22, 2022
and last updated 2022-03-22 21:15:31-04

MILWAUKEE — The city of Milwaukee is responding after residents complained about streetlight outages in District 14.

According to District 14 Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic, the citywide circuit infrastructure challenge is "made more profound by the seasonal spring thaw."

Monday night, Dimitrijevic issued a joint letter with the Commissioner of Public Works Karen Dettmer. The letter outlined the city's response to the outages.

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"The end of winter, pre-spring thaw creates outages throughout the city each year," the letter says. "Water seeps into the ground and causes damage to our circuits. Unfortunately,the street light circuits are also due to an infrastructure upgrade to improve their reliability. This expensive investment has been previously underfunded and is overdue. We have supported and worked to allocate American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) federal relief funds for additional improvements to street lighting circuitry to expedite this process."

The letter says the Department of Public Works (DPW) has reassigned staff to address electrical street lighting outages and keep response down. DPW has also been scheduling eight to 10 crews daily to eliminate the backlog of requests.

Residents are urged to call 414-286-CITY (2489) to report outages or you can report outages online by clicking here.

You can read the full letter below:

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