The Melton Administration successfully passed an ordinance that approved a budgetary allocation of $3,451,200.00 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars to address all municipally owned streetlights throughout the City of Gary. The ordinance, which was passed 7-0 by council vote with two members absent, authorized funding for the replacement and repair of all city owned streetlights and poles as well as the upgrading of all fixtures to LED.
Mayor Eddie Melton expressed his support for the initiative. “For years, our residents have raised concerns about the state of our streetlights in Gary. The Melton Administration recognizes that working streetlights play a critical role in ensuring public safety. Today, we’re taking action with our Relight the City Program. Thanks to the Biden Administration’s support, we can leverage American Rescue Plan Act dollars to relight our city, one streetlight at a time.”
The project will be managed by the City of Gary’s Public Works Department, who recently completed an assessment of the city’s approximately 2000 municipally owned streetlights in partnership with the company TWiG Technologies, Inc. The company was paid $35,000.00 to complete a physical survey of the entire city, including all streetlight assets located along all public roads and alleyways. The assessment did not include traffic lights. At the end of their assessment, the company delivered detailed information on the location and condition of each streetlight and maps of streetlights for each district. This information allowed the city to calculate an estimated cost to address all streetlights.
Now that the budget has been approved, the City of Gary will put out a 30-day Request for Proposals (RFP) for vendors. Once a vendor is selected, they will begin to update and replace the overhead streetlights throughout the city. The city expects the project will go smoothly and quickly.
“We’ll address this project in phases and prioritize areas of the city that we have identified as having the most outages, such as Districts 2, 3, and 4.” said City of Gary Chief Operating Officer, Michael Suggs. “We’re estimating that we will be able to repair and upgrade all of our city-owned streetlights by early 2025.”
