Duncan’s Christine Dandy feels she has been caught up in confusing bureaucracy while trying to get a broken streetlight fixed near her home.
Dandy lives on the corner of Coronation Avenue and Chesterfield Avenue and she recently noticed that a streetlight near the south end of Chesterfield Avenue has not been working properly for some time.
She said the light comes on as its should when darkness falls each evening, but shuts off a few hours later plunging a large section of the street into darkness for the rest of the night.
“It’s a safety issue for people in this neighbourhood and many are afraid to walk in that area at night in the dark,” Dandy said.
“Cars go up and down that road at all hours of the night, and there’s always people walking through the neighbourhood.”
So she called the City of Duncan, which she thought would be responsible for the streetlights in the city’s jurisdiction.
From what she understood from a conversation with a city official the municipality could nothing about it as it’s actually the responsibility of BC Hydro to deal with broken streetlights on their poles.
“When I contacted BC Hydro, I was told that it was the responsibility of the City of Duncan," Dandy said.
"It’s all very frustrating. When someone gets hurt out there at night, who will take the responsibility?”
In an email, BC Hydro acknowledged that it was the Crown corporation’s responsibility, but Dandy needed to reach out to the City of Duncan to report the issue.
“The request must be received from the District of Duncan,’ BC Hydro said.
“They have access to the streetlight-management system. (Dandy) will need to reach out to them to report this as we will not be reaching out to them on her behalf.”
When contacted by the Citizen, the City of Duncan confirmed that it had reported the broken streetlight to BC Hydro’s streetlight-management system.
“I’m glad that the issue is finally cleared up, but now I wonder how long it will take BC Hydro to finally fix the light,” she said.
