To save money city turns off street lights. Man killed in darkened parking lot

[The Straight Story]

El Ranchito employee gunned down in darkened parking lot

Colorado Springs Gazette

A 62-year-old man died after being shot Sunday night in a parking lot that has been dark since the city turned off the streetlight in a controversial money saving measure, a neighboring business owner said.

Gaspar Martinez, owner of Ruskin Liquor near Airport Road and Academy Boulevard, blamed growing violence in the area — and the city turning off the streetlight in front of the business — for the man’s death during an attempted robbery.

...

Representatives from the Colorado Springs Police Department, Colorado Springs Fire Department, Colorado Springs Utilities and the city’s traffic division served on a task force that decided which lights were expendable. So far, about 8,000 lights have been turned off, and the city hopes to turn off an additional 2,000. In all, the city expects to save $1.2 million this year in energy and maintenance costs.

He said roughly 500 people have asked the city to reconsider and turn a streetlight back on. An additional 520 streetlights have been adopted by residents who pay the cost of keeping them on.

http://www.gazette.com/articles/springs-97715-police-colorado.html

[stray cat]

1. budget cuts effect everyone but no one seems to be pushing for tax increases across the board

given the economy I'm not sure thats a good idea either. Things cost money

[BrklynLiberal]

2. i am waiting for that to happen here in NYC. They are really taking their time fixing street

lights that are burned out. All the money they save will be lost when they are sued when the first person is injured or killed on one of the darkened streets.

[Bluebear]

3. But plenty of money for the Pentagon.

[RC]

4. Yep, plenty of money for the Pentagon.

http://timws.com/number1/number1.html

[chill_wind]

5. Oh, you got that right, Bluebear.

:thumbsup:

[MUAD_DIB]

8. Freedom isn't Free!

:sarcasm:

I wonder how many black programs the pentagon is wasting money on right now.

[RamboLiberal]

11. This one is a local tax issue and many of the tea party types

in Colorado Springs are behind these cuts.

[jaxx]

13. Focus on the Family ought to pay for some lights.

Give them something to do with their money instead of preying on the citizens.

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. terrible. Turn the lights back on. Get those solar ones.

[Hawkeye-X]

7. I'm not surprised - That city is a Randian wet dream.

Let them rot, and hope the fine folks down south of me figure it out that cutting government is not helping anything, and "adopting" anything costs money. Lots of money.

That is a perfect example of greed before public service.

Hawkeye-X

[RamboLiberal]

12. You got that right - WSJ had an article on this 2 weeks ago

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Like many American cities, this one is strapped for cash. Tax collections here have fallen so far that the city has turned off one-third of its 24,512 street lights.

But unlike many cities, this one is full of people who are eager for more government cutbacks.

The town council has been bombarded with emails telling it to close community centers. Letters to the local newspaper call for shrinking the police department and putting the city-owned utility up for sale. A commission is studying whether to sell the municipal hospital. Another, made up of local businessmen, will opine on whether to slash the salaries and benefits of city employees.

"Let's start cutting stupid programs that cost taxpayers a pot of money," says Tim Austin, a 48-year-old former home builder now looking for a new line of work. "It's so bullying and disrespectful to take money from one man's pocket and put it in another's."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303411604575168030083419748.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

[Blue-Jay]

9. Here's the good part:

"The killing came a day before Colorado Springs City Councilman Sean Paige questioned in an e-mail why streetlights throughout the city had been turned off to save money while the affluent Old North End neighborhood had been spared and still had all its streetlights."

Way to go!

[southernyankeebelle]

10. Our little rural town spent thousands of dollars putting in new lovely lights. Now they are going

to turn them off. Cost cutting.