Who should pay to power a highway's streetlights? Small town mayor, province disagree
CBC
The mayor of a small B.C. community says the municipality will not cover the electricity bill for new highway streetlights in its jurisdiction, and that the province should be footing the bill instead.
Mayor Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater, about 111 kilometres north of Kamloops, says B.C. Hydro asked the district to foot the electricity bill for newly installed streetlights on the part of Highway 5 that runs through Clearwater.
The power authority made the request after discovering neither the municipality nor the province had paid the bills for the old streetlights.
New LED streetlights were installed earlier this year as part of B.C. Hydro's plan to replace more than 90,000 streetlights in the province that use bulbs with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), by the end of 2025.
Powering the lights would cost the district, home to nearly 2,400 people, more than $2,500 annually.
Blackwell argues the province should foot the bill because the old lights were installed in December 2004, three years before Clearwater was incorporated as a municipality.
He says he has asked the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure to cover the bill for the new lights, but the ministry declined because the lights are located in Clearwater's jurisdiction.
Blackwell adds that according to the ministry, B.C. Hydro may remove the lights anytime at its discretion, if the district does not want to pay for the electricity.
Blackwell took to social media to express his frustration, and joked about shutting down the portion of Highway 5 in the district, to hold a street hockey tournament in an effort to raise funds.
"This is bureaucracy at its best," he told host Shelley Joyce on CBC's Daybreak Kamloops.
"The ridiculous madness of this — you gotta just shake your head at it."
According to the B.C. Municipal Act, a municipal council may adopt bylaws to regulate highway lighting, such as setting penalties on damages and levying property tax to finance the lights.
However, it does not specify what should be done if the lights were installed before a municipality was incorporated.