By Mary Owen
To LED or not LED – that’s the decision Stayton city councilors are mulling over about downtown Stayton streetlights.
“Two years ago, the council appropriated some funds to start to place decorative street lights on Third Avenue,” said Dan Fleishman, the city’s planning and development director. “At that time, we discovered that we could not do part of the job at one time. Because of the electrical wiring system, the entire job had to be done at once.”
Fast forward to this year, the city now has additional funding that will allow the project to move ahead, Fleishman said.
“The council’s initial direction to the staff was to look at replacing the existing metal poles and cobra-head lights with new decorative street lights,” said Dave Kinney, director of public works. “The city has included $20,000 in its Facility Maintenance Fund to do this project. The goal was to make the street more pedestrian friendly and enhance the appearance of the street.”
City staff researched renting poles from Pacific Power to avoid paying for and installing decorative fixtures, but found those available not strong enough to provide adequate lighting for a downtown commercial area, Fleishman said.
“That led us to look at other alternatives -upgrading the high pressure sodium cobra-head lamps there now or switching to an LED fixture on the existing poles,” he added. “The lighting analyses provided to us showed the LED fixtures would provide a better level of light throughout Third Avenue.”
Fleishman said using the more budget-friendly light-emitting diode lamps would improve existing lighting levels, particularly on the west side of Third Avenue, where levels are substandard. The semiconductor light source lamps would also provide more even lighting without dark area between lights, he said.
“The other advantage is that the LEDs provide a whiter light than the HPS lamps,” Fleishman added. “This provides better color rendering that the yellow-orange light given off by the HPS lamps.”
Third Avenue business owner Todd Jensen said the acorn lights may be pleasing to the eye, but lacked sufficient output to fulfill downtown needs.
“The difference in comparison to what we currently have was impressive,” Jensen said of the LED option. “Both sides of the street would be well lit, and the color of the light would be much more natural.”
A plus for installing LED lights is that the city could use existing wiring, a much more affordable route to take than putting acorn lamps that would mean tearing up the street from Washington to Water to replace conduit that was not the right “type,” Jensen said.
Kinney explained to city councilors at their last meeting that an estimated $60,000 to $80,000 would be needed to put in a secondary circuit on the west side to install decorative lamps. Cost to replace existing lamps with LED fixtures is about $7,500, with an estimated $12,500 to have the existing poles painted, he said.
Additionally, he suggested the council consider filling in the gaps in streetlights between Washington and Marion streets for a more consistent “corridor effect” for the full length of Third Avenue.
City councilors must now find a way to provide a lighting system that addresses pedestrian safety, downtown beautification and cost effectiveness.
“My concern is that $7,500 makes Third Avenue the brightest street in southeast Marion County, but doesn’t do anything for the street that we’re trying to do,” Mayor Scott Vigil said.
“When we have the money to tear the streets and sidewalks up and totally redo them, then we may be able to put up acorn lights that are viable,” he added. “You can only do with what you are given.”
The issue will be revisited at the Jan. 3 city council meeting, Fleishman said.
