Dear Editor,
It is 4pm Friday afternoon (March 18) and it is blackout again in the Meadow Brook area. These power outages have recently been ‘beefed up’; maybe they are compensating for the 300-plus street lamps lit throughout the day in Georgetown.
From my vantage point I usually see three brightly lit street lamps that never go out during the day. These don’t have the reddish light that the weaker lamps disperse. Their illumination is a strong radiant white, suggesting a greater consumption of electricity, and at night it is obviously clear that their wattage is a higher rating. One night I saw a man searching for a tiny object he had dropped in the vicinity of that street lamp. He soon found it given the intensity of the light.
I don’t know who is footing the bill for these unnecessary daytime street lamps, but they are a big waste since they cannot match God’s gift to us. So often we hear ‘switch off something if it’s not in use.’ Who is responsible for switching these off? Is it the Mayor and City Council? Is it GPL? Or is it the government? I am confused when it comes to the affairs of Georgetown.
What I am certain of, however, is that these daytime lit street lamps, while at work on a bright sunny day, add heat to the city and use up energy which, no doubt, translates into foreign exchange. Can we afford them? And the crux of the matter is that where light is needed like at Beterverwagting (BV) bus terminal and Longden and America Streets on a dark night, the lamps behave like fire-flies. If these lamps cannot be fixed, certainly an exchange of location would be beneficial since a lot of roguery and crime can take place between the flashes of those two giant fire-flies in that area. Maybe this is another case of who is to bell the cat?
Yours faithfully,
Hilmon Henry
