Town Council OKs First Step Toward Possible Purchase of Streetlights

Barrington spends more than $200,000 a year on streetlights. 

If the town owned those same streetlights under the new Municipal Streetlights Investment Act, it could save $70,000 a year, according to Peter Clifford, a member of the Barrington Energy Committee.

Barrington’s investment in the streetlights, therefore, could be paid back in three years, Clifford said.

The town needs to confirm those numbers, though, with a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, Clifford told the Town Council last week. And the councilors agreed.

Voting unanimously, the Town Council gave Jeff Brodhead of the Washington County Regional Planning Council the approval to collect the information needed from National Grid to verify those numbers.  Brodhead’s organization wrote the news streetlight act and monitored its passage through the General Assembly.

The information to be collected and analyzed by Broadhead and the planning council for Barrington is designed to allow the Town Council to determine if owning the streetlights is in the town’s best interests.

Among the information to be sought from National Grid are the location of each streetlight, each item of lighting equipment on the poles, and the original price and year each item was put into service, and its depreciation status.