Looking at streetlights

The decorative light posts along Big Horn Avenue were a subject of a recent discussion of Moorcroft's council after the vehicular destruction of a couple of the poles.

There are actually two issues the town is facing with the existing status of the posts: the first is the degradation of the pot metal bases, which rust within a short time from salt and moisture that inevitably finds inroads, making the structure unsound. The other is, of course, drivers hitting these posts, breaking them before running away, leaving the costs to the town and, ultimately, Moorcroft's citizens.

Neither of these problems are unusual, apparently, and many municipalities are dealing more aggressively with the costly situation. According to Public Works Director Cory Allison, "I can't find a pole that's just a solid metal pole, everything's got that pot aluminum on the bottom of them. That's some sort of safety device – If somebody hits it, it breaks... I called Gillette to see where they get their stuff and they put a two foot pillar and put the poles on top of that and they say it solves all their problems. They don't get the rust on them and you don't get people hitting them."

Mayor Ben Glenn liked this plan and said, "If that's what other towns are doing – elevating them with concrete – then, maybe that's our option, too... I see the way Gillette does it where they just run that pillar up there and it's out of the salt, out of the snow, it's out of everything. It's solid concrete."

Needing to replace at least these two poles, Allison shared an option he approves that is solar powered.

"We would still probably run the power through them so we can hang Christmas decorations off them... We'd save a lot of money with them... I'd like to get two of these if you guys are alright with it – try them, see if they work," he said.

"We have two broke now [and] instead of paying $6000, we can get them put in and everything for around $1500-$1600 apiece."

This amount, Councilman Dale Petersen reminded Allison, will go over the threshold of $1500 agreed upon by the council previously and would necessitate acquiring three quotes, causing the director to rethink his goal.

"We can do one and try...To bid these out, there're [many] different options," he said.

After contemplating the situation further, Mayor Ben Glenn suggested including the replacement of these light posts with a project, possibly the bike path.

"Are any of those going to be interrupted at that point?" he asked.

Town Engineer Heath Turbiville of HDR Engineering agreed with this idea, saying that "if and when" the town is granted construction funding, this could be included into the bike path project.

The governing body asked Allison to return with more information before a decision is made, including how many are structurally damaged and to what degree from the elements and if those from whom Allison requests quotes will provide price cuts for certain exchanges.