Portage Park Woman Says Her Block Has Been Left In The Dark, After Streetlights Were Taken Out For Water Main Work And Never Replaced
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The City of Chicago is spending $160 million replacing hundreds of thousands of streetlights from low-efficiency bulbs to LEDs – and that doesn't sit well with a Portage Park woman who has been trying to get her old streetlights back up and running for months.
She reached out to us for help, and CBS 2's Marie Saavedra went digging Tuesday.
"When you go from one street that's well-lit to one street that's half-lit, it makes a big difference," said Benita Pennie.
Pennie has spent almost 30 years on the same block of Belle Plaine Avenue in the Portage Park community. But for the first time, the homeowner has been feeling left in the dark.
"It's like the city has forgotten us," Pennie said.
Last summer, she received a letter warning of water main work on her street, near Laramie Avenue and Irving Park Road. City crews removed several streetlights for construction, but Pennie says when project finished in February, they still weren't replaced.
"It's not like I just ignored it and didn't call and let anybody know," she said.
She called her alderman and 311. Within the last month, she said two permanent streetlights showed up, and her 311 complaint showed it was completed.
But Pennie insists it's not.
"Doesn't somebody realize there's supposed to be two more?" she said.
To see the issue when it really matters, we came back here at night. The view from Pennie's end of the block looking eastward shows for itself that it is significantly darker where her streetlight used to be.
For her, it is a safety issue. A deadly shooting happened at her corner in December when the lights were out.
"For that to happen here at 7 o'clock on a Saturday is kind of distressing," Pennie said.
So we reached out to the Chicago Department of Transportation for answers. Not long after, someone from the city showed up on the street to look at the spots where lights used to be.
"I'm not asking for something special," Pennie said. "I'm just asking for them to put back when they took."
And it seems they finally will. A CDOT spokesman told us the final two streetlights will be replaced next week, to return Belle Plaine Avenue back to its former brightness.
