Posted at: 10/02/2012 10:35 PM
Updated at: 10/03/2012 7:50 AM
By: Jay Kolls

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Mpls. Taxpayers Create Website to Fight 'Fancy' Streetlights

Minneapolis is on track to reconstruct Penn Avenue South between 54th Street and Highway 62. And, part of that plan includes a proposal to install new decorative streetlights for $600,000.

One-hundred property owners on that eight-block stretch would then be assessed by the city to pay for the "fancy" streetlights. But, dozens of property owners are pushing back on the whole idea because some have estimated assessments for the streetlights ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 each.

So, the property owners have now started a website at www.projectpenn.com to help defeat the proposed "fancy" streetlights.

They are trying to get 70 percent of the property owners affected by the streetlight assessments to sign the petition telling City Council members they oppose spending $600,000, collectively, on the decorative streetlights.

The city already voted to reconstruct Penn Avenue South along that eight-block stretch of the street and that's when the city's streetlight policy kicked in.

The full City Council will take final action sometime in late February.