Damage done by thieves over one-mile of road cost Kansas City tax payers half a million dollars.
There are 95,000 street lights in the city.
“That is 95,000 opportunities for people to try and steal copper wire,” Public Works Public Information Officer Sean Demory explained.
Taking out power to city lights becomes a public safety concern.
“You're looking at the urban core, you're looking at downtown, residential areas where good street lighting is what keeps people safe,” said Demory.
Recently, thieves cracked open street lights down a stretch of Searcy Creek Parkway. That resulted in $500,000 in damage.
Since 2008, similar incidents have happened 35 times, costing the city $1.2 million in repairs, and that’s before the most recent theft.
Demory said, “This is coming out of taxpayer funds, this is not money that appears from nowhere, there is a result, that result impacts the money that the taxpayers ask to have that put in place and used for certain purposes.”
Local scrap metal yards didn’t want to comment on this recent incident.
However, companies are required to take down a seller’s information and can be fined for purchasing stolen copper.
Demory said the easiest way to avoid paying for damage is to prevent it in the first place. “They should immediately call the police, this is a serious issue and that's the easiest thing to do, that's the best way for us to address this is to stop it before it starts.”
The city manager approved to move funds to repair the $500,000 in damage. This will include retrofitting the lights with anti-theft measures.
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Shannon Halligan can be reached at shannon.halligan@kshb.com.
