Finance — 05/18/16 Page 5
Alderman McCarthy
| asked for two reasons. One, there is a huge variance in how well street light products throw light on the
ground. For those of us who like to look at the sky, we’d rather not have it there. For those of us who like to
look at the ground, we’d really like to have it there. The more efficient the fixtures are, the better off everybody
is. | was just wondering if we had taken that into account.
Mayor Donchess
| think as we discussed this last term, in fairness to the staff, we had not asked them at that point. Even
though we had been through this a number of times at the finance committee, we did not ask them to put
anything like that in the bid.
Alderman McCarthy
| had brought that issue up last term. I’m disappointed it was not addressed.
Mayor Donchess
If you did, I’m sorry. | didn’t recall that.
Alderman Dowd
When we first had someone in showing us the lights, the lighting in question could be set at variable
brightness’s. Are these able to be modified as to the amount of light they are throwing? Who is going to
determine what’s the intensity is and which locations in the city?
Mayor Donchess
The second bid you see, the second line, base proportional with control system, includes the so-called smart
control that would enable the city to alter the amount, the brightness of the lights. However, after we put this
out to bid we received a visit from EverSource who told us it is a violation of the their current tariff for there to
be smart meters on LED lights. Manchester had talked about putting these in, but did not. This was the first
we knew that there was a tariff that would prohibit this. Even though some of the people involved disagreed or
would have liked to recommend the smart meters, it just didn’t seem like a legal fight with EverSource at the
PUC over an existing tariff was really worthwhile. It seemed apparent that the tariff did provide, as they
claimed, so the presentation here is on the base proposal without the smart meter.
Alderman Siegel
Addressing Alderman McCarthy’s question about lights gathering upward, they did bring in the housings last
time. They were well shrouded. We didn’t have a specification with how much light would be scattered up but
looking at solid metal, | think it’s fairly safe to say that it didn’t seem like it would be a problem.
Mayor Donchess
Alderman Dowd asked a second question, which | did not answer. Who is going to decide. There is
incorporated in the bid a test: 4,000 versus 3,000. The two types or brightness’s of light can be viewed by the
decision makers. Without direction from the committee, we would have public works make a choice,
determining whether in the neighborhoods we might include the lower light. If the committee wanted input
there, | suppose we would bring that issue back to the finance committee or some other committee of the
board of aldermen.
