Wednesday, March 10, 2021

CURRENT STATUS UPDATE SOUGHT FROM CITY OF AUSTIN ON CITY'S PROJECT TO INSTALL LED LIGHTING ON OUTDOOR PUBLIC PROPERTIES THROUGHOUT THIS STATE CAPITAL CITY FOR TEXAS


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From: John McMillan <mcmillanj@att.net>
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Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2021, 11:40:38 PM CST
Subject: 3-10-21 request for update re: LED lighting installation along Austin streets

From: John Kevin McMillan, founder and only approved current member of the public-safety-minded non-Christian "Progressive Prohibitionist Religion". My rental-home address ever since June 21, 2019: Pebble Creek Apartments, 8805 North Plaza Drive, Bldg. 17, Apt. 2418, Austin, TX 78753. Home phone: (512) 342-2295. Cell phone: (512) 993-7305.

March 10, 2021


Dear Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Austin District 4 Representative Greg Casar in this state-capital city for Texas,

Best Wishes to each of you two high-ranking elective officials who directly represent me and serve me on the Austin City Council

At your earliest convenience, please provide me with factual information about the current status of the City Government of Austin's apparent citywide project to convert to energy-efficiency LED lighting of outdoor streetlights throughout much or all of Austin.

I was reminded to write to each of you about that issue after I tonight read the following headline to an online January 31, 2008, copyrighted factual account in "LEDS Magazine" (above link):

"Austin turns to LEDs, joins LED City program: Austin, Texas, is latest to join joins growing network of LED Cities to promote and deploy energy-efficient lighting technology."

The online 2008 "LEDS Magazine" online article quoted the mayor of Austin at that time, Will Wynn: 
"Wynn said that just by retrofitting 5,000 streetlights – a mere portion of all of the streetlights within the city – Austin could realize savings of up to $500,000 a year. 'And that doesn’t include additional maintenance and labor cost savings if we won’t be sending out a worker in a boom truck an additional 6-7 times just to change a light bulb,' he said."

Comprehensive citywide conversion of conventional streetlights to LED lighting could help to significantly reduce the crime rate throughout much or all of Austin. I would like to ask each of you whether the City Government of Austin has sponsored any recent local studies to determine whether outdoor conversion to LED lighting in various sections of Austin is currently having or has had a significant effect on the local crime rate.

On a related note, the following is a pertinent factual statement from a January 9, 2020, copyrighted Fox 42 Television News report (see link, below), "Lights up, crime down: could better lighting lead to a lower crime rate?", by Fox 42 reporter Sydnie Holzfaster in Omaha, Nebraska: 

"(In 2019) the Chicago Crime Lab released the results of a light study done in New York City. In several random neighborhoods (of New York City,) researchers replaced half the street lights with LEDs...
“'They saw that over a period of six months,....crime in the well lit area with LED lights, was reduced by about 39 percent,'” (Omaha Police Officer Ruben) Soto said...."

The above-cited Fox 42 TV news report from Nebraska also contained the following statement from an Omaha-based criminologist:
"UNO (University of Nebraska Omaha) Assistant Professor of Criminology Dr. Teresa Kulig said better visibility could mean a lower crime rate because more people will be aware of what is going on around them.
"'...There are certain offenders who re-offend repeatedly. There are certain victims that are re-victimized multiple times and there are certain places where crime events seem to be (repeatedly) occurring,” Kulig said."


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