Coatesville residents forced to light street themselves

By Tony Buck, Coatesville Resident

Tony Buck hanging shop-light from front of home

(Editor’s Note: As part of our evolution toward citizen journalism, we offer this submission from a Coatesville resident about an issue in his neighborhood. It is written entirely from his perspective and does not reflect input from city officials on this issue. They, of course, are welcome to respond.)

It is four months since a tree took down one of the street lamp wires on the fifth block of Chestnut Street in Coatesville. Miraculously, they put the wire back up within 48 hours. We street residents were delighted. However, the light never came on and still hasn’t for four months.

The lamp belongs to PECO, the City Administration told me. But PECO doesn’t allow residents to contact them directly over street lamps. You must inform your municipality and they inform PECO. Twice I have been to City Hall and they said that they have passed the concern on. However, still no light.

So, we have decided to try to light the street ourselves. On behalf of the residents I agreed to hang a shop light from the front wall of my home. It’s a great street and usually okay, but occasionally someone messes with our cars. But now we’re concerned with winter coming on we’d like to see the road surface and sidewalks. We feel helpless in the situation.

One of my neighbors is 85, he said he’ll probably pass away before it gets fixed. Another said, you can see how civilizations collapse: at some point they can no longer take care of the infrastructure they took hundreds of years to build. And I thought, come to think of it, I bet Armageddon will happen because of bad management! Hopefully, not before our light comes on.