City leaders consider options for downtown lights

Around 12:30 p.m. July 22, Mayor Hagen Brody sent a message to City Manager Marlon Brown with marked-up images of tree lights on Lemon Avenue and State Street.

Some of the lights were on, and some were off — a look Brody described as “sloppy” and “piss poor.”

“What a joke and (waste) of tax dollars paying this electric bill,” Brody wrote. “Our city deserves better.”

Just after 11:30 p.m., Brody sent a follow-up email with pictures he took at night on Main Street and Palm Avenue. In those, arrows pointed at rows of trees that were not illuminated across from ones that were effectively lit up.

“Can we please figure something out with this vendor?” Brody wrote. “It just looks too shabby for our downtown to have so many lights out.”

Tree lights have been a topic that have inspired passion in Brody for years. It was a subject of his attention during the city’s budget workshops in July: During a discussion of the budget for the Downtown Improvement District, he attempted to stir support for higher quality lighting downtown during the holiday season.

“That period of time, the holidays, is when a lot of our merchants and restaurants make their money,” Brody said. “The more people we can bring downtown, the more families we can bring downtown, the better.”

John Moran, the DID operations manager,  said it would be difficult to compare with such areas as University Town Center, where he estimated the cost of their holiday lighting display might be $1 million, but he said the DID could explore options for pursuing a more spectacular lighting display in a concentrated area.

Brown said staff could prepare options for enhancing or revising its downtown tree lighting program, but he said the cost of adding more lighting could be prohibitive.

“You’re talking about a lot of money that we’ll have to find,” Brown said.

The DID funded the installation of tree lights within its boundaries in 2019 and continues to fund maintenance and operations expenses, including electricity. In response to the mayor’s concerns about outages, Moran said the DID’s contractor conducts weekly maintenance at a cost of $60,000 annually.

Moran said the majority of the feedback he’s heard is positive.

“The lights are universally welcomed,” Moran said. “The only criticism I ever get is when there’s an outage.”

A city spokesperson said staff is still gathering information about the potential expense associated with an enhanced holiday lighting display, information that will be presented to the City Commission later this year.