CLEVELAND — Portions of Slavic Village are in the dark as thieves have stolen 4,000 feet of power line wire.
"It's another day in the life for us on the southside," one Cleveland man said while waiting for his bus in the dark on Broadway Avenue Monday night.
Cleveland Public Power (CPP) has been replacing approximately 4,000 feet of stolen wire necessary to power streetlights on Broadway Avenue from E. 71st Street to E. 55th Street and beyond.
The Cleveland Public Power Marketing Manager, Shelley Shockley, said, "For approximately six months, thieves have stolen wire along this thoroughfare multiple times."
Approximately 70 poles were vandalized.
So far, 35 poles have been repaired, but that still leaves 35 without power.
"We've got a senior building, and that senior building's already been struggling with the street lights being off. 55th and Broadway is a major bus intersection. We have buses coming down both 55th and Broadway, so a lot of people are there throughout the night, and it's just your sense of safety," Cleveland's Ward 12 Councilperson Rebecca Maurer told me on Monday.
Maurer said she was first alerted to the issue in the fall when a municipal league football coach told her his team couldn't practice due to the lack of lighting.
"They want to be playing, and they were just saying, 'We can't even get on the field because the boys don't feel safe and we don't feel safe. We can't even see the football.' So, you know, that was the first call that I got that something was really wrong and it wasn't just a one-off light bulb that was out, but really a systemic issue," Maurer said.
In total, Maurer said she's heard from roughly a dozen residents who want answers.
Edward Leshaun Butler is a concerned and frustrated resident.
"It's no lights!" he said. "If you can see when you go in your house, I need to see when I get in mine, too."
Another man told us, "It can get dangerous at times, too, in these dark, shaded areas."
Butler agreed, saying the darkness attracts violence and crime.
"You can’t complain about some of the violence going on around here and not understand why it’s going on. Some people just blind to the fact. They know they need this over here. They pumping everything in the neighborhood but what’s needed," Butler said.
Maurer said she's eager to see each light shine bright again, as she's not only a Slavic Village resident, but she feels like to fix the matter has taken too long.
"It's been impacting the whole community," she said. "I understand that CPP is struggling because they don't have a good answer."
Aside from focusing on the remaining 35 streetlight pole repairs, CPP said it is also installing preventative measures to alleviate the continued wire theft.
CPP wouldn't share the details of those preventative measures, though.
"The safety of our residents is our highest priority, and we have dispatched several crews to the area to make the necessary repairs," Shockley said.
I asked Maurer if she had been given any updates on the precautions CPP plans to take in the future.
"What I understand is that there are sort of these square panels in the ground. You don't even notice them if you're not an electrician or you're not a journeyman. You don't know what you're looking at, but those are the CPP access panels. They're talking about a better way to secure those, but I haven't gotten much more than that," Maurer said.
Butler is happy to hear the lights are steadily being fixed, but asks, "Why did it take so long? You know we been needed this. It should’ve been taken care of."
Maurer told me CPP's goal is to have the remaining lights fixed by the end of 2025.
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