Please place on the February 21, 2024 agenda a referral to the Finance and Economic Resiliency Committee to discuss taking whatever action is necessary, including allocating funding, for electricity and infrastructure upgrades in order to provide permanent palm tree lighting in Lummus Park.
The string lights on the palm trees at Lummus Park were installed as a temporary installation in 2020 and are now beyond their useful life. Since 2020, they have required extensive repairs and have strained the existing electrical infrastructure in the park.
This year, the City’s electrical contractor has been required to manually reset the GFIs (ground fault circuit interrupters) multiple times a week and to continuously mend connections to maintain the lights.
Most recently, several cables that link the light strings from one tree to another have been destroyed, and several string lights tattered. This has affected several pockets throughout the Park. The City’s electrical contractor has been onsite for several days rewiring and conducting extensive repairs. These repairs, however, have been short term solutions.
Most problematically, residents report that lighting on most of the palm trees in Lummus Park remain non-operational.
I would like the FERC to discuss facilitating the installation of permanent palm tree lighting in Lummus Park, and I request the City Administration to prepare a capital project request that aims to upgrade the existing electrical infrastructure at Lummus Park as well as furnish and install new decorative lighting to mitigate daily maintenance and outages.