Council presses utility over street-light outages, damaged poles; invites Ohio Edison representative

Members of the Struthers City Council caucus on Dec. 30 pressed officials about persistent street-light outages, leaning and damaged poles, and lengthy repair timelines, and asked staff to invite a utility representative to a committee meeting to explain the repair process.

A council member said they had reported multiple out street lights and had received little response from the utility contact, Troy Rhodes. "I called Mister Rhodes, left a message, and I've gotten no response back," the council member said, asking that the administration get Rhodes to attend a meeting.

Bob (Safety director) said he believed Ohio Edison was behind on repairs but expected the company to catch up and noted that under normal procedure reported outages are repaired within three days. Captain Leonard (police captain) was cited as maintaining periodic lists of outages and reporting them directly.

Council members described specific safety concerns: broken cross arms, split poles and poles leaning for an extended time. One council member urged pursuing legislative or elected-official channels to resolve long-standing problems after describing a pole that had been splintered for more than a year before being replaced after sustained constituent pressure.

Council directed staff (Megan and others) to invite Troy Rhodes to a committee meeting or a regular council meeting to discuss repair timelines, responsibilities among utilities and third parties, and options to expedite repairs. The caucus did not record a formal resolution or vote; the action recorded was a direction to schedule the utility representative for discussion.

Council members said they want better interagency coordination because repairs sometimes stall while telephone, cable and electric companies each await the others to act on shared poles.