Xenia adopts citywide streetlight assessment plan, ends multiple small lighting districts

Council on July 24 adopted Ordinance 2025‑17 to eliminate several smaller street‑lighting districts and to create a single, consistent streetlight assessment plan across the city.

City Manager Brent Merriman said the change will allow the city to consolidate maintenance under one contractor and remove the need for the city to maintain lit fixtures in some locations. He said the city learned “we're not in the streetlight business” and that a contractor can better maintain lights citywide, noting problems in downtown areas where the city had previously owned fixtures and struggled to get replacement parts.

Merriman said the switch to a single district was intended to produce one bid from a contractor that would maintain lights across the entire city. He noted the city has already contracted maintenance for many lights in newer subdivisions and that converting to a universal district would remove disparate assessments and simplify contracting.

Council action The ordinance was moved for passage by Councilman Reynolds and seconded by Councilman Crawford; a roll call vote approved the ordinance and the motion carried.

Implementation Staff said the intent is to hire a contractor to maintain all streetlights so residents and downtown areas see consistent lighting service; the change will also allow the city to budget and bid lighting maintenance as a single procurement rather than multiple small contracts.

Ending note Council called the change a step toward consistent nighttime lighting across neighborhoods and downtown and said it should reduce long outages caused by the city’s limited ability to source some older replacement parts.