Miami Gardens, FPL discuss slow streetlight repairs, project status and who pays

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — City commissioners and Florida Power & Light representatives met in a workshop Oct. 22 to discuss recurring streetlight outages, the city's recent LED lighting project and who bears the costs and responsibilities for repairs and vegetation that block lighting.

Vice Mayor Stevens opened the session by saying commissioners had "concerns as it relates to the power outages" on main corridors and in neighborhoods and asked for an update on the status of the city's lighting districts and outage response timeframes. Chelsea Line, external affairs manager and the city's FPL area manager, outlined how residents and city staff should report streetlight problems using FPL's online portal and said reporting generates a ticket number that can be escalated for safety-critical locations.

"Once you submit that streetlight portal ticket, you'll get a ticket number. And with that ticket number ... it typically takes our team about 40 days to repair street lights," Chelsea Line said, adding that FPL will escalate tickets that pose "a significant safety threat" such as near schools or hospitals.

The FPL team explained how to tell whether a light is county/FDOT-owned (metal/silver poles) or an FPL-maintained pole (concrete, wood or black…