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Council endorses holiday‑lights visioning and approves $20,000 Hotel/Motel request for bridge snowflakes
Summary
Council members gave direction to proceed with a holiday‑lights master plan and by consensus approved a recommendation to use $20,000 in Hotel/Motel Fund dollars to replace aging banner lights with LED snowflakes; staff will host a visioning workshop and return with a phased, 10‑year plan.
City staff and community volunteers presented a two‑part holiday‑lights plan Tuesday, and council gave direction to move forward with a funded first phase and a broader 10‑year visioning effort.
A presenter said the Leadership in Action class raised funds to install 12 snowflake fixtures across the bridge to match Uptown lighting and asked the council to approve the use of $20,000 in Hotel/Motel Fund dollars to replace brittle, near‑end‑of‑life banner lights on 6th Avenue. "The additional request for the $20,000 HotelMotel dollars would be to use those funds to help replace some existing lighting," the presenter said.
Traffic and street lighting manager Tom Jordan described the current fixtures: roughly 100 were installed historically and about 80 remain; water intrusion and non‑LED bulbs have led to failures. Council members asked about LED service life and structural wind loads; staff said they would follow up with manufacturers on service‑life estimates and noted snowflake fixtures generally present less wind‑loading risk than banner signs.
Staff described the second part of the work — a holiday‑lights master plan and visioning process — as a community workshop to identify signature locations and funding/installation models and produce a phased, life‑cycle replacement plan. Council signaled unanimous consensus to proceed with the Hotel/Motel funding request and with staff developing a 10‑year master plan and a June visioning workshop.
Next steps: staff will coordinate a visioning workshop in June, vet technical and cost frameworks with departments, and return with a proposal through the usual council channels for formal approval.
