What are the 5 neighborhoods of Santa Fe where the public lighting plan is already being executed?

On April 30, the capital Executive headed by Dr. Juan Pablo Poletti presented the Recovery Plan for the Public Lighting System. Based on a technical report prepared by the municipality itself, it was noted that in 45% of the city, the service was very deficient.

In May, the Executive issued decree No. 00032/2024, through which it called for an emergency price competition to award works on public lighting was 301,897,438 pesos. And days ago, for a smaller amount – about 250 million pesos – the work was awarded to the Mantelectric company, which has already begun in five neighborhoods of the city.

“Currently, approximately 45% of the municipal lighting park is out of service, mainly due to breakage or vandalization by third parties.which has been surveyed by personnel from the Secretariat of Urban Management and Environment and paid for by the claims made by residents through the citizen hotline,” he put that decree in context.

The comprehensive work includes the replacement and reconditioning of lighting, wiring, columns and meters in around twenty neighborhoods in this capital. “The interventions have already begun in El Pozo, Candioti Sur, Candioti Norte, Centenario and Las Flores. They are the first five sectors of the plan,” the Secretary of Urban Management and Municipal Environment, Guillermo Ferrero, told El Litoral.

The initial intention is to start with those five areas of the city, and then the company will expand to the rest of the assigned neighborhoods. “We have identified the districts where the greatest shortcomings are in terms of public lighting. The second and third batches will cover eight or nine new neighborhoods“said Ferrero.

In addition to the five neighborhoods already mentioned, San Jerónimo appears on the list where the public lighting work will be carried out; San Ignacio; Loyola South; Ceferino Namuncurá; United North; Leiva Cabin; October 21; Brigadier López; North Zone High School; Santa Marta; Bernardino Rivadavia; Nueva Santa Fe, Altos de Noguera; San Agustin; Juventud del Norte and Yapeyú Oeste.

The work execution period is 90 days. “We will try to have the public lighting works completed within three and a half months at the latest.“, estimated the official, while recalling that in addition to this contracting with a third party, the municipality allocated about 150 million pesos of its own funds – at the beginning of the year – for the repair of luminaires.

The company started a few days ago, with minor and “high effect” jobs. That is, little expense and a lot of impact, said the official. The technicians are trying to repair/place as many luminaires as possible in the first interventions.

It should be noted that the work, depending on the areas, includes the replacement of out-of-function luminaires with new ones, and in other cases, reconditioning and repair.

“In some cases, if the ballast (the electronic device in the luminaire) is broken, it is replaced to make it work, and the working lamp is left as is. In other cases, the part of the lamp is changed and the ballast, if it works, will be covered to give it protection. It is about repairing so that there is light,” he added.

Once it is finished in the first five neighborhoods (it will probably be next week, if there are no problems), if there is any problem of non-functioning of the repaired or installed luminaires (and even if they were vandalized), the company must in 72 hours to correct problems. This is stipulated in the specifications.

The big problem facing the public lighting system of this capital is the acts of vandalism on the lights: the copper is sought to be sold, and each damage generates an onerous charge in the municipal coffers.

“The anti-vandal systems are installed by the municipal administration, they are not the responsibility of the contracted firm. We are using concertina wire, the covers are also welded in those places where we detect that the cables are vandalized, and a special anti-vandal paint is used (it is a very resistant type of paint),” said the Secretary of the Environment.

“We are aware that lighting is a big problem today. To date, the municipality made purchase contracts for more than 150 million pesos (outside of Mantelectric’s work) so that the Electromechanical management has the lights, cables and all the implements to address the lack of light. “said Ferrero.

But also, where there is no lighting, where a light is missing, that sector becomes conducive to criminal activity. “We know that today in terms of security, the city is certainly vulnerable. As a Municipality, our responsibility is to try to illuminate as many streets as possible, including public spaces,” said the secretary.

What is intended is to “mitigate possible scenarios where criminal situations are usually evident, whose circumstances and conditions of perpetration are favored by the poor state of public lighting, ultimately facilitating the commission of said acts,” the decree insisted. 00032 in this sense.

Finally, The official asked citizens to report a possible episode of vandalism against public lighting to 911.. “This is very important, because in six months of administration the city has been suffering an innumerable amount of vandalism in places where lighting had already been recovered.”

“Sometimes,” he continued, “it is believed that a light bulb is going out because there is no replacement and its useful life has already ended, but unfortunately it is due to acts of vandalism. When we illuminated the Oroño viaduct, a week later the cables were stolen; and we all remember the theft of cables in broad daylight on the Suspension Bridge. It is necessary to make a police report to 911,” Ferrero concluded.

When the recovery plan for the public lighting system was presented, Poletti himself said that a situation diagnosis had previously been carried out on the lighting park in 87 Santa Fe neighborhoods of this capital.

And the numbers in that technical report were conclusive: 34% of lighting is “bad or very bad”; 18% are “regular” and 48% are “good or very good.” In 52% of the entire urban area, public lighting has deficiencies.

Regarding the number of vandalisms reported by the local government, at the end of April, there were 521 columns partially destroyed in March. Regarding their geographical location, most of the acts of vandalism were concentrated in the center of the city map, towards the north. But also in the macrocenter and the southwest.

“One of the management axes is that we want an illuminated and safe city. And just as they listened to me in critical terms, shortly after assuming, when I said that I saw the city was dark, this plan (recovery of public lighting) is a step in what we want to change,” the mayor had declared to the press. Poletti.