Boone County neighborhood tries to avoid the dark

Residents of the Fairway Meadows neighborhood are trying to keep their streets from going dark.

Boone Electric Cooperative’s assistant general manager, Vicki Kemna, confirmed to the Missourian that the utility may be forced to turn off more than two dozen streetlights in the area if it doesn’t receive payment. She said the cooperative is providing a grace period to allow residents to work something out.

It all comes down to a lack of volunteers willing to serve on the local homeowners association, according to MU employee Jordan Yount, who lives in Fairway Meadows. Because the neighborhood is not part of the city of Columbia, it fell to the HOA to pay for the streetlights. But the group disbanded about three years ago due to a lack of volunteers, Yount said.

At the time, there were about two years’ worth of surplus funds for the streetlights. They ran out in June. In addition, Yount said the HOA treasurer, who maintained the community bank account, died in November.

Now the community is scrambling to fill the gap.

Boone County Commissioner Janet Thompson is working with residents of the subdivision to form a new HOA and gain access to the billboard money. She wants to keep the lights on for safety reasons. “I was a public defender for a long time, and I have represented people in some areas in St. Louis where there were no streetlights,” Thompson said. “I think it really does impact a community.”

One neighborhood resident, Kenneth Freeman, said he’s been going door to door asking neighbors to sponsor a streetlight. Boone County Electric said that residents or landlords can keep one on by adding it to their existing electric bill for an extra $9 per month.

As of Wednesday, 18 streetlights in Fairway Meadows have been claimed and paid for by residents or landowners, Kemna said. She said the bills of 26 streetlights remain unpaid.

Freeman said he’s having the toughest time on Demaret Drive, where many buildings are rental properties and the landlords are hard to contact. The street is a high-crime area, generating more than 300 dispatch calls to the Boone County Sheriff’s Department since June.

“It’s about keeping our community safe for everyone. That’s the bottom line,” Freeman said.

Boone Electric is encouraging the tenants in the Fairway Meadows area to reach out to their landlords for more information on how they can help keep the streetlights on.

“We’re really hoping the issue resolves itself because we don’t want to shut off the streetlights. We don’t want the area to go dark,” Kemna said.