The latest on Portland commissioner Dandy Dan Ryan’s park lighting fiasco would be funny if it weren’t so infuriating. If you’re just joining us, Ryan, newly installed as the city parks chief, had his minions rip out more than 100 old light poles in the parks because a child was injured when one of them collapsed after a hammock was attached to it. Ry-Guy was going for 243 of them before somebody clued him in that, duh, the replacement poles won’t be ready for more than a year, and it’s not a good idea to have the parks unlit at night.
Apparently all of the lights in Irving Park are gone. Every single one. Now, that’s scary.
So now it’s an emergency, and the City Council is clucking around trying to hustle the new ones into place, but it’s going to take a while. Meanwhile, maybe they’ll put some temporary lights in. Maybe.
But here’s the maddening part: The price tag for the 243 new light poles? $14.5 million.
You math majors are way ahead of me. That’s $59,670.78 apiece.
Wow. Just wow.