Boone County neighborhood attempting to save street lights

The Fairway Meadows neighborhood in Boone County has rallied in an attempt to save its street lights after a homeowners’ association disbanded.

A Boone County Electric Cooperative spokesperson said the cooperative received a call on Aug. 19 saying the local HOA wouldn’t be able to pay for the more than two dozen “dusk to dawn” lights in the area.

The lights must be requested by residents in the area and cost $9 monthly per light.

The Boone County Electric Cooperative is giving the neighborhood until Monday to figure out who will pay for the lights.

The cooperative said Friday morning that most of the lights have already been taken care of by property owners or renters in the area, and that the utility is still receiving calls about paying for the lights.

A previous member of the Fairway Meadows HOA, Jordan Yount, said the board was dissolved about four years ago because of lack of volunteers.

He said there was enough money to pay for the lights in the reserve funds from revenue collected from two highway billboards in the neighborhood. Once the association was dissolved, there was no way to collect the money.

Yount said the neighborhood is most concerned about what will happen with Demaret Drive, because most of those properties are rental.

“A lot of the landlords are out-of-state, so we don’t have anyway to contact them and let them know,” Yount said. “And it’s unlikely that renters are going to pick up that extra expense of keeping the lights on.”

Yount said he is concerned about the crime rate on Demaret Drive going up if the lights are turned off, as well as the overall safety of the neighborhood.

“I could be in any neighborhood in downtown Columbia, and if the street is completely dark and I wanted to walk my dog, I’m probably not going to go down that dark street,” Yount said. “I’m going to find a street that’s well lit and give you that sense of safety and security.”

Yount said the Boone County Sheriff’s Department and Boone County Northern District Commissioner Janet Thompson are aware of the issue.

“We just want them to be aware that, if indeed most of the lights go out on Demaret next week, that they need to be aware of that,” Yount said, “Maybe send an extra patrol or something, just until that situation gets works out.”

A Boone County Sheriffs’ Department spokesman said the department is aware of the issue, but did not have a comment.

Yount said they are working to put together a new neighborhood organization to pay for the lights, but that process will go past the Monday cutoff date for the lights.

Another resident in the neighborhood, Kenny Freeman, agrees there needs to be a new organization in the area.

“It’s hard to depend on 33 different people to keep the lights on, it’s easier to have an association that is supportive and active, and stays on top of things for the entire community,” Freeman said

Freeman started knocking on neighbors’ doors to let people know about this issue on Wednesday. He said he has been in contact with Boone Electric Cooperative, which has given him all the information he needs, as well as calling residents in the area to alert them of the changes.

He said step one is to fix the immediate problem, then to start work on the new association, “Without an association, you have a neighborhood. With a neighborhood association, you have a community.”