8News Investigative Reporter Kerri O'Brien gets answers from city officials on this issue tonight at 11, don't miss her report.
Richmond,
VA—After months of carefully observing Richmond City Hall and noticing that the
lights burned bright at all hours of the day and night, 8News investigated how many of
your tax dollars are being wasted on powering the building…even when no one is
there.
8News
filmed City Hall over a period of several days; even after midnight, the
building was lit up like a Christmas tree. We obtained the electric bills for
City Hall for the past 12 months and found that the City of Richmond spent close to $1 million powering
up the building in 2012. January 2013's bill alone totaled more than $60,000.
These bills are being paid with taxpayer dollars.
When
presented our recorded evidence of City Hall shining bright at night to the
city's Sustainability Manager, Alicia Zatcoff. When we asked why City Hall was
powered up around the clock, she responded, "Great question great
observation. We have made the same
observation ourselves."
Zatcoff
explained to 8News that the City is aware of their lighting problem, as well as
all the money being wasted. They are currently taking steps to correct the
problem.
Mayor
Dwight Jones took notice of the large electric bills soon after he took office
back in 2009, but fixing the problem isn't as simple as turning off a light
switch. Zatcoff clarified, "It's because of the wiring and the age of the
wiring."
As we investigated
further, we found that most of City Hall is without light switches. To allow
for moveable office space, the building was constructed in a way where most
rooms don't have a switch that can be turned off at the end of the business
day. Instead, there is one central breaker.
"We have been working
on city hall and we know the issues that exist and we've now taking the next step
with the lighting project," Zatcoff told us, and added, "We are
instituting lighting controls."
When we walked around
City Hall, we noticed that work is indeed underway. When it's completed, city
employees will be able to turn off the lights overnight, which is a sure way to
save taxpayers money.
While the improvements
are more than welcome, we asked why it took until 2009 to address the problem.
City officials seemed to be in the dark about this query.
"Good question," said
Zatcoff, "and unfortunately, I don't have an answer for that. But I think the
important thing to stress is we're addressing it now, we know it's a
problem."
Stay with 8News for
updates.
Copyright 2013 by Young Broadcasting of Richmond
