Local electricians offer skills to repair damaged Rotary Lights equipment

Electricians to the rescue!

A group of area electricians is volunteering time to fix the electric pedestals used for Rotary Lights, which were damaged by thieves last month. 

“When all this happened, we were inundated with requests and e-mails and phone calls, how can we help, from the community,” says electrician Mike Diveley, who has volunteered with Rotary Lights for almost 20 years. “Today, those people are here to kind of give us a hand, and we’re going to try to put it all back together.”

The vandals cut power cords and stole many feet of cable, presumably to resell the copper wiring inside, and volunteers are working to restore the plugs that were removed from many of those cords.

The thefts occurred from Riverside Park on two nights in late October, about a month before the scheduled opening of Rotary Lights.

“I think within a week, we should be able to have everything repaired, and back in the park,” says Diveley, “and it’ll give us a chance to do some upgrades on stuff.” He also hopes to bring more security to the park, to prevent further vandalism.

The thefts caused about $13,000 in damage.  Diveley says the needed work should be done quickly enough to avoid any delays in the start of Rotary Lights on November 26th.