[ Let Inga
Tell You, La Jolla Light, published in 4 segments (March 14, March 21, March
28, April 4) 2024 This is a saga of how many people it takes to change
a (street)light bulb in San Diego. Find out the answer at the
end.
Get It Done:
The app where city repairs go to die.
At least that's
been my feeling since posting a repair request over a year ago on San Diego s Get
It Done site when the streetlight in front of our corner house went out. I was
dismayed to find out at the time that the city was backlogged 5900 streetlights
repairs. That number grew to 6,100 two months later. We doubted it would be
fixed in our lifetimes.
Unfortunately, the
streetlight fixture (owned by the city) is mounted on a telephone pole owned
and this is important, powered - by San Diego Gas & Electric (SD
G&E). And neither party wants anything to do with it, or each other. In my
efforts to resolve this situation I have spent the last year in an infinite
loop in the seventh circle of infrastructure hell.
You can only
imagine the "How many people does it take to change a light bulb?" jokes this
situation has inspired. I'll tell you at the end.
There is a true
paucity of streetlights in my neighborhood, so losing even one makes a big
difference. Our corner, in particular, is heavily trafficked by pedestrians
including restaurant go-ers, dog walkers, people exercising, and us just trying
to find our driveway. We had an electrician come out and add additional outdoor
lighting just so we could find our front gate. But the entire block was pitch
black.
So dark, in
fact, that at night, we could hear the screeching of tires as cars barely made
the turn at our corner. This was not an idle fear on our part. Three times while
we've lived here, cars have crashed through our front fence, one coming to
within six inches of the house.
The irony is
that if it weren't for me, this light would have been out for more than 20
years. I've had to deal with its repair twice before in the decades I've lived
at my quirky address. The first two times the light went out (2002 and 2012),
its repair was complicated by the fact that neither SD G&E nor the city of
San Diego would lay claim to our street light. Eerily, both insisted that
there was no street light in front of our house. (Cue the twilight zone
music here.)
It's hard
enough to get a streetlight fixed in this city. Getting a non-existent
streetlight fixed is exponentially harder. I consider the repair of a phantom
streetlight not once but twice and now three times to be among my top life
accomplishments and should be listed in my future obituary.
Previously I
could deal with actual humans. Both times, it took six months of pathological
persistence. But pathological persistence is my middle name. (Well, actually
it s Louise.)
Now, alas, the
only way to get a streetlight repair is through the city's Get It Done app. No
hope of prevailing upon actual humans as I have done before. I was pleased to
read some months ago that the city was going to hire outside contractors to
catch up with the backlog.
When I filed
the Get It Done report, I was careful to include three photos including the
exact location of this streetlight, including the street sign below it, and
photos of the fixture itself mounted on the wooden telephone pole. Just try to
say it doesn't exist now, bozos!
There really is a streetlight fixture on this pole
So after a mere year, I was thrilled to get an Update
message from Get It Done saying, Thank you for using Get It Done to report non-emergency problems
to the City of San Diego. Your report is now closed. City crews recently
resolved the issue or conducted the necessary repairs as reported in your
inquiry.
Except, no they
didn't. The streetlight was still out. An entire year wasted. Were we back
to the whole "not our streetlight" issue?
Yup! The city
ultimately confirmed what I already feared: The street light on the wooden
pole belongs to SDG&E, follow up would have to go through them. Thank
you. Um, you couldn't have mentioned this in your Update before closing out
the repair request?
Gah!
Summarizing a lot of conversations, it turns out that the Get It Done
guys did come out and replace the actual streetlight bulb in December of 2023.
But because it is mounted on a pole owned by SD G&E, SD G&E has to execute
the power source. That is, plug it in. I would need to file an on-line
repair request with SD G&E (I included photos) on their own version of
Let s Never Get It Done called We Can t Do It Either.
To do this, information
including the pole number was required. At least now there are pole
numbers posted on the poles (a definite boost to my previous efforts.) But there
was no place to explain the actual problem. I could predict that they would
come back with either it was the city s light fixture (it is) or that their
maps showed no street light in this location (they don t).
Fearing this
report was just going into a black hole (it did), I decided to try calling SD
G&E to see if I could explain this situation to an actual human. (See
pathological persistence above). Let us in no way suggest that one calls SD
G&E and gets quickly connected to a helpful human. No, one gets sucked
into the root structure of their phone tree system where you will languish like
a decaying morel.
But ultimately
I got connected with a Customer Service rep. He was very nice and listened to
my convoluted saga. What needed to be done, I explained, was for SD G&E to
come out and hopefully find this pole number and plug in the city's new light bulb
to a power source which happens to be right there. After consulting
with his supervisor (I wasn't allowed to talk to a supervisor myself), he said
he was going to do an escalation for us and it should be fixed in 10-15
business days.
My husband
rolled his eyes and said, "like that will happen." He was prescient. Two weeks
later I received an email from SD G&E in response to the repair request I
had submitted on their app:
Good
morning/afternoon, Unfortunately, this streetlight located at your address is
maintained and owned by the City of San Diego, and therefore does not fall
under SDGE's streetlighting department. I went ahead and reported this issue on
your behalf on the City of San Diego Get it Done website: Here is your Report
Tracking Number.
It's probably a good thing one can't send photon
torpedoes through email.
Meanwhile, the city's Get It Done app sent me a confirmation of my new service request. I was now in a continuous futile perpetual loop.
I fired off
Gah!-grams to both SD G&E and to Get It Done but didn't hear back (and
didn't expect to). So, I called SD G&E again and finally got an actual
human to discuss my streetlight dilemma. He had all the previous notes
from previous calls and on-line service requests and did concede that this was
a puzzling and frustrating situation. I will say that SD G&E is very
good at note taking. Just not good at resolution.
I asked: is
there truly no mechanism for a human from SD G&E to talk (as in using
English language) to a human from the city? Answer: Nope, there
isn't! Their communication apparently can
solely be done by dumping jobs on each other's apps. But he said he would
put in an escalated request to send someone out to turn on our light bulb
which would happen in "10 to 15 business days."
Three weeks
later, of course, still no light. I called SD G&E back yet again and got
another of their genuinely helpful Customer Care reps who looked at the case
file and said the previous request had been closed because "the work had been
completed." But she was going to put in a new expedited request directly to
the "streetlight department" which should happen within you guessed it "10
to 15 business days."
You are
probably shocked by now to learn that no one ever showed up. So I called back
yet again and got yet another genuinely helpful Customer Care rep. But this
kid is my hero. After reviewing what was at this point the War and Peace
of case notes (how much money did SD G&E spend not turning on a
light bulb?) and putting me on hold for considerable time, he came back and
reported that he had tried to directly contact the streetlight escalation
person and was puzzled to find that this person is no longer in the employee
database. Doesn't work there anymore. Who knows how long he's been gone? So
all those escalation requests were going into a black hole. He agreed that
this situation had gone on long enough and that he was going to send this
request directly to his own boss. I said, "do we know for a fact that he
actually exists?" OK, I was getting jaded. But the kid laughed and yes, he
knew this person was real and actually worked there.
The next day, my lawn
maintenance service was outside mowing so I almost missed hearing my doorbell
ring. Deciding to check, I opened the door to see someone leaving my front
gate - an SD G&E guy! I ran out after him and said, Are you here about
the streetlight? And he said he had no idea. He was just told to come to
this address and was assuming it must be some issue inside. He hadn't been
given any information. If I hadn't answered the door, we would have been back
to square one.
So you re
probably thinking, problem solved! But you would be wrong. Oh, so wrong.
I will say that
this guy turned out to be Hero #2 (after the Customer Care Rep). I have his
name and if I could find him I'd like to send him and his wife for a really
nice dinner. He went up to my streetlight in the bucket thing on his truck but
when he came down, I wasn't seeing the happy face I hoped for. "I connected
it," he says, "but the problem is that the wiring is bad. They really
shouldn't put aluminum wiring this close to the ocean." So it would all have
to be re-wired with copper wiring to the two nearest poles, each about 90 feet
away. (Copper wiring apparently corrodes too, but not as fast.) He would put
in a repair request.
SD G&E shows up to look at streetlight
That's when I
truly thought it was game over. A non-emergency repair request for total
rewiring for a single streetlight? This probably wouldn't be fixed in my children's
lifetimes. Doing my best not to literally break down sobbing in frustration
(and flat out rage), I explained that this situation had been going on for more
than a year, that I had spent many, many dozens of hours being bounced back
between the city and SD G&E and I feared it would never ever get
done. He said he would try to expedite it. I wasn't hopeful. Been there,
heard that.
I asked if the
city wouldn't have checked the wiring when they put in the new bulb in December,
2023? And he said, Well, they should have. (But clearly didn't.)
So, I said, is
it possible that there was nothing wrong with the light fixture itself from the
get-go but has always been a wiring issue? He said that was entirely possible.
About
fifteen
minutes later, I was leaving my house en route to Bevmo to buy
the adult beverages
that this situation clearly warranted, and noticed the SD
G&E truck was still there. My Hero gets out and says, "I've arranged for
them to come out today." Was I hallucinating? Oh my gosh, I said. Can I hug
you? He didn't seem comfortable with that but I hugged him anyway.
But at 4:30, no
sign of them. Have I been stood up yet again? At 4:35, however, an SD G&E
crew showed up including two guys to manage traffic on our busy corner. More
heroes. I am so incredibly grateful to them.
So now you re
thinking we're really finally done. As I m standing out there with the SD
G&E crews, one them offers that they aren't sure which bulb the city put in
which they need to know for the wiring. I said, well, if it's the wrong one, I
assume you have extra bulbs that you can put in? He says no, the city is very
proprietary about their bulbs and don t share them with SD G&E. But if the
light doesn't come on after they've re-wired, they can put in a request with
the city on Get It Done to come out and change it.
Did you ever feel like your head was going to explode?
Uh-oh! SD G&E isn't sure the city installed the right lightbulb for the streetlight
It took over
three hours to disconnect the old aluminum wiring and reconnect the copper
stuff. When the truck and the work lights were working at the other pole, the
two guys directing traffic kept saying, "Geesh, it is so dark out here!
And this traffic is going sooo fast!" They were waving their Stop signs
frantically at approaching cars to keep from being mown down in this pitch
black intersection. Welcome to my world.
But then at 8
p.m., they plug it all in, everybody holds their breath, and there is light!
Yes, my streetlight is back in action! Neighbors, dog walkers, restaurant
walkers, and even us are able to cross the street safely again.
I consider this
article a public service. Mine is not the only city-owned streetlight fixture
mounted on an SD G&E wooden telephone pole. There are, in fact, tons of
them.
An SD G&E
person explained that, long ago and far away, SD G&E owned the streetlights
on their poles but that at some point, the city decided to take over
streetlight management. And thus you have the situation that I have now dealt
with three times: one entity owns the streetlight fixture itself while the
other one controls the power to it. So the city will replace the streetlight
bulb, but only SD G&E can come out and actually turn it on.
And yes, this
is completely insane.
Instead, each
of them keeps denying it s their problem and referring the home owner back to
the other via their automated repair apps in an infinite futile loop.
Honestly, you begin to suspect you're dealing with dealing with robots missing
essential wiring.
As I noted
earlier, this is the third time since I've lived in my home that I've had to
fight it out with the city and SD G&E to get that streetlight fixed.
So now, for the
third time, against all odds, I have had my non-existent, unacknowledged,
dually-owned streetlight restored to service.
There are a
number of take aways here:
When I consider
all the interchanges I had with both the city and SD G&E, I can t even
imagine what fixing this one streetlight cost both of them.
But all of it
could have been accomplished if there was any communication between the city
and SD G&E. Apps are great for routine things but only humans are ever
going to sort out issues like this.
I've tried to
add up the hours I've put into this project - filing repair reports, sitting
endlessly on hold, documenting phone calls, exhorting (unsuccessfully) help
from both my city councilman and local TV stations to break this infrastructure
log jam. I will also probably remember that SD G&E pole number (P833485) long after
I've forgotten my Social Security number.
The irony is, I
would have happily paid out of pocket for this repair to be done.
I'm so
incredibly grateful to my three heroes, the SD G&E Customer Service kid who
managed to finally get this request to an actual human who would actually do
something about it, the SD G&E repair guy who prevailed on someone to get a
crew out here to re-wire the corroded cables, and for the crew who came out and
did it. It has made such a huge difference having this streetlight
working again.
I'm definitely
going to leave instructions in my estate documents so that whomever ends up
with this house is aware of what it takes to restore this streetlight to
service the next time it goes out. I would hate to take such critical
information to my grave. And I truly do want it mentioned in my obituary.
OK, so now you
think this year of infrastructure repair ping pong is truly, finally over. Not
quite.
About a week
after the light was finally fixed, I suddenly woke up in the middle of the
night with a terrifying thought. In the process of pingponging responsibility
for this streetlight's repair back and forth from the city to SD G&E, SD
G&E had put in a new Get It Done request to the city which was still in
effect. Gah! Noooooo! The last thing we needed was for the city to show up
and start messing with a streetlight that was fixed. If they unplugged the
fixture to check the bulb, SD G&E would have to come plug it in again. Back to square one!
So I looked up
the Get It Done report number and tried to close it but couldn't since we
hadn't originated it. But I sent Get It Done an email saying the problem was
fixed and to please close this report. Step away from the light! It
took five requests. But they finally have.
Could this
really, finally, be done? I almost don t know what I'll do with my free time.
I began some
time back by invoking the "How many people does it take to change a
(street)light bulb" joke. Between the city and SD G&E, my count is 33.
Let there (finally) be light!