The City says it has reduced copper thefts from street lights by 75 percent. Part of the credit is going to Public Works Crews who are installing metal lids on power pole boxes and welding shut the access points.
The City's Linda Tucker says a decision by the City Council to spend money on the problem has cut the waiting time for outage repairs to 90 days, "We had fallen quite behind and we had people wait-listed for up to a year. So in April, we went to Council, got approval to dedicate $2 million to hiring electrical contractors and get all of those 150 areas off of a wait list."
A Sacramento Police Department task force has made several
arrests of copper thieves and salvage yard employees for failing to
follow state laws designed to identify copper thieves.
The City says the number of new outage complaints has dropped
from 20 a week to five.