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Overcast. Low 64F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.

New streetlights will help drivers entering Logansport on the Main Street exit from U.S. Route 35 see the road more clearly.

New streetlights will help drivers entering Logansport on the Main Street exit from U.S. Route 35 see the road more clearly.

After years of darkness, motorists exiting U.S Route 35 to Main Street will have light.

“This is the entrance to our city, and it’s dark and desolate,” City Council Member Scott Peattie said. “You can’t see to get in because the reflectors were put into the ground for people missing the turn. They were put into the pavement. And there are no lights out there whatsoever.”

Peattie became aware of the problem after constituents began calling him and messaging him on Facebook. Near the end of March, he decided this was a problem he was going to solve.

“I talked with Tony Shanks, and he thought it was the Indiana Department of Transportation’s property and their right-of-way,” Peattie said. “He referred me to a gentleman; I think his name was Pat. I called him up, and he directed me to the maintenance garage. The maintenance garage was a jumble of people, ‘I’ll call you back,’ ‘I’ll call you back.’ Nobody called me back.”

That was just the beginning of Peattie’s struggle to learn which government entity had the authority to authorize and implement better lighting along the exit.

“I talked to a girl (with the Logansport Street Department) who made out a work order,” he said. “They were going to get the reflectors put in, put in paint, and see about lighting. In the meantime, I talked with Greg Toth, utilities superintendent, and he referred me to Brad McBride. Brad called me up and said, ‘What are you trying to do, Scott?’ He took the baton and ran with it.”

However, the process was not always clear-cut for McBride, who is the Electric Metering Department supervisor at Logansport Utilities.

“That was definitely an intersection or an entrance to an intersection that was very dark and needed to have some lighting,” McBride said. “It was a little challenging because there’s a state right-of-way there that is kind of wide, and we’re not allowed to be in the right-of-way with any poles.”

Instead, McBride realized that he could install lights to the city’s existing poles and angle them toward the road to light the area.

Peattie contacted the mayor’s office and received approval for the streetlights from Deputy Mayor Jacob Pomasl. Mendy Asselin, the mayor’s administrative assistant, went to work authorizing the lighting.

“A couple weeks later, they were put up,” Peattie said. “ … I believe Tony said they’ve been trying for 20 years to get this fixed, but no one knew whose property it was to fix. No one stepped up and took any steps, so we got that done.”

The street department also worked on installing the reflectors, and Peattie said Shanks repainted the white line on the road himself.

Peattie added that the city wants to make the area around Ivy Tech look nice, especially with the new McClure Oil gas station currently being built and plans for a disc golf course in the works. Other plans for the area include a shopping center and homes.

“The bypass does nothing but bypass Logansport,” he said. “We need to build out to that, and with this lighted way in, people from out of town can come in. They’ll see the lighted road and they might want to get a bite to eat. If they’re tired, they can spend the night at our new hotel at the mall when it opens up. They can go downtown for entertainment. We need to project our town.”

Peattie wanted to publicly thank Shanks, McBride, Toth, Pomasl, Asselin, Mayor Chris Martin, INDOT and everyone else who made the project happen.

“We got it done,” he said. “Last Friday at 8 a.m., the reflectors were put in. Everything’s out there and it’s beautiful. You can come in on the darkest night and see these streetlights shining over you. When you turn, you see the reflectors and where the lanes are at, which you couldn’t see before.”

McBride said sprucing up the area was a team effort and added that he was glad to be able to help.

“It’s good to have communication and collaboration with the city’s different departments to achieve one goal, and that’s to do the best job we can for the City of Logansport,” he said.

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