Council Approves Bridge Lighting Trust

Work to illuminate up the new Memorial Bridge with LED lighting can now go forward after the City Council voted Monday night to create a trust without the Town of Kittery.

City Manager John Bohenko explained that without the vote to approve the trust, the money raised by the Memorial Bridge Illuminination Subcommittee would not have a place to be collected and then used by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation to add the lights.

Kittery, Maine, officials recently voted not to enter into the trust with the City of Portsmouth after the two communities agreed in principle to do the maintenance trust together in December. Following a change of administrations in Kittery, Bohenko said the new town administrator and town council chose not to sign the trust agreement.

He said he will continue to work with Kittery town officials to get them to enter into a memorandum of understanding to work with Portsmouth to maintain the lighting for the bridge going forward. Bohenko said the annual maintenance cost for the new lighting is about $1,000 and Kittery would be responsible for about half of that costs.

When asked by City Councilor Brad Lown what will happen if Kittery never enters the trust with Portsmouth, Bohenko replied, “I guess we would have to shut the lights off on the Kittery side of the bridge.”

Bohenko said that by voting in favor of the trust, the City of Portsmouth will assume the municipal responsibility to maintain the lights. If the city chooses to stop doing that, Bohenko said "then the lights would stay off."

Last week, members of the from Rockingham Electric and now they have raised about $125,000 of their $200,000 goal.