Thursday, October 1, 2026
The city said it might penalize a contractor it hired earlier this year to repair a number of broken streetlights throughout the city amid complaints from residents who say that their streets have remained dark for months.
Robert Agostisi, the city’s corporation counsel, said the city awarded a contract to Wantagh-based Palace Electrical Contractors Inc. — the lowest responsible bidder — on July 1 to fix streetlights that had stopped working in various parts of Long Beach. He added that the city has had issues with the company’s performance and lack of communication during the past few months, and said last week that the work has yet to be completed.
“It’s been trying the last three months,” said Joe Febrizio, deputy public works commissioner, at the City Council meeting on Oct. 5. “I’m sure every council member up here has gotten a call probably in the last month about a streetlight being out. We’re working on it though.”
According to the city’s department of public works, the broken lights throughout Long Beach are not connected, and are a result of old infrastructure. The city did not provide further details about specific cause of the broken streetlights or how many were affected in total. Residents have been calling on the city to address the issue over the past few months.
Ira Ruderman, who has lived on West Hudson Street for 24 years, told the Herald that three lights went out after a lightning storm in July, and he notified the city on Aug. 4. A crew came out a few weeks later, and three more lights stopped working, he added.
Ruderman said the city had quickly handled problems with lights in past years, but this time was different, and that the darkness — intensified by the unlit Lindell Elementary School fields across the street — posed a dangerous scenario.
“I have a senior dog who needs to often go out at 2:30 in the morning, so I’m stepping out there with a 14-year-old dog on a pitch-black street,” Ruderman said. “It’s [about] safety. Common sense says burglars come to houses where people can’t see them coming to the front door. Anytime there’s total darkness, it’s not a good thing, and thank God nothing went wrong on the street.”
Agostisi said the lights on West Hudson were fixed on Sept. 22, after the city requested a meeting on Sept. 15 with Palace Electrical in response to residents’ concerns. He added that the contractor failed to meet numerous deadlines to complete the job, and that the city has been assessing monetary damages and additional penalties to possibly collect from them.
Marijane Uehlinger, another resident of West Hudson, said she was thankful the lights went back on, adding that her main fears included someone tripping on the sidewalk, or the darkness hindering emergency responders.
“It makes [me] feel better, especially now that it’s dark between 6:30 and 6:45 [p.m.], because in my opinion, it was potentially an accident waiting to happen,” she said. “God forbid someone needed an ambulance, and the ambulance is delayed because they can’t see the number on the house because it’s pitch black.”
An anonymous letter addressed to the Herald in August identified broken lights on additional roads, including West Beech Street, West Penn Street and Lincoln Boulevard, and said the city has been “extremely negligent” to residents’ phone calls.
Agostisi said the broken streetlights on West Penn Street were fixed on Sept. 6 and that the city had no previous record of broken lights on West Beech Street or Lincoln Boulevard, but has informed the contractor. He added that a broken streetlight on the boardwalk at Franklin Boulevard — also mentioned in the letter — would be handled internally by the city.
Palace Electrical did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment, but the city said they have shown “good-faith, substantial compliance” in repairing lights at various locations throughout Long Beach in recent weeks since the meeting.
“Sometimes you get contractors who bite off more than they can chew and overextend themselves, sometimes you get contractors who have no intention whatsoever to perform under the contract, and sometimes you get fantastic contractors,” Agostisi said. “The only thing the city can do is make sure that we’re doing everything in our power to promote completion of whatever job needs to be completed.”
