SouthernCityVOLUME LXII, NO. 2

FEBRUARY 2012WWW.NCLM.ORG

inside

The N.C. League of Municipal -ities has reorganized and consolidatedseveral departments to better serve its

membership. The reorganization becameofficial on January 1, 2012.

Under the re-organization, a new de -part ment of Communications and MemberRelations was created. (The League is cur-rently in the process of hiring a director ofCommunications and Member Relations.)Within this department are communica-tions, which was previously called publicaffairs; member relations, which was previ-ously member services; and meeting plan-ning.

The director of Communications andMember Relations will manage theLeague’s branding and overall communica-tions plans; legislative messaging; publica-tions; member education and training andmarketing of the three risk managementtrusts. Working on the communications sideof the department are Writer/Web ContentEditor Matt Lail, who has served as interimdirector of public affairs for the past year,and Design Specialist Dana Davis Bayley.

Rob Shepherd, previously the League’smanager of member services, is now themanager of member relations. He has over-all responsibility for the League’s annualconference as well as other meetings. Shep -herd also oversees the marketing efforts ofthe League’s non-risk management services.Working with Shepherd is MarketingProgram Administrator Madeleine Henleyand Survey Research Analyst Tanika Sneed,both of whom were previously in the de -partment of member services.

Diane Godwin continues to serve as theLeague’s principal meeting planner, assistedby Meeting Planner Athena Banks andMeeting Planning Assistant Crystal Correia.

A yet-to-be-hired member relations fieldconsultant will fill out the Communicationsand Member Relations team.

Hartwell Wright, the League’s humanresources consultant, continues in that rolebut is now part of the department of de -partment of field services within RiskManagement Services (rms). Lisa Kinseyand Angela Greene, who previously worked

in member services,now concentrate onmarketing the rmsprograms as mem-ber services field consultants. The League iscurrently in the process of hiring for adirector of field services to oversee thatdepartment.

Charles Archer, who was previously theLeague’s associate director for operationsand federal relations, now has the title ofchief operating officer. He oversees internalfunctions of the association including IT,human resources, printing and facilities.Archer will also continue to serve as thestaff contact to the N.C. City & CountyManagement Association; however, hisduties as federal advocacy liaison (to theNational League of Cities and/or to Con -gress) have now been shifted to Govern -mental Affairs Director Kelli Kukura andher team.

The re-organization has coincidentallyoccurred just in time for the move of someNCLM staff members back to the Albert

Coates Local Government Center. A long-overdue renovation of that facility wasrecently completed. The new-and-improvedLeague side of the Coates building (theN.C. Association of County Commissionersshares the building) now boasts a new roof,reconfigured office space to allow morenatural light, additional meeting space,much-needed security upgrades, andimprovements in energy efficiencies andstorage. In addition, the offices all featurenew furniture.

Funding for the Coates building renova-tion came from the League’s capital reservesand not the operating budget.

Executive Director S. Ellis Hankins andExecutive Assistant Regan Reynolds willreturn to the Coates Building, as will theLeague’s governmental affairs, legal, com-munications and N.C. Metropolitan MayorsCoalition staff members.

NCLM re-organizes, readies for move back to Coates Building

BY BRENDA PORTER-ROCKWELL

As municipalities look for cost-savings on their rising utilitybills, swapping out old streetlights

for newer, more modern lighting, lightemitting diodes (leds) are becomingincreasingly commonplace in municipalpublic spaces. Promising greater energy sav-ings down the line, leds are more environ-mentally friendly and emit brighter light ata greater distance. A number of cities acrossthe state including Raleigh, Chapel Hill,Charlotte and Durham have all added ledlighting to various parts of their respectivecommunities.

In Durham, led lighting projects havebeen undertaken both inside and out asolder buildings undergo renovations withfunding from the American Recovery and

Reinvestment Act. About a year and a halfago, seeing that electric and water/sewerrates were increasing across the board, thecity and the county of Durham’s Office ofSustainability adopted an energy policy toreduce usage and save money with initia-tives like adjusting thermostat settings, andadding led lights.

In addition to the aforementioned list ofreasons for adding leds, “We looked at thelong life and efficiency, the effectiveness of amore brilliant light and the ability to covera larger area than conventional lighting,”said Joel Reitzer, Durham’s sustainabilitymanager.

Further, added Durham’s Senior ProjectManager Kendrick Williams, “We alsowanted to decrease our energy usage, but

LEDs in public spaces save money, offer greaterlighting efficiency

Carolina Pines Park in Raleigh upgraded itsparking lot lighting to energy-efficient LED technology.

CITY

OF

RALE

IGH

continued on page 8

2From Our Perspective: Making healthy and cost-effectivedecisions with our members

A strategic plan for regulatory issues

3N.C. officials appointed to NLC committees and councils

RMS Regional Meetings: Good news is on the way!

4League directory now online

Identifying shared interests in our community

5Workshop looks at how to meet the information needs of communities

6Livability in the 21st Century

D’Angelo added to NCLM underwriting department

7

Goldsboro: Building the ladder toward safety & wellness

9Improvements to Coates Building will result in more energy efficiency

10

Using apps to market your town

After the Recession: A strategy for downtown recovery

11 ‘Downtown is working’

12 Talk of Our Towns

13 On the Agenda

14 Career Opportunities

8 Southern City FEBRUARY 2012

increase our light output.” Durham added led lights as part of ren-

ovations to five buildings around the city.Trying to meet tight deadlines around thestimulus funding, the project was furthercomplicated by the challenge of renovatingduring business hours and the required tun-ing of the lights to individual settings.

“It’s not a heat-producing light. It usesabout one-fifth the energy of conventionallight sources, but [the emitting light] looksjust like regular lights,” said Williams, whooversaw the project renovations.

Recently, Hendersonville and fourdowntown businesses completed energyefficiency upgrades using more than$63,000 in federal stimulus money. The cityreplaced 32 light fixtures on Main Streetwith led light fixtures, leaving the citywith an estimated savings of $11,500 elec-tricity annually.

Upgrades to businesses included heatingand air conditioning equipment retrofits,insulation, solar hot water installation, light-ing retrofits and occupancy sensor controls.The changes will result in an overall 40percent reduction in electricity use by thebusiness owners.

Albemarle received some $54,137 forretrofitting 124 existing street lights withled fixtures on East & West Main Streetcorridors saving the city an estimated$25,169 in utility costs annually.

In total, more than $330,000 in stimulusfunding has been awarded to eight NorthCarolina “Main Street” communities tohelp with energy efficiency and renewableenergy initiatives.

Expanding usesIn Durham, the retrofitting covered three

parking decks, a water management facilityand a convention center. In total, the cityadded just under 1,000 leds for nearly a $1million investment – money well spent,according to Williams. Durham anticipates18 to 25 percent electricity savings overconventional lighting.

Both Durham and Chapel Hill are partof Durham-based Cree’s led City initiative,an international program to promote anddeploy energy-efficient led lighting tomunicipal infrastructure to save energy, pro-tect the environment, reduce maintenancecosts and provide better light quality forimproved visibility and safety. The led Cityprogram was established in 2007 to acceler-ate implementation of led lighting inmunicipalities by promoting the benefitsthat can be achieved through led lightingand by encouraging users to share experi-ences and data.

Since its inception, the led City pro-gram has helped more than 20 cities acrossthree continents confidently transition tosolid-state lighting. As of 2010, when Creemerged the led City program with theU.S. Department of Energy’s MunicipalStreet Lighting Consortium, member citieswere regularly reporting energy savings of50 to 80 percent, and significant mainte-nance savings over the life of the fixtures.

“Cree is extremely proud of themomentum that the led City programdeveloped over the five years it ran, begin-ning with Raleigh as the first Cree ledCity in 2007. Raleigh continues to lead theled lighting revolution with led lightinginstallations around the world in a varietyof applications ranging from accent andindoor lighting to street and parking lotlighting” explained Greg Merritt, Cree’svice president of marketing and govern-ment relations.

Raleigh’s initiative is described as a sortof “living laboratory” to deliver the eco-nomic, environmental and usage benefits ofled lighting to the residents of Raleigh.

The first project in Raleigh was focusedon validating both the cost savings andtechnology capabilities of leds through

aninstallation of led lighting in the city’smunicipal building parking deck. BothCree and Raleigh public officials correctlyanticipated the initiative would serve as amodel for other cities that are consideringimplementing energy-efficient infrastruc-tures.

As part of the commitment to creatingan “led City,” Raleigh planned to deployled lighting, through its living-laboratoryinitiative, to serve a number of lightingapplications, including garage and parkinglot lights, street lights, architectural andaccent lighting, portable lighting and pedes-trian and walkway lighting over the next 18months.

Chapel Hill has installed led streetlightsalong the 100 block of Franklin Street, oneof the town’s most recognizable landmarks.Ten high-pressure sodium streetlights havebeen replaced to evaluate the extension ofled street lighting. led street lighting canreduce energy consumption by 50 percentor more. The town solicited feedback fromresidents about the quality of the lightingduring the course of the 12-month pilotprogram.

Currently all of the streetlights in Con -over have been switched to high pressuresodium (hps) from the standard mercuryvapor. As Conover updates its buildings, ithas switched from hps to leds both inter-nally and externally where feasible.

Plusses, minuses for LED useThe changeover from traditional mercu-

ry-based lighting or other energy-saving-type lights pose a few hurdles for somecommunities. The up-front investment canbe costly and there is no standard of meas-urement for the type of light emitted (kilo-watt, lumens, candlepower), which at thefront end makes long-term savings projec-tions on utilities difficult to calculate, saidConover City Manager Donald Duncan.

The latter is the biggest cause for concernfor him.

“Architects and lighting engineers meas-ure in lumens, or foot-candles,” said Dun -can. “This is a traditional measurement foradequately sizing the necessary light for anyroom. leds, however, operate in a differentspectrum of light and can be custom tuned,so candles may be widely different, and[thus] is not a true measurement of thelight’s output.”

Duncan hopes the debate taking placeamong lighting experts, including Cree, willbe settled sooner rather than later.

High Point installed led lights aboutfour years ago in a one block section of

streetlights in the downtown area, “So wecould compare them to our regular street-lights and judge the public’s reaction to apossible change,” explained Assistant CityManager Randy McCaslin. “The cost forthe led streetlights is coming down, but atthis time they are still much more expen-sive than our regular sodium vapor street-lights.”

The led street lights are located onHam ilton Street between Green and Com -merce. They are located in front of the cityhall, between city hall and the InternationalHome Furnishing Center building. Thatarea was chosen for the high visibility tothe public. Also, this location is fairly isolat-ed from other lights and is in the down-town. When the light fixture was selected, itwas based on cost and the supplier’s trackrecord. Back then the lights were in the$1,200 to $1,500 range, but McCaslinbelieves with the reduction in cost, the city,if it wanted, could probably pay aboutbetween $250 and $500 for additional lightfixtures — still more than their sodiumvapor lights. However, presently, McCaslinsaid, High Point is not planning to replaceany more streetlights; nor is the city plan-ning any wholesale changes to other lightsin buildings or parks right now.

Raising another concern, Conover’sDuncan said he has found the led marketis limited by production times and not hav-ing fixtures, especially for decorative light-ing, that are a standard replacement.

“We have two companies in our areathat build custom lights, but that is just it.There are no off-the-shelf replacementunits yet,” Duncan explained. “If you wantto outfit an entire building, the lead timesare horrendous, some taking 90 days,” saidDuncan. “So if Duke Power orders 30,000street lights annually, they may want half ofthem at once,” putting smaller requests onbackorder.

Even with the issues encountered,Duncan said there is a silver lining they hadnot counted on: outdoor led lights do notattract bugs, if in the proper light spectrum.

“Pretty cool,” Duncan said.

LEDs, from page 1

CITY

OF

HIG

H PO

INT

High Point’s LED lighting includes standard anddecorative fixtures.

“LED pedestrian lighting illuminates Exchange Plaza off of Fayetteville Street in Raleigh.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CREE