AUGUSTA, Ga (WJBF) – Sharon Drive in Augusta is quiet and dark, there are no streetlights, so some residents had house lights installed.“I bought that one up there. I pay every month for it. Now it’s going up and I got to pay more,” said Mamie Gant.Turning on the streetlights in Augusta is expensive. It costs the city about $2 million more than the current billing system brings in.“We’ve been kicking the can down the road for the past five or six years on the street lights. We need to address it. We need to address it now,” said Mayor Pro-Tem Wayne Guilfoyle.On Tuesday, commissioners will discuss increasing streetlight fees – a $25 dollar-increase on residential property, $78 for commercial and a new fee of $60 for those without streetlights who haven’t been charged before, like Mamie Gant.“I guess if you have to pay, you have to pay, can’t do nothing about it,” she said.
“Is that fair though, to you?”
” No, it’s not. It’s not fair,” said Gant.“If you don’t have streetlights on your streets, should you have to pay sixty bucks?”…