More vandalism in the City of Windsor. Ward 4 councillor Mark McKenzie says the city, along with Enwin, is now dealing with individuals breaking into underground access boxes and removing the copper wiring. “We’re getting individuals who are going into these access boxes for street lights, and they’re ripping out the copper wire, and then that’s leaving all these lights not working and leaving blocks and blocks in the dark,” he says. McKenzie says Enwin is frustrated and says crews are going out to replace the wiring. He says it costs thousands of dollars to do the repairs. “These people need to be punished,” he says. “They need to be charged because this is thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of damage, and they’re not just hitting one or two blocks; they’re literally going all over the city. It’s happening on a nightly occurrence, and every day I’m getting emails; I’m getting calls from residents in different parts of my ward saying, “Hey, my lights are out. I don’t know what’s going on.” McKenzie says both Erie Street and Ottawa Street have been hit a few times. He says the issue has also hit Hall Avenue and Forest Avenue. “It’s really spreading across the city now, and it comes at a huge cost to the city and to Enwin, and I know Enwin is frustrated on this trying to keep up because it kind of started on a few blocks and now it’s spreading, and they can’t even keep up with the demand to get in there and try to replace this wire,” he says. McKenzie says the access boxes don’t have locks and believes the individuals are using socket wrenches to open the panels. He says he recently spoke to a company that does the locks for the green bins to see if they have any solutions to lock the boxes. There are social media posts circulating in local groups discussing the issue.
