PALMER SQUARE — Residents and parents of Palmer Square are frustrated over a lack of response by the city to requests to fix open electrical boxes that surround the park.
The electrical boxes at the bottom of several light poles lining Palmer Square park are rusted out and the doors have fallen off.
Some residents near the park fear those wires that in some cases are hanging out of the box could shock a child.
In other cases the metal bases that secure the light poles to the ground are eroded to the point where there are holes along the base.
"When you think of all the little ones running around, that's the thing," said Palmer Square resident Bonnie Johnson, whose boy Logan plays in the park regularly.
Steve Hier, president of the Homeowners Association of Palmer Square, said he has called 311 multiple times requesting repairs to the poles and that other neighbors have also called.
The city did repair one pole about six months ago, but there were at least six posts that are rotted out at the base or have wires hanging out of open boxes as of this week.
Light shines through the rusted out base of a light pole in Palmer Square. [DNAinfo/Paul Biasco]
Hier said he and the neighbors began calling 311 to report the issues at least a year ago.
He has even gone so far to head out into the park with a screwdriver and tape to do makeshift repairs, but some boxes are damaged beyond what he's capable of fixing.
The poles are not regularly inspected, instead are inspected in response to 311 calls from residents, according to a CDOT spokesman.
Hier hopes that something can be done ahead of the Tour de Fat bike and beer festival that is scheduled to be held in the park July 9 and is regularly attended by thousands of people.
"At least do temporary repairs and put straps and pieces of plywood around [the electrical boxes] to stop kids from putting their hands in there," he said.
According to 311 data of damaged light pole customer service requests, two separate repairs were requested on Palmer Boulevard alongside the square on May 5, which is listed a work in progress as of June 9.
Repairs on two separate requests from November for damaged electric equipment were both listed as completed.
There are no 311 requests in the system for damaged poles on Palmer Square other than those previously listed between April 2013 and June of this year.
Hier and Johnson fear one of the street light poles could fall.
It wouldn't be the first time.
According to service repair requests for street light pole damage provided by CDOT, there have been more than 150 poles reported down from the start of the year through May 26.
In May a light pole fell on a group of students in Hyde Park, breaking a 16-year-old's leg. The father of the girl filed a lawsuit against the city, according to an ABC7 report. The report also states that city workers told the station the pole had rusted through.
In February a light pole fell across Damen Avenue in Bucktown, but nobody was injured and in November a traffic light that had rusted at its base fell in Lincoln Park.
Earlier this month a pole that had been repeatedly damaged presumably from vehicular traffic on Kedzie near Logan Square fell.
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