Bottom line–Newburyport’s street lights could stay ON and we could save mucho money and energy. One of those wonderful win-win situations in politics, that comes along every now and again, and is so amazingly wonderful.

Yup, this is from a blogger who has not been a fan of anything to do with messing around with street lights (vast understatement).

I was so skeptical of the new consultant being proposed by the Energy Advisory Committee (EAC), that I didn’t go to the meeting last week to see what he had to say. My loss, big time.

But I did talk to a whole lot of people that were there.

And, yup, this guy, Mr. George Woodbury, appears to be the real deal.

Newburyport City Councilor Bob Cronin, who appears to be dubious about consultants for Newburyport, had this to say about Mr. Woodbury on his blog.

“I don’t like consultants. I believe that in-house staff should be able to accomplish most tasks. I sat in on the Neighborhood and City Services and Public Utilities meeting. The proposed lighting consultant seems like the real deal, retired US Army Colonel (West Point grad), retired Lexington DPW Director and national expert on privatizing streetlights. The knowledge he imparted in the hour meeting was incredible. No one in-house could seemingly pick up the ball and run with it like he appears to be able to do. It would take years to learn what was in his head. He suggested he could reap a savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly while making us a greener community. He has locally worked or is working with Lowell, Lexington, Brockton, Acton, and Fitchburg to name a few, he travels nationally.”

As I understand it, the vote for hiring Mr. Woodbury would be on the City Council floor Monday February 28, 2011. And Katie Ives, the chair of the Public Utilities Committee, would explain in detail why this is such a good deal for the city of Newburyport, MA.