Jessica Schuler said she wasn't initially worried when she looked across the street and noticed utility crews had left an old pole propped up and tied to its replacement. “I want to say it was last summer, they did replace the poles on Herkimer Street. So I just assumed it was a temporary thing that they were replacing our poles on Perkins Place.”
But several years later, nothing's changed. Now Schuler worries whether the pole is safe the way it is. “The kids are taking over the street. They're up and down all day long especially now that it's getting warm out. So, you just never know. Hopefully nothing does happen. But you just never know,” Schuler said. “It's just an eye sore. It's not nice to look at. It looks like there's just a rope kind of holding on to it. So, it looks like it could fall over at any point,” she added.
According to a spokesman for National Grid, leaving the pole in that state is actually a common procedure. They often cut off the bottom of the old pole when its rotting and attach it to a 2x4. National Grid also said the old pole is safe and it's not responsible for removing it. In a statement, a spokesman said "the long-standing process in these matters is that the last utility to transfer its equipment to the new pole is responsible for removing the old pole. For both safety and liability issues, we do not transfer any equipment other than our own."
Schuler said she doesn't care who is to blame, she just wants it taken care of. “It should be fixed. It should be there and have no worries about something making it fall or a storm comes and takes it out because it's not properly in the ground. So, I mean, it would be nice to have somebody come out and fix it.”
7 Eyewitness News reached out to both Time Warner Cable and Verizon. According to Time Warner Cable, it transferred its equipment from the old pole to the new one in 2014. Verizon didn’t get back to us. National Grid said it reached out to Verizon again to have it take care of the problem.
