Minneapolis to spend $1 million to combat copper wire theft

CBS News

29-05-2025

Jennie Kappenman had been wondering, what's with all the exposed wire right outside her sister's house in the Bancroft neighborhood of Minneapolis?
She soon found out why the lights were out on the block, after her sister called the city.
"Lo and behold, we just discovered what was going on, some tomfoolery," said Kappenman.
The outages are right outside nearby Bancroft Elementary School.
"Sometimes there's a lot of after-school programs that go pretty late into the evening, like after 10 p.m., so it's unfortunate that a lot of the families didn't have the safety of the light to get to their vehicles to cross the street," said Kappenman.
"You need lights in a city to make sure that people are safe and feel safe, both the reality and the perception of safety," said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
The outage in Bancroft represents just a few of the 450 city street lights the city said are now dark due to copper wire theft.
"That's incredible. That is really slippery behavior on the people that are doing the work, eliminating the wire from the lights," said Kappenman.
On Thursday, Minneapolis city leaders announced $1 million from the city's contingency funds will be used to hopefully help fix the problem. The money will go toward hiring more electricians and more material for repairs.
The city is in the process of switching lights from copper wire to aluminum to deter theft. As of Thursday, Bryan Dodds, deputy director of public works for Minneapolis, said lights are still out around the lake.
"We've received very little theft of the aluminum wires. Sometimes they'll open up the bases, they might even cut them, but then they realize this is aluminum, this is very little scrap value," said Dodds.
Officials said they are also looking into making the bases of the lights harder to get into.
As for Bancroft, city officials said they hope to restore the lights there within a few weeks.
"I hope those people can have access to employment training and maybe get a job with the city actually helping lay wire instead of taking wire," said Kappenman.
Crews are working as quickly as possible, with the hope to get through the entire backlog of copper wire thefts by November, according to the city.