Council Member Cashman announces Minneapolis Chain of Lakes streetlights relit

Katie Cashman

With Lake of the Isles streetlight repairs finally wrapping up, I wanted to share more about the journey the city of Minneapolis has been on to repair 30 miles of streetlights in 2024 and 2025, and how excited I am that repairs are being completed citywide. Particularly, for Ward 7: Lake of the Isles repairs are nearly complete, with Cedar Lake up next, and Bde Maka Ska repairs on the horizon.  
Copper wire theft from our city streetlights emerged as a huge issue throughout Minneapolis in recent years so we prioritized this issue in our Committee Work Plan for the Climate and Infrastructure Committee that we passed in early 2024. First, we advocated for a state law change (which passed and went into effect in Jan 2025) to require registration of copper wire sellers to curb illegal sales of copper. Additionally, last year, city council passed a legislative directive on copper wire theft to address the thefts and the outages throughout the city. Staff outlined the extent of the problem and what it would take to solve it. Public Works set out to speed up repairs and replaced 10 miles of street light outages in 2024, mostly with aluminum which has less resale value than copper. In 2025, new areas of repair and street light installation were added to the map. This included Dinkytown, which student public safety advocates have been highlighting as a necessity for quite some time.  
Knowing that we were working on a tight budget for citywide repair, the council and Mayor collaborated with Public Works on a plan to overspend our streetlights budget this year in order to clear the backlog. I covered this city decision in my June 6 newsletter.  
For 2025, Public Works is doing 20 miles of streetlight repairs. For Ward 7, I fought tirelessly to get Lake of the Isles, Bde Maka Ska and Cedar Lake to the top of the repair schedule. Isles will be done this very week, with Cedar Lake up next. The streetlights around the lakes and on the greenway are important public spaces that serve not just the residents who live nearby, but so many visitors to our city. The streetlights help immensely with deterring crime, and let folks use the park trails, bike paths, and parkways in the early mornings and evenings with increased safety and comfortability. 
With citywide collaboration, we are making sure every neighborhood is lit. That’s our community’s win! I want to thank the Public Works maintenance staff who are putting in so much time and effort to make our city operate. I am really excited about the near completion of the Lake of the Isles Parkway, knowing that Bde Maka Ska and Cedar Lake are up next, and I look forward to being able to see the beauty of our lakes at all hours of the day.