Centre Street Holiday Decorations are Coming after Dealing with Shady Company

Editor's note: The following is from state Rep. Ed Coppinger, D-West Roxbury.

Over the past few months, I have been working to raise money to purchase holiday decorations for our West Roxbury business districts. After some incredible support from the local business community and a fantastic fundraiser at the Irish Social Club, we successfully raised over $14,000. I am writing to update the community on what I have done and what I have left to do.

My hope was to use a company close to Massachusetts so I could at least visit them to make sure they were a good company with superior products. After searching, we kept coming back to a company in New York and had multiple conversations about what we had in mind for West Roxbury. At the last minute, we realized that they were the company that sold the previous holiday lights to West Roxbury Main Streets that failed after 5 years. 

Due to this realization, we were hesitant to use the company again. The company told us that there were voltage issues with the street lights on Centre Street that caused the lights to burn out. As a result, they had steered us away from the kind of decorations we wanted, but instead advised us to purchase decorations that did not light up.

Before we made any commitments, we spoke to City officials who researched the voltage fluctuation problems for us. They reported back that the lights are fed from different zones and the theory that all of the streetlights on Centre Street were the cause of the decorations failing was false.

We have since found a company in Pennsylvania that has done business with cities and town up and down the East Coast, including several in Massachusetts. We followed up on their references in Massachusetts and they came back with glowing reviews. We placed an order with this company and are waiting its arrival. The average price for the decorations is close to $400 each. These American-made decorations will have LED lights that consume less energy and will last longer than the alternative.

As you can see, at this price we couldn’t get enough decorations for every pole.  Our hope is to do a little bit over the next few years and put wreaths on poles that do not have other decorations. Our first Raise Some Green for West Roxbury Fundraiser was a huge success and people are still talking about it and are looking forward to next year.

Please, feel free to call me at 617-722-2080 or e-mail me at Edward.Coppinger@ma.house.gov if you have any questions.

Ed Coppinger

State Representative

10th Suffolk District