Is your neighborhood in the dark? Thieves continue to gut public streetlight poles and make off with their precious copper innards, leaving neighborhoods eerily darkened in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Minneapolis is committing $1 million of contingency funding to the problem, officials said Thursday. Minneapolis has about 22,000 streetlights. About 450 of them are out — from the Midtown Greenway to Lake of the Isles Parkway to the Bancroft neighborhood on the city’s south side, where officials held their news conference. Thieves have hit a total of 17 miles of streetlights. Replacing the stolen copper wire with less desirable aluminum wire will cost the city $40,000 per mile. Read more at the link in our bio. Reporting by Susan Du. #minneapolis #twincities #minnesota #stpaul