King Gillette, the inventor of the safety razor, is said to have recognized early on that the success of his business lay not in the razor itself but in the endless market for the disposable blades required for its use. His marketing strategy, therefore, was to sell his razors below the production cost to help create a market for the blades, which were sold at a cost well above what it cost to make them.

Westar Energy seems to have a similar strategy in mind when it comes to installing and maintaining street lights in the city of Lawrence and presumably elsewhere. The electrical utility generously agrees to install the number of streetlights it has determined the city needs and maintain those lights and poles. All the city has to do is pay for the electricity.

This policy came to light (sorry for the pun) recently when some residents along a newly rebuilt stretch of Kasold Drive complained about the number and brightness of street lights that had been installed. City officials said the city had followed Westar guidelines on how many lights were needed because the company pays for purchasing, installing and maintaining the lights. Westar officials say they follow the standards set by the Illuminating Engineering Society, a group that one would suspect would err on the side of more, rather than less, light.

The temporary fix is to shut off half of the lights in the Kasold median, but Westar is only willing to make permanent changes to the system if the city is willing to pay for those changes. On future projects, the city can deviate from the Illuminating Engineering standards for lights, but if they do, they will have to pay for and maintain their own lights; Westar is not willing to deviate from the national standards.

So much for customer service.

Especially at a time when energy conservation is of such great concern to most Americans, it seems almost unethical for an electric utility to coerce a municipality to consume and pay for more electricity than it needs to adequately light streets and other facilities. Westar will agree to foot the bill for streetlights, but only if the company is guaranteed a certain return on that investment in the form of electrical consumption.

We’ll give you the streetlights (razors) for free, but in order to use them, you’ll have to continue to buy the electricity (blades) for whatever the current price may be.

Ah, King Gillette would be proud.