When a Deschutes County Circuit Court judge pulled the plug on Bend’s downtown economic improvement district, holiday lights were effectively shut off for 30 percent to 40 percent of the shopping district’s trees.

Bend Downtowners Association Director Chuck Arnold said with revenue no longer coming from the tax district, the downtown association didn’t have the money to hang up all the lights it had planned.

”There are no 11th-hour Christmas lights coming in. There is not enough funding to cover them,” Arnold said.

The results have left a few downtown streets with the ice-blue lights hanging on only a couple of trees, scattered among other trees left bare.

However, most store owners and shopkeepers said they haven’t heard many complaints from customers about the lack of lighting.

”I think the downtown is the prettiest it has been as far as I can remember and I have been here for 23 years,” said Dianne Bernert, owner of Kitchen Complements on Minnesota Avenue.

The day before Thanksgiving, Judge Stephen Tiktin released a ruling that nullified a city ordinance and the resolution imposing a tax on downtown Bend property owners. The money raised went to pay for beautification, security and cleanliness in the downtown region.

The judge eliminated the improvement district because the city did not provide an adequate description of the project and how it would use the assessed money.

Since January, the city had been collecting the money, which was then given to the Downtowners Association.

The association has spent the funds on cleaning streets, shoveling sidewalks, planting flower baskets and adding more security.

The downtowners association had plans to buy new ice-blue lights that are more energy efficient and last longer than the traditional holiday lights.

In previous years, the lights on trees were often discarded after a season and used up so much electricity that powering the entire downtown became a problem, Arnold said. The downtown also went away from the traditional white lights based on an informal poll of around 20 different business owners who preferred the ice-blue ones, he said.

The association wanted to hang lights on all the 130 trees in the downtown that have plugs for the lights, Arnold said. The association had about 60 percent to 70 percent of those trees strung when the judge’s decision came down that eliminated the economic improvement district and the money that came with it.

Arnold said when the ruling was announced, crews had just finished hanging the lights and he was about ready to order more.

”Miles” of more lights and several thousand dollars are needed to finish the job, Arnold said. To hang the first batch cost around $5,000.

”It is phenomenal how many lights it takes to light the trees,” Arnold said.

One shopkeeper downtown hung up a strand of colored lights on a tree that was missed by the downtowners association, saying the streets do not look as festive as they did in past years.

Last year, the tree lit up in front of John Paul’s jewelry design store near the corner of Oregon Avenue and Bond Street was so festive that he took a picture of it, which is still on his computer. A year ago, lights were wrapped around the base of tree trunks and then strung on the branches.

This year, the tree was one of the ones that didn’t get lights before the economic improvement district was axed.

”It doesn’t create quite the same mood it has in the past,” Paul said of the lack of lights on his block.

The holiday lights are the most obvious sign that funding was pulled for the improvement district. Arnold said the downtowners association would no longer hire snow removal crews to clear out the streets or sidewalk or plant flower baskets in the spring.

Property owners will likely try to form another economic improvement district sometime next spring and propose an ordinance that has far more detail on how the money raised from the tax would be spent, Arnold said.