NEWPORT — When the city is trying its best to enhance its historic appearance, National Grid shouldn’t be installing unappealing modern streetlights in quaint sections of town, according to two City Councilors.

Councilwoman Jeanne-Marie Napolitano said that she was upset when the utility company installed common “cobra head” style streetlights on Broadway earlier this year.

“There are historic lights over at CCRI that are really nice and give a sense of aura, I would have thought they would have considered that before replacing the lights on Broadway,” Napolitano said. “There wasn’t any real communication or dialogue with the city …What I am asking for is some communication so we can improve the landscape — and particularly coming into the city.”

And now, says Councilwoman Katherine Leonard, some neighbors are worried that National Grid will replace lights at Touro Park, worrying some neighbors that they’ll be too bright or distasteful so close to the historic Newport Tower and prestigious Bellevue Avenue.

“We only want them to do the right thing and preserve the historic integrity of the park,” said Leonard, adding that a resident has already come forward to offer to pay the difference between a contemporary light and a historic-style one. “We’ll try to raise the money and make that happen.”

She and Napolitano have cosponsored a resolution asking the state to grant Newport regulatory authority over the installation of streetlights.

“We’d like to see what you are going to put there before you put them in so we don’t have some tacky aluminum lights in the middle of a historic zone,” Leonard said.

The resolution requests that the General Assembly and the state Public Utilities Commission “formulate a policy to protect historic lighting elements/fixtures and require that specifications for new lighting be submitted to the City of Newport for review before installation… and that, in all cases, the historic lighting be protected, upgraded, be made safe and functional rather than be replaced with inexpensive, non-historical, unaesthetic lighting that deteriorates the historic quality of Newport and its neighborhoods.”

David Graves, a spokesman for National Grid, said yesterday that the utility wasn’t aware of the proposed council resolution. When furnished with a copy of it, he said that supervisors were having difficultly fully understanding the councilors’ concerns.

“We always work with the city. It sounds like the opening of a discussion,” Graves said.

National Grid, the councilors maintain, must abide by an agreement the city had with the company’s predecessor requiring the utility to cover the energy costs of the special light fixtures. The utility, however, “has begun a new policy of coercing municipalities not to upgrade and improve the historic lighting fixtures.” It is pressuring communities to replace them with “unaesthetic lighting fixtures” by threatening to end the subsidy, they assert.

Generally speaking, said Graves, the city pays a flat fee for each streetlight. The fee covers electricity and maintenance and adds up to about $200 to $250 per light each year. Communities can opt to install decorative lighting and own and manage the fixtures themselves, with National Grid installing a meter on such lights.

Complaints relating to new light fixtures are also being sounded by residents who live near Ruggles Avenue, Leonard said.

“They say it looks like you are on a runway,” Leonard said.

Napolitano said that streetlights installed around the new Community College of Rhode Island campus are pleasing and match the fixtures put up at the nearby Newport Heights housing development.

“They are just really nice,” she said. “Obviously, when they did this work at CCRI, someone talked to them. “It would behoove them if we could have a conversation ahead of time.”

rsalit@projo.com