You can do this online at the Web site for the City of Racine's Engineering Department. Go to http://www.cityofracine.org and head to the page for the Engineering Department.

Scroll down and you'll see an interesting factoid. Did you know that there is a total of 8,183 streetlights in the City of Racine (WEPCO - 4838, City Streets 3345)?

Click the link that says "Report Street Light Outage" and a form will open in a separate window.

Every wooden pole is assigned a pole number, and you'll need that number. It's stamped on a metal strap at eye level. Cement and metal poles do not have numbers.

Make sure you also have the pole's precise address and location. You'll also want to check if the light is cycling, which means it's turning on and off, or if the light is off all the time.

What makes a state blue or red?

The accepted explanation for red and blue being used takes us back to the 2000 presidential election.

CNN used blue as the color for states won by then-Vice President Al Gore, a Tennessee Democrat, and red for states won by then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a Republican.

And that's the birth of a political metaphor for liberal (blue) vs. conservative (red).

There's an ages-old, conspiracy-based idea that says the Democrats are associated with the blue uniform of Abe Lincoln's Union Army, and that Republicans are painted with the red of the Confederate flag, which was carried to doom at Gettysburg.

People who believe that explanation need to step into the sunlight and get a life of some kind.

I'm curious which American Indian tribes have occupied parts of Racine County since the first arrival of Europeans on the continent. Can you help?

"Racine: Growth and Change in a Wisconsin County," a collaborative history of Racine County edited by Nicholas C. Burckel and published in 1977, deals extensively with American Indians and Racine County's history.

The first chapter of the book, written by Nelson Peter Ross, a former Chairman of the History Department at Carthage College, is titled "Two Civilizations - Indians and Early White Settlement."

A section in that chapter is titled "Indians and White Contact (A.D. 1650 to 1840)." The first paragraph of that section is the short answer to this question; it appears below.

"At some point prior to white contact in the mid-seventeenth century the Indians of the upper Great Lakes had divided into tribes or "nations." Two such tribes, both descendants of the ancient Woodland Indians and speakers of Algonkian languages, inhabited Racine County. Members of the Miami tribe lived in the Country during the later seventeenth century, and from about 1700 to 1840 the County was the home of the Potawatomi. The Miami lived in Racine County during the first period of the French fur trade. The Potawatomi of the county also took part in the fur trade with the French, then that of the British and finally that of the Americans. With the coming of American settlers, the Potawatomi lost Racine County along with the rest of their homeland in the region."

According to the book, the Miami migrated from Racine County and into southern Michigan and northern Indiana by about 1700, where they found it more advantageous to trade furs with the English.

The Potawatomi were shoved off their lands in southeast Wisconsin as a result of the Treaty of Chicago, dated Sept. 26, 1803. The United States government persuaded more than 70 Potawatomi chiefs to sign the document; Chief Caw-we-saut from the Racine-Kenosha area was among them.

And with that so-called treaty the Potawatomi ceded roughly five million acres in southeastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois to the government, and took a similar amount of land in western Iowa.

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