Property owners in Los Angeles have voted against an increase in streetlight maintenance assessments that would have raised an additional $80 million a year, as the city grapples with a backlog of broken streetlights due to stagnant funding and an increase in vandalism.
The assessment has not changed since 1996. Property owners had until June 2 to submit their votes, which were weighted against the proposed assessed value of their parcel. According to the results released Thursday, about 80% of the weighted votes are against raising the test, which currently brings in about $45 million a year.
For a typical single-family home, which makes up most of the parcels, the current fee is $58 a year, or about $5 a month, according to Miguel Sangalang, executive director and general manager of the Bureau of Street Lighting. The increase would bring the average annual bill to $117, or about $10 a month.
The proposed increase would bring the total revenue collected through assessment to $125 million annually.
In a joint statement Thursday, Mayor Karen Bass, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and City Councilors Euniss Hernandez and Katy Yaroslavsky said that despite this result, “important work will continue” to address the broken street lights that have left neighborhoods in the dark across the city.
“Despite this result, the City remains committed to improving the reliability of street lights, fixing outages quickly, and creating a sustainable way to fund the operation and maintenance of street lights,” the group’s statement said. “All Angelenos should feel safe walking their dogs, coming home from work, and parking their cars at night, and the City is committed to providing reliable streetlights that make that possible.”
The Bureau of Street Lighting owns and operates approximately 225,000 street lights throughout the city, which have been historically covered by this survey. The average time for street light repairs was one year, office officials said in February.
Despite the additional revenue from inspections, city officials have been looking for more money. The city council says it will pay sixty-five million dollars-$65 million for the use of solar lights.
Bass recently announced an initiative to repair and replace 60,000 street lights over the next two years, and many council members have turned to their district grants to fix broken lights in their districts.
Hernandez, who is the chairman of the Public Works Committee in this council, said in a statement that the result does not change that the city is trying to keep the lighting system in the 21st century with an old funding model.
“If this test is not the way forward, then it is our responsibility to build another one by using more efficient City assets like light poles, exploring new revenue opportunities, and pursuing changes to outdated state laws like Proposition 218 that make it incredibly difficult for big cities like Los Angeles to maintain basic public infrastructure,” he said.
Broken streetlights have come up as an issue in the mayoral election, with Council Member Nithya Raman citing broken lights as an example of how the city “can’t handle the basics.” Raman faces Bass in the 2nd Nov.
In February, city council members announced a plan to replace street lights with solar panels, in an effort to curb the theft of copper wires. About 1 in 10 lights don’t work because of damaged or stolen copper wiring, according to the city.
A well-known example is the Sixth Street Bridge, where thieves stole 7 miles of cables.
