Two Los Angeles council members moved to pour more than a million additional dollars into streetlight repairs Friday, chasing a problem that is already draining more than $20 million a year from taxpayers while entire neighborhoods sit in the dark.
The back-to-back motions, introduced at City Hall Friday by mayoral hopeful and councilwoman Nithya Raman and councilmember Bob Blumenfield, target copper wire theft that has gutted the city’s lighting system and triggered a growing backlog of broken poles.
Nithya Raman introduced a motion to shift $380,000 toward streetlight repairs, with most of the funding going to overtime as crews respond to rising copper wire theft. Ringo Chiu
LA has rejected the cheap and simple solutions (pictured). End Metal theft
Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Sherman Oaks, seen in 2012. APBlumenfield’s motion asks to shift $787,000 in funds into the city’s street lighting budget, with $472,200 earmarked for labor, $236,000 for supplies and another $78,700 for additional materials tied to repairs and upgrades.
A significant share of that money goes to staffing and overtime.
His district in the San Fernando Valley has been hit hard, with repeated thefts forcing crews to return to the same poles again and again.
A broken streetlight in Los Angeles sits dark after copper wire thieves stripped the pole, part of a growing problem now costing the city more than $20 million a year in repairs. End Metal TheftRaman’s motion follows a similar pattern. She is asking to move $380,000 into streetlight repairs in her district, with $324,000 of that total set aside for overtime costs alone.
Copper wire theft now racks up more than $20 million annually in repair costs, according to city figures.
At the same time, City Hall is asking residents to help foot the bill.
Ballots have started landing in mailboxes across Los Angeles, asking roughly 600,000 property owners to approve higher fees to fund a massive streetlight overhaul.
The proposal would boost the city’s lighting budget from about $45 million to $125 million a year to repair and replace roughly 200,000 streetlights.
The pitch from leaders, including Karen Bass, is that the system is overdue for a full rebuild.
Products Built To Stop Metal Theft For Good. End Metal TheftBut the timing is colliding with frustration from residents who are being asked to pay more while watching the same lights fail repeatedly.
What makes the latest motions more contentious is that a cheaper fix is already on the table.
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A private company, End Metal Theft, has been pushing a hardened locking cover that bolts over the access point where thieves reach the copper wiring.
The idea is simple: make the pole harder, louder and riskier to break into so thieves move on. The cost is about $300 per pole.
Streetlight access panels remain a key target for thieves, who can remove valuable copper in minutes, forcing costly and repeated repairs. End Metal theftMark James, a spokesman for the company, put it bluntly: “The most cost-effective theft deterrent isn’t replacing what thieves are after, it’s making it not worth their time to try.”
The company says the concept has worked elsewhere. In nearby cities, theft reportedly stopped after locking covers were installed, only to shift to unprotected areas. The pattern is straightforward: thieves target the easiest poles.
Los Angeles has seen the opposite dynamic play out on a massive scale.
Residents across Los Angeles are being asked to pay higher fees to fix and maintain streetlights as the city struggles to keep up with ongoing theft and damage. Ringo Chiu for California PostThe city has leaned toward replacing traditional poles with solar street lights that eliminate copper wiring altogether, but come with a price tag between $3,000 and $6,000 per unit, plus ongoing maintenance and battery replacement costs.
Both motions must now be formally filed and scheduled for a vote at City Hall. That date has not yet been set.
