The Brief

Copper wire thieves have damaged the LA Metro system, darkened swaths of neighborhood streetlights, and swiped cell phone towers for years.

Now, L.A. City Councilmembers Traci Park and Kevin de León are calling for a new LAPD task force to fight back against the spike in copper crime that's costing the city millions of dollars each year.

“The city, quite literally, is being stripped for parts,” de León’s motion said.

About the issue

Park, whose 11th district includes West L.A, Venice, and Brentwood, told LAist copper wire theft is one of the most serious problems the city is facing.

There’s been nearly 400 thefts reported using the MyLA311 app since 2020 in her district alone, Park said, and that doesn’t include the number of reports to the LAPD or other agencies.

“Thieves and vandals have tampered with traffic signals in our intersections, with rail crossings, and other infrastructure that actually puts people's lives at risk,” she said. “So this is something that we just simply cannot tolerate.”

Miguel Sangalang is the director of the Bureau of Street Lighting, which handles all of the streetlights for the city of Los Angeles.

That includes roughly 250,000 streetlight assets, connected by about 9,000 miles of underground conduit and 27,000 miles of copper wire, which covers two-thirds of the city.

Sangalang told LAist it’s not unheard of to have these kinds of thefts because the components in an electrical system are valuable, but the pace of the problem has reached a level they’ve never seen before.

He said they’ve dealt with a tenfold increase in repair reports over the last five years — from about 500 to 700 incidents on average to nearly 7,000 a year.

South L.A. and downtown are some of the hardest hit areas. Sangalang said the San Fernando Valley also sees a similar number of incidents, but they’re more spread out and not necessarily concentrated in one neighborhood as in other parts of the city.

Cost of the crime

The thefts from last year alone cost the city an estimated $17 million in repairs, Park noted.

With L.A. heading for some difficult budget decisions in the next fiscal year, she said that’s a lot of money going towards fixing criminal activity rather than addressing homelessness, repairing sidewalks, or other essential services.

“It isn't a drop in the bucket, not at all,” Park said. “That is going to come at the expense of additional sanitation workers, or getting potholes filled, or addressing other dangerous conditions.”

Sangalang said copper wire thieves typically rip into the infrastructure, which can knock out several streetlights. He said getting them working again isn’t as simple as changing a bulb — it’s more like rewiring a whole house.

He said they have to send out multiple electrician crews to pull out all of the wire and reconnect it, which can take several hours. It costs about $36,000 to repair, and strengthen, one circuit and the 18 lights connected to it.

“We've been struggling because those are things that we've had to ask the mayor and city council to actually fund us,” Sangalang said.

He added that they’ll have to make some tough choices in the near future as the city faces the fiscal reality of a tight budget.

How they’re hoping to fix it

Park and de León introduced a pair of separate, but related motions late last month.

The first, from de León, calls for a Copper Wire Task Force that would tackle thefts in downtown L.A., Boyle Heights, El Sereno, and Lincoln Heights — all communities in his 14th District.

Thieves have damaged more than 3,700 streetlights in those last three areas alone by ripping out the copper wire, according to the motion.

The 6th Street Bridge has also been a popular stop. De León said criminals have stolen tens of thousands of dollars of copper wire from that infrastructure in recent weeks. He also offered $200,000 of his district funds to help cover the cost of the task force.

The second motion, from both Park and de León, would create a reward program designed to encourage people to report copper wire thefts and streetlight crimes in the city.

Park said their proposals would add onto the other work the city has done to combat the issue, including warning letters sent to recyclers about the potential criminal consequences of stolen copper.

“This is a problem that none of us should have to put up with,” she said. “What we're seeing is multiple tools being made available that can be utilized together to have a comprehensive crackdown on this citywide.”

Sangalang said they have to leave the investigative work to the LAPD, but the Bureau of Street Lighting has also been taking steps to deter thefts.

For example, they’ve started fortifying specific lights by using cement, steel, and concrete to hide all of the accessibility points.

“Think of it as building the biggest castles we can around our streetlights,” Sangalang said.

That process can take several days, if not weeks. He said there was one streetlight in South L.A. they were working to repair and fortify for nearly two months.

They’re also looking at deploying sensors and cameras to try and safeguard certain areas, especially those that have been hit by “repeat customers.”

“Looking at smart technology that can actually give us alerts, so that we can share some of this information with the enforcement side of the city and try and deal with that as well,” he added.

They’ve also added about 90 all-in-one lighting systems that are solar-powered and battery-enabled.

Sangalang said those are easier to repair, and it makes the lights more resilient.

“The power system might go out,” he said. “Well, we'd still have emergency lighting in the form of battery backup for several days.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District is preparing for possible “Super El Niño” storms that could damage schools and lead to closures, the district announced in a media release Tuesday.

District staff are clearing drains, trimming trees and checking roofs, windows and doors. LAUSD is also testing emergency equipment, including pumps and emergency lighting systems, and stocking supplies such as flashlights and drinking water.

“Preparing for severe weather starts well before the first raindrop,” Superintendent Andrés Chait said in a statement. “We can’t control the weather, but we can take steps now to protect our students and employees and help our schools stay ready.”

The district will monitor weather patterns using information from the National Weather Service and local emergency officials, it said.

LAUSD encouraged families to update their contact information to ensure they receive district calls, texts and emails. Families should also monitor weather alerts, follow emergency officials’ instructions, avoid flooded roads and review safe routes to and from school, according to the release.

“Preparing for a storm is a shared effort — from the crews maintaining school buildings to the principals reviewing emergency plans and the families making sure they can receive critical updates,” LAUSD said in the release. “By taking these steps before the rain begins, Los Angeles Unified is working to help students and employees stay safe and keep school communities as prepared as possible for the winter ahead.”

Southern California is likely in for a solid dose of rain this week, just days after heat and Santa Ana winds helped fuel several wildfires across the region.

Forecasters expect the bulk of the rain to roll into the Los Angeles basin Wednesday night and continue into Thursday morning, with a small chance of thunderstorms and hail.

The San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and coastal areas across L.A. and Orange counties could get around an inch over the next few days. Hills and mountains could get up to 3 inches.

“We could see some pretty high rain rates,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. “It's a good storm for this time of year — it's a little stronger than what we would see normally.”

The possibility of significant rain in the mountains raises concerns about flooding in areas recently burned in wildfires, particularly around the Bryson Fire burn scar near Malibu, which is only a few days old. Burn scars can’t absorb heavy rainfall and are susceptible to landslides.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounding communities from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. That means heavy rain there could flood streets, creeks and rivers. The flood watch area includes both the Bryson Fire and Palisades Fire burn scars.

This will also be the first nontropical storm of the season, meaning it’s moving into the region from the north. Most storms that hit Southern California follow a similar path, especially during the winter, unlike the tropical storms that formed off the coast of Mexico and brought muggy weather to the region this summer.

Nontropical storms also bring cold air to the region. On Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters expect highs in the 60s and 70s. High elevations will be even cooler.

The science research institute that would likely receive $4.2 billion in public taxpayer money if voters approve Proposition 38 this November had only three employees as of last month — far fewer than the 51 staffers it planned to have hired by last year.

Public statements and public records CalMatters obtained raise questions about how well prepared the institute is to shepherd so much money if the bond measure passes.

Prop. 38 would allocate up to $8.4 billion in bonds for scientific research on diseases and cures concerning the immune system, with an emphasis on finding treatments for Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease. The ballot language stipulates that a single, unnamed research institute would receive half the bond’s money to conduct research and partner with other researchers if it meets highly specific criteria. Bonds are a type of debt that must be repaid.

Previous reporting by CalMatters found only one institute in California currently meets those criteria: the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. The institute’s principal funder is billionaire Gary K. Michelson, who wrote Prop. 38 and is by far the largest donor to its political campaign.

Backers of the proposition said state bond money is needed to stabilize research funding after President Donald Trump repeatedly attempted to cut existing and future federal science grants.

The measure’s critics say Prop. 38 is well-intentioned but poorly designed because it overlooks the many established public and nonprofit university and hospital research labs in California. They also say California should not subsidize subsets of scientific research and instead should support research more broadly.

CalMatters obtained documents that included the five-year business plan of the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. The plan was part of the formal affiliation agreement between UCLA and the institute, which the two parties signed in August 2024. Among other details, the agreement requires the institute to pay UCLA 7.5% of the net revenue of any drugs and technologies developed by the institute’s staff. The institute is one of the founding tenants at a UCLA-owned research park in West Los Angeles, where the institute is leasing 235,000 square feet of research space, the institute says.

Far fewer employees than plan called for

Between summer 2024 and summer 2025, the institute committed to hiring “approximately” 51 employees, including six executives, five “world-class” scientists who can lead research labs, and 40 other employees, such as data scientists, lab technicians, biologists and administrative personnel. Between 2025 and 2027, the institute would hire roughly 90 more workers, including 10 research lab leaders, according to the agreement.

But John Mazziotta, a senior UCLA official who also serves as a board member of the immunology institute, last month said the institute has hired just three employees: a chief operating officer, a general counsel, and a scientific advisor, and “they're well into the search” for a director. Mazziotta, the CEO of UCLA Health and vice chancellor for health sciences at UCLA, made his comments during the Sept. 16 UC Regents meeting.

The Yes on Prop. 38 campaign has repeatedly refused to comment on whether the bond was written specifically for the immunology institute. Claudia Briggs, a spokesperson for the campaign, told CalMatters in July that whichever nonprofit receives the $4.2 billion portion of the bond fund should be a sophisticated one that “is prepared to accelerate lifesaving research immediately while maintaining the highest standards of scientific quality, accountability, and stewardship of public funds.”

At a September press conference, a Yes on Prop. 38 spokesperson appeared to confirm CalMatters’ findings that only one institute currently qualifies to be the one to receive half the bond money. “It is very likely that CIII, which is a research institute affiliated with UCLA, will qualify for half of the funds under the current criteria,” said Robin Swanson. CIII is the initialism for the immunology institute.

According to the five-year plan, the institute was supposed to spend $25 million on personnel between 2024-25 and 2025-26 and $45 million total on operating expenses in that time, including maintenance, utilities and rent. It was also supposed to spend an additional $167 million in that time on capital expenses, such as construction and demolition. However, Mazziotta told UC regents that the institute had so far spent a total of $20 million on “operating expenses, hires” and other expenses.

The Yes on 38 campaign refused CalMatters’ request to interview Michelson for this story, as did Michelson himself in a separate email. A spokesperson for the institute, Becky Warren, sent a written statement that didn't answer CalMatters' questions about employing far fewer people than the five-year plan laid out. Instead, she highlighted the promise of the institute and a few of its milestones, including signing the affiliation agreement with UCLA and clearing a state environmental review of its forthcoming research facility.

The institute won’t get state bond money if it isn’t ready to begin work, “plain and simple,” wrote Swanson, the Yes on 38 spokesperson, in an email. She stressed that though the institute very likely qualifies, the ultimate decision to award half the bond funding is up to the California Department of Public Health.

Institute facility will be built by 2028

The UCLA research park that houses the institute isn’t slated to be fully built until at least late 2028, according to the agenda item of the September UC regents meeting. The research park is a former mall UCLA acquired in late 2023 that’s now undergoing major retrofitting.

But the 2024 affiliation agreement between UCLA and the institute anticipated this. The agreement permitted the institute to use UCLA health research space on another campus property on an interim basis. Mazziotta told regents that research is underway there.

Mazziotta also told the regents the institute's construction costs are not fully funded — it still needs roughly $100 million. He said UCLA was in serious talks with a donor to provide about $50 million to the institute.

If Prop. 38 passes, the bond funding would be provided in increments based on how often the institute requests new money that senior state officials approve. If all the funds are depleted, Californians would repay the bond at a rate of $500 million to $600 million annually for about 20 years.

Institute would be exempt from public records act

CalMatters submitted the public records request to UCLA, which must comply with the California Public Records Act. The institute, as a private nonprofit, does not have to comply. And while Prop. 38 would channel billions of dollars in taxpayer money to the institute, the proposition’s language specifically exempts the nonprofit that will receive the $4.2 billion from state public meetings laws, political reform laws and the public records act. The other half of the funds would go to a council that’ll pick projects led by researchers from a limited pool of universities and nonprofits. The council would generally be governed by the state’s political reform act, which prohibits financial self-dealing.

Briggs defended the institute’s exemption in Prop. 38, writing that applying state transparency laws to existing private organizations would “not fit well with how private entities are organized and operate.” Instead, she noted the selected nonprofit institute would be required to publish annual reports on its research progress and financial plans plus commit to annual state audits, among other disclosures written into the ballot measure.

Still unclear to the UC regents is the relationship between UCLA and the institute on matters of public disclosure. Four senior UCLA officials sit on the institute’s board. So is a document held by those UCLA officials public because it’s related to UCLA affairs or private because it’s related to the institute’s affairs? UC’s general counsel couldn’t explain where that dividing line is after a regent member asked him. The regent member, Michael Cohen, said he wants more clarity when the regents meet again in November.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic Party endorsed Prop. 38, as have dozens of patient and research advocacy groups, plus the state GOP. The union of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, whose pay often relies on science research funding, has also endorsed the proposition. The union doesn’t represent faculty.

Money raised in support of Prop. 38 now exceeds $66 million, including at least $61.2 million in contributions from Michelson and his policy institute. Roughly $14 million of that includes loans from Michelson. The no camp has raised about $8,800

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.