Proposed ballot to increase LA’s street lighting repair budget is delayed until the winter

A half-million property owners should expect to receive ballots in the winter asking them if they’d agree to pay more in yearly fees to help the city of Los Angeles more quickly repair and fortify its streetlights — a favorite target of copper wire thieves.

The Bureau of Street Lighting initially expected to send out those ballots in the fall. The process has been a “little bit delayed” as the agency hires a consultant to help with the process, head of the agency Miguel Sangalang told LAist.

The initiative to bolster the Bureau of Street Lighting’s budget, most of which has been stagnant for three decades, comes as local and state officials increasingly are focused on stemming metal theft’s impact on infrastructure.

The Bureau of Street Lighting’s budget

Most of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting budget comes from an assessment that people who own property illuminated by lights pay on their county property tax bill. That yearly fee — around $53 per year for most single-family homes — has been frozen for three decades because of state law.

The city can’t approve a higher fee without gaining approval from property owners.

The city is in the process of hiring a consultant

When LAist initially reported about the proposed ballots in July, Sangalang said the department was preparing to get approval from L.A. City Council in the summer and send out ballots in the fall.

On Monday, LAist asked Sangalang about the delay at a press conference on a state bill that would increase fees and penalties for recyclers who purchase stolen metal.

He said the agency is working on hiring a consultant to assist with the documentation that needs to go before L.A. City Council before ballots are distributed, as well as logistics for the ballots themselves, like printing them.

The contract to hire the consultant is fully funded, Sangalang said.

Now the contract has to go before the city’s Board of Public Works, which Sangalang said he hopes will happen in the “next couple of weeks.”

Then, L.A. City Council will have to approve a document called an engineer’s report, which will quantify the proposed assessment increases for each parcel and show how the extra revenue will help the city meet the cost of maintaining service and implementing improvements.

Pending Council's approval, Sangalang said the ballots will go out some time in December, January or February.

In total, 500,000 property owners will be asked to weigh in.

The public will have access to informational hotlines, pamphlets and web resources with more information about the ballots, Sangalang said.

Concerted efforts to battle theft

Two years ago, only a quarter of all calls for streetlight service were because of copper wire theft, Sangalang previously told LAist.

Today, theft causes 40% of all streetlight service calls, severely slowing repair timelines, he said.

On Tuesday, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced a motion dedicating more than $1 million in discretionary funding to power a streetlight repair team for her district, which includes neighborhoods that have some of the highest number of reported broken lights, like Downtown L.A. and Boyle Heights.

“When streetlight outages leave working-class neighborhoods in the dark, it’s not just about inconvenience: It’s about inequity,” Jurado said in a statement, adding that she hopes the repair team can more quickly respond to reports of broken street lights.

It’s not just streetlights that are impacted by theft.

Manhole lids, fire hydrants, telecommunications wires and apparently even guardrails are increasingly targets for thieves who sell the metals to recyclers.

Between June and December 2024, nearly a third of all copper theft and telecom infrastructure vandalism nationwide happened in California, according to state Attorney General Rob Bonta. 

California state Assemblyman Mark Gonzalez, who represents L.A., urged Gov. Gavin Newsom at a press conference Monday to sign a bill he introduced earlier this year increasing fines and penalties for recyclers who participate in the illegal metal market. Newsom has through October 12 to weigh in.

Bonta told reporters at a summit Tuesday with telecommunications companies that he will soon be announcing a statewide task force to help tackle the issue and said it’s modeled after past state efforts focused on organized retail theft.