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LA wants property owners to pay for city’s failure to keep lights on

The LA City Council and Mayor Karen Bass’ latest brainstorm – slapping property owners with a roughly 120% hike in the streetlight assessment fee (as high as $1,500 for an apartment complex) – is peak government stupidity.

Instead of stopping the thieves who have turned copper wire theft into a thriving local industry, LA City Hall has decided those responsible are the homeowners who keep paying taxes and somehow expecting streets to stay lit.

Copper theft has surged a reported 1,200% in the last decade, creating a backlog of over 32,000 repair requests and outages, each of which can drag on for a year or more.

Los Angeles’ Bureau of Street Lighting has been starved of meaningful funding since the 1990s, staffing is thin, and crews waste time navigating the same recurring crime scenes – often complicated by encampments and general disorder.

A specialized LAPD task force on copper theft was quietly disbanded after modest results. Penalties for theft remain laughably weak, scrap yards keep buying “hot”metal with minimal scrutiny, and the whole cycle spins on, while officials shrug and reach for their calculators to propose new fees.

It’s outrageous that law-abiding property owners are being billed for such a basic public safety failure.

Keeping streets illuminated helps deter crime and prevent accidents. It’s........

© New York Post