The city of Los Angeles has a major street light problem. Thousands of the lights are out because thieves strip them of copper wire which they then turn around and sell for cash.
To deal with this problem and fix the lights, the city government is proposing a new TAX on the law abiding citizens who did not steal the copper wire. Can you even believe this?
The city wants to punish the people who didn’t ruin the street lights and make them pay to fix it. Unreal.
FOX 11 in Los Angeles reports:
Los Angeles voters to weigh fee increase for streetlight repairs amid copper theft concerns
A citywide plan to replace thousands of broken streetlights across Los Angeles could come with a cost increase for property owners under a proposed Proposition 218 assessment.
Mayor Karen Bass is urging voters to approve the measure, which would raise property-owner fees by an estimated 120% to help fund a $125 million program aimed at replacing more than 200,000 streetlights citywide. City officials say the current system generates roughly $45 million and has not been significantly updated since the 1990s, when Proposition 218 was adopted by California voters to require property-owner approval for new or increased local assessments.
Under the law, the city cannot raise streetlighting fees without a majority vote from affected property owners, a process that has kept much of the funding system largely unchanged for decades.
Ballots are expected to be mailed this week.
Across Los Angeles, officials say copper theft continues to worsen infrastructure problems, with thieves stripping wire from underground fiber lines and disabling streetlights in neighborhoods across the city. More than 32,000 streetlight repair requests remain pending.
In this video report, one LA resident notes the fact that the city is supposed to host the Olympics in the near future. How are they going to do that when they can’t even keep the lights on?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to enforce the law and punish people for stealing the copper wire? Isn’t that the logical fix for this problem?
When did punishing criminals become a controversial approach to governing a city, and why should the already burdened taxpayers have to fix this problem? Don’t they pay enough in taxes?
The post SAY WHAT? Los Angeles Proposes New TAX to Pay to Fix Street Lights Broken by Copper Wire Thieves appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.