A steep levy to fix LA streetlights? Don’t insult us

City problem? Push for a tax, fee, or levy.

Another city problem? Push for another tax, cheerfully branded as “revenue.”

And on and on it goes, ad nauseam — as Pavlovian a political response as there is on Earth.

Enough.

Los Angeles and other California jurisdictions need to cut and prioritize spending, live within their means, rein in giveaways to unions, and stop looting cash-strapped taxpayers every 10 minutes.

Toward that end, LA property owners should cast a “no” vote on the city’s latest ploy: gouging homeowners for streetlights plundered by copper-wire thieves.

As The California Post reported exclusively: Rather than preventing, deterring or clamping down on metal theft, Mayor Karen Bass and council members would simply stick residents with a bill for the crime.  

City Hall has asked 600,000 LA property owners to sign off on this lunacy, with ballots due June 2.

(The scheme can’t take effect without the assent of a weighted majority of the affected property owners who return ballots, thanks to Prop. 218, approved by state voters in 1996.)

The fact that the gambit made it to balloting — on a 13-1 vote by the city council, with Bass cheering it on — shows how out of touch LA’s ruling class is.

Beleaguered taxpayers already face a national affordability crisis that’s especially acute in high-tax, high-regulation California and yet more acute in left-wing spendthrift LA. 

Housing costs in the city are stratospheric as it is. 

So the mayor and 13 council members would raise property costs — and yes, that includes rents, indirectly — to cover a basic function of government at which City Hall is failing?

As lone-vote-of-sanity Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez said, the tax-first approach is “unreasonable,” and the city should cut expenses and offer a clear, updated plan for streetlight protection and maintenance. 

Why, yes.

The city should also address the cause of the problem, rather than inviting more crime with policy that punishes taxpayers rather than criminals.

Instead of scrambling to pay for the effects of crime, how about preventing it? To deter metal theft, the council should harden targets, clamp down on resale of the metal, and increase enforcement.

LAPD’s “Heavy Metal Task Force,” created by the council in 2024 to curb wire theft, fell victim to budget cuts — aka poor prioritization by the council — in 2025.

So instead of enforcement, Angelenos get … more bills.

One property owner, who vowed to vote no, showed The Post a prospective $205.91 annual assessment for a two-bedroom duplex. And this would be on top of sundry other assessments already heaped on property tax bills.

Yes, of course, streetlights are integral to public safety and need to stay on.

But piling the burden on property owners is not the way.

Tax, spend, and repeat is not the way.

Residents can’t continue to pay more every time this city or any other jurisdiction faces a new challenge, unexpected cost spikes, or simply can’t cover spending it may have recklessly approved. 

Basically, the streetlight-levy scheme is an insult to all who live in LA.

Here’s a bright idea for the city: Keep the lights on, and don’t charge extra.

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