The Los Angeles Metropolis Council has devoted an extra $200,000 towards the copper wire process drive, tripling the funds centered on curbing the theft of metallic from public infrastructure.
Peter Brown, Councilmember Kevin De León’s communications director, stated the initiative, dubbed the heavy metallic process drive, is the “most aggressive and proactive effort” to crack down on the thefts which have left predominantly working-class communities with out ample avenue lighting or web service — and value town at least $17 million in repairs.
The cash, which comes from De León’s discretionary funds, brings the overall funding towards the endeavor to $600,000. It is going to be allotted to the Los Angeles Police Division, whose officers from Central, Newton, and Hollenbeck Divisions have led 26 operations in current months, leading to 82 arrests, 2,000 kilos of recovered copper wire and the confiscation of 9 firearms.
Of the 82 arrests, 60 people are going through felony fees.
“This extra funding will improve our skill to fight these harmful crimes and be sure that our neighborhoods could be protected and safe,” De León stated in a press release Tuesday. “The success of the Heavy Metallic Process Pressure sends a decisive message to criminals that Los Angeles will now not assist you to use our metropolis belongings as your ATM. This ATM is closed. Whereas we’ve got had success with the outcomes of the duty drive, we nonetheless have rather more to do.”
Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martínez voted in opposition to the movement, which handed 12-2 Tuesday.
The streetlight outages are a “major problem,” Soto-Martínez advised The Occasions in a press release Thursday, however the subject might not essentially be as a result of copper wire theft.
“We’ve found that round 70% of these outages are due to an absence of upkeep,” Soto-Martínez stated. “With out seeing any information to recommend that this process drive will really forestall future vandalism and outages, our restricted funds needs to be higher spent in supporting the Bureau of Road Lighting in fixing lights which can be at present out, whereas additionally supporting confirmed preventative measures like streetlight hardening and putting in LED lights, which don’t use copper wire.”
Hernandez agreed and stated she’d fairly have assets dedicated to efforts that “really forestall thefts from occurring within the first place,” such because the solar-powered avenue lights that had been put in on streets in Van Nuys earlier this yr.
Los Angeles Metropolis Councilmember Kevin de León holds copper wire whereas giving interviews on July 30.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Occasions)
As an alternative, she stated in a press release, town has been “doing the identical factor again and again and anticipating totally different outcomes in the case of copper wire theft.”
“Streetlights are out everywhere in the metropolis, and it at present takes virtually a yr to repair them, only for the cycle to repeat once more,” Hernandez continued. “The Bureau of Road Lighting has began piloting photo voltaic powered lighting that eliminates the issue of copper wire theft and strikes us nearer to our renewable vitality targets — however the Metropolis has solely deployed just a few hundred of those lights. It’s time to make investments in options that may get the lights again on for good.”
Hernandez and Soto-Martínez additionally voted in opposition to forming the duty drive in February, arguing that the endeavor centered extra on punitive measures than prevention.
De León referenced the February assembly July 30 in a information convention saying the outcomes of the duty drive, saying the thefts had been “not a victimless crime.”
The identical day, De León and Councilmember Traci Park launched motions instructing the Bureau of Road Lighting to model its copper wire as metropolis property and for Metropolis Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to draft an ordinance prohibiting the possession of telecommunications cable by any particular person or enterprise unaffiliated with telecommunications corporations.
The council has but to vote on these motions.
