Two Westside L.A. Council members pool their funding for street light repairs

Two City Council members representing West Los Angeles communities will pool discretionary money to support a repair crew to fix street lights in their respective areas, it was announced on Friday.

Council members Katy Yaroslavsky and Traci Park, who represent the 5th and 11th Council Districts, respectively, held a news conference Friday morning to highlight their effort.

The council members introduced a motion to allocate $500,000 to accelerate repairs of inoperable streetlights across the Westside, where they say copper wire theft and a growing repair backlog have left communities in the dark.

“Inoperable streetlights are not a minor inconvenience, but a direct public safety issue,” Park said in a statement. “Darkened blocks increase the risk of collisions, create opportunities for crime, and put pedestrians and families at risk.”

Park, who represents the coastal communities such as Venice, Pacific Palisades and Del Mar, among others, cited the blackouts were in large part due to copper wire theft.

“While the city works to get ahead of this epidemic, we are taking action locally to dedicate funding and restore lighting in our Westside neighborhoods,” Park added.

Yaroslavsky, who represents communities such as Brentwood, Bel Air, Melrose and Hancock Park, echoed her colleague’s sentiments, adding that the city has a street light emergency.

“One in 10 lights are out, and my colleagues and I on the City Council are done asking residents to wait on a broken bureaucracy,” Yaroslavsky said in a statement.

The funding is expected to support a dedicated street light repair crew, and the procurement of solar-powered street lights.

Andrew Martin, a Mar Vista resident, expressed frustration regarding the latest copper wire theft that left his neighborhood in the dark. He thanked the council members for their motion, which he described as “really encouraging.”

“The usual feeling you have is that government doesn’t work, but this is a clear example that it does, starting at the bottom with local community members and local leaders like Traci and Katy. We’re hopeful that our lights will be up and running very soon,” Martin said in a statement.

Park’s council office noted that unlike most other council districts, the Fifth and Eleventh, do not have access to AB 1290 funds — discretionary tax increment dollars that other districts around the city rely on for infrastructure improvements and repairs.

Combined, the council members’ districts have more than 1,100 open street light repair cases in the Westside, which they hope to address with their discretionary dollars.

The motion is expected to be heard by the City Council in the future.

Council members Hugo Soto-Martínez and Ysabel Jurado, who represent the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Council Districts, previously used discretionary funds for street light repair crews to cover their neighborhoods.

Earlier this week, Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez celebrated solar-powered upgrades in Lincoln Heights and Cypress Park, where the Bureau of Street Lighting converted 91 existing LED street lights.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, the City Council approved a contract amendment with NBS Government Finance Group Incorporated, adding $312,018 to their agreement which began in 2021. The contract totals nearly $1.9 million.

The firm is expected to produce a so-called engineer’s report, which is required as part of an effort to change the assessment for calculating streetlight maintenance fees.

More than half-a-million property owners would be impacted by the new assessment, but must be approved by a majority of property owners under the Proposition 218 process or the “Right to Vote on Taxes Act, which was passed by California voters in 1996.

City officials say the assessment has not been updated in more than 30 years.

A proposed measure is expected to be mailed out to affect property owners later in the spring for their consideration. City departments are also expected to conduct outreach and inform residents about the proposal prior to implementation.