The city of Los Angeles is about to raise property tax bills because thieves and vandals won’t stop ransacking the city’s infrastructure to steal copper wire.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say the city won’t stop thieves and vandals.

Either way, the answer to any problem in Los Angeles this year is some version of a tax increase. The June 2 ballot will ask city residents to approve raising the hotel tax to 16% from 14%. L.A.’s tourism industry still hasn’t recovered from the COVID pandemic years, so this should put it out of its misery. 

Illegal cannabis businesses are a problem in Los Angeles. So the June 2 ballot will present voters with a measure to require the illegal businesses to pay taxes like any other business. There’s no way to collect that money, but don’t be surprised if the city has to hire more bureaucrats to process the late fees.

Meanwhile, the long-suffering residents of Los Angeles who have been patiently waiting for the city to repair the damaged streetlights on their block will be surprised with this: a new charge for streetlights.

The Los Angeles City Council is planning a new assessment on property owners to raise an additional $125 million annually for streetlights, maintenance and repair. Documents from the Bureau of Street Lighting show that a single-family home on a roughly quarter-acre lot would be assessed an additional $147.08 for the 2026-27 fiscal year. Condominium owners would pay a little less. Homes on half-acre lots would be assessed $176.50, a multi-family building with more than 50 units would pay $1,529.68, and a retail development on a half-acre lot would pay $970.76. 

These assessments would rise with inflation every year. The charge would appear on property tax bills.

Prior to 1996, the approval of the City Council would have been the only step necessary to collect this new assessment. But voters passed Proposition 218, the Right to Vote on Taxes Act, and that changed the rules. Now, costs must be proportionate to the benefit provided to each parcel that will be assessed a new fee. And property owners must be notified and given an opportunity to cast a protest vote.

If more than 50% of the property owners protest, the new assessment cannot be collected.

So the city of Los Angeles has been going through the steps needed to get your money without getting sued for violating taxpayers’ rights under Proposition 218. The City Council declared its intention to form an assessment district. It adopted an Engineer’s Report describing the “improvements” and the levy for each Assessor’s parcel in the district. It affirmed its finding that “all parcels within the District will receive a special benefit from the improvements and activities to be funded by the assessments to be levied.”

The “special benefits” listed in the report include “improved security,” “improved safety,” and “improved economic activity and access.”

You already pay taxes and assessments that should be providing those “benefits,” which seem like basic government services, and not really “special.” The taxes you pay, it seems, are spent on things you’d never vote for, and every new ballot asks for tax increases to fund things that should have been at the top of the list of budget priorities.

If you own property in the city of Los Angeles, you’ll receive a ballot in April for this new district and assessment. But it’s not an ordinary election ballot. It offers only the opportunity to register a protest against the assessment. In order for the assessment to be stopped, over 50% of ballots that are sent out must be returned with a “No” vote. More than 500,000 ballots will be mailed. How many will be returned? How many people receiving the mailing will even know what it’s about?

It’s about raising your property tax bill to pay for an endless Road Runner-Coyote cartoon of never catching streetlight vandals.

At a special hearing on June 2, the protest ballots that are returned will be counted. Any ballot that isn’t returned counts as a “yes.”

Will the streetlights really get fixed? Or is this just a tax hike? 

Those are questions to ask your City Council representative.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley