{"id":150086,"date":"2026-01-26T15:31:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T15:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/150086\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T15:31:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T15:31:22","slug":"letters-to-the-editor-will-california-address-the-issue-of-its-out-of-state-firefighters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/150086\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters to the Editor: Will California address the issue of its out-of-state firefighters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 26, 2026 7 AM PT <\/p>\n

To the editor: In the wake of last year\u2019s deadly and destructive fires, the L.A. firefighter union has introduced a ballot initiative that would raise the city sales tax to 10.25% (\u201cL.A. firefighter union launches sales tax initiative to fund new stations and more,\u201d<\/a> Jan. 15). The funds would be earmarked for the hiring of more firefighters, construction of new stations and purchase of new equipment.<\/p>\n

The yearly increase of $300 million is meant to better allow the department to prepare for and rapidly respond to emergencies like earthquakes and fires.<\/p>\n

To that end, would the union also support a measure to require firefighters to live within L.A. County or at least the adjacent counties, and tighten liberal scheduling rules? As of 2023<\/a>, more than 150 firefighters live out of state, some as far away as Alaska, Texas and Florida. Others are in Northern California.<\/p>\n

When there\u2019s full mobilization, as during last year\u2019s fires or a major earthquake, how effective will those who live hundreds of miles away be?<\/p>\n

Judy Pang, Palos Verdes Estates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 26, 2026 7 AM PT To the editor: In the wake of last year\u2019s deadly and destructive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,74374,4019,22856,2949,2072,553,1793,69213,48,52,51,7036,1838,47,50,49,74373,42482,74375,35315],"class_list":["post-150086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california","tag-city-sale-tax","tag-construction","tag-destructive-fire","tag-earthquake","tag-editor","tag-florida","tag-issue","tag-l-a-firefighter-union","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-last-year","tag-letter","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-more-firefighter","tag-new-station","tag-out-of-state-firefighter","tag-purchase"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}