The City Council Tuesday is expected to give its final approval to a proposed ordinance that would create a Metal and Wire Theft Reward program, which city officials hope will curb crimes against public infrastructure such as copper wire theft.<\/p>\n
Last week, council members voted 8-2 in favor of the ordinance and the matter was scheduled for a second vote Tuesday. If approved, the matter will go before Mayor Karen Bass for her consideration.<\/p>\n
In January 2024, then-Councilman Kevin de Leon, alongside Councilwoman Traci Park and Councilman John Lee, introduced a motion seeking to create a tiered reward system program to solicit help from residents in addressing copper wire theft. Council members later approved the motion and instructed the city attorney to draft the ordinance for such a program.<\/p>\n
Rewards would be offered for information involving theft of city plaques, tombstones, statues, light standards, and copper wire, and theft of metals linked to the Sixth Street Bridge.<\/p>\n
The city would offer a $5,000 reward for felony grand theft, and $1,000 for misdemeanor theft.<\/p>\n
\u201cCopper wire and other metal theft isn\u2019t pretty \u2014 it\u2019s organized crime that darkens our streets, cuts the internet to homes and schools, and robs us of our history when they steal statues and historic markers,\u201d Councilwoman Park said in a previous statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur citywide reward program takes these thieves head-on so we can keep lights on, kids connected and taxpayers protected,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
In 2024, as a result of brazen copper wire theft of the Sixth Street Bridge, elected officials and the Los Angeles Police Department created the Heavy Metal Task Force to crack down on metal theft in the downtown areas, and later in some neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.<\/p>\n
According to a report from the City Attorney\u2019s Office, the LAPD believes that the adoption of this reward program will assist in the identification, apprehension and conviction, or final adjudication, of persons who commit acts of metal and wire theft.<\/p>\n
Council members Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez were the lone \u201cno\u201d votes on the issue. Officials of the Bureau of Street Lighting previously reported that 60% of streetlight outages have more to do with regular maintenance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, it\u2019s just regular maintenance that the city has neglected to do over the years. This should come as no surprise because we haven\u2019t assessed our street lighting funds since 1996. We\u2019ve had to eliminate vacancies and so forth,\u201d Soto-Martinez previously said.<\/p>\n
The councilman urged his colleagues to fortify the city\u2019s streetlights and provide the Bureau of Street Lighting with more resources, personnel and funding.<\/p>\n
In the coming year, municipalities are expected to have more tools to address metal theft.<\/p>\n
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 476, authored by Assemblyman Mark Gonz\u00c3\u00a1lez, D-Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The bill will expand reporting requirements for junk dealers and recyclers, requiring them to collect detailed transaction records and verify the seller\u2019s identity and lawful ownership of metals brought to their businesses.<\/p>\n
It will also make it illegal for individuals to possess certain scrap metal \u2014 including parts from streetlights, traffic signals and plaques \u2014 without proper documentation. Penalties would be increased to reflect the high costs of damage and replacement.<\/p>\n
\u201cCopper theft is not a victimless crime. It\u2019s costing cities millions, endangering residents, and overwhelming local resources,\u201d Gonz\u00c3\u00a1lez said in a statement. \u201cAB 476 gives law enforcement and cities additional tools to track illegal transactions, stop thieves and hold bad actors accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City Council Tuesday is expected to give its final approval to a proposed ordinance that would create…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4793,1409,2323,4794,4795,48,52,51,47,50,49,4924,4576,4925,238,1704],"class_list":["post-15904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-approval","tag-city","tag-council","tag-final","tag-give","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-metal","tag-program","tag-reward","tag-theft","tag-wire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15904","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=15904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}