FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Fresno County leaders gathered to propose a new ordinance to curb the theft of copper wire.<\/p>\n
It came after years of frustration, destruction, exasperation, and financial losses as thieves, like rats, burrow into the wiring that cuts business, government, schools, medical, agricultural, phone, and internet services.<\/p>\n
A year and a half ago, supervisors Bredefeld and Magsig got a group of leaders together to create a new ordinance and make sure it passed legal and state muster.<\/p>\n
Bredefeld said, \u201cMetal theft inflicted over $3 million in damage to commercial operations in Fresno County.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ordinance is supported by State Attorney General Rob Bonta.<\/p>\n
Bredefeld explained that one issue is that it is difficult to prove where the stolen copper wire comes from.<\/p>\n
The ordinance was created in a way to try to avoid that problem.<\/p>\n
The ordinance prohibits a person from receiving, possessing or transporting scrap commercial-grade copper or aluminum wire cable of ten pounds or more.<\/p>\n
Bredefeld said,\u201dIt also prohibits a person from receiving, possessing, or transporting scrap commercial-grade copper or aluminum wire or cable that\u2019s had its sheathing stripped, burned off, or otherwise removed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sheriff Zanoni said, \u201cJust in the last couple of weeks, the actual theft and damage caused by people stealing copper wire has been over $500,000. Here in Fresno County alone.”<\/p>\n
So now, anyone caught doing this will be charged with a misdemeanor, sent to the county jail, and fined over a thousand dollars.<\/p>\n
The co-authors of this ordinance, Supervisors Bredefeld and Magsig, hope this will deter people from committing this crime.<\/p>\n
They are also quite clear in reassuring legitimate contractors and recyclers that this will not affect them.<\/p>\n
As long as they are using copper wire for its intended purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Fresno County leaders gathered to propose a new ordinance to curb the theft of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-338666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338666","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=338666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}