What the Heck Happened to My Streetlights?

  This is a question I hear a lot in the neighborhood lately.  Truth is, there are thousands of streetlights out in Los Angeles, and it is not due to LA City falling down on its maintenance responsibilities.  The main problem is an astounding increase in vandalism and copper wire theft throughout os Angeles. 

According to “Crosstown LA - By the Numbers,” the price of copper wire has more than doubled since 2023 and thieves have noticed.  They are ripping out the wiring from LA streetlights at an appalling rate. 

During much of the latter half of the 2010s raw copper was priced at $2to $3 per pound.  Today, with the advent of Trump’s tariffs, the market has recently surged to over $4.60 per pound and trending upward.  So far in 2025 the monthly rate of street light service requests has grown from 3,000 per month to over 5,600 per month.  City estimates are projecting repair costs for what has already occurred in excess of $20 million while the city budget is suffering.  The wait for repairs is up to at least 180 days.  Don’t expect to see the lights on for quite some time!   

The City of LA’s Bureau of Street Lighting has a staff of about 180 people to maintain nearly a quarter-million streetlights scattered across 470 square miles. A snippet of the extent of this problem is the new 6th Street Bridge.  The engineering marvel was supposed to be a pillar of light to emphasize the rebirth of downtown LA. It took just months after its vaunted opening for wire thieves to steal seven miles of copper wire from the bridge. The “Ribbon of Light” arches envisioned by its creators  have gone completely dark. The city estimates the cost of repair will exceed $2.5 million. (As an aside, it is estimated the wire thieves’ total take for the wire they stole at less than $11,000.)

What are we going to do about this?  The problem is mainly two issues:

1.    The budget to fix our streetlights is woefully inadequate.  The part of your county tax bill to support street lighting has been frozen at about $53 per single family home for over three decades – a level that has not worked and will not work going forward. 

2.    Of course, we are all about to be asked to kick in more to solve this problem - 500,000 LA property owners can expect to receive a ballot in early 2026 authorizing a significant increase in the mil levy to reclaim their streetlights. It is always easy to ask us for more money to throw at  continuing and growing problems.  But what about the fact that thieves are stealing new wiring as quickly as it is being installed! 

According to California State Attorney General Rob Bonta, between June and December 2024, nearly one-third of  all copper theft and telecom infrastructure vandalism nationwide occurred in California!  Obviously, we have a penalty/enforcement problem here!  Local politicians have taken up the standard on this issue. 

Assembly Bill 476 was proposed in February 2025 by Assembly Member Mark Gonzales.  The bill was passed unanimously and is currently awaiting the signature of Governor Newsom.  The bill proposes to establish state oversight of all state junk and scrap metal businesses and force record keeping to establish that they are not operating as “fences” for stolen metal items belonging to public and private entities.  A yearly $500 license will be required.   

In addition, the bill requires that the ridiculously low fine for stealing and fencing these items of $3,000 and up to one year in jail be upped to $5,000 and a year in jail.  Both features of the bill are necessary but even if it is signed by Newsom (the California Scrap Metal Association is reportedly lobbying strongly against the Bill), is $5,000 and a year in jail enough to make public wire and metal theft unattractive to your average thief and their fences?  Pessimistically, I think not. Wire and metal theft is a rapidly growing business and the “product” is easily obtained and readily available.

Recently thieves have added the theft of manhole covers, communication wiring, fireplugs, brass plaques and statuary, EV charging units, and even metal highway guardrails to their repertoire. To control this problem penalties are going to have to be increased to felony status with significant fines and imprisonment.  The current bill, in my opinion, just won’t cut it (pun intended).

Let’s see if our local politicians can develop the backbone to solve this problem – and soon.

By John Nilsson