Starting April 17, approximately 500,000 property owners in the City of Los Angeles will receive a one-time ballot from the Bureau of Street Lighting (BSL) asking whether they approve a rate increase, intended to fund the repair and maintenance of approximately 220,000 street lights and a vast underground network of conduits that houses 27,000 miles of copper wiring.
Ballots must be returned no later than June 2, 2026; and to be approved it requires the votes of the majority of the voters. The rate for property owners has not increased in 30 years.
During a press conference, held in the Field Operations Yard of the Office of Public Lighting in Los Angeles, officials from this office broke down how the city’s public lighting system operates, and why it is important for voters to approve this ballot measure.
Each bill will indicate the amount proposed for the updated rate of repair and maintenance of public lighting corresponding to the owner’s property.
Most individual property assessment rates for street lighting have not increased since 1996.
For single-family homes, annual dues currently range from about $fifty three to $83, or about $5 a month. If approved, the average cost would increase to about $117 annually, or about $12 a month.
A very extensive ballot
Miguel Sangalang, executive director and manager of the City of Los Angeles Public Lighting Office, said at the meeting convened by American Neighborhood Media (ACoM) that there is an extremely large ballot coming up, and they want to ensure that citizens are well informed.
“In the urban lighting service, we are in charge of managing the lamps and street lighting in the city of Los Angeles.”
He noted that last year they celebrated their centenary, since they were born in 1925.
It was then, he said, when they decided to combine the most dangerous element of the time—electricity—with the most cutting-edge innovation of the moment—the light bulb—installing them precisely in those places where people used to congregate.
Thus, along with the emblematic “Purple Automobile” (the red tram), the lighting system became one of the main attractions and selling points of the city of Los Angeles in its initial stages of development.
“Many of our original systems — and many of those that were built, for example, if you look at downtown Koreatown, southeast of Los Angeles — are, in fact, historic facilities that evolved alongside urban development throughout the city.”
He mentioned that “we make up a network of approximately a quarter of a million lamps, interconnected by nearly 9,000 miles of underground conduits and 27,000 miles of copper wiring that ultimately supply power to the entire system.”
He pointed out that it is a large-scale infrastructure that covers two-thirds of the city’s surface, which extends over 470 square miles.
Among the tasks they perform as part of the essential service is the replacement of poles; They are in charge of the luminaires—the LED lights themselves—and the ducts.
“We have a staff of approximately 185 field technicians and a fleet of around 150 vehicles, which allows us to deploy approximately 35 crews of electricians dedicated to the repair and maintenance of the public lighting system.”
He revealed that thanks to the creation of a type of welding and in-house manufacturing area, they have managed to reduce the cost of some of the materials they acquired from external suppliers.
Increase in requests
Among the situations they have observed, the increase in requests for services obviously stands out.
“Right now, our official repair times are one year. This means that if the Public Lighting Bureau receives a service request through 311 or any other means, it takes us approximately one year to complete the repair of said incident.”
He revealed that the causes are partially due to deferred maintenance and other problems such as the increase in theft and acts of vandalism that are prevalent today.
“Today the public lighting department registers nearly 32,000 pending requests. The light bulbs and the poles themselves—are elements that, unfortunately, we are also trying to replace. Simply due to the aging of our system, half of our LED bulbs have now exceeded their useful life; This is equivalent to approximately 18,000 poles, give or take”.
In this context and with a view to the short term, he pointed out that the Municipal Council has authorized them to promote an electoral measure aimed at adjusting rates for public lighting.
“This ballot will ultimately be sent to all real estate owners in the city. The public lighting system is directly linked to the properties and their owners; Therefore, this query will be addressed directly to them.”.
He indicated that approximately half a million ballots will be mailed starting April 17.
“This date, April 17, will mark the beginning of the voting period, which will last forty five days. We hope that all ballots have been returned no later than June 2.”
‘We are innovative’
Fabian E. Cheng, deputy director of the City of Los Angeles Office of Street Lighting, said that in 2008 they were the first city or one of the first to switch all street lighting to LED technology.
“The result of this was not only to increase the life of the luminaires themselves, but also to reduce our energy costs by $10 million a year.”
He argued that this allows them to have greater electrical capacity, and very recently they managed to install nearly 1,000 charging stations for electric vehicles (EV) attached to public lighting poles, which are available to the public for use on public roads.
“Thanks to new technologies, we are presented with new opportunities such as allowing public lighting to serve as a platform for various purposes such as sensors, smart city infrastructure, charging stations, different types of cameras, detectors, pedestrian counters.”
In short, he said that they have grown to offer a much broader range of services.
“Beyond the technology and the number of luminaires we manage, we are proud to know that our system has more than 400 different styles of streetlights. Something like this is unparalleled anywhere else in the world”
He said that for the most part, each community has a distinctive streetlight design that serves to identify and characterize its neighborhood.
Challenges
He said that while their LED lighting program has been a resounding success over the last decade, they have also reached a point where most of these luminaires have already reached the end of their useful life.
“So, luminaires that are more than 10 years old—some even 15 years old—need to be replaced. As you know, this is something we currently do not have funds for; and around 100,000 of those lights need to be replaced.”
He said that based on standard engineering standards, the stated lifespan for the replacement of these lighting poles is approximately 75 years.
“In the past we had a comprehensive program for this purpose, but it was eliminated as a result of the recession, and since then we have not been able to obtain additional funds to resume it.”
He mentioned that they have an electrical conduit system—a network of pipes—that spans 9,000 miles, and that they corrode with the passage of time, water, and exposure to the elements; Therefore, it is a component that also requires replacement.
“Consequently, part of the Office’s strategy will be to replace a part of those obsolete pipes that we have distributed throughout the city. Given these difficulties, we face the challenge of trying to balance what we can achieve with the financial resources we have.”
How long does it take to change a lamp?
Manuel Reyes Hago, superintendent of construction and maintenance of the City of Los Angeles Office of Public Lighting, explained that a public lighting system is not simply about a pole and a bulb.
“There are actually many more components involved. To start, we have a shared service point that is supplied by the water and energy company (Water and Energy). From that power point, everything else belongs to us: the underground conduits, the underground wiring, the foundations, the pole itself and the light fixture.”
On the other hand, he said that there are lights that are installed on utility poles that belong to the water and energy company.
“Much of our infrastructure is buried underground: our underground conduits and what we call pull packing containers that function as a junction box.”
He indicated that other work they carry out to keep the system in good condition is routine maintenance, which may involve replacing a burned out light fixture, a defective photocell or, perhaps, wiring that has been grounded.
“We also face system failures, such as circuit outages, which can be due to anything from a short circuit or an open circuit, to situations where someone working in the area accidentally cuts our conduits by mistaking them, for example, for an old irrigation line or an abandoned pipe.”
In addition to all this, he said that they also carry out major repairs such as when a vehicle crashes and knocks down a pole; or when damage occurs to pipelines such as when a skyscraper is being built.
“It should be remembered that this system works, in a way, like the lights on a Christmas tree: if one part of the circuit is damaged, the rest goes out.”
Cable theft
Another problem, he revealed, is the theft of cables and the theft of electrical energy; a trend that has increased considerably and constitutes a major problem that they are trying to control.
And as the system ages, repairs become longer and more resource-intensive to carry out, requiring a great deal of effort from us to remain operational.
“We must be extremely strategic when deploying our crews, and we have devised various strategies to reduce repair costs, performing much of the work internally, with our own resources.”
Limit ated due to lack of budget
Sylvia Torres, superintendent of field operations for the City of Los Angeles Office of Street Lighting, who is responsible for keeping neighborhoods illuminated, said that on a good day, they deploy about 35 crews to perform sustainability, maintenance and electrical trades work, working in conjunction with qualified welders, cement finishers and maintenance and construction helpers.
“Despite the dedication of our teams, we are currently severely limited by our current indoor levels.”
He said they have lost approximately 22% of their staff due to budget cuts and the loss of interior most that has been transferred to other departments.
“This reduction comes at a time when our workload is increasing due to aging infrastructure and increased issues related to vandalism.”
In essence, he said they are being asked to cover a significantly larger work area, stretching from San Pedro south to the Valley and from the Pacific coast to Alhambra and the city limits.
“Due to the large area we must cover, our response times have been severely impacted. We are constantly struggling to balance routine maintenance requests with urgent emergency repairs.”
Therefore, he mentioned that it takes longer to get the lights back on in this exact situation.
Despite these challenges, he said they are confident they can bridge the gap between their current limitations and our mission objectives.
“Therefore, we hope that the initiative succeeds and we look forward to the day when we can announce that service will be restored within a week or a month.”
The system operates with around $Forty five million a year, while actual needs are estimated at $125 million.
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