One yr after a lethal blaze ripped by means of the Pacific Palisades and destroyed 1000’s of houses, the union representing Los Angeles firefighters has launched a poll initiative that will increase lots of of tens of millions of {dollars} for hearth management by boosting the town’s gross sales tax.
On Thursday, greater than a dozen firefighters with the United Firefighters of Los Angeles Metropolis Native 112 gathered in entrance of Hearth Station 58 in Crestview to launch a signature-gathering marketing campaign.
Income from the half-cent gross sales tax enhance can be devoted to the Los Angeles Hearth Division, and would increase cash for the development of latest stations, the hiring of extra firefighters and the acquisition of latest tools, organizers say.
“That is about preparedness,” mentioned Los Angeles Metropolis Councilmember Traci Park, a supporter of the initiative. “I, for one, can not let what occurred to my Pacific Palisades constituents occur to another neighborhood.”
The poll measure would increase the town gross sales tax from 9.75% to 10.25% and assist solidify a division price range that has been underfunded and under-invested in for greater than half a century, the firefighters union mentioned.
The proposed tax enhance would convey in additional than $300 million yearly and can be earmarked particularly for the LAFD. Income, which might attain $10 billion by 2050, may construct 30 stations and enhance the dimensions of the division by greater than 1,000 firefighters.
“We now have the identical variety of firefighters at present as we did within the Sixties,” mentioned Doug Coates, the performing president of UFLAC.
Coates mentioned the division has 42 fewer firefighters than it did when the Palisades hearth erupted and has fewer firefighters per 1,000 residents than the cities of Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Seattle.
The gross sales tax would symbolize the largest funding within the metropolis’s hearth division since 2000, when voters permitted Proposition F, a poll measure that licensed the issuance of a $532 million bond — greater than half of which was allotted to construct 19 neighborhood hearth stations and a helicopter upkeep facility.
Mayor Karen Bass has additionally thrown her supported behind the union’s poll measure.
“Town has confronted extraordinarily tough price range cycles. New income sources are wanted, and this poll initiative will assist make sure that we are able to construct out the Los Angeles Hearth Division to totally serve all Angelenos now and into the longer term,” Bass mentioned in a ready assertion.
Bass mentioned she had dedicated further assets to the division yearly she has been in workplace, noting that this yr’s price range included 17 further fleet upkeep positions, which might convey the division to its highest fleet upkeep staffing since 1995.
The division did face cuts throughout this yr’s budgeting course of, although its price range went up general. Town lower the division’s Bureau of Range, Fairness & Inclusion and in addition nixed the LAFD’s emergency incident technicians, who assist coordinate responses to fires. The emergency incident technicians had been reassigned to different positions within the division.
“This can be a nationwide concern,” mentioned Frank Lima, an LAFD firefighter who’s the final secretary of the Worldwide Affiliation of Hearth Fighters, the father or mother group of UFLAC. “However the issues in Los Angeles are worse than I’ve seen in another main American metropolis.”
