Amid widespread complaints of streetlight outages, residents in Koreatown were told to take a do-it-yourself approach to solve the problem.
At a neighborhood council meeting in November, an LAPD officer recommended residents invest in their own solar lights if streetlights in their area are broken due to copper wire thefts.
“I recommend people in the community to put up your own solar lights … you can put it on city property,” LAPD Officer Harry Cho said during the meeting on Nov. 17. “You are providing lighting for the community. I don’t think that anyone in the city is going to complain that you shouldn’t put that there.”
Cho added that rather than waiting for the city to repair streetlights, residents should “do your part in trying to come up with your own solution.”
Koreatown residents made over 800 complaints for broken streetlights in the last six months, according to the most recent data reported by Crosstown, with copper wire thefts being the leading cause.
Koreatown is the fourth-highest-ranked neighborhood for broken streetlight complaints, according to the 311 data.
The LAPD did not respond to requests for comment on whether Cho’s statement reflected department guidance, and Cho did not respond to requests for comment via email or over the phone. Reactions to his comments after the meeting were mixed.
Wilshire Center-Koreatown Neighborhood Council President Bill Robinson pointed to the city’s financial constraints, saying limited resources affect how quickly services are delivered.
“We don’t have the money,” Robinson said, referring to the city’s budget.
But neighborhood council Secretary Tania Ramon said street lighting should remain a city responsibility.
“This shouldn’t be put on residents,” Ramon said. “This is basic street maintenance.”
Residents are often directed to submit service requests through the city’s 311 system, Ramon said, but repairs do not always last.
“The city repairs the streetlights, and they get stolen again,” she said.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez would not comment on Cho’s advice when asked by an LA Local reporter.
But she said that copper wire theft is only part of the reason streetlights remain out, and many outages are due to long-standing maintenance issues and underfunding.
She noted that only about 0.5% of the city’s general fund goes to the Bureau of Street Lighting, and the fee assessment that funds the bureau has not been updated since 1996.
“We are not funding these things,” Hernandez said regarding street lighting repairs. “We’ve been working on solarizing lights in our district.”
Her office has allocated $600,000 in discretionary funds toward streetlight repairs in her district, which includes part of Koreatown. The city has installed solar-powered lights in areas where theft has been frequent, including parts of Westlake.
Councilmember Heather Hutt’s office said it has introduced four motions related to streetlight repairs, including two motions earlier this year totaling $200,000 for additional overtime repairs in Council District 10. The City Council has also directed the Bureau of Street Lighting to explore installing sensors to detect when streetlight infrastructure is being tampered with.
Installing a solar streetlight in a residential neighborhood costs the city between $2,500 and $4,000 per unit, including labor, according to Hernandez’s office. That estimate reflects the cost of installing an official city streetlight to replace an older light.
