Voters in Santa Clarita, Lancaster and quite a few smaller cities and unincorporated county communities which might be a part of the Consolidated Fireplace Safety District of Los Angeles County will discover Measure E on their Nov. 5 poll to extend property taxes to pay for fireplace and emergency medical companies.
The tax doesn’t apply and so received’t seem on ballots in Los Angeles, Lengthy Seashore, Glendale, Pasadena and greater than 20 smaller cities with their very own EMS.
The measure would impose a tax of 6 cents per sq. foot on most properties within the district. The estimated $152 million it will elevate yearly would assist the county Fireplace Division, which will get nothing from the county’s normal fund and operates virtually completely on income raised by parcel taxes raised below a 1997 measure.
Earlier than that, the fireplace district had the authority to impose a tax by itself, together with will increase to maintain up with rising prices. Nevertheless it misplaced that energy after voters adopted tax-slashing Proposition 218 in 1996. Now it should ask voters.
Nobody enjoys paying extra taxes. However this one pays for important fireplace safety to properties within the district. And maybe extra essential, it will permit the county Fireplace Division to save lots of extra lives by responding sooner and with higher paramedic companies to deal with grave accidents sustained (for instance) in automobile collisions or pure disasters equivalent to earthquakes and wildfires.
The Occasions recommends a sure vote on Measure E.
Voters within the fireplace district had a considerably related measure earlier than them in 2020. A majority of voters stated sure, however it wasn’t sufficient. Measure FD wanted a two-thirds vote to move, and it fell brief.
Measure E is completely different as a result of it’s a voter initiative that landed on the poll due to a signature-gathering marketing campaign. It wants solely a easy majority.
Does the county Fireplace Division actually need extra money to do its work?
Sure. The function of fireplace departments has modified drastically within the final quarter century, as has the character of disasters and the expertise and coaching accessible to reply.
Southern California has at all times lived with wildfire hazard, however latest droughts and better temperatures fueled by local weather change have challenged responders in new methods. An after-action report following the lethal 2018 Woolsey fireplace discovered that neighboring businesses have been unable to supply their regular help as a result of they have been coping with two concurrent wildfires. We will anticipate extra disasters like that one.
On the similar time, the division has seen a rise in 911 calls of greater than 45% within the a long time for the reason that 1997 tax was authorised. That could be as a result of the inhabitants has grown, and the necessity for emergency companies together with it. It additionally could also be as a result of expertise has improved, main residents to anticipate higher and extra speedy help — as they need to.
However the division lacks adequate tools and infrastructure to speak instantly with hospital emergency rooms, to find victims with thermal imagery and to extract crash victims from automobiles. It wants extra funding to improve and preserve water-dumping plane.
The cash additionally would allow hiring and coaching extra paramedics, to make sure there’s somebody on every responding fireplace engine to evaluate wants on the scene and advise dispatchers extra shortly on whether or not they need to ship a further paramedic unit and an ambulance. That might assist the division to steward its assets extra effectively in the long term, because it involves the help of extra folks in want.
