In November 2020, Ismael Soto Luna, 59, was waiting to cross a Van Nuys street when a 2-pound metal cap fell from a nearby light pole and struck him in the head, knocking him to the ground and fracturing his bones. the skull.
He was later diagnosed with a head injury and, as his condition worsened over time, dementia requiring around-the-clock care, according to a lawsuit filed against the city. Earlier this year, the city of Los Angeles agreed to pay $21 million to resolve Luna’s case.
During the trial, a liability expert hired by Luna’s attorney, Arash Zabetian, said he reviewed thousands of city documents and found no standards for regularly inspecting the lights. Even after Luna was injured, the city did not respond to the danger, Zabetian said. A few blocks from the corner where the plaintiff was injured, about half of the light poles had loose or missing caps, meaning they had already fallen.
Los Angeles is going bankrupt, and liability awards for such dangerous conditions are one reason. In just the first three months of the fiscal year, the city faced more than $47 million to resolve lawsuits and claims for injuries and other incidents on public property. The money is owed to people who tripped on broken sidewalks or crashed their bikes on crumbling asphalt, whose property was damaged by potholes or fallen tree branches, and who suffered other accidents involving the city’s infrastructure.
Of course, no city can completely prevent tree branches from falling on cars or repair every pothole immediately. But Los Angeles’ massive backlog of basic maintenance is harming residents and driving up liability costs. It typically takes more than a decade to repair a sidewalk. Street trees are only pruned about every 15 years. Half of the city’s streets need to be resurfaced and approximately 15% are considered failed.
The city is also way behind on basic maintenance of streetlights, like the one that injured Luna. Public Lighting Bureau general director Miguel Sangalang said the goal is to inspect the lights once every 10 years. The city responds to reports of blown lights, but it can take six months or more to repair one.
Due to skyrocketing liability awards, which also stem from cases involving employment and use of force issues and police negligence, the city is considering borrowing $80 million to reimburse certain judgments and regulations. It would cost extra $20 million in interest at current rates, meaning the city would pay a total of $100 million just to resolve legal matters rather than resolve underlying issues.
“We are being asked to borrow money to cover liability costs created by our crumbling infrastructure instead of repairing it,” lamented Jessica Meaney, executive director of the nonprofit Investing in Place.
This is not a new problem. For years, the city did not set aside enough money to adequately maintain streets, lighting, sidewalks, trees and public infrastructure. It often takes a lawsuit and a ballot measure to force city leaders to prioritize safety and repairs. Indeed, in 2015, Los Angeles agreed to spend $30 million a year to repair broken sidewalks only after disabled residents filed a lawsuit against the city.
It barely made a dent in the backHowever. An audit found that in fiscal year 2020, the city spent 12 million dollars – nearly half of its total budget for sidewalk repairs – to resolve injury claims and lawsuits.
Meaney and other advocates have pushed Los Angeles to adopt a capital infrastructure plan, a multi-year budgeted road map for investing in and maintaining public assets. Los Angeles is the only major city in the country that doesn’t have one, forcing its public works departments to beg and scramble for funding every year.
The Public Lighting Bureau is an example. The agency does not have the staff or budget to regularly inspect streetlights to identify dangerously loose caps or other problems, or to quickly repair burns–lights out or vandalized. The agency gets most of its funding from taxes paid by property owners in streetlight assessment districts, but 90 percent of assessments have not increased since 1996. One way or another other, the agency is expected to manage 220,000 streetlights with a funding stream that has not changed. in almost 30 years, no more than the city council and mayor can afford to save each budget cycle.
Los Angeles cannot continue to budget this way. The city is long overdue for a comprehensive plan outlining infrastructure needs and costs, including regular maintenance and public works improvements, such as bus shelters, landscaped medians and protected bike lanes. The City Council and mayor can then prioritize projects and incur spending — or seek more money through bonds or tax measures — to meet what Angelenos should expect from a world-class city.
Last month, Mayor Karen Bass announced that city staff would develop a multiannual investment plan coordinate maintenance and improvements. Her Executive Directive 9 creates a capital planning steering committee to help deliver infrastructure projects in less time and at lower cost.
It’s a good idea, but planning and prioritization cannot be done behind closed doors. Bass and the City Council must do this work out in the open so the public, including neighborhood councils, advocates and business leaders, know what to expect and can hold city leaders accountable.
Los Angeles has underinvested in its infrastructure for decades. Residents pay the price with higher liability awards and embarrassingly decrepit streets, sidewalks and other public works.
