About the
LA County Fire Safety Measure
Facing the nation’s second-highest wildfire risk and an explosion in incident calls over the last 20 years, the Los Angeles County Fire Department is underfunded. What does that mean?
-Fire engines are inoperable
-Paramedics are not on every truck
-911 calls from cell phones take longer to dispatch because of this shortfall.
The LA County Fire Safety Measure will improve responses to fires and emergency incidents with firefighters, paramedics, and state-of-the-art equipment that works in emergencies.
Why you should
vote YES for LA County Fire Safety
Fire danger is up. Emergency calls have exploded. Funding has not kept up.
Your local firefighters and paramedics are using decades-old equipment, including fire engines, trucks, and an unreliable outdated 911 communications system. The LA County Fire Safety Measure will provide the resources they need to keep our communities safe.
What is the LA County Fire Safety Measure?
A YES on the LA County Fire Safety Measure would authorize L.A. County Fire to levy a tax of 6 cents/square foot of structural improvements on all taxable improved parcels (including business and residential properties), excluding the square footage of improvements used for parking, limited to 2% annual inflation or CPI adjustment (whichever is less), generating approximately $150 million per year, to hire more firefighters and paramedics, replace and upgrade outdated emergency communications systems and old rescue vehicles and equipment.
LA County Fire Safety Measure will provide:
New Fire Engines and Water Dropping Helicopters. Twenty-year-old fire engines and emergency vehicles are costly to repair and maintain, this measure will provide funding for new fire engines and water-dropping helicopters.
Saves Lives. The department also needs more protective clothing, breathing devices, defibrillators, and emergency medication to keep up with the number of incidents.
Quicker Response Times to 911 calls from cell phones. The current system was built for landlines. Now, 75-80% of current 911 calls come from cell phones causing delays in location detection. This would allow the department to replace, upgrade, and maintain communications and information technology systems to accurately respond to 911 calls from cell phones.
Paramedic on Every Engine. A lack of funding and a paramedic shortage means that two thirds of the fire engines in Los Angeles County are responding with three people when the national standard is four. This measure would help close that dangerous gap.
