Posted on 07/25/2022 4:08:16 AM PDT by george76
Los Angeles Fire Department has 115 employees who live outside the state of California, including one who lives in Alaska and five more who live on the East Coast.
With a few firefighters making more than $500,000 a year and a median home listing of $1 million in the city, whether Los Angeles should have a residency requirement is being discussed internally, according to a report and ongoing city council discussions.
About 15% of the firefighters live within the city limits, a figure that prompted fire officials to consider requiring firefighters to live closer to the area they protect in case of a major disaster.
The fire department has been working with the City Council to attract more city residents, women and minorities to the department. The fire department provided the council with several ways to boost those numbers.
The City Council passed a motion late last year for the police and fire departments to establish an incentive program to recruit more city residents.
"The majority of police officers and firefighters are not residents of the City of Los Angeles, which means other jurisdictions benefit from their spending on property tax, sales tax and other revenues," according to a city council motion. "Longer commutes from other cities also create traffic congestion and increase air pollution. Finally and most importantly, the communities that officers and firefighters serve are often not the ones that they themselves belong to, which can create a natural disconnect between public servants and constituents."
That so many firefighters live outside the city creates problems with scheduling and impacts overtime. It's common for the city's firefighters to make $200,000 or more in overtime in a year. There were 86 employees in the fire department who made $400,000 or more in 2021. The city paid $244.9 million in overtime in 2021.
About 85% of Los Angeles firefighters live outside the city. The report found that of the 3,348 members of the department, 1,058 lived outside the city but within Los Angeles County. Another 1,247 firefighters lived in the adjacent counties of Orange, Ventura, Kern and San Bernardino. A further 412 lived in other counties in Southern California.
Some lived even further away. Seventeen lived in Central and Northern California and 115 lived in other states. While many of those 115 lived in either Utah, Arizona and Idaho, one firefighter lived in Florida. Another lived in Alaska.
The report said the city had the legal right to enforce a residency requirement. Some other large U.S. cities, such as Chicago, require firefighters to live within city limits before they can be hired.
That well work out well
It’s no different than police, librarians, store clerks, school teachers, car mechanics, water department workers, high school baseball coaches, etc. You can’t run a town or city without normal people doing the needed real work and it is increasingly hard for normal people to live anywhere near big Democrat cities. Two incomes are required which means the kids are under the “care” of big Democrat Education, i.e., leftist indoctrination.
“Who the heck can afford to live in Los Angeles?”
Mexicans are about to reach a demographic milestone when they make up 50% of the LA County population in 2023. Somehow, they found a place to live.
How was the golf tournament? Interesting story about your FIL.
Exactly. They do not commute as regular folks do.
It was a great trip. Except I was very busy. I think I had about two hours of downtime on one day. The rest of the time I was going from one appointment to the next. One dinner/event to the next. I also drove from Idaho Falls to Boise across route 20. Craters to Peaks.
I actually hit the floating green on my first try at the resort course. That was the first time I ever hit the stupid thing on my first try.
I had closest to the pin on hole number 8(175 par 3). My ball was 13” from the hole. Other than that, I was spraying around the course.
I thought of you when I was at Hayden Lake CC two Thursdays ago. I can not believe how expensive real estate has gotten there in just the last three years since my last visit.
Also, how Rathdrum has gone from being a farming community, out in the country, to one sub division after another. Even Athol had grown.
One of the funniest things I saw was the turtle races at Crafted on Sherman Ave on Friday nights.
Glad you had a great time in ID. That’s fantastic hitting the floating green and putting another so close to the cup. My son just got a new set of wedges and is doing some amazing short shots like that.
I took our dog for a walk that Thursday and saw the tent set up for the awards ceremonies. I was thinking you were in there. Looks like you hit some spectacular weather, too! And so far this summer we’ve had NO forest fire smoke.
Some friends invited us to dinner on the back side of the lake a couple nights ago and we went over on another friend’s pontoon / patio boat in the late afternoon. Had a delightful dinner on their patio over the lake, then slowly cruised back to their dock close to HLCC around 10 pm under the clear summer sky. That was wonderful.
Prices have gone insane around here and the Rathdrum Prairie continues to get plowed under for houses. It is so sad for everybody around here. My roots here go back to 1927 when Mom was born up the road and then my grandparents retired here in 1966. If we hadn’t bought when we did (four years ago), we wouldn’t be here.
I remember those whirlwind business trips and nonstop dinners. Retirement is a bit weird in that regard...you miss those days, but don’t miss them THAT much.
IF they live elsewhere-—do they file Calif income tax returns???
At the San Diego.Mexican border-—the Mexican kids get to cross over into the USA for SCHOOL-—EVERY DAY.
Des Moines, Iowa is already 36% Hispanic & only 34% white.
“whirlwind business trips and nonstop dinners”
Yes, I needed a vacation after my trip just to rest.
I went from NH-Boston/Logan to Id Falls. Drove to Boise. Flew
to Spokane/Cd’A. Saw five customers. Toured the IFG Chilco & Athol mills. Attended the convention in Cd’A. Flew back from Spokane to Boston via Denver. Three hotels. Two rental cars. All in one week.
The weather was perfect. Not too hot and no smoke.
I was a little anxious about the five airline flights, but they all arrived perfectly on time. On the first three I actually had an empty seat next to mine.
Rental cars are very expensive now. Each car was over $700. The first was because I picked it up in Idaho Falls and dropped it in Boise. The second one was in Spokane. I picked it up on Tuesday and returned it on Saturday. It did get a nice upgrade in Spokane though. They had me down for a Toyota Camary. They gave me a Candy Apple Red Dodge Challenger.
“...attract more city residents, women and minorities to the department...”
“I suspect when they say “out of state” they mean Mexico.”
I know otherwise.
I know many firefighters; got a childhood friend who made Captain of a SoCal Dept, and family with LACo.
TONS of these guys are solid Conservatives, and their out-of-State properties are in red States across the West; from Montana down to Arizona. You might note, though, how the article specifically AVOIDS defining what they mean when they say these people “lived in” other States. I can “live in” a house just about anywhere, but actually BE in CA enough of the time to keep legal residency. OR I can play it the opposite way; and “live in” another State and only BE in CA enough to do my job.
The article makes a mountain out of a molehill.
Yes they do. They don't even have to step foot in California if the company they work for has HQ's in the state.
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