Fire Notice Went Astray

Few things can make the heart pound faster or the stomach drop more quickly than a government notice that you owe money and better pay up. That’s especially true when you have no idea what the writer is talking about.

The Los Angeles Fire Department went astray this month with the abrupt warning to 180,000 city residents that they had to pay a $13 brush clearance inspection fee or risk a stiff penalty.

The notice had any number of problems. It was tersely worded. It sounded like a new tax. In most cases it arrived two days after the payment was due. No surprise that a Woodland Hills woman characterized it as a sneaky attempt at taxation and said it showed “why Valley people want to secede.”

True, $13 won’t break the bank. But residents deserve to be told clearly what the fee is for, when it began and who imposed it. That may take a bit more space, a bit more thought, but it’s common courtesy.

The Los Angeles City Council voted last January to impose the charge on residents near fire-prone areas. The fee was projected to generate more than $3 million. The council now has decided to postpone collection of the fee after members received a barrage of irate calls. That was a wise decision. It will buy time to explain the new charge to homeowners, especially those who do not believe they are in an area more susceptible to fires than any other.

A Fire Department spokesman said that in the past only those in the areas at highest risk for fires, usually those living in the hills, received brush clearance notices. Now that’s been extended to fire buffer zones, which the department has applied even to the flat basin of the Valley, to the surprise of residents.

The commander of the department’s brush clearance unit said some areas should be reevaluated to see if they still should be included in the buffer zone. What once was wild grass-filled fields now could be neatly trimmed and heavily watered yards. But the commander said there was not enough time to do a new physical survey before the new fee went into effect. That procedure is backward and again is likely to fuel residents’ suspicion and distrust of the city. Paying the fee only to be told a year later that you’re not in a buffer zone after all will increase cynicism about government.

Last year Los Angeles city officials threatened owners of a row of West Hills houses destroyed in landslides caused by heavy rains with jail and fines for not shoring up the hillside and repairing or demolishing their houses. Many homeowners were retired on fixed incomes. Again, no one was quarreling with the city’s concern for public safety, but the sledgehammer tactics were offensive.

Now the Fire Department has started sending out apologies for the tone of the warning and the implication that recipients had not complied with the new regulations. That’s a good idea.

Unfortunately, it won’t correct the perception on the part of some that they’d be better off in a smaller city. Of course, there’s no guarantee smaller jurisdictions are better at remembering they exist for residents, not the other way around.