Brush-Inspection Fee Still Feeling Heat in the Valley

San Fernando Valley leaders denounced the notice of a new brush-clearance inspection fee Monday, but City Council members representing the Valley again backed the $13-per-property charge.

At a meeting in City Hall, members of the Los Angeles City Council Public Safety Committee also sent fire officials back to the drawing board, directing further changes in the draft of yet another notice to property owners.

The original notice, mailed March 26 to 180,000 property owners in high-hazard fire zones, caused political sparks to fly. Valley residents protested both what the city did--impose the fee--and the way the city did it.

City Fire Commission President David Fleming told the council panel Monday that the original notice was drafted by the city attorney’s office and was mailed without commission approval.

“The commission never saw this letter,” Fleming said. “Attorneys should never write letters to taxpayers, because it looks like it came from a collection agency.”

Many residents were upset that the fee was billed for some properties where there was no need for a detailed inspection to determine compliance with brush-clearance rules, including condominiums with small landscaped yards.

“I don’t think it’s fair to arbitrarily charge an inspection fee up front, when a lot of people are voluntarily complying with it,” said Gordon Murley, president of the San Fernando Valley Federation, a coalition of homeowner groups.

Murley was one of about 10 people who testified Monday, some suggesting that the fee not be charged unless inspectors driving through a neighborhood find properties that appear to need a detailed inspection.

Barbara Fine, an activist with the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., said the fee may violate Proposition 218, which requires new taxes to be put to a vote of those being taxed.

Council members Laura Chick and Michael Feuer, who represent Valley districts, said the original fee notice mailed last month was confusing and unnecessarily alarming.

Fire officials presented a draft of a new notice Monday, which they said would cost $140,000 to mail. Both Chick and Feuer criticized the new effort, saying more work is needed to justify the fee to property owners and make it clear the fee does not have to be paid if the property owner conducts a self-inspection to certify compliance with brush-clearance rules.

But both council members said they support the fee.

“This is a fee for service,” said Chick, the committee chairwoman. “We should move to reinstate the fee this year. The council was involved in that discussion and was persuaded out of public safety concern from our Fire Department experts that we needed to do this.”

Feuer said he was persuaded by testimony from Fire Chief William Bamattre that some properties not in wild-brush hillside areas still need to be inspected because they are within a zone where hillside fires could spread to backyard trees and bushes.

“Those zones that are adjacent to the mountain fire districts do find themselves in danger from a wind-driven fire, according to our public safety experts,” Feuer said. Feuer said the $13 fee pays for the $3-million cost of the inspection program and nothing else.

“Keep the program, refine it so it’s adequate, change the notification process, make it clear to individual residents why they are doing what they are doing,” Feuer told Bamattre.

The committee directed that the mailer drop a requirement that property owners notarize forms they fill out that declare the property is in compliance.

Bamattre said his workers plan to begin brush inspections Saturday, and the council will need to approve $140,000 for the new mailers.

He proposed that the inspection fee now be required by June 30 for those who do not self-inspect their properties.