{"id":544322,"date":"2026-01-26T15:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T15:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/544322\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T15:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T15:18:13","slug":"letters-to-the-editor-will-california-address-the-issue-of-its-out-of-state-firefighters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/544322\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters to the Editor: Will California address the issue of its out-of-state firefighters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 26, 2026 7 AM PT <\/p>\n

To the editor<\/b>: In the wake of last year\u2019s deadly and destructive fires, the L.A. firefighter union has introduced a ballot initiative that would raise the city sales tax to 10.25% (\u201cL.A. firefighter union launches sales tax initiative to fund new stations and more,\u201d<\/a> Jan. 15). The funds would be earmarked for the hiring of more firefighters, construction of new stations and purchase of new equipment.<\/p>\n

The yearly increase of $300 million is meant to better allow the department to prepare for and rapidly respond to emergencies like earthquakes and fires.<\/p>\n

To that end, would the union also support a measure to require firefighters to live within L.A. County or at least the adjacent counties, and tighten liberal scheduling rules? As of 2023<\/a>, more than 150 firefighters live out of state, some as far away as Alaska, Texas and Florida. Others are in Northern California.<\/p>\n

When there\u2019s full mobilization, as during last year\u2019s fires or a major earthquake, how effective will those who live hundreds of miles away be?<\/p>\n

Judy Pang, Palos Verdes Estates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 26, 2026 7 AM PT To the editor: In the wake of last year\u2019s deadly and destructive…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":544323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,239786,9886,147965,44517,7129,723,1918,231184,2961,13940,19945,224,5337,239785,231181,239787,26523],"class_list":{"0":"post-544322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-city-sale-tax","11":"tag-construction","12":"tag-destructive-fire","13":"tag-earthquake","14":"tag-editor","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-issue","17":"tag-l-a-firefighter-union","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-last-year","20":"tag-letter","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-more-firefighter","24":"tag-new-station","25":"tag-out-of-state-firefighter","26":"tag-purchase"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115962072604885649","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}