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Laguna Hills to raise false-alarm fee to match County rate of $209 per occurrence
Summary
The council unanimously approved a resolution aligning Laguna Hills' false-alarm fee with a recently adopted County of Orange rate, increasing the city fee from $141 to $209 per occurrence starting with the third false alarm in a calendar year; staff said the city invoices for roughly 90–150 applicable incidents annually.
The Laguna Hills City Council voted unanimously to increase the city's false-alarm fee to $209 per occurrence to align with a recent County of Orange fee study.
Finance Director Eric Henderson told the council the county board of supervisors updated the county fee to $209 in June and is requesting contract cities to align their adopted fee. Under the program, residences and businesses are provided two free false-alarm callouts per calendar year; starting with the third or any intentionally initiated false alarm, the sheriff’s department applies the fee. The city previously set the fee at $141 per occurrence (updated in 2020) and initially adopted a fee of $85 per occurrence in 2009 under ordinance 2009-2 (chapter 5-52 of the municipal code).
Henderson said the number of billed incidents varies year to year and that the city typically invoices on 90–150 incidents annually (those starting with the third alarm and onward). No public speakers addressed the hearing and the council approved the resolution by roll call vote.
The change was presented as a routine update to align the city with county contract terms and to reflect the reasonable cost for sheriff response, per staff.
