LA Mayor Karen Bass faces backlash for being in Ghana during a devastating wildfire that ripped through Pacific Palisades. Critics, including former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, point to government mismanagement, including a lack of proactive brush clearing and insufficient firefighting resources, as contributing factors to the disaster.
As the community of Pacific Palisades in the city of Los Angeles burned to the ground Tuesday night, LA Mayor Karen Bass was in Ghana to attend the inauguration of that country’s new president, while the man she defeated in the 2022 election, real estate developer Rick Caruso , also savaged city and county officials for their failure to clear brush in the hills “for probably 30 or 40 years,” increasing the risk of raging wildfires.
“What is most concerning to me is, our first responders and our firefighters who are trying to battle this, there’s no water in the Palisades,” Caruso told Fox 11 News. “There’s no water coming out of the fire hydrants.” Caruso slammed Bass for being out of the country while the city was burning. Scenes of destruction such as these in Pacific Palisades are increasingly being blamed on a matrix of causes directly related to government mismanagement and neglect. A police officer escorts a homeless woman to evacuate away from Pacific Coast Highway and Topanga Canyon Blvd as the Palisades Fire rages down the hills in Pacific Palisades, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. Bass chose to attend a Jan. 7 event in Africa even though the National Weather Service in Los Angeles had as early as Jan. 2 of the risk of “extreme fire growth” and power outages due to high winds forecast for Jan. 7-9. Gavin Newsom tried to jeopardize democracy in California by killing changes to criminal justice reform. But shockingly, she failed to order any action to find and clear homeless encampments, a known fire hazard, from fire-prone areas. Instead, Bass reported that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority would continue to conduct “outreach” to individuals living on the streets in “high fire severity zones.” Homeless encampments in Pacific Palisades have long been a concern. In 2014, a group of community volunteers formed the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness and began “organizing cleanups of abandoned encampments in our fire-prone hillsides.” Kanye West and Kim Kardashian reportedly relied upon private firefighter services to keep their home safe during the Woolsey Fire in 2018. What caused the dry fire hydrants? The new CEO of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Janisse Quiñones, told reporters on Wednesday that there was just too much demand on the system. Quiñones was hired by Bass in April to run the city-owned LADWP at the eye-popping salary of $750,000 plus a housing allowance. She “has the skill set and leadership experience to advance the department into 100% clean energy by 2035,” the mayor said at the time. a radio host in July, “and making sure we right the wrongs that we’ve done in the past from an infrastructure perspective.” Doesn’t anybody in the city government just want to get water to fire hydrants? That burned nearly 97,000 acres in Malibu and Ventura County, destroyed 1,643 structures, and killed three people. Electricity was shut off, disabling the pumps that moved water to the hydrants. Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso has been highly critical of Mayor Bass’ absence and response during the Los Angeles fires. More LA residents may want to look into private fire protection after the mayor signed a $12.8 billion city budget in June that cut $17.5 million from the LA Fire Department’s budget. the Board of Fire Commissioners that the cuts, especially the $7 million reduction in “overtime variable staffing hours,” had “severely limited” the LAFD’s capacity to respond to wildfires and other large-scale emergencies. Why cut the fire department’s budget? The answer may be that the California constitution requires voter approval for local tax increases. Starving the fire department of resources leads to scary scenarios that can be used to persuade voters to say yes to higher taxes. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power head Janisse Quiñones was hired to promote diversity in City Hall and receives an annual salary topping $700,000. In fact, that just happened in the November election. The union that represents LA County firefighters collected signatures for an initiative that slaps a new annual tax of $60 per 1,000 square feet on properties served by the Los Angeles County (not city) Fire Department. Voters were told the tax hike would raise $152 million annually to ensure “local firefighter/paramedic emergency response, involving wildfires, house fires, heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents; to hire/train firefighters/paramedics, upgrade/replace aging firefighter safety equipment, fire engines, helicopters, facilities, life-saving rescue tools, and 911 communications technology.” That description on the ballot made it hard to vote no, but 45% of voters did, probably because they recognized the same old trick. LA County has a $45 billion annual budget, and if county leaders can’t find $152 million to fight fires and save lives, the FBI should take a look at the books. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was in Ghana when her city’s fires began, despite ample warnings that a disaster was likely. Don’t blame climate change. The terrible fires in Los Angeles County were caused by egotistical politicians who indulge in virtue signaling instead of delivering basic government services. Susan Shelley is an editorial writer with the Southern California News Group, and VP of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
LA Mayor Karen Bass Pacific Palisades Wildfire Rick Caruso Government Mismanagement Firefighting Resources Homeless Encampments
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