Mayor Karen Bass's handling of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires has sparked intense criticism, with her absence from the city during the crisis and her subsequent communication becoming focal points of public anger.
Apocalyptic fires ravaged Los Angeles for over 24 hours before Mayor Karen Bass returned from a trip to Ghana, triggering a now-viral encounter that may define her mayoralty. As an Irish reporter on her flight bombarded her with questions, the mayor of the nation's second-largest metropolis remained silent and seemingly paralyzed. 'Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning?' No answer.
'Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars, Madame Mayor?' No answer. 'Have you nothing to say today?' Bass stared forward, then down at her feet, before pushing her way down the sky bridge and out toward her smoldering city. She had left Los Angeles on January 4th, as the National Weather Service intensified warnings about a coming windstorm, to attend the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama. She remained out of the country as the Palisades fire ignited, then exploded, with other fires soon erupting in and around the city. She returned Wednesday to public outrage about her whereabouts and questions about empty hydrants, an empty reservoir, and, according to some, insufficient resources at the Fire Department. Her handling of questions in the days that followed has only intensified some of that criticism. Bass has also battled extraordinary dissension in her own ranks, with Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley in interviews Friday characterizing the department as understaffed and underfunded and implying that Bass had failed her. False rumors that night that Bass had fired Crowley added to the chaos and sense that Bass was not entirely in control. Now — while Bass navigates a calamity that will redefine the city — her political future also hangs in the balance. In a moment of anguish where people desperately want heroes and villains to make sense of their own pain, Bass has undoubtedly become a punching bag for portions of the city. Her absence, combined with an unsteady early performance and the unprecedented attack from her fire chief, have only intensified her vulnerabilities. And on X, she has become a much-maligned conservative meme. But only time will reveal the severity of the political fallout. There will be investigations into whether fire and water officials failed and whether City Hall missed opportunities to make communities more fire resilient. Such answers will take months, if not years, to sort out. In a belligerent California landscape only provisionally tamed by human hands, fire is an inevitability. Many of the seeds for destruction were sown long before Bass took office — rising temperatures that left hillsides dry and poised to explode with intense winds, planning decisions from generations ago that placed homes inside vulnerable, brush-covered canyons. Even before last week's unprecedented firestorms, climate change was reshaping California in terrifying ways, with fire leveling entire communities in places like Santa Rosa and Paradise. And the hard work of rebuilding is just beginning. 'For all Angelenos, we are hurting, grieving, still in shock and angry. And I am too,' Bass said during a briefing Saturday morning. 'The devastation our city has faced. But in spite of the grief, in spite of the anger, in spite of the shock, we have got to stay focused until this time passes, until the fires are out.' Bass, who declined to be interviewed, pledged a 'a full accounting of what worked and especially what did not' once the flames have receded. Elected in November 2022, the first-term mayor has spent her initial years in office focused on the city’s sprawling and complex homelessness emergency. She has made some incremental progress on homelessness, but had also faced few external crises until last week. Before the fires, even as Angelenos expressed frustration with the direction of the city, residents still largely approved of her job performance. But that goodwill is dissipating. In recent days, the hits have come from all sides, with her 2022 challenger, billionaire mall mogul Rick Caruso, castigating Bass in the media for her absence and handling of the fire. Caruso, whose Palisades mall survived the conflagration with the help of private firefighters, told The Times last week that Bass' 'terrible' leadership had resulted in 'billions of dollars in damage because she wasn’t here and didn’t know what she was doing.” A Change.org petition demanding her resignation has received more than 120,000 signatures. Bass, 71, has also been blasted over cutbacks in Fire Department operations, with those attacks coming from both the right and the left. Kenneth Mejia, the city controller and progressive darling, has been particularly critical on social media. Bass and the city's budget analysts have pushed back on that budget cut narrative, pointing out the department was projected to grow significantly this year — well before the fires broke out, thanks in large part to a package of firefighter raise
LOS ANGELES WILDFIRES MAYOR BASS POLITICAL BACKLASH FIRE DEPARTMENT CLIMATE CHANGE HOMELESSNESS
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