OPINION:
Rampaging wildfires leveled 7,417 houses and shops in Los Angeles in early January. State and local leaders promised they would slash red tape to expedite reconstruction, but it hasn’t happened.
In the hard-hit Pacific Palisades neighborhood, only 12 rebuilding permits have been issued, according to city data. The Los Angeles City Council’s preferences were on display Friday when it put off a decision on whether to impose stiff fees on those who have been without a home for 11 months. Locals aren’t happy.
“These people lost their homes, lost their businesses, lost their jobs at no fault to them,” said Rick Caruso, a businessman and unsuccessful 2022 challenger to Mayor Karen Bass. “So, the city needs to get behind them, waive the fees to help them out. It could make the difference in being able to rebuild or not rebuild.”
The council had far more important items on the agenda, such as recognizing “Salvadoran-American Heritage Day,” condemning the enforcement of immigration laws, and extolling the virtues of banning plastic straws in restaurants.
Most of those frustrated that they aren’t allowed to restore what the flames consumed have themselves to blame. They cast ballots for diversity, equity and inclusion candidates who elevate fake environmental concerns over everything else. In Pacific Palisades, Kamala Harris carried 71% of the vote, and Gov. Gavin Newsom won in a landslide.
In the early days of the tragedy, Mr. Newsom said he would create a “Marshall Plan” to save the city by refashioning it to reflect his priorities. “You can’t rebuild the same,” he told CNN in February. “We have to rebuild with climate reality in mind.” Creating an interagency consensus on how best to address imaginary problems isn’t something that happens overnight.
Mr. Newsom was in Washington on Friday trying to pin responsibility for the delays on Donald Trump, but the president understood the trap and declined the meeting invitation.
Jessica Rogers, head of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association, is begging Uncle Sam to take recovery responsibilities out of the hands of the functionaries and empower residents to control their own destiny.
“We’ve been charged for repairs of fire hydrants damaged in the fire. The city continues to increase our taxes and raises our rates for water and power. … This pattern is clear: Local government failed us on January 7th and continues to fail us. We’ve been forced to lead our own recovery because the city won’t,” she told the Senate Committee on Aging last month.
Nothing will get done while California officials are running the show. The California Coastal Commission, one of the many sources of bureaucratic hurdles, spends its time crafting buck-passing word salads that make even Mr. Newsom sound informative.
“Altered fire regimes and increased fuel loads are driving larger and more catastrophic wildfires. Shifting weather patterns around the globe have led to extreme and prolonged droughts as well as intensifying storm conditions,” the commission explains in its 2026 strategic plan.
California officials failed to clear brush, and their soft-on-crime policies created a haven for the firebugs responsible for sparking the conflagrations. The Uber driver charged in the Palisades blaze “kept on going about not finding girls and how horrible Trump was,” a witness told L.A.’s Fox affiliate.
If Golden State liberals expect the rest of the nation to rescue them from their bad choices, they ought to at least acknowledge the error of their ways.
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