A political firestorm rages as wildfires continue to burn across L.A.
With fires still burning across the Los Angeles landscape, a political firestorm has erupted, causing many to wonder who will be left standing once the smoke clears.
It likely is too soon to say how all that will play out politically. Much also will depend on how smoothly the rebuilding process goes.
But the pressure on elected officials is mounting swiftly amid a whirlwind of political finger-pointing over how so much devastation occurred so fast.
While unprecedented wind events combined with heavy rains and a drought produced miles of flammable fuels presented a perfect storm for the disaster, many are asking whether government could have and should have done more.
Related: Municipal water systems aren’t designed to fight wildfires, but maybe they should be, experts say
An online petition demanding that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass resign has popped up amid widespread public criticism, garnering more than 45,000 signatures as of this weekend. Meanwhile, a spat has erupted and intensified between Bass and L.A. City Fire Chief Kristin Crowley that both officials now seem to be trying to unsuccessfully quell.
At a news conference Saturday morning, Jan. 11, Bass stressed that both she and the fire chief — who also was in attendance and spoke — are jointly focused on the task at hand, which is putting out the fires that are still causing vast destruction.
“The fire chief and I are focused on fighting fires,” Bass said at the news conference, adding that the most important task “is to get through this crisis. When the fire is out, there will be time for us to evaluate” steps for the future.
“(The mayor) and I met yesterday to discuss our shared priorities,” L.A. City Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said Saturday at the news conference. It was mistakenly rumored on Friday that the meeting was being called to fire Crowley who was appointed by Bass’ predecessor.
The issue of budget cuts has sparked its own dispute. The mayor’s office has said the disputed $7 million in cuts needed to be weighed against LAFD raises — which actually resulted in an overall increase in the department’s budget.
In social media posts this week, L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia jumped in, posting:
“Seeing City officials in the press ignore the severe impacts of these budget cuts, especially the ones covering for their poor budget decisions to cut a majority of departments’ budgets & even AFTER Chief Crowley told them about the impacts these cuts have had, is DISGRACEFUL. …
“Btw the money that they keep saying is being held for LAFD’s raises are in this ‘separate account’ HASN’T even been transferred to the LAFD’s operating budget as of this date! How do we know all this? Because we’re the City’s Accountant! We know the City’s budget and finances.
“We didn’t want to get into the City’s budget and finances during these times, but to see City officials come out and ignore the Fire Chief’s warnings/impacts of the department’s budget cuts made us jump in.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom joined the fray, calling for an investigation into the city’s empty water hydrants.
But Newsom faces challenges of his own.
The governor, who has long feuded with incoming President-Elect Donald Trump, will now have to deal directly with the new administration for needed help as recovery efforts get underway. The governor has invited Trump to visit the devastation.
But Trump already has blasted Newsom and other California leaders online for mismanaging the state’s water and called on “Newscum” to resign, according to a CalMatters report.
“Gov. Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump wrote Wednesday, Jan. 8, in one of several posts on his social media platform, Truth Social.
On Saturday, county Board of Supervisor Chair Kathryn Barger also sent a letter to Trump inviting him to “engage” in wildfire recovery efforts and to visit the county “to see the impact firsthand.”
From celebrities to political leaders, most of the immediate heat is being turned up directly on the city’s first-term mayor.
Bass, who was out of the country when the fires began, has been holding regular news conferences and trying to answer the political criticism aimed largely at her office, saying the time to assess what went wrong will be after the fires are out.
A number of media questions specifically about the political dustup came during Saturday morning’s media briefing, most of which were deferred by Bass as Crowley stood a couple feet behind her.
“As you see here, the fire chief and I are in lockstep in our No. 1 mission and that is to get us past this emergency,” the mayor said. “Right now we want to make sure we save lives, houses, and businesses. If there are differences we have, we will continue to deal with those in private.”
Longtime California political consultant and now an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University, Joel Fox, had this to say about Bass’s last comment hinting at a divide between the mayor and fire chief:
“Just by saying that, she opened up a Pandora’s box,” Fox said in a telephone interview. “That is going to be a burning issue for her to have to deal with — what’s the ‘disagreement’?”
Also called on the carpet has been the city’s Department of Water and Power which responded Saturday with an email titled “Correcting Misinformation About LADWP’s Water System.”
“Any assertion that fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades were broken before the Palisades fire is misleading and false,” the email said. “LADWP works with LAFD who is responsible for inspecting fire hydrants citywide. LADWP repaired every hydrant needing repairs as reported by LA Fire Department inspectors. LADWP’s fire hydrant repair list was current and updated, and all reported fire hydrants were fully operational in the Pacific Palisades and in L.A.’s Westside communities prior to the fire.”
The email went on to say: “Water pressure in the system was lost due to unprecedented and extreme water demand to fight the wildfire without aerial support. This impacted our ability to refill the three water tanks supplying the Palisades causing the loss of suction pressure. This impacted 20 percent of the hydrants in the area, mostly in the higher elevations. As soon as LADWP identified the risk of losing water in the tanks and water pressure in the system, we immediately deployed potable water tankers to sustain support for firefighting efforts.”
The challenges for Bass, according to Fox — who said he and his wife have been evacuated twice so far from their home near the Hurst Fire — will be steep as she faces reelection to a second term in 2026.
Other office holders will likely face similar scrutiny as the smoke clears.
“It’s like the heat under that pot of water is really starting to come to a boil,” said Fox who has guided numerous campaigns, including the one that first elected California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “One of the things that is going to determine how voters will look at the mayor and other officials is how they respond post-fire — with the rebuilding and the insurance issues. That will go a long way in deciding the political outcome.”
The complete fallout has yet to be determined, Fox said.
Politically, said Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo, it will come down to how efficiently and quickly L.A. can rebuild.
“I think everyone can come out of this politically stronger if they can get out of their own way and cut the red tape,” Trujillo said in a telephone interview. He cited late Mayor Richard Riordan’s successes following the 1994 earthquake as a model.
It’s too early for political handicapping, he said, adding that political futures could go either way.
“The real task for Mayor Bass and every other elected leader is going to be about rebuilding. Things are going to get better and that’s going to (also) be the task,” he said.
If red tape isn’t cut quickly, Trujillo said, there will be a political price to pay.
“Here’s the good news,” Trujillo said, “we know what the problem is and what we need to do is solve it like Riordan did in 1994. That playbook is still siting on a shelf somewhere.”
Streamlining building permits and cutting through the bureaucracy L.A. has become known for will go a long way toward a recovery, Trujillo said.
Supervisor Barger, in a Saturday afternoon news conference, echoed some of those themes.
“The state has to be incredibly flexible and streamlined in all of these processes,” she said. “My goal is to help communities rebuild ‘like for like’ if not better. … My ask is that the state and county remove costs not related to health and safety.”
But for now, as the immediate suffering persists, so likely will some of the anger aimed at government officials.
“Right now,” Fox said, “people are frustrated and they’re angry — and that’s understandable, they’re looking for someone to blame,” he said.
“There’s an obligation to look at whether the government was prepared, to look at (such) issues as the empty reservoir,” Fox said. “Those are valid questions.”