Los Angeles Mayor Bass Begs Sacramento to Bailout City for $2 Billion
Anything slightly adjacent to LA wildfires and covid has been desperately coupled to the request. Meanwhile, concerns grow over wildfire recovery efforts, as only 4 rebuilding permits have been issued for Pacific Palisades.
It’s been over 75 days since wildfires swept through the Greater Los Angeles area, destroying large swaths of Pacific Palisades and Alta Dena, California. So, I thought it was time for a status check on the recovery efforts.
To begin with, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass recently led a delegation to Sacramento to request nearly $2 billion in state funding to aid the city amid a projected $1 billion budget deficit for the next fiscal year. According to Team Bass, the budget crisis is primarily due to January’s wildfires but is also coupled with lower-than-anticipated tax revenues and rising costs associated with new labor contracts.
Anything slightly adjacent to the wildfires and COVID has been desperately coupled to the request and highlights that the city’s fiscal management approach is a man-caused disaster.
Out of the six budgetary concerns listed in the lawmakers’ letter, the bulk of the nearly $2 billion request, $750 million, would go towards “mitigation and resilience for city residents:”
- $700 million loan to upgrade Pacific Palisades’ electrical grid.
- $40 million to incentivize electric upgrades and appliances
- $10 million to improve the traffic signal system
The letter also requests $638 million to pay for the city’s budget gap:
- $250 million to improve streets, sidewalks and street lights
- $200 million to fund liability payments
- $150 million to refill the city’s reserve fund
- $38 million to offset the lost revenue from the Palisades Fire
Of the remaining $505 million, roughly $430 million would help improve LA’s firefighting capabilities and pay for recovery efforts, including debris removal, building permit waivers and centers to help connect residents to resources. The final $75.5 million will expedite processing of FEMA funds from previous emergencies, mainly the COVID-19 pandemic.
To say that tax-paying Californians outside of the Los Angeles area are unhappy with the ask is an understatement.
I heard I already have to pay a supplemental tax bill of 1k for the fires that I had nothing to do with. Now I am footing the bill for LA mismanagement. How about Newsom stop giving aid to illegals. How about using the federal homeless funds for the Palisades fire victims.
— Rufus Carr (@RufusCarr9) March 25, 2025
There was great concern that the permitting process for rebuilding would be slow. Sadly, these forecasts have proven true.
As of this post’s preparation, only four permits have been issued for rebuilding homes in Pacific Palisades after the January 7 wildfire. The City of Los Angeles initially approved three permits—two for complete rebuilds and one for repairs to a fire-damaged home.
A fourth permit was subsequently issued, bringing the total to four as of the most recent report. This number is exceedingly low given that over two months have passed since the fire, which affected approximately 6,000 homes in the Palisades and surrounding areas.
More than two months after the Palisades Fire, only four permits had been issued as of Monday for homeowners to rebuild their properties — a low figure that one Los Angeles city councilmenber said was “concerning.”
Residents in the Palisades Fire zone are trying to figure out how to move forward, but there are several obstacles in the way — including the city’s permitting process and L.A.’s looming budget deficit.
People gathered at a City Council committee hearing Monday to try to get answers, but more concerns are being raised as the city tries to rebuild from the devastating fire.
….Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Palisades and attended the meeting, says that’s not acceptable.
“When I hear in the community meeting like we had today that only four permits have been issued — and we’re on day 75 post-fire — that is concerning to me,” Park said. “And I don’t think it’s a lack of interest in rebuilding, I suspect it is indicative of systemic issues that we need to continue to focus on.”
Only 4 Permits Issued 75 Days After California Wildfires Burned 6,000+ Homes in Pacific Palisades.
But the Mayor hired a private consulting firm to give the city advice for $10M.
INSANE. Enraging.
California is so amazing. It is so sad what these politicians have done to it. pic.twitter.com/an0H28qYV1
— Rev. Johnnie Moore ن (@JohnnieM) March 26, 2025
The only good news related to the recovery effort is associated with the US. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), which has been playing a crucial role in the recovery efforts. Their work primarily focuses on debris removal, which is a critical step in the rebuilding process.
As of mid-March, USACE had cleared 50% of the 4,499 properties deferred to it by the EPA during Phase 1 of the clean-up process (related to the removal of household hazardous materials). By March 21, 1,300 parcels had been cleared of debris, with 507 returned to the county.
The Corps expects to complete the cleanup by January 2026, meeting its set deadline.
News on the ongoing #PalisadesFire cleanup: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Major General Kelly told @BreitbartNews today in Pacific Palisades that the timeline for debris removal has been reduced from 18 months to 12 months: “I’m going to tell you right now: I plan to beat a year.” pic.twitter.com/4HVrhq94Yu
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) February 6, 2025
Perhaps Los Angeles might have reissued a few more permits by the start of next year.
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Maybe she could go beg from PRESIDENT Trump, or even USAID… oh wait!
Yeah, better stop spending billions on illegal alien invaders. Your state and citizens will be better for it. Clearly they have the money!
That would mean that we the taxpayers foot the bill for empty-headed politicians and people, all who simply don’t have a brain in their heads. If she were to get any money, it would be a reward for imbecilic governing.
These morons are proud NOT to follow laws that the sane population follow. How would that be right in any way?
Offer them a supply of tarps, sleeping bags, 5 gallon pails and instructions about how to make a composting toilet
No money. Is there anything worth salvaging in LA?
This entire episode is nearly perfectly encapsulating the utter incompetence of lefty/wokiesta leadership and decades of mismanagement. The bureaucracy and the lefty ideologues created the conditions and when reality hit (the fire) they were and continue to be exposed as totally unprepared to react to anything outside of issuing self serving statements and useless decrees. Maybe the voters of CA will pay attention and demand reform but since they’ve had decades to do so…. maybe not.
A clear case of “Idiocracy Syndrome”, an affliction of the left. Often fatal to those they govern.
Since they will never vote for a republican, next time they will vote in a different democrat
Eventually they will vote for competence. How long it takes and how out of.control it gets before then will determine how far the swing of the political pendulum goes in the opposite direction. If not then the productive who can leave will do so, as many already have, until only the incompetent, incapable, unproductive are the only ones who remain fighting over the scraps left behind.
All the bad things I’ve ever said about deadbeat, incompetent, communist California corruptocrats weren’t nearly enough vitriol compared to what they deserve.
California leads with incompetence in government. They even loose money selling pot.
It’s a competitive category. Nevada commissioners once hotly debated whether the federal government could qualify as a “fit operator” for the Chicken Ranch Brothel, seized by the IRS for taxes.
Indeed. Not sure how popular transgender women would be.
I forgot who expressed this sentiment, but if the government went into the desert business, there’d be a sand shortage within three years.
And no surprise. Do you know how hard it is to launder sand?
LA residents with no homes, no homeowners insurance and no hope of rebuilding for many years, perhaps a decade, can finally empathize with North Carolinians. Those outside LA can thank California for depleting its financial health over paying and providing healthcare to illegal aliens; trying to backfill with illegals for those citizens who have and will continue to leave California in the hope of stabilizing their population in order to maintain its federal elective power has fallen on its face. LA is going bankrupt and California will default on its debt and/or just refuse to pay its operating expenses. Just pray the rest of us do not have to pay for their ongoing folly. I would not advise investing in LA or California bonds ever, but for sure not now.
Look at that face…. The lights are barely on, but nobody is home.
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
In half the pictures I see of this angry black fat lesbian it looks to me like she has an electric probe rammed up her butt. No wonder she has frizzled hair.
Enjoy the decline under leftists policies. CA lost decade.
A recall election should be the first order of business in Los Angeles
Only 4 permits? The more permits, the more construction and labor, and the more money being spent in the city. Wouldn’t that be a win-win? I get the impression that Los Angeles and California are in such financial trouble and run by incompetents that all they can do is dig the hole they are in deeper and deeper.
I am cynical enough to believe those permits were accelerated for “connected” people.
Why do you think she’s demanding a $2 billion bailout.
She wants to use it to pay off the union construction crews, the ‘consultants’ doing studies on how the reconstruction will affect the habitat of the California Shitmouse, and the ‘environmental safety’ inspectors making sure that the noise of construction doesn’t disturb the sparrows.
She wants to make it as long and drawn out as possible so she can get ‘bailout’ money for all of her government leeches for as long as possible.
The news reports shown in this article are missing some critical statistics:
What is the number of permits that have been filed?
How long have the applications been pending?
Let’s keep it real:
Add to your list the amount of time people have been able to file permits.
Also add to your list the amount of paperwork homeowners have to collect to file their applications
Also add to your list how long the approval process goes on, and how many local, county, and/or state officials have to gather data, check to applications for errors, and approve the homeowner’s application etc.
You can’t just take one side of the issue and then try to show that the government bureaucrats here are a group of White Knights working hard to get the process done, and the serfs they oppress are not working hard enough to get the permitting process done fast enough. You are trying to hide the government from any responsibility, like most leftists do.
This is California we are discussing, where the influential, rich, and connected leftists/Marxists get all the power and favors, and everyone else gets dumped on.
Seems mind boggling but it’s easy to understand the California thing. Suppose you get a check in the mail for five grand along with a coupon for free medical care. And another one the next month… and the month after… and so on. But there is a catch: the goody will cease to arrive if Democrats lose power in state government.
Too many people in CA are in just that situation, along with the very rich who are not affected by higher taxes. That’s why they will never be able to vote their way out.
True, but sooner or later, they will run out of other people’s money. They are practically there at this point.
Correction, they ARE there at this point. They’re short BILLIONS in LA alone. Then add in the huge deficit they have concerning the state’s medicaid program because they keep using it to pay for illegal aliens health care.
“the goody will cease to arrive if Democrats lose power in state government.”
Oh man you mean cities can just spend? And now she finds out they also can’t print money.
“…$750 million, would go towards “mitigation and resilience for city residents:”
That is kleptocracy dog whistle for ‘we’re gonna launder this money thru our cronies in select businesses to nigh untraceable advocacy groups who’ll then funnel huge campaign contributions back to our pockets during the next election season.’
In a just world, Bass, et al would be in prison already, but sadly, the sheeple will simply re-elect them, or a facsimile, again.
A very pathetic state – of affairs.
Has anybody bothered to ask the
KingPresident of Ghana how much he will be chipping in?Hey, help out a sista city, will you?
Karen Bass is asking for $2b from a state that’s already billion$ in the hole…and all the while the flow of people out of the state is turning into a flood.
Yeah, good luck with that, Karen.
That outflow is certainly not riding the High Speed Rail.
Before getting a dime they should cut the bloated salaries of pols and government workers and use that money,
.
The cows have no say in how much veal gets “harvested.”
Now it’s all up to Massa. We’re so lucky he has our interests at heart.
.
The cows have no say in how much veal gets “harvested.”
Now it’s all up to Massa. We’re so lucky he has our interests at heart.
You can say that again!
;-{)}}}
hire a communist and expect no different than what Bass is doing
NYPost headline: “Taxpayers to Los Angeles: DROP DEAD.”
For the past week or so, maybe a quarter of my submissions have been met with “The server failed to respond” error messages. I have had to back up, recover my comment, and submit again. It usually goes through, or (if it had been successfully posted BEFORE the server croaked), I get told it’s a duplicate, in which case I’m done. This time, for some reason, the server let the duplicate through above, which I’ve never seen before. Are we detecting an aroma of server code decomp here?
This has been happening to me on a frequent basis. It’s gotten to the point where I copy my comment before pressing the “Submit” button so that if I get an server error at least I don’t lose my comment and can simply paste it back into the comment box and then resubmit the comment. The second time around usually works fine.
I’m putting my money on a server that’s overloaded at times for some reason and it simply cannot handle another connection. Why that would be is something that Dr. Jacobson or his IT person would have to contact their hosting service about.
I have another theory, which involves Cloudflare rot. In this same period of time I have seen next to no Cloudflare challenges, while experiencing roughly the same rate of “server failed to respond” errors as I previously saw Cloudflare challenges. Furthermore, when posting from a privileged IP address which bypasses Cloudflare challenges, I see neither.
FYI I haven’t had any problems.
She should put in her own money. I hear she is worth billions from when she invented the BASS-O-MATIC.
Dan Aykroyd would beg to differ,
Standard Dem playbook: Pull money out of the regular budget to pay for pet projects like homeless bennies and illegal immigrant care, then when the regular budget comes up short and you have a convenient crisis, beg for money by holding the puppy/crisis hostage. “We need this money or the puppy gets it! Think of the puppies!”
The vile and evil Dhimmi-crats excel at nothing except incompetence, maliciousness, stupidity and destruction.
So they put a spoilt brat of a kid in charge of the Candy Store. Afer eating her fill frim the helves, she started passing more out to her pals. And whatta pile of pals she has……. all just her own kind. So now the candy sore is empty, or nearly so, and they’ve taken in no money cause it was all “for friends” , she’s hitting up Big Daddy Nuisance for a refill of her candy store.
This next chapter will be an amusing one…. we shall see, shan’t we?
Let’s do some basic math:
“A fourth permit was subsequently issued, bringing the total to four as of the most recent report. This number is exceedingly low given that over two months have passed since the fire, which affected approximately 6,000 homes in the Palisades and surrounding areas.”
Four (4) permits in 2 months = 2 permits/month. 6000 applications / 2 per month = 3000 [sic] months, or 3000/12 months/year =250 years to rebuild the Palisades.
Sure. Sounds perfectly reasonable. After all, they want to get it exactly right. Right?