‘REPREHENSIBLE’: LA Fire Victims Sick of Democrat Politicians
Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell /
LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles residents who lost their homes in the ongoings California wildfires are sick of their Democratic leaders dodging responsibility for poor preparation and slow response time.
“It feels like the C-team is running the show,” a Democrat who lost his home in the Palisades fire told The Daily Signal. “We don’t have the best and brightest running the state.”
The Daily Signal interviewed victims of the Eaton and Palisades wildfires at community meetings in Altadena and Thousands Oaks, California. Californians who lost their homes or were forced to indefinitely evacuate say they are ready for a change from the state and city’s far-left leadership.
California needs fresh perspectives in elected positions, one man said. “We need to fire the existing management team and get new talent.”
He said he would like to see Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass replaced.
“She is not a great mayor,” he said. “I think she’s not the person I want to see there much longer.”
A man who lost his house said Bass “should resign” in light of her wildfire failures.
“They need to be more proactive,” he told The Daily Signal. “They need to do forest management. They failed miserably. They didn’t have the resources. They didn’t have the planning. They should be better prepared for this.”
That’s because “they are not doing their job right, and the governor is not here,” he said.
“Where is he?” the man asked. “He should be here. I don’t see him here. Do you see him here? Do you think he should be here?”
A supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, Doré Charbonneau, who evacuated with nothing but the clothes on her back feels “angry and hurt” that California Gov. Gavin Newsom cut the state’s fire budget by $100 million and Bass cut the city’s fire budget by $17.5 million.
“She didn’t even have the decency to be in California when we’re burning up,” the woman said. Bass was in Ghana for the inauguration of the West African nation’s new president on Jan. 4 when the fires broke out.
“These people are reprehensible, and I can’t wait till we get them out of office,” she said. “And I am so looking forward to Trump getting in, because I think people will be hired based on merit, and they will do a good job.”
Her message to Newsom and Bass: “You’re incompetent. I don’t know why you got elected, but our state is in trouble, and you’re not going to make it better, and you’ve got to go. I can’t wait until you’re recalled, or resigned, or worse.”
A man whose grandmother’s house burned down in the Eaton fire said the state always seems unprepared for wildfire season.
“This is a reoccurring issue we’re always having,” the man said, “but it always feels like we’re 10 steps behind on something we’ve been having to deal with for the last 20, 30, 40 years.”
The National Forest Service was established to help make disasters like the wildfires less possible, another man said. But Newsom’s 2025 budget, signed in June, eliminated $101 million from seven “wildfire and forest resilience” programs.
“We developed in California a lot of stupid policies over the last 10 years, where we stopped timber cutting, we stopped control-burned, we stopped doing vegetation control,” he said, “and that made this inevitable.”
An older Palisades couple who lost their home said cutting the fire budget was “not a wise decision.”
“One of the problems is, the areas that burnt down are the ones that pay significant taxes,” the husband said. “So, the revenue for the county and the city is going to be lost from those multimillion-dollar homes that burn up. That just hurts the budget even more.”
A Palisades mother named Heather Pederson wonders why the city didn’t do more to protect Los Angeles schools from burning. Pederson lost her home, but she’s more concerned about where her daughter will go to school.
“We felt a little bit abandoned,” she said. “It’s just what we are.”