LOS ANGELES — Furious Los Angeles residents say they are desperate for leadership as their city continues to burn.
Gov. Gavin Newsom seems more focused on putting out fires in his own political career, they say, while Mayor Karen Bass seems to have disappeared into the woodwork.
Eddie DeFerrari, 52, a retired accountant, was forced to evacuate during the Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County. When he returned, the house was still standing, although the floors and furniture were covered with a fine layer of ash.
De Ferrari said he wavered when the fire tested Newsom's leadership.
“At the very least, he would be expected to be at the scene wearing a fire suit. Instead, someone asks him a question and he is seen on the video pretending to be on the phone.” ” he said.
The bass didn't inspire confidence either.
“This fire showed that she is not ready to hold this position when things are not going well, when things are not going well,” he complained.
“The moment something goes wrong, there are excuses and crackdowns, and there is no direct response at all.”
Elizabeth Cherniak, a 60-year-old psychic from Pacific Palisades, didn't need a crystal ball to see the vacuum in leadership.
She held out in her Pacific Palisades condominium until the flames reached her feet through the window, and eventually took shelter at a recreation center, where she and about 300 other refugees were able to find food and a cot.
Mr Cherniak said first responders and volunteers were working hard at the scene of Karen Bass's debacle.
“I'm not happy with Karen right now. She doesn't like her job. She's not interested in the public,” she said.
Mr. Bass and Mr. Newsom are now the faces of the wildfire response, even as they face recall efforts for their handling of the crisis.
Critics say the city failed to prepare for a disaster of this magnitude, a $250 billion catastrophe, by cutting funding and redirecting it to left-handed pet activities.
“LA cannot continue as it is,” former California first lady Maria Shriver wrote on X on Sunday. “LA is not the city it used to be. It has to be different. We must prioritize the safety of our people, our police, our fire, our schools. LA residents deserve better.”
Bass is a longtime councilor who will take office in 2022. Reportedly included on President Biden's 2020 Veep shortlistwho attended the presidential inauguration in Ghana and was thousands of miles from Los Angeles when the wildfires broke out, quickly drew criticism. But her leadership had been shaken long before the ill-timed trip.
Last week, it was revealed that she had cut the city's Fire Department budget by $17.6 million for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, prioritizing funding for the Los Angeles Police Department and its massive homeless population.
In February 2023, the city appointed long-time public servant Brian Williams as deputy mayor, giving him significant responsibility for public safety, including overseeing the fire department.
But Williams was placed on administrative leave last month after the FBI searched her home for allegedly making a bomb threat to City Hall less than three weeks before the wildfires broke out.
She attends almost daily press conferences held by the fire department, and as reporters ask questions of her, who is becoming increasingly combative, she stands there with a statue-like face, as if someone is pulling the strings. Defaulting to boilerplate responses does little to instill confidence. her back.
She was so lethargic during the press conference that she was the seventh or eighth speaker, often speaking for only a few minutes at a time, and mostly talking about softball topics such as where to donate to fire victims.
Newsom, on the other hand, seems more interested in grooming himself for a 2028 presidential bid than doing anything substantive. It started with a widely ridiculed social media post in which he appeared to be investigating wildfires with his hands casually in his back pockets. photo shoot. ”
He has also come under fire for misleading the public about his 2019 pledge to remove flammable undergrowth from hills around the Pacific Palisades, which later became a source of much fuel for wildfires.
Just seven months before devastating wildfires began wreaking deadly havoc in Los Angeles, the beleaguered governor's new budget cut the state's firefighting efforts by $101 million.
Those tens of millions of dollars were instead used to finance his “Don Quixote” Green New Deal benefits, critics, including some environmentalists, charge.
The governor also contradicted himself in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper when he blamed “local people” for running out of hydrants during the Pacific Palisades fire. .
He recently launched a website purportedly aimed at combating “misinformation” about the fires and soliciting charitable donations. Donations are raised through the liberal super PAC ActBlue, which also receives a portion of the proceeds.
“This is the longest disaster I've ever been involved in, and there's no end in sight right now. It's been a tough few days and a lot of anxiety,” said the director of the Dream Center, a nonprofit organization in downtown Los Angeles. Clint Carlton, 43, said.
“People are looking for answers. They're looking for a leader. But so far, we haven't had a Giuliani-type mayor who took command of the situation the way Giuliani did during 9/11.”
Rick Caruso, a California billionaire and real estate developer who ran against Bass in 2022, has been thrust into the spotlight amid a leadership vacuum created by wildfires that began to spiral out of control.
“We need to answer some very difficult questions about why this happened: lack of leadership; he told CNBC on Wednesday..
“Not just the last few days, but the last few years.”
