Democrats in the California Legislature, an ally of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) proposed a law banning private fire companies from hooking them on public fire hydrants in emergencies.
The law covers billionaire developer Rick Caruso who ran to Base in 2022, and used a private fire company to protect the Palisade village mall in Pacific Palisade during the recent catastrophic fire.
bill, AB 1075sponsored by assembly members Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) and Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood). Politics Notea close ally of Mayor Bass, facing criticism of the fire's failure.
The bill text is “necessary” [Office of Emergency Services] To develop regulations prohibiting personal contracted firefighters from connecting equipment to public water sources during “active fire incidents.”
It is not clear that the law actually accomplishes anything. The fire hydrants at the Parisades fires, and the Eton fires in Pasadena and Altadena, were under-priced for the fire service, whether public or private.
The 117 million gallon Santa Inez Reservoir above Pacific Pallisade was also almost completely empty before the fire, due to maintenance by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to comply with federal regulations.
Caruso's private firefighters used their own mobile water tanker, as also shown a video recorded by Breitbart News shortly after the fire.
Bass faced growing pressure after firing LA Fire Department chief Christine Crowley last week, accusing him of not pre-releasing firefighters to Pallisard in the Pacific Ocean ahead of the extreme winds of January 7th and not telling him not to travel to Africa (after Bass made a campaign promise not to travel internationally while he was in office).
As reported by Breitbart News, Crowley did not deploy some firefighters in advance to cut back on Bass' overtime payments.
Joel B. Pollack is a senior editor at Breitbart News; Breitbart News Sunday Sirius XM Patriot will be available Sundays from 7pm to 10pm (4pm to 7pm). He is the author of Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Daysyou can pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author Trump's Virtue: Lessons and Legacy of President Donald TrumpIt is now available on Audible. He is the winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter @joelpollak.
