Politicians failed LA’s wildfire survivors. Voters must hold them accountable

Last January, immediately after the fires, there was a moment of optimism for the future of Los Angeles. Fire survivors, policymakers, philanthropists, CEOs and regular Angelenos came together to plan Los Angeles’ recovery.

But today, 12 months later, the failed leadership of California politicians has set back recovery efforts. 

I am a born and raised Angeleno, and like so many others after the fires, I wanted to help. My career leading mission-driven work led me to connect with Evan Spiegel, founder of Snapchat, and Miguel Santana, president of the California Community Foundation. They launched the Department of Angels, a nonprofit that supports LA wildfire survivors, elevating their leadership in the recovery process. 

Today the group is one of many organizations dedicated to the recovery effort. But community-driven work can only accomplish so much. Recovery efforts for disasters of this scale require the government to lead. 

Signs of the government’s systemic failure to lead began emerging within months of the fires. Away from Los Angeles when the fires first ignited — on an international trip she had pledged not to take — Mayor Karen Bass began the recovery effort behind the 8-ball and has seemingly never recovered. She has openly feuded with critics of her performance, including the Palisades Fire recovery czar that she herself appointed. 

At the county level, the board of supervisors still has not fixed the county’s broken emergency notification system, a failure that likely contributed to many of the 19 deaths in the Eaton Fire.

And at the state level, Gov. Gavin Newsom jockeyed to be the central figure in the campaign for federal funding, but his rivalry with President Donald Trump has doomed the possibility of federal aid for Los Angeles. 

The consequences have been devastating for survivors. 

Today, more than 8 in 10 Altadena residents and 9 in 10 Palisades residents are still out of their homes. Thousands of houses that survived the flames remain unsafe or uninhabitable because of contamination. And only about 15% of the 10,000-plus destroyed homes have received rebuilding permits from LA city or county. 

In other words, a year later, the rebuilding process has barely begun.

Perhaps worst of all, no concrete steps have been taken to prevent future wildfires in the Los Angeles area, where conflagrations are all but guaranteed.  If nothing changes about the government’s approach, most survivors of January’s fires will never return to their neighborhoods, and future fires will claim even more lives, homes and businesses. 

Despite the gravity of these challenges, there are reasons for optimism. This year Californians have the opportunity to elect officials who can plot a better way forward, including a new governor and statewide insurance commissioner. 

In Los Angeles, we will have elections for county supervisors, City Council, Congress, mayor and more. 

What are candidates’ plans for fire recovery?

The myriad candidates in the running need to present serious plans to address the failures of the first year of recovery. They must communicate clear ideas to address environmental toxins that remain, failed emergency response systems, future wildfire prevention and the painfully slow pace of permitting and rebuilding — among many other related issues. 

Philanthropy can play a role, too, by organizing nonpartisan candidate forums for candidates to hear from survivors directly. In the first year of the fire recovery, LA’s robust institutional philanthropies tried to help elected leaders behind the scenes. Looking ahead, philanthropies would be better served backing the public accountability work necessary for politicians to deliver on their promises. 

The failures of the first year of wildfire recovery rests at the feet of politicians, but that does not mean that the many years of recovery work ahead are doomed. Survivors and regular Angelenos have the chance to hold elected officials accountable for their shortcomings and elect new ones who are up to the job. 

L.A. fire survivors deserve a new set of leaders who’ll have the courage to act and the solutions to rebuild Los Angeles.