Desperate LA leaders begged for disaster aid, only to find the money is being held hostage

A massive proposal designed to coordinate the recovery and rebuilding of Los Angeles communities hit by recent wildfires has completely stalled out due to fierce local opposition. The plan, which aimed to create a powerful rebuilding authority, faced an avalanche of hostility the moment it was introduced, largely because residents simply don’t trust the local leaders pushing the idea.

The struggle for fire survivors in L.A. is intense right now. There’s a serious lack of a master plan and not enough cash flowing to help communities rebuild, creating a vacuum that local leaders desperately tried to fill. L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who represents areas affected by the Palisades fire, stepped up and gathered a blue-ribbon commission of about 20 leaders from the business, government, and climate sectors.

After months of meetings, this commission proposed an entirely new rebuilding authority. According to Politico, the idea was to model it after agencies that were created following huge disasters like the 1994 Northridge earthquake and Hurricane Katrina. I think this approach is smart; when you have a disaster of this scale, you need someone focused only on the recovery.

Disaster relief doesn’t always come when you need it

The powers envisioned for this new authority were huge, but the commission argued they were absolutely essential for spurring a fast and coordinated recovery. To prevent speculators from buying up damaged properties, the authority planned to purchase burned-out lots from owners, reconstruct the houses, and then sell them back at a discounted rate.

The commission unveiled its 172-page plan in May and then handed it off to state Senator Ben Allen, a Democrat representing Pacific Palisades, to implement it through legislation known as SB 549. Unfortunately, the bill immediately hit a wall of anger. This city-level stuff may seem outrageous, but we’ve seen worse from the federal government.

Resident groups strongly rejected the idea of handing broad power to a new government agency they hadn’t asked for, proposed by leaders they already viewed with suspicion. Fury at elected officials was already high because of the details that came out about the re-ignition of a small fire that became the massive Palisades blaze, and also because of the absent evacuation orders during the Eaton fire in Altadena.

Jessica Rogers, president of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association, summed up the prevailing sentiment, noting that most people are blaming local leadership for the fires in the first place. “So for local leadership to try to start an authority without the input of residents is absurd,” she stated. I can totally understand that reaction; if you feel like the leaders caused the problem, you’re not going to trust them to fix it with a massive new bureaucracy.

Senator Allen made the situation much worse because of how he tried to introduce the legislation. Due to legislative deadlines, he had to insert the language establishing the authority into one of his existing bills. When he did this, he kept an unrelated provision from the original bill concerning the expansion of low-income housing financing.

The structure itself was considered just as important as the funding. Other major events are coming up, like the upcoming World Cup and Olympics, which will last a while. Elected officials will naturally have their attention pulled away from the long, difficult recovery process.

Laurie Johnson, who previously served as a California Earthquake Authority executive and was on the commission, spoke about this need for focus. “What we wanted out of a rebuilding authority was a clear, designated institutional leader,” she said. This makes perfect sense; recovery needs years of dedicated attention, not just a few months.