CITY JOURNAL
L.A.’s Total Leadership Failure
Steven Malanga
January 10, 2025

The devastating wildfires in Los Angeles have spotlighted questionable state and local government policies in California that may have contributed to the blazes and left areas like Hollywood vulnerable due to insufficient firefighting resources. Mayor Karen Bass’s budget cuts to the city’s fire department, enacted just months ago amid warnings about the city’s deteriorating finances, stand out as a striking example of misplaced priorities. The cuts stemmed from a budget crisis triggered by her administration’s decision to reward city employees with rich contracts and benefits—even as it dismissed worries that the reductions would hurt services. “Predictions that city services will be impossible to deliver,” deputy mayor Zach Seidl told the press, “are simply false.” Few public statements have aged as poorly—or as hauntingly—as this one. READ MORE