Karen Bass Losing Ballroom Race With Trump

Presidential project outpaces Palisades repairs: say that three times, fast

Recently, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass made a triumphant announcement that her administration had given final approval for a house to be rebuilt in Pacific Palisades for the very first time. As critics noted, the structure is in fact a model property, with no family living inside it, that the property management company will show to residents of Pacific Palisades in order to attract their rebuilding business. So far, zero families remain re-housed in the fire zone.

Of course, there are many barriers to rebuilding. Discussing the story on X, I encountered a property owner in L.A. who says it took him nine months to receive his insurance check. (I won’t put him on blast by linking.) This turns out to be sadly normal. Not only was the insurance system badly regulated and then overwhelmed by claims, “delay, deny, and underpay” tactics have been the norm for wildfire insurance payouts, pitting property owners against insurers. At least one company, State Farm, is already under scrutiny after paying out $5 billion in claims.

But even with a payout that covers the full cost of rebuilding, a property owner faces the daunting challenges of city hall, which is where the mayor was supposed to make things happen. When president-elect Donald Trump went to Los Angeles in January, he challenged Mayor Bass to use her emergency powers. “The permit’s gonna take them 18 months”, Trump said, citing property owners in the audience who had told him so. Bass reassured Trump that it would not take 18 months for anyone to get started rebuilding. It was a lie.

It was a lie because California and the Los Angeles area communities are entirely choked with red tape, while no one, least of all Mayor Bass, has any interest in making the bureaucracy work more efficiently. As Sean Alexander, aka ‘Actual Justice Warrior’ explains in this video, the sad truth is that most property owners will wait much longer than 18 months. While the local news highlights a few hundred starts, these are a small number of the affected residents. At least one family that Alexander knows has given up on a process that is designed to take too long. All corruption being local, Bass can expect her reward from the property management companies that buy up plots from their distressed owners.

In another, less recent video, comedian Adam Carolla found an active worksite in Malibu, the city he calls home. As he has explained in previous videos, the old foundations of many beach houses cannot be re-used because the septic systems must be designed in accordance with modern regulations. California is not about to stop regulating septic systems on the seashore just to speed up construction. Every new problem created by regulation is another barrier to property owners rebuilding — and that is the way Californians like it. Bass is a creature of her environment.

In 2028, there is supposed to be an Olympics in Los Angeles. Assuming there are no more major fires that burn down large portions of southern California — no small assumption — it seems likely that many plots will remain empty, and many houses unfinished, by the time the world arrives to see the Golden State at its best. An election will be taking place that same year, and although Donald Trump will not be running again, his ballroom will be nearing completion. It remains to be seen who the GOP nominee will be, but the ads write themselves, especially if Gov. Gavin Newsom is the Democratic nominee.

At the present rate, California Democrats are losing a race to finish rebuilding the Pacific Palisades fire before Trump finishes his ballroom. They do not acknowledge they are even in this race, so they will not win it. We are all going to find out how badly they lose, and what they lose by it.