{"id":172844,"date":"2026-02-11T02:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/172844\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T02:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:58:14","slug":"dead-wood-from-city-hall-to-sacramento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/172844\/","title":{"rendered":"Dead wood \u2014 from City Hall to Sacramento"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom want to blame climate change for the infernos that tore through Pacific Palisades and Altadena in January 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These were acts of a vengeful, unpredictable climate. Monsters born of global warming that no human hand could have stayed. So they say.<\/p>\n

It is a lie. A convenient, curated, political lie designed to shield the incompetent and the corrupt from the consequences of their own misgovernance.<\/p>\n

\"AKaren Bass and Gavin Newsom want to blame climate change for the infernos that tore through Pacific Palisades and Altadena in January 2025. NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Newsom has also blamed an arsonist for the Palisades Fire. Yes, the first fire, the Lachman Fire, was set last Jan. 1 by a human being \u2014 one obsessed with climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But there was nothing \u201cunprecedented\u201d about the Los Angeles fires. We have seen this movie many times before: the Woolsey Fire, the Kincade Fire, the Park Fire, and more. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The Santa Ana winds have scoured the state for as long as the Pacific has kissed the coast; they are as native to California as the oak trees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To blame \u201cclimate change\u201d for the predictable winds that whip through our passes is an insult to history and a dereliction of duty. We even knew exactly when the winds were coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So while climate and drought and arson influence fire risk, what turned a forecast wind event into a mass-casualty disaster wasn\u2019t carbon dioxide. It was poor governance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you knew the winds were coming, why weren\u2019t city and state resources pre-positioned? Why weren\u2019t command centers established? Why wasn\u2019t staffing maximized?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why was the mayor of an American city on a diplomatic trip to West Africa, instead of handling all of the above?<\/p>\n

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The Lachman Fire was a small, manageable blaze. It was \u201cextinguished.\u201d Or so we were told.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But when firefighters attempted to overhaul the site to dig deep, turn the soil, and ensure every ember was dead, they were reportedly hamstrung by bureaucracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why? To protect an indigenous weed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crews were allegedly restricted in their ability to bring in heavy equipment<\/a> or disturb the soil in \u201cavoidance areas\u201d because California has prioritized the \u201cenvironmental sanctity\u201d of a milkvetch plant over the safety of thousands of residents, their homes, their livelihoods, and their pets.<\/p>\n

So, the fire smoldered. It waited. And when the predicted winds arrived six days later, the flames roared back to life as the Palisades Fire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t nature\u2019s fury; it was a bureaucratic rekindling.<\/p>\n

Then came the water failures. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2014, voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 1, authorizing billions of dollars for new water storage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than a decade later, we are still drowning in feasibility studies and permitting hell, with not a single major drop of new storage to show for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Worse, the Santa Ynez Reservoir<\/a>, situated perfectly uphill from the Palisades, capable of gravity-feeding water without the need for vulnerable electric pumps, was empty. \u201cRepairs,\u201d they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s own reports now try to gaslight us, claiming a full reservoir \u201cwouldn\u2019t have made a difference\u201d due to water-pressure physics.<\/p>\n

That explanation doesn\u2019t absolve anyone.\u00a0 It indicts the entire system. \u00a0<\/p>\n

If your firefighting infrastructure can\u2019t deliver adequate pressure during a predictable wind-driven emergency, then your system isn\u2019t resilient. It\u2019s ornamental. And nothing was done to remedy it.<\/p>\n

Then there is the horror of Altadena, and the Eaton Fire. We are hearing reports of \u201czombie power lines\u201d \u2014 decommissioned infrastructure re-energized by contact with live wires in the wind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the same story as the Woolsey and Camp fires of 2018.<\/p>\n

Why does this infrastructure remain?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because the utility companies, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE), are not treated as public servants, but as protected donors.<\/p>\n

Newsom has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations<\/a> from the utility giants. In return, we got AB 1054<\/a>, a legislative bailout that shields these monopolies from full liability \u2014 while Newsom vetoed forestry management bills, choosing to let the fuel stack up in our canyons.<\/p>\n

And when the ashes settled in LA, what did Mayor Bass do? Did she demand accountability? No. She demanded an eraser.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The California Post has reported<\/a> that Bass\u2019s office watered down the LA Fire Department\u2019s after-action report to shift blame away from city leaders and onto rank-and-file firefighters. Her staff want to avoid the fact that firefighters begged for more funding for months, only to be ignored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If we continue to shrug and say, \u201cThat\u2019s just California,\u201d we\u2019re signing our own eviction notices and, in some cases, our death certificates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are doomed to be ruled by idiots who can\u2019t manage a reservoir and monsters who will let your house burn to line their campaign coffers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t about left versus right. It\u2019s about competence versus collapse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because when leadership refuses to prepare, when bureaucracy overrides common sense, and when political protection replaces accountability, disasters stop being natural. They become engineered.<\/p>\n

The smoke may have cleared from Palisades and Altadena. But the brush in Sacramento and City Hall is overdue for removal.<\/p>\n

Jillian Michaels is a health advocate, entrepreneur, and bestselling author whose work sits at the intersection of wellness and consumer empowerment.<\/p>\n

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