The Brief

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced Friday that the city has issued its first permits for Pacific Palisades residents looking to rebuild their homes, and that a new executive order will further expedite that effort.

Debris has been removed from around 400 properties destroyed or damaged in the Palisades Fire earlier this year, and as the city rebuilds, the mayor said the new order will also help residents harden their homes and businesses against wildfires.

“We are taking action to help residents harden their homes and businesses against wildfires, ensure our city’s infrastructure can better withstand future disasters, and protect communities for generations to come, all while ensuring the pace of rebuilding continues ahead of expectations,” Bass said in a statement.

What’s in the order?

The executive order directs the Department of Building and Safety to provide recommendations within 60 days for a streamlined permit process for those who choose to go all electric in the construction of their homes or businesses. They’ll also have 90 days to draft suggestions to promote fire-resistant materials in construction to align with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order that requires “an ember-resistant zone” for buildings and homes in high fire risk areas.

The Department of Water and Power has 30 days to update its incentives program for those who choose to go all electric for the rebuild.

The order also has Bass’ office working with the California insurance commissioner’s office to provide and explore insurance options for residents. And they will provide residents with pricing for building wildfire resistant homes.

What about rebuilding public infrastructure? 

Bass’ order directs the Department of Water and Power, Public Works and the Department of Transportation to explore ways to improve underground power lines in order to keep the power on during wildfires.

They’re also tasked with exploring solar power and backup batteries to keep the lights on during extreme weather or fire events. The departments have 90 days to report back.

Improvements to water supply 

LADWP will come back within 90 days on how to improve the department’s water supply in case of future fire events. The order requires the department to conduct an audit on the department’s current water distribution and storage. It’ll look into its ability to support aerial and other firefighting operations, including pump capacity.

Protection and prevention 

The Bureau of Engineering has 30 days to come up with a plan to protect hillsides from erosion. The order points to developing solutions like fire-smart landscaping to prevent rain runoff from causing landslides and floods.

The Emergency Management Department will audit the current wildfire preparedness and warning systems, and propose recommendations to improve evacuation routes and emergency notification systems. Other departments, such as City Planning, will also evaluate their policies regarding wildfire risk and extreme weather events.

The order tasks the city’s Fire Department with finding ways to promote their Community Emergency Response Team for residents in high fire risk areas.

What’s next 

The departments will present their recommendations to a committee established by the mayor’s office, including representatives from the Palisades community, business and academic leaders.

Bass said she has spoken with building and safety and planning officials about waiving fees. Some fees can’t legally be waived, she said. She said she is looking to change the law or reduce the fees.

A coalition of housed and unhoused residents in West L.A. is asking a court to stop the city of Los Angeles from moving ahead with a pilot program that allows local officials to remove and dismantle more recreational vehicles the city deems a nuisance.

The move from the CD11 Coalition for Human Rights comes in response to a new state law that gives L.A. County the authority to dispose of abandoned or inoperable RVs worth up to $4,000, a major increase from the previous $500 threshold.

Assembly Bill 630 went into effect Jan. 1.

In its petition for a writ of mandate from the Superior Court, the coalition argues the law gives that authority only to the county of Los Angeles — not the city. Members of the coalition claim the city is “recklessly charging ahead” with a program it’s not authorized to execute.

“The city’s actions are illegal and will harm vulnerable Angelenos who live in these RVs, while unlawfully wasting taxpayer resources on activities that exceed the city’s authority,” court documents state.

Some city officials who support the new law say L.A. must have the tools to get unsafe and unsanitary RVs off the streets for good.

There are more than 3,100 RVs parked across the city of L.A. being used as improved housing, according to last year’s homeless count estimates from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

“These vehicles create unacceptable health, environmental, and safety risks, putting entire neighborhoods, critical infrastructure, and sensitive environmental areas at risk,” Councilmember Traci Park said in a statement. “Residents want solutions, not ideological wars, delay tactics, and frivolous lawsuits.”

LAist reached out to other city officials for comment but, so far, they have not responded.

How we got here

Park, who represents communities including Venice and Culver City in District 11, introduced a motion in October instructing various city departments to “immediately implement” expanded RV enforcement, about a week after AB 630 was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

According to the motion, the new law “is one more tool to stop the RV to streets pipeline” and complements the city’s efforts to crack down on “van-lords.”

The L.A. City Council voted to approve the move Dec. 9.

Attorneys for the Coalition for Human Rights, who include some from the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, sent a demand letter to L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto on Dec. 18 explaining its arguments.

“The City’s planned implementation of AB 630 is illegal,” attorneys wrote in the letter, which also argued the city would be “liable for any damages for property if illegally removed, withheld, or destroyed.”

The letter gave L.A. officials until Dec. 29 to confirm that the city would not implement the new law.

City officials did not respond, according to Shayla Myers, senior attorney with the Unhoused People's Justice Project at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

The coalition is now asking a judge to resolve the dispute.

“The city of Los Angeles and the City Council in its rush to criminalize homelessness, you know, rushed past the plain language of the statute and instructed city employees effectively to violate the law,” Myers told LAist. “That kind of rushing to criminalize homelessness is the type of action that leads to bad policy making, but it also leads to lawsuits.”

Myers said legal matters like this don’t help get people off the street, but they’re necessary when the city refuses to obey the law and to respect the rights of people experiencing homelessness.

What officials say

L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s office did not immediately respond to LAist’s requests for comment on the writ or demand letter.

Mayor Karen Bass proposed AB 630 in partnership with Assemblymember Mark González, who introduced the California assembly bill. According to González’s office, the new law aims to boost public safety, address environmental concerns and “complement programs like Mayor Bass' Inside Safe initiative.”

Inside Safe is Bass’ flagship homelessness program that aims to move people off the street and into housing.

Bass' office has called AB 630 “landmark legislation.”

“For too long, bad actors have preyed on unhoused Angelenos and families through a cycle of buying and auctioning off broken down, inoperable RVs that are dangerous for those inhabiting them and for surrounding areas — they catch on fire and can become death traps, not the type of RVs safe to be used for housing,” representatives from Bass' office previously said in a statement to LAist.

Representatives from González’s office didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment on the writ.

LAist has also reached out to City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, whose office is involved with coordinating the removal of RVs from L.A. streets. Szabo did not immediately respond.

The Eaton Fire destroyed the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, where over 400 families would gather to worship and which has served as a Jewish community space for over 100 years.

On the anniversary of the fire Wednesday, Josh Ratner, the senior rabbi at the temple, told LAist’s AirTalk program that the congregation has been gathering at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena.

“ It has certainly been a unique challenge," he said, "in a sense of us going through a double crisis, a double tragedy of the loss of our building, which has meant so much to so many of our congregants, and the loss of so many congregants’ homes.”

Thirty families of the congregation lost their homes, while another 40 families have had to relocate.

As the fire raged, Cantor Ruth Berman Harris raced to save all 13 sacred Torah scrolls, pieces of parchment with Hebrew text used at services, including Shabbat. The scrolls are now being stored at the Huntington Library in San Marino.

Everything else in the temple was lost in the fire.

In 2019, UCLA acquired temple records, including newsletters, yearbooks, board minutes, membership directories, financial reports, booklets, photographs and video and audio recordings. Community members can access that information, tracing Pasadena’s Jewish history from the 1930s to present day.

Ratner said that since the fire, he has leaned into what led him to becoming a rabbi — “the ability to provide pastoral care and love” as the congregation has grappled with losing their spiritual home.

“ The Jewish tradition and Jewish history is we're no strangers to crisis and to dislocation and to exile," Ratner said. "So there are a lot of themes from the Bible itself and the idea of the Israelites wandering for 40 years in the wilderness before reaching the promised land and living in that sense of dislocation and impermanence.”

From ancient times to the recent past, he went on, temples are destroyed and Jewish people are persecuted and forced to relocate.

 ”We have overcome so much before as a people. I think that that gives us some firm foundation to know that we can recover from this as well,” he said. “And not just recover, but really our histories of people is one of rebuilding even stronger than before. Each time there's been a crisis, we've been able to reinvent different aspects of Judaism and to evolve.”

Correspondent Adolfo Guzman-Lopez contributed to this report. 

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced new dietary guidelines for Americans focused on promoting whole foods, healthy proteins and fats.

At a press conference today, the administration unveiled a new food pyramid with red meat, cheese, vegetables and fruits pictured at the top.

Secretary Kennedy described the new guidelines as the most significant re-set on nutrition policy in history, calling for an end to policies that promote highly-refined foods that are harmful to health.

The guidelines will set limits on added sugar, and encourage diets that include meat and dairy.

"Protein and healthy fats are essential and were wrongly discouraged in prior dietary guidelines," Kennedy said. "We are ending the war on saturated fats."

As an introduction to the new guidelines, Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called for a dramatic reduction" in the consumption of highly processed foods," ladened with refined carbohydrates, added sugars, excess sodium, unhealthy fats and chemical additives.

"This approach can change the health trajectory for many Americans," they wrote, pointing out that more than 70% of American adults are overweight or obese due to "a diet that has become reliant on highly processed foods and coupled with a sedentary lifestyle."

For years, Americans have been advised to limit saturated fat and the new pyramid is facing criticism.

"I'm very disappointed in the new pyramid that features red meat and saturated fat sources at the very top, as if that's something to prioritize, it does go against decades and decades of evidence and research," says Christopher Gardner, a nutrition expert at Stanford University. He was a member of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which reviewed all the nutrition evidence.

The guidelines also elevate cheese and other dairy to the top of the pyramid, paving the way for the option of full-fat milk and dairy products in school meals. There's growing evidence, based on nutrition science, that dairy foods can be beneficial.

"It's pretty clear that overall milk and cheese and yogurt can be part of a healthy diet," says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist, public health scientist and director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University. "Both low fat and whole fat dairy versions of milk, cheese and yogurt have been linked to lower cardiovascular risk," he says.

"What's quite interesting is that the fat content doesn't seem to make a big difference. So both low fat and whole fat dairy versions of milk, cheese and yogurt have been linked to lower cardiovascular risk," Mozaffarian says.

Mozaffarian says he supports the recommendations to lower consumption of highly processed foods. "Highly processed foods are clearly harmful for a range of diseases, so to have the U.S. government recommend that a wide class of foods be eaten less because of their processing is a big deal and I think a very positive move for public health," he says.

Though most Americans don't actually read the dietary guidelines, they are highly influential in determining what's served in school meals and on military bases, as well as what's included in federal food aid for mothers and infants, as the guidelines set targets for calories and nutrients.

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In the Pacific Palisades and Altadena today, families of fire victims, survivors, elected officials and others gathered to mark the one-year anniversary of the fires that killed 31 people and reduced L.A. neighborhoods to ash and rubble.

At American Legion Post 283 in the heart of the Palisades, more than 100 fire survivors gathered Wednesday morning for a private ceremony for the families who lost loved ones in the fire. After the memorial, Los Angeles police officers on horseback led a procession, followed by bagpipers, then families of those who lost their lives in the fire a year ago.

Then in a ceremony on the Palisades Village Green, a bell was rung 12 times for the 12 people who died in the fire.

“No community should have to endure this level of devastation and loss and trauma,” said Jessica Rogers, executive director of the Palisades Long Term Recovery Group, which organized the memorial. “This past year has tested us beyond measure — physically, emotionally and spiritually. And yet, here we stand together.”

Eaton Fire survivors call for support

Hundreds of people turned out for a news conference in Altadena on the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire.

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Meanwhile, in Altadena, survivors and elected officials held a news conference to raise concerns about their recovery experience so far and to call for action.

They said survivors have been wrongfully denied the support they need to stay housed in the wake of losing their homes — by the utility company whose equipment is believed to have started the fire, by key insurance companies and by the federal government.

Southern California Edison has acknowledged that its equipment likely started the fire, speakers Wednesday said. But they added that the compensation offered by the utility is inadequate.

State Sen. Sasha Renee Perez, who represents Altadena, said she had sent a letter to SoCal Edison leadership urging the company to provide urgent housing relief to the community.

“Part of them taking responsibility is providing the financial resources that this community needs to thrive,” Perez said to applause from the crowd. “We will not allow this community to fall into homelessness. Edison, you need to step it up.”

That was a worry for fire survivor Ada Hernandez, who said her family is at risk of having to live in their car when their housing support runs out next week.

Ada Hernandez, joined by her young daughter at Wednesday's news conference, says her family may have to live in their car.

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Community groups have warned about the risk of homelessness to survivors.

An Edison spokesperson responded by pointing to the utility’s existing compensation program, saying it’s the fastest way for survivors to get support.

Other speakers called out their home insurers, some of whom, they said, have illegally delayed and denied coverage. A particular focus was State Farm. A spokesperson for the insurer said they couldn't discuss individual customers' cases, but that the company is "committed to continuing being a partner with our customers throughout their recovery."

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the area, also called on President Donald Trump to approve California’s request for tens of billions in relief to help people rebuild.

The events were just two among many held or planned for this week and in coming weeks — marking the tragedy, honoring victims, creating art and building community.

L.A. mayor's role

A key figure missing from the Palisades event, which transitioned to a planned protest as the morning progressed, was L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. Her office told LAist the mayor was attending private vigils and directed flags at City Hall to fly at half-staff.

Anger about her role in the early days of the fire response remains fresh for many Palisades Fire survivors, as evidenced by a sign at the memorial calling on her to resign, as well as people wearing shirts that said, “They let us burn.”

At a protest after the vigil, dozens of Palisadians gathered to share their frustration and demand accountability and action, including officials taking responsibility for the cause of the fire, waiving rebuild permit fees and improving responses in the case of the next disaster.

Anger was directed at L.A. city leaders at a protest in the Palisades on Wednesday.

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LAist

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Bass said on LAist’s AirTalk with Larry Mantle on Wednesday that the anniversary is a difficult day of remembrance and mourning, but she also said that it’s “a day to recommit and be hopeful and to forge on.” She added that she was encouraged to see so much rebuilding underway on recent trips to fire areas.

Bass also responded to a news report that the Mayor’s Office asked for “refinements” to the L.A. Fire Department’s after-action report on its handling of the firefight.

Bass said she did not make changes to the report.

“I did not have a hand in writing the report, in editing the report, or, frankly, in reading the reports, the various versions,” Bass said on AirTalk. “I had no idea there were so many versions of the report.”

Bass said she requested that the City Administrative Officer review the report’s characterization of the Fire Department budget: “I just said, ‘Get accurate information,’ and that’s what I assume they did.”

Matt Szabo holds that role. LAist has reached out to him for comment.