The Brief

As the Palisades Fire roared to life a year ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was nowhere to be found in the city.

She was on a diplomatic trip to Ghana, the guest of the Biden Administration, when the wind-whipped flames swept into the Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, 2025. After her return to Los Angeles the next day, she stared stone faced and silent when a reporter from the British outlet Sky News quizzed her at LAX about why she had left the city amid warnings of historic winds and fire danger.

Later, she said the fire chief, whom she terminated six weeks after the fire, did not properly warn her of the impending extreme and dangerous conditions. Bass later called it a “mistake” to have left the city.

From day one of the Palisades Fire, which burned nearly 7,000 homes and killed 12 people, Bass has been under intense scrutiny for her response to the disaster.

And it will likely be a big issue in her reelection campaign this year.

The mayor is politically vulnerable when it comes to fire response, said Fernando Guerra, who directs the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

“The fires are the major issue in this election,” Guerra said.

Among the criticisms: The mayor introduced a plan to waive new building permit fees for Palisades residents, an effort to help fast-track rebuilding, but it is languishing in the City Council. Some residents say the rebuilding process has gone too slow and blame the mayor.

Additionally, The Los Angeles Times reported last month that an after-action report by the L.A. Fire Department, which the mayor oversees, was toned down to avoid being too critical of the agency’s response. The Times reviewed multiple drafts of the report and learned that the revisions amounted to “an effort to downplay the failures of city and LAFD leadership.”

The fumbles have left many in the Palisades frustrated. Some in the Palisades have called on her to resign.

Larry Vein of Pali Strong, a fire survivors group, acknowledges the anger some in the Palisades have expressed toward Bass, but he is careful about criticizing the mayor.

“I have a saying which is I don’t do politics, I do Palisades,” he said. “ But “certainly mistakes were made.”

“As of today, there is a lot of anger and there is a lot of upset at the mayor, thinking that she should have done more,” he continued. “She has been making strides with trying to get the rebuild done, but there have been the standard hurdles that happen in any bureaucracy.”

The mayor has defended her administration’s response to the fire, saying debris cleanup and the issuing of permits to rebuild have happened at “lightning speed” and that thousands of people have used the city’s one-stop centers that provide relief. She has urged banks to extend forbearance of mortgage payments to residents who lost their homes, and banned projects that split lots zoned for single-family homes — an effort to retain community character in the Palisades.

In an interview with LAist, Bass acknowledged the criticism.

“You certainly have Palisadians who say that it's going too slow. But it's going too slow for a variety of reasons,” she said. “It might be financial, it might be insurance. If it's the city process — and it might be — and we find out about it, we jump on it and move whatever obstacle that’s in the way out of the way.

“We have a long ways to go, but I am hoping that progress will even speed up more, and more homes will be under construction,” Bass said.

Fire Department report criticized

Much the criticism has focused on the fire department, which Bass oversees.

The Times has reported the department downplayed some of the problems in the response, including the agency’s failure to fully extinguish the Lachman Fire a week before the Palisades Fire. It is believed that high winds reignited the Lachman Fire and caused the Palisades Fire.

“There was an effort to minimize errors in judgment that were made,” City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez told LAist.

Maryam Zar, founder of the Palisades Recovery Coalition, echoed the sentiment.

“The lack of accountability, the lack of ability to say, ‘Hey Pacific Palisades we really got this wrong’...that leads to this community’s inability to let go,” Zar added.

Bass wouldn’t say if there was a cover-up by the fire department. She said another report ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom is due out later this month.

“That is an independent report,” she said. “ It had nothing to do with the Fire Department. And you can judge at that point.”

According to the Mayor’s Office, more than 1,400 construction permits have been issued for more than 680 addresses in the Palisades as of this week. At least 417 projects are confirmed to have started construction

The office says Palisades rebuilding plans are being approved in half the time compared to single-family home projects citywide before the wildfires.

In April, Bass introduced a proposal to waive construction permit fees for people who wanted to rebuild in the Palisades. But the proposal needs approval from the City Council, which has delayed any action citing concerns about the effect it would have on the cash-strapped city.

The cost will run into the tens of millions of dollars. The council approved a $13 billion budget in June that included little wiggle room for additional spending.

The council is scheduled to take up the issue again this month.

Some blame Bass for not pushing the council hard enough.

“We think she’s lost that sense of urgency — that this is an important part of L.A. city that has burned down and been completely devastated,” said Zar, from the Palisades Recovery Coalition.

Vein, from the fire survivors group, said knowing whether the city will waive potentially tens of thousands of dollars in permit fees per home is important because many residents are still on the fence about whether to rebuild.

And the delays have been frustrating to many.

“A year later, we’re still waiting on permit fee waivers,” said Jessica Rogers, vice chair of the Palisades Long Term Recovery Group.

Back to square one

The city also still has no overall plan to rebuild city infrastructure. The mayor hired one firm to develop a plan then switched to another, AECOM, which is conducting listening sessions with residents, according to Zar.

“We think there’s been enough of a listening tour and too little output,” said Zar. “Over and over again we feel like we’re back to square one.”

Rodriguez said it's important to move things faster for the residents of the Palisades.

“With every false start, you’re delaying a plan for the families that were affected to be able to recover,” the council member said.

At the same time, Zar said she thinks some of the criticism of the mayor has been overblown. Zar said she isn’t convinced it’s such a big deal that Bass was out of town the day the fire started.

“The mayor being in town would not have meant that she would have shown up with a hose in her hand,” she said.

Some in the Palisades say any mayor would have struggled to respond to such a large-scale wildfire.

“For a disaster of our size, it would be hard for anybody to do a very good job at assisting with recovery,” Rogers said.

Bass faces reelection bid

Bass announced her reelection bid Dec.13, touting on her website that L.A.’s fire cleanup was the fastest in U.S. history.

Former Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent and investment banker Austin Beutner is among those challenging her. He’s also a Palisades resident whose home was badly damaged by smoke.

“She keeps announcing recovery strategies only for them to get bogged down in details or abandoned altogether,” Beutner said.

Guerra, from Loyola Marymount, said many voters perceived that Bass had “underperformed” during and after the fires.

“I think we’re picking that up not only in the public narrative but also in public opinion polls,” he said.

According to a UCLA/Luskin School Quality of Life Index survey conducted in February and March of last year, her total unfavorable rating was 49% compared to 23% during her first year in office.

Still, she commands a strong coalition that includes labor unions and business groups like the Valley Industry Commerce Association, said Guerra. He predicted Bass would “probably win in the June primary.”

Guerra said Bass will be tough to topple, despite her missteps on fire recovery.

One of the outstanding questions is whether billionaire businessman Rick Caruso will enter the race. Caruso, who ran against Bass in 2022, has been a sharp critic of the mayor’s recovery response.

He spent more than $100 million trying to defeat Bass the first time.

Caruso won’t say whether he plans to mount a challenge to Bass.

The filing deadline is Feb. 7.

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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