With Bass Abroad, Even Democrats Are Slamming La Mayor Over Wildfires

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass faced mounting criticism Wednesday for her handling of deadly wildfires that continued to rage across the region, taking blame from influential city figures as she traveled back from a trip to Africa.

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, slammed Bass in an X post claiming the mayor slashed the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget, despite the high risk of wildfires in the region, and raised questions about reports that some fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades had run dry.

“Fires in LA are sadly no surprise, yet the Mayor cut LA Fire Department’s budget by $23M,” he wrote in the tweet. “And reports of empty fire hydrants raise serious questions. Competence matters.”

A Bass spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Soon-Shiong’s claim about the LAFD budget cut. City budget documents show the department’s more than $800 million budget decreased by around $17 million compared to the previous budget cycle.

The prominent publisher's condemnation came after moderate Democrat Rick Caruso, a real estate mogul who lost his mayoral bid to Bass in 2022, spent the morning making local TV appearances blasting Bass for traveling to Ghana, despite reports as early as last week about an impending wind storm.

The mayor’s office posted on X Monday night about an “expected destructive and potentially life-threatening windstorm starting Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon” yet Bass still wasn’t back in the city as of Wednesday morning when President Joe Biden joined Gov. Gavin Newsom for a press conference about the conflagrations at a Santa Monica fire station.

Bass’ decision to not return from Ghana sooner drew criticism Wednesday from even the left flank of political media.

“Inexplicable decision to not come back earlier,” Tommy Vietor, a former Obama staffer and Pod Save America host, wrote on X.

Caruso, who owns a shopping complex in the Pacific Palisades that partially burned, compared Los Angeles to a “third-world country” with failing infrastructure.

“This is a window into a systemic problem of the city — not only of mismanagement, but our infrastructure is old,” Caruso told the Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in a Wednesday press conference refuted claims, including those made by Caruso, that water tanks in Pacific Palisades weren’t fully filled ahead of the fire. Departmental officials said the three tanks in the area were filled to capacity with around 1 million gallons of water each, but those supplies were tapped out by early Wednesday morning.

“We ran out of water and the first tank about 4:45pm yesterday, we ran out of water on the second tank about 8:30pm and the third tank about 3am this morning,” said Janisse Quiñones, CEO of LADWP.

Los Angeles officials said Wednesday the Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed more than 1,000 homes, businesses and other buildings, and that at least two people had been killed near Pasadena. Fires in Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Sylmar and the Sepulveda Basin had burned nearly 6,000 acres.

All four fires remained uncontained as of early Wednesday afternoon, drawing a fresh attack from President-elect Donald Trump, who leveled accusations earlier in the day that the fire was the result of the state’s Democratic governor mismanaging California’s water supply.

“As of this moment, Gavin Newscum and his Los Angeles crew have contained exactly ZERO percent of the fire,” he wrote. “It is burning at levels that even surpass last night. This is not Government. I can’t wait till January 20th!”

Bass is still flying back to Los Angeles, and her spokespeople didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about her current location. Bass’ official X account was tweeting throughout the day, offering updates on LAFD resuming air operations and offering advice to residents.

Bass traveled to Ghana over the weekend for the inauguration of President John Dramani Mahama.