While Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass desperately tries to stifle public outrage about inadequate wildfire response, fire personnel emphasize the dire lack of funding and resources allocated towards emergency services as the cause.
Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley stated during a television broadcast yesterday that there are too few firefighters and not enough mechanics to repair broken equipment as the Department faced a $17 million budget cut this year.
The Fire Chief doubled down in her critiques against the Mayor, citing the elimination of civilian positions and overtime pay which has limited firefighters in their ability to prepare for large-scale emergencies.
Mayor Bass has staunchly resisted criticisms of the budget cuts, claiming that the reductions did not impact wildfire response.
At a joint press conference today, Chief Crowley was forced to tow the line, reassuring us that her and Mayor Bass are “united and focused” on preparing for strong winds to hit next week.
The cracks in the government are widening as the crisis worsens.
City Controller Kenneth Mejia, whose office is responsible for analyzing the city budget, called out the “disgraceful” deflection from City officials who have ignored the severe impacts that such budget cuts have on the day-to-day lives of Angelenos. (Yahoo)
City, County, and State officials are refusing to take accountability for this man-made disaster.
Politicians who fail to serve the interests of our working class communities are playing political games with our lives.
As this budget debate rages, fires continue to spread, and Governor Newsom has doubled National Guard numbers to over a thousand troops for the primary task of defending private property and arresting perceived “looters.”
The wildfires have now taken at least 24 lives and burned down thousands of homes, with numbers expected to rise for likely the costliest disaster in U.S. history.
Nothing about this disaster is “natural” but a direct consequence of capitalism’s greed for maximized profit.
The government’s criminal negligence has millions of Angelenos worried for what comes next after the dust settles.
People who have lost their homes may lose everything due to predatory capitalist insurance schemes that canceled fire insurance policies for hundreds of thousands of residents just months ago – the real looters at work.
We must fight for full compensation for all fire victims to rebuild our communities in the aftermath of this disaster.
We must resist threats of corporate redevelopment of burned-down neighborhoods, and firmly place the power to rebuild in the hands of the people who have been providing grassroots leadership and aid to their fellow community members during this crisis.
For Los Angeles to live, capitalism must end!
Abolish the insurance companies – a system that rewards endless profit at the cost of human lives has run its course!
We must fight for a new system that puts the people first, a socialist system that is able to fight the threat of climate change and repair and protect our communities from further devastation!
The People’s Demands for January 20th Mobilization
- Free and suitable housing: open up vacant hotels and residences to fire victims
- Thousands of luxury apartment units and homes sit empty across LA, kept vacant so that development companies can ensure maximized profits in a city experiencing some of the worst housing and homelessness crises in the country. Fire victims and evacuees must be provided with free housing and utilities in these vacant residencies as they recover.
- Cancel rents and mortgages: stop all payments for residents in evacuation zones
- As residents face uncertainty and monitor ongoing evacuation orders that change daily, rental, mortgage, and utility payments are the last thing they should be worrying about. All payments must be halted and cancelled for all units with evacuation orders received.
- Stop the price gouging: protect LA renters from soaring rents
- LA rental housing markets have sharply increased as tens of thousands of residents are experiencing displacement due to the wildfires. Rental costs near affected areas soared by thousands of dollars as landlords and corporations take advantage of disaster capitalism to turn a profit off of our suffering.
- Full compensation now: guaranteed by the federal government and a surcharge tax on Exxon/Mobil, Chevron, and other energy companies, for a fund to compensate victims
- Entire livelihoods have been destroyed from wildfire destruction. State officials have enacted measures that are not only insufficient to meet the scale of the loss but they are coming too late. Fire victims must receive full compensation to the fullest extent possible from the State for all their losses, to rebuild neighborhoods, recover from job and wage loss, and treat long-term health risks from smoke and debris inhalation.
- Fight the fire, not the people: stop the criminalization of Angelenos
- Governor Newsom called in the National Guard to help law enforcement catch and arrest “looters” as Los Angeles fire personnel publicly critiqued the vastly inadequate budget allocated to local emergency services. While incarcerated California prisoners are forced to fight wildfires and endure extremely hazardous conditions, law enforcement continues to criminalize poor and working people instead of diverting critical resources towards fire response and community aid.
- Resist disaster capitalism: rebuild LA by putting people over profits, not through greedy corporate redevelopment
- Corporations and private actors such as insurance and development companies exploit and leech off of disasters to line their pockets with profit. We resist the encroachment of corporate redevelopment threatening burned-down neighborhoods, and we must fight to firmly place the power to rebuild in the hands of the people who have been in the frontlines providing grassroots leadership and aid to their fellow community members during this crisis.
Feature image: Sunset Fire, Jan. 8. By YisroelB501 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157688864
