Karen Bass Fails to ‘Build Back Better’ – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

In early January, raging fires destroyed or damaged more than 6,000 homes in and around Los Angeles. By March 24, more than two months later, only four rebuilding permits had been approved. Fire victims have a right to be baffled.

In January, the California Coastal Commission (CCC) exempted homes, businesses, churches, schools, and other structures that had been destroyed or damaged by the fire from Coastal Act permitting requirements. Some fire victims may have been unaware of the need to obtain such a permit in the first place.

The unelected CCC, dating from the 1970s, rides roughshod over property rights and overrides scores of elected city and county governments — and by extension the voters — on land use issues. The Commission also looks askance at the removal of brush that fuels blazes such as the Old Topanga Fire (1993), the Canyon Fire (2007), and more recent conflagrations. (RELATED: Action Could Have Prevented the Deadly Blaze in Los Angeles)

Last December, a Malibu brush fire forced thousands of residents, including celebrities such as Barbra Streisand, Cher, and Dick Van Dyke, to flee their homes. On Jan. 4, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass ignored warnings that the fire could spread and flew off to Ghana to attend an inauguration. Three days later, high winds spread the fires across the region, claiming 29 lives, destroying some 18,000 structures, and forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes. (RELATED: Bass and Newsom’s Woke Shame and DEI Incompetence)

Mayor Bass ignored the example of the Coastal Commission and failed to suspend the requirement for rebuilding permits. This lapse takes place in a city that allowed thousands of homeless people to set up tents on city streets and public spaces, a menace to public health and safety. Legitimate homeowners, payers of property taxes, and victims of the savage fires got no break from the Bass bureaucracy.

Members of the city council also had cause for complaint. With the city facing a $1 billion deficit, Mayor Bass hired Hagerty Consulting, a private firm, to oversee the recovery effort, at a cost of $10 million. (RELATED: Demonizing Heroic Private Firefighters)

“We have city departments who know how to do this recovery, who have been involved in recovery efforts in the past,” Councilmember Monica Rodriguez told reporters. “And yet they can’t be afforded the opportunity to hire the personnel that they need, but we can give a $10 million contract to an outside agency to help write a report for us.” This should not come as a surprise, given the mayor’s record on fiscal issues.

In 2020, Karen Bass was mentioned as a possible running mate for Joe Biden, whose slogan was “build back better.” Bass’s supporters cited her experience as speaker of the California Assembly from 2008-2010, a time when tax reform was on the table. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set up the Commission on the 21st Century Economy (COTCE), which recommended cutting tax brackets to two and replacing the corporation and state sales tax with a 4 percent tax on business activity. Speaker Bass failed to bring the recommendations to a vote, leaving a highly volatile system in place and giving workers no relief from high income and sales taxes.

As she rose through the ranks, Karen Bass also came out as a longtime supporter of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, punctiliously referring to the Stalinist dictator, one generation out of Spain, as comandante en jefe. Like all Marxists, Castro was an economic crackpot, and his oppressive dictatorship plunged Cuba into abject poverty. Cubans fled by the thousands, risking their lives and leaving loved ones behind.

If the Castro regime ever did anything with which Karen Bass disagreed, she never clarified what it was, and never took up the cause of a single Cuban dissident. This does not betoken competent leadership, respect for human rights, and sound economics.

If Karen Bass wants Los Angeles to “build back better,” the mayor should suspend rebuilding permits for all fire victims. If California wants to enhance property rights, expand liberty, and prevent wildfires, the state should eliminate the Coastal Commission at the first opportunity.

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