I have recently noted various criticisms on social media and elsewhere on LA and California politics regarding lack of water pressure to fight the fires, policies that might have mitigated fire damage, etc. Undoubtedly, there will be investigations, reports, and commissions to examine what happened.
There has long been a fascination with the LA area as a scene of fictional or real disasters, either man-made,
https://ia801509.us.archive.org/28/items/sacramento-city-at-risk/275-3%20Riot.mp4
https://ia801509.us.archive.org/28/items/sacramento-city-at-risk/A-bombLA24.mp4
natural,
https://ia801509.us.archive.org/28/items/sacramento-city-at-risk/earthquake.mp4
https://ia801509.us.archive.org/28/items/sacramento-city-at-risk/SantaMonicaTsunami.mp4
or of supernatural/fantasy origin.
https://ia601509.us.archive.org/28/items/sacramento-city-at-risk/battle%20LA%20volume.mp4
https://ia601509.us.archive.org/28/items/sacramento-city-at-risk/warofworldsLA.mp4
Perhaps this fascination has developed because Hollywood is located here. But, whatever the reason, when real disasters happen, separating fiction from fact becomes difficult.
One of the themes that has developed is that the current wildfire disaster in LA is the product of excessive progressivism. What is often not asked is which progressivism is the culprit. Neglected is the progressivism of the early 20th century, which was quite different from the contemporary version. Among other differences, the early 20th century progressives tended to be Republicans.
The early progressives saw politics and politicians as inherently corrupt. Special interests were the source of the corruption, with the chief villain being the Southern Pacific Railroad. But with that outlook, they faced a problem of designing a system of governance that somehow avoided - or at least checked - politics and politicians. What would be the check? Who would do the governing? What kinds of institutions would be needed?
The ultimate check the old progressives came up with after the election of 1910 of Hiram Johnson as governor of California was direct democracy: the initiative, referendum, and recall. If your representatives won't pass good laws, get a petition going and put the issues on the ballot by initiative. If your representatives passed bad laws, repeal them through the referendum. And if they persisted in bad behavior, remove them via recall. An inevitable result of more use of direct democracy is a lessening of representative democracy.
Another aspect of this form of progressivism was an effort to weaken political parties. At the local level, this effort takes the form of nonpartisan elections. Candidates run as individuals, even if they carry a party label. During much of the first half of the 20th century, candidates could "cross-file," i.e., run in the primaries of political parties not their own. Earl Warren, for example, in 1946 won the nomination of both the Republican and Democratic Parties in his campaign for re-election as governor, although he was a Republican. By the 1960s, cross-filing had ended, but Governor Schwarzenegger (an explicit admirer of Hiram Johnson elected in a recall!) brought nonpartisan primaries and elections to all state elective offices (and Congress and the US Senate). Old progressivism is hardly dead in California.
California cities tend to have weak mayors or, where there are city manager systems, ceremonial mayors. Those outside observers of California with an East Coast or Midwest perspective would be amazed at what the Mayor of Los Angeles ISN'T in charge of. K-12 education? Nope! That's in the hands of a separately elected school district which includes schools outside the City. Jails? Nope. They're in the hands of a separately elected county sheriff. "Welfare"? Nope! That's in the hands of the County. Public transit. Only some. Most of it is in the hands of state-created transportation district.
Even when things ARE in the hands of the City of Los Angeles, such as water and power, the seaport, and the airport, these services are run by quasi-autonomous entities. Old progressivism resisted putting lots of authority in the hands of any individual. And it still does.
There are in fact multiple cities in the County of Los Angeles which is run by seven elected supervisors. Indeed, the official song of the County is "76 Cities":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-RWkG5mM7E
The song was written back in the 1960s, in part to cheer people up after the Watts Riot. Now there are 88 cities, although no one has revised the official lyrics. Those parts of the County that are not in cities get their services (police, fire, libraries, etc.) from the County itself. And where there are cities, they come in two flavors: charter and general law. The former have more autonomy from state regulation than the latter.
The seven supervisors of the County seem powerful. But the sheriff of the County, the District Attorney, and other County officials are separately elected. As noted, the County provides services to unincorporated areas, but some cities contract with the County for certain services. For example, the City of West Hollywood gets its policing done through a contract with the County sheriff. Cities can also contract with each other for services.
Malibu, where there has been lots of fire damage, is not part of the City of LA. Part of Malibu is incorporated as a separate city. It has a city manager system with a professional manager and a ceremonial mayor drawn from one of the elected city council members. Part of Malibu is not part of the City of Malibu and is just part of LA County.
Pacific Palisades is within the City of LA. I am in Santa Monica, which is not part of the City of LA and is its own city with an elected city council and a professional city manager. But a portion of Santa Monica was part of the fire evacuation zone, although - in the end - the fire didn't reach it.
Adding to the governance complexities in California are the various water districts, some of which have independent wells but all of which depend on the Southern California Metropolitan Water District which gets water from the Colorado River and other sources thanks to a water bond back in the 1930s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hc6lDaWako
LA City has a Dept. of Water and Power which is its own thing and gets water from, among other sources, the Owens Valley. The movie Chinatown is a highly fictionalized version of that story which took place much earlier than depicted in the movie and, unlike the movie, didn't involve incest and murder:
Owens Valley Project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QesBtxLwvWY
Chinatown:
https://ia601509.us.archive.org/28/items/sacramento-city-at-risk/chinatown-short.mp4
As a result of the film Chinatown, however, everything with regard to water in LA since the movie is seen as a conspiracy:
Indeed, when historian Steven Erie wrote a history of the Southern California Metropolitan Water District, he had to title it Beyond Chinatown (https://www.sup.org/books/politics/beyond-chinatown) to alert readers not to take the movie as if it were a documentary.
In any case, water policy in California, and the LA area, is made by a mix of authorities, i.e., no single entity is quite in charge, a major problem. Fire policy is also made by numerous jurisdictions including those involved in zoning. There were big fires in the past, long before California and LA were "progressive" in the modern meaning of that word. Here is Richard Nixon hosing down his house during the Bel Air fire of 1961 which threatened UCLA, just as the Palisades fire did:
https://x.com/CalPolicy/status/1876837051691077960
In short, under old California progressivism, as in the case of water or fire, it's often hard to say who is really in charge. There are deliberately designed layers of jurisdiction and governance with overlapping authority. So when those future wildfire investigations, reports, and commissions go looking for a culprit, they won't find just one. They are likely to find many, each of which will be able to point at the others.
Confused? You should be. That's how the system was designed over a hundred years ago when "woke" had something to do with the absence of sleep.
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PS: The late lefty historian of LA, Mike Davis, in his Ecology of Fear book (1998), had a section called "The Case for Letting Malibu Burn." It would be interesting to hear from him now if he were still around. But, since he isn't around, you can read it at this link:
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