Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom really don’t want to answer questions about the Palisades Fire. It’s been exactly a year. And for residents, things are worse. Not better.

Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass were notably absent as thousands of Pacific Palisades residents gathered in protest to mark the one-year anniversary of the deadly wildfire — ducking in and out of private events and sealing themselves off from the public.

“I think Newsom should be afraid to be here,” Julia Nielsen Lombardi, a Palisades resident told The Post at the “They Let Us Burn” protest. “A lot of people are mad, but a little support from our Governor would be nice. He’s been a little missing in action. But if he could say just one tangible thing, one thing to help us recover.”

If Governor Hairgel couldn’t be bothered to show up these last twelve months, what did you expect he’d do? Show up NOW? That’s not how he rolls. He only rolls if he can be very on-camera ready. 

As for Karen Bass... she knows she f*ck’d up. Which is why she also is doing her damndest to avoid all the spotlight. 

Keep in mind folks, there are only a pittance of homes being built right now.Because home rebuilds are facing the onerous regulations of ‘climate change’ crap. Which makes every build twice as expensive. Especially when you add in the permitting costs. 

Pacific Palisades — once one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in Los Angeles, home to celebs like Tom Hanks and Ben Affleck — still looks like a war-zone a year after wildfires leveled much of it.

Only a handful of the nearly 7,000 destroyed homes have been rebuilt, and outraged residents say Mayor Karen Bass and city bureaucracy have failed them every step of the way.

Building permits have been issued for just 686 of the roughly 6,800 homes and businesses destroyed after the Palisades Fire sparked on Jan. 7 and raged for nearly three weeks, LA city data shows.

That’s just asinine. What’s even worse is that people and viable entities have been applying for FireAid funds. Guess what? They’ve all been denied. You can just guess where the funds are going. *Hint … NGO’s 

Karen Bass is touting all the rebuilds, but reality tells a different story. 

Only a handful of the nearly 7,000 destroyed homes have been rebuilt, and outraged residents say Mayor Karen Bass and city bureaucracy have failed them every step of the way.

Building permits have been issued for just 686 of the roughly 6,800 homes and businesses destroyed after the Palisades Fire sparked on Jan. 7 and raged for nearly three weeks, LA city data shows.

That’s barely 10% just in the Pacific Palisades, and some homes were already permitted prior to the fire! Altadena isn’t faring any better. 

Things in Altadena are just as grim, with over 9,000 structures destroyed and more than $3 billion in estimated property value lost. Many in the area lost everything, and construction to help rebuild has been equally as slow.

Angelinos who have been left in various stages of homelessness since the fires told The Post that city and state leadership bear the most blame for this situation.

“We have a mayor that will look directly into the camera and say, this is the fastest rebuild ever. That is not true,” said 52-year-old Jeremy Padawer, who lost his home in the fires and still hasn’t seen a new foundation poured.

At a minimum, the cost of permits is $100K to rebuild, fees that Karen Bass SAID would be waived. 

People are angry and getting mobilized. They are getting even angrier at the new information coming out that shows it was actual negligence, not climate change, that led to this destruction. 

Multiple drafts of the report assessing the city’s handling of the fires were “edited to soften language and reduce explicit criticism of department leadership,” Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore told the city’s Board of Fire Commissioners on Tuesday. The LAFD’s final “after-action” report was released in late October 2025 and was overseen by then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva.

~Snip

“In one instance, LAFD officials removed language saying that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of the extreme wind forecast ‘did not align’ with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days. Instead, the final report said that the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire ‘went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix,’” the outlet reported.

This certainly didn’t help matters. 

“Heck no that area is full of endangered plants.”

LAFD captain when asked if he was sending in bulldozers to suppress the smolder that would become the Palisades fire. pic.twitter.com/dAkPGIW8h8

— Alex Trembath (@atrembath) December 28, 2025

Well guess what kiddies? Those so-called endangered plants are gone. Next time, just bulldoze the damned things down to put out the fire! 

Oh, and keep reservoirs full and fire hydrants operational!

We Palisades fire victims remember the fire hydrants running dry a few hours into the fire due to the incompetence of @LADWP and other city leadership. pic.twitter.com/SkGzs1Ij9h

— Terry Fahn (@terryfahn) January 7, 2026

Karen Bass, Gavin Newsom, and the rest of the LA political establishment (some of whom are trying to make bank off the fire) want to blame everyone else, including Trump for the Palisades and Altadena destruction and slow-walking the recovery. 

They can certainly run, but they can’t hide from the fact that THEIR policies led to the destruction of homes, schools and businesses one year ago. 

Feature Photo Credit: composite collage of Mayor Karen Bass (official portrait by the City of Los Angeles via Wikimedia Commons, cropped, public domain) and Governor Gavin Newsom (photo by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation via Wikimedia Commons, cropped, public domain)