The recent wildfires in Los Angeles, which virtually destroyed the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods, were a tragedy for so many and also exposed a multitude of failures in leadership and planning—the Santa Ynez Reservoir in the hills above Pacific Palisades, which holds 117 million gallons of water, was empty, the fire department was obsessed with social justice issues instead of firefighting excellence, the underbrush isn’t regularly cleared… the list goes on.
It won’t surprise you then to hear that the inept Mayor Karen Basis is now involved in another controversy: she planned to bring in a wildfire recovery czar—real estate developer and longtime civic official Steve Soboroff—who would be paid a shocking $500,000 for 90 days of work. Longtime real estate executive Randy Johnson was to help out too, for the minor sum of…
