SAUNDERS: Amid devastation, a well-deserved takedown of the California political class

Actress Sara Foster captured the rage of many Angelenos who have watched their city burn from the Palisades to Altadena in one social media post: “We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared. Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish. Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor. But thank god drug addicts are getting their drug kits. @MayorOfLA @GavinNewsom RESIGN. Your far left policies have ruined our state. And also our party.”

This former Californian and Angeleno pretty much agrees. California politicians spend too much time virtue signaling to ther rest of America and too little time on the unglamorous work of protecting livable neighborhoods.

“Government from the local government to the state level, everything is failing,” Sean Walsh, a consultant who served as deputy chief of staff to former California Gov. Pete Wilson, told me. And it’s failing on “the fundamental things they ought to do.”

Yes, I’m talking about Gov. Gavin Newsom, who proudly announced this month that the state “finally” started to lay track for a high-speed rail project to connect Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Talk about a time-suck boondoggle. In 2008, Golden State voters approved a bond measure to fund $9.9 billion for the project. Now, the cost projection exceeds $100 billion. And the estimates only get higher.

The worst part: There already was a way to quickly get from L.A. to San Francisco. Flying is faster than high-speed rail.

Now would be a good time for Sacramento to take the billions budgeted for that bound-to-fail scheme and give it back to communities.

Newsom’s other big priority has been homelessness, not livability for average Californians.

The governor has committed more than $20 billion to combat homelessness. And guess what? Before L.A. fires destroyed thousands of homes, homelessness only got worse. As KPBS reported this week, homelessness in California grew by some 3 percent last year. Only 3 percent? Some Angelenos may shrug — because they’ve come to accept failure.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass flunked this disaster. She left for Ghana to attend the inauguration of its new president despite warnings that L.A. weather could get gnarly.

She attended a press conference after her hasty return. She was useless.

In June, Bass cut the city’s $800 million fire department budget by $17 million. In December, LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley warned the cuts “have adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations.”

Meanwhile, a likely conflagration was sitting on hillsides just waiting for a match.

Don’t tell me no one saw this coming. State Farm discontinued insurance coverage for 72,000 houses and apartments last year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which included 70 percent of its market share in Pacific Palisades.

“Could it have been prevented? Probably not. Could it have been mitigated? There’s no doubt in my mind,” billionaire businessman Rick Caruso, who lost to Bass in the 2022 mayor’s race, told Fox 11.

The story isn’t just about celebrities fleeing their beachfront homes, former Democratic strategist Darry Sragow offered. “It’s about workers who aren’t going to have jobs.” For example: Central American and Mexican women who no longer have houses to clean.

What’s next? “There ought to be a discussion about what policy changes are needed to decrease — but you can’t possibly eliminate — the probability that something like this will never happen again,” Sragow responded.

Federal fire insurance? Zoning restrictions? They should be on the table.

Comedian Adam Carolla posted his show from a hotel room in Burbank after he fled for his life from one of the many wildfires in the area. “On a happy note, I guess,” Carolla quipped, “all the Winnebagos that were parked up and down PCH [Pacific Coast Highway] where they’re cooking meth out of those things surely are gone.

“They’ll be the first ones back. The comedy is, the guys who lost their $20 million homes on the oceanside of PCH will be knee deep in the permit process … when the guys in the Winnebagos will have been back for months.”

“I guess it looks like we’re going to be the ones to rebuild it,” President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday.

Californians, rejoice. You’ve been living in a NIMBY paradise. Now, finally, you have an elected official who wants to build homes.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.