. . ."Out of sight, out of mind, seems to have been the mentality. Now we see the same of Pacific Palisades and Altadena, quite literally, except that the victims have no intention of staying out of sight, out of mind, they're right there demanding answers."
"For all the talk about defunding the police in blue county Los Angeles, major fires revealed that what at least one blue government really ended up defunding was the fire department.
"In Los Angeles, the logic appears to be maybe the fire won't happen, so let's spend cash on special interests. Or, with Mexican firefighters coming in to help douse the flames, 'who needs firefighters when you can get Mexicans to do the job for less?'
"Sure, it's cynical to imagine that this is the business model, but it was quite a fast one they pulled, which as we can see now, was exceptionally tragic for Los Angeles with 9.6 million people and a $45 billion county budget, taking on two major fires in the Palisades and Altadena regions almost completely unprepared.
"By now, most have heard that the city's leaders saw fit to cut the fire department budget by $17 million even as other departments expanded, drawing much bigger budget slices than the fire department as the homeless and illegal immigrant population grew.
"What's less well-known is that they have been doing this for a while. According to this report, citing CNN, the Los Angeles firefighting budget is roughly the same size as it was in 1960 even though the city has roughly doubled in population and surrounding county has grown multifold.
"Worse still the county is rated among the most fire-vulnerable in the nation, according to this CBS report. The kind of preparation seen in Los Angeles, though, would be the equivalent of Boston refusing to prepare for snow or Florida failing to prepare for hurricanes." . . .
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