pacific palisades

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Noah Goldberg, giving you the latest on city and county government.

Ever since the Jan. 7 wildfire incinerated much of Pacific Palisades, residents have pressed city leaders to do more to speed the recovery.

Fire victims have pushed Mayor Karen Bass to weigh in on mortgage relief. They have asked city leaders for help with their insurers. And they have sought clearer answers about the city’s timeline for putting utility lines underground.

Now, Palisades residents are on the verge of a major victory — wide-ranging relief from the permit fees charged by the Department of Building and Safety and several other agencies during the rebuilding process.

On Friday, the city’s top budget official issued a reworked proposal, recommending that the City Council waive the fees for every type of building destroyed in the fire.

In his nine-page report, City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo recommended fee relief for single-family homes, duplexes, condominium complexes, townhouses, apartment buildings and commercial businesses.

That is a departure from the approach Szabo and other city officials initially favored. In October the council’s powerful Budget and Finance Committee sought to limit the relief to two types of buildings — single-family homes and duplexes — after expressing fears about the hit to the city budget if the program were more expansive.

Dozens of Palisades residents showed up at City Hall last month to denounce that narrower approach. Among them was Roseanne Landay, whose two-bedroom condominium was destroyed in the fire.

Landay said she didn’t understand why council members were treating residents of her building differently from other Palisades homeowners.

“We pay taxes. We vote. And these are our homes,” she said at the time. “We lost everything, just like our neighbors who happened to be lucky enough to live in a different structure, a different building.”

The boisterous protests helped spur the council to take another look. On Tuesday the budget committee is set to take up Szabo’s revised plan. From there it would head to the full council for a vote.

Szabo’s change in strategy was immediately welcomed by Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes the Palisades.

“If we are going to rebuild and recover, it needs to be holistic, and that includes all of the properties,” she said in an interview.

The push to waive building permit fees in the Palisades has become a thorny political issue for Bass, who first announced the idea during her State of the City address last spring. Some in the Palisades said Bass did too little to shepherd the fee relief through the council’s approval process, allowing it to drift for much of the year.

Asked about Szabo’s propsoal, Bass said she would keep working to help Palisades residents “rebuild and return home.”

“I look forward to signing the ordinance into law to waive these fees and provide this much-needed relief that survivors deserve,” she said in a statement.

In April, days after her State of the City speech, Bass issued an emergency order temporarily suspending the payment of permit fees by wildfire victims until the council enacted a law making the fee relief permanent.

Weeks later, Landay and the group she founded, Pali Condo Captains, pressed Bass to expand her order to include townhouses, condominiums and other multiunit buildings. Bass did so in May.

The council’s ad hoc committee on wildfire recovery, which is chaired by Park, endorsed Bass’ proposal in June. But things got bogged down from there.

In October, council members on the budget committee voiced alarm about the potential loss to the city budget caused by forfeiting the permit fees, which cover the cost of city staff time. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield drew a link between the plan for fee relief and reduced services in other parts of the city.

During one hearing, Szabo warned that the cost of waiving the permit fees could reach as high as $278 million, which could wreak havoc with the city budget.

Palisades residents blasted that estimate as overinflated, pointing out that it assumed that every fire victim who lost a property in the Palisades would rebuild at 150% of the structure’s original size.

By December, it was clear that many had decided against rebuilding and planned to sell their properties instead — rendering them ineligible for the relief program. Under the proposal, fee waivers would not be provided to buyers of burned-out properties.

Szabo, in the report released Friday, said he reworked the numbers after reviewing the assumptions underlying the original cost figures presented to the council. Based on the revised numbers he now expects the cost of waiving the fees to reach about $90 million.

That estimate assumes the city will cover property owners who rebuild at 110% of the size of their original buildings. Property owners who build larger than 110% would have to pay a portion of the additional fees, Szabo said.

Landay, the Palisades condo advocate, said she’s happy to see a more inclusive relief plan and hopes the council will support it. From the beginning she argued that condo owners, many of whom are elderly, are among the community’s most economically vulnerable members.

At the same time, Landay wished she and her neighbors hadn’t had to spend so much time pressuring the city to act.

“I would much rather have spent this past year healing and recovering and rebuilding, instead of having to battle various government offices for assistance,” she said.

State of play

— CARUSO OUT: In a Friday evening news dump on social media, billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso announced he will not run for mayor or governor. “Though my name will not be on a ballot, my work continues,” he said.

— HERE COMES THE TAXMAN: L.A. labor unions began gathering signatures this week for a ballot measure to raise taxes on companies whose top executives make at least 50 times more than their median employee. “It’s high time the rich paid more taxes,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel employees.

— WHERE WILL THE MONEY GO? Under the tax proposal, 70% of the proceeds — about $350 million per year — would go toward the development of housing for working families. Business groups denounced the proposal, saying it would drive companies out of the city.

— TAXES, PART TWO: Bass publicly threw her support behind a half-cent sales tax hike planned for the November ballot that would raise money for the fire department. The firefighters union recently began collecting signatures to get the measure on the ballot.

— MOVING ON: Meanwhile, L.A.’s new fire chief said in an interview that he won’t try to find out who was responsible for watering down the LAFD’s after-action report on the Palisades fire. Jaime Moore made those remarks one week after he publicly confirmed that the after-action report was rewritten to shield top brass from scrutiny.

— PLENTY OF POTHOLES: Since Christmas Eve, L.A. street crews repaired more than 3,800 potholes as they respond to a deluge of road repair complaints. The pothole problem comes amid a rainy season that has dumped more than 14 inches of precipitation on downtown L.A. between October and last week — roughly 99% of what the city typically sees by the end of March.

— WORDS GET IN THE WAY: The long-running legal battle between the city of Los Angeles and the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights over homeless services has devolved into a fight over definitions of specific words, The Times reports.

— BACKING BASS: Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn and City Councilmember Tim McOsker spoke at a fundraiser for the mayor’s reelection campaign in San Pedro on Thursday. Bass is seeking a second four-year term in the June 2 primary election.

— POSITIONING PARK: Park, who is running for reelection in her Westside district, has raised more than $1 million for her campaign, spokesperson Michael Trujillo said this week. About half the donations came from within Park’s district, which includes coastal neighborhoods stretching from LAX to Pacific Palisades, according to her team.

On Monday, while speaking at the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, Park made clear that she would rather concentrate on her council duties.

“It’s really more of a nuisance, having to focus on the campaign,” she said. “I have a lot of very, very serious, heavy work that we are in the midst of.”

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature homelessness program went to the area around Venice Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue in the Pico Union neighborhood, which is represented by Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez.
• On the docket next week: The council’s budget committee takes up the issue of Palisades rebuilding fees, as well as the mayor’s push to continue hiring police officers.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government.

For a long time, Spencer Pratt refused to be put into a political box.

The reality-television-personality-turned-national-figure-turned-mayoral-candidate told the New York Times in October that he hated politics and didn’t identify with either major party. He “demurred” when asked by the Hollywood Reporter about his personal politics.

But the supporters who are beginning to line up behind Pratt have made one thing clear: MAGA has entered the Los Angeles mayoral race, just one day after “The Hills” alumnus announced he’s running.

Despite his nonpartisan statements, Pratt has become a darling of the right wing, meeting with influential Republicans across the country who have latched onto his sharp criticism of Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom over their handling of the Palisades fire.

On Thursday, Pratt, who lost his home in the fire, finally commented on his political affiliation, saying he has been a registered Republican since 2020.

“I wasn’t going to change it now just to check a different box,” he wrote on X. “This is a non-partisan race — there will be no D or R next to my name. As Mayor, I will not serve either party. I will work with anyone who wants to help the city. No labels necessary.”

The confirmation of Pratt’s political affiliation came as endorsements flowed in from across the country — and not from Democrats, for the most part.

Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who has launched a congressional investigation into the response to the Palisades fire, posted on X that he was “glad” Pratt decided to run for mayor. Scott has toured the Palisades with Pratt, and the two met in Washington, D.C., after Scott announced the investigation.

Pratt was also endorsed by Richard Grenell, who is President Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions.

“I endorse Spencer Pratt for Mayor of Los Angeles and will help raise money for him. Transparency is what we need. Spencer has the passion and the drive to make positive change for Los Angeles,” Grenell wrote on X.

Closer to home, Pratt picked up an endorsement from Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Trump supporter and a Republican candidate for governor.

“LA needs him, California needs him. He’s got integrity and the backbone we need,” Bianco posted on X.

Roxanne Hoge, chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, said the group welcomes into the mayoral race “every common sense voice who stands for good governance and stands for representing the people over public sector unions and developers and NGOs.”

Hoge said she has a “great affinity” for Pratt, whom she called a personal friend.

“I support his willingness to speak up and be a voice for the voiceless,” she said.

Hoge said the county organization has not endorsed in the race.

Former City Councilmember Mike Bonin, who represented Pacific Palisades until 2024, said Pratt and Trump have many similarities.

“If you look at the model of who he is as candidate, it’s similar to Trump: the reality television background; his most visible communication presence is on Twitter, just as Trump’s was. And he’s sort of developing a candidacy around frustration and blowing the system up, just like Trump did,” Bonin said.

Bonin said Pratt’s entry into the race could be “perilous” for Bass.

The mayor has also tried to tie Pratt to Trump, seeking to position herself as the anti-MAGA candidate in a deep blue city.

“Donald Trump and Spencer Pratt are cut from the same cloth — two Republican, reality star villains running with MAGA backing, spewing disinformation and misinformation to create profit and division. Good luck with that in Los Angeles,” said Doug Herman, a spokesperson for Bass’ campaign.

Candidates will be judged by the people they associate with, Bonin added.

“Show me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are,” said Bonin, who is executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles.

Rick Caruso, a former Republican who registered as a Democrat when he ran against Bass in 2022, has tried to distance himself from Trump. Caruso said during his mayoral campaign that he never supported Trump for president or donated to his campaigns.

Caruso, a billionaire developer who is considering a run for either mayor or governor, said he hadn’t spoken with Pratt in months but that he was glad the social media influencer was joining the race.

“I think it’s great [that Pratt is running],” Caruso said. “I think the more people that actively get in government service the better.”

Pratt did not respond to multiple texts requesting comment. A member of his team said he is “currently embargoed from doing interviews because of other projects that were previously in play before he announced.”

A campaign staffer did not specify what the other projects were and said Pratt would be able to speak in early February.

State of play

— A YEAR OF FIRES: A year after two of the most destructive wildfires in California history erupted just hours apart, survivors marked the day in Altadena and Pacific Palisades with a mixture of anger and somber remembrance.

— ENTER PRATT: Spencer Pratt announced his candidacy for mayor of Los Angeles on the anniversary of the Palisades fire. Pratt and his wife, Heidi Montag, lost their home in the fire. Since then, the reality TV personality has become a vocal critic of Bass and Newsom.

— WATERED DOWN: LAFD Chief Jaime Moore admitted Tuesday that his department’s after-action report on the Palisades fire was watered down to shield top brass from scrutiny.

— REPORT AND REFINE: The head of the Los Angeles Fire Commission said Tuesday that a “working draft” of the after-action report was sent to the mayor’s office for “refinements” before it was published last October. She added that in her long career in civic roles, she had learned that words like “refinements” could mean troubling changes to a government report, made for the purpose of hiding facts.

— FINAL ADDRESS: In his final State of the State address, Newsom shifted from the problem-solving posture that defined his early years in office to a more declarative accounting of California’s achievements, casting the state as a counterweight to dysfunction in Washington.

— KILLINGS PLUMMET: There were 230 homicides in Los Angeles in 2025, according to the LAPD. That was a 19% drop from 2024 and the fewest the city has seen since 1966, when the population was 30% smaller.

— MAYORAL MOVES: Bass spokesperson Clara Karger is leaving the mayor’s office and heading to public affairs firm Fiona Hutton & Associates. Karger was with Bass’ team for nearly three years. Her departure comes months after Bass’ deputy mayor for communications Zach Seidl left. Seidl was replaced by Amanda Crumley.

— LA|DC|NYC: Anna Bahr, who worked as a deputy press secretary for former Mayor Eric Garcetti and then ran communications for Sen. Bernie Sanders, is headed to the Big Apple to run communications for newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program brought Angelenos inside in Skid Row and South Los Angeles this week. The program also partnered with Project Street Vet to provide veterinary care — including vaccines, medications and check ups — to nearly 30 pets belonging to Inside Safe participants, the mayor’s office said.
• On the docket next week: The City Council’s Committee on Public Works will get updates on the city’s graffiti abatement program as well as the city’s efforts to address illegal dumping and to repair pot holes.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, dishing up the latest on city and county government.

It’s not hyperbole to say that 2025 was a terrible year for Los Angeles.

Wildfires ravaged huge stretches of Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Malibu and other communities. Federal immigration raids tore families apart and disrupted the economy, prompting furious protests in downtown and elsewhere. L.A.’s political leaders, facing a brutal budget year, signed off on cuts while working to stave off layoffs of public employees.

Now, we’re heading into a year of uncertainty — one with the potential to bring fresh faces both to City Hall and the county’s Hall of Administration, while also ushering in bigger, structural changes.

Here are a few of the political issues we’ll be tracking over the next twelve months, in this newsletter and elsewhere:

1) WILL HE OR WON’T HE? It’s January, and we still don’t know if real estate developer Rick Caruso will seek a rematch against Mayor Karen Bass in the June 2 primary election. A second Caruso run would deliver a jolt to the campaign, complicating Bass’ attempt to win a second four-year term in a single shot. He’s got to decide soon!

Per Mike Murphy, a political strategist and longtime Caruso friend: “He is close to a decision.”

Caruso, a fierce critic of the city’s handling of the Palisades fire, lost to Bass by 10 percentage points in 2022. If he jumps in, he would join a long list of challengers that includes former L.A. schools superintendent Austin Beutner, community organizer Rae Huang and an assortment of unknowns.

The larger the field, the tougher the road Bass will have in trying to avoid a November runoff — and winning her election overall.

2) WILL THE COUNCIL GET BIGGER? The Charter Reform Commission, which is made up of a dozen or so citizen volunteers, is heading into the home stretch as it works on a plan to update the City Charter, the governing document for L.A.

The commission’s report, due in April, is expected to say whether voters should expand the number of City Council members, scale back the duties of the elected city attorney and grant the city controller additional authority. There are also some smaller proposals, including a move to a two-year budget process.

The council will then decide which of those proposals will go on the November ballot. Raymond Meza, who chairs the commission, sounded optimistic about the prospects.

“There’s been a lot of serious public input and energy behind this process, and we think the council is going to thoroughly consider our recommendations,” Meza said.

3) WILL CITY HALL KEEP MOVING LEFT? Eight council seats are up for grabs this year, with bruising campaigns looming on the Eastside, on the Westside, in the west San Fernando Valley and in South L.A.

Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Traci Park are among those battling for a second term. Voters also must find replacements for Curren Price and Bob Blumenfield, each of whom is facing term limits after a dozen years on the council.

Ground Game LA, Democratic Socialists of America and other groups inspired by the victory of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are looking to keep pulling the Overton window in their direction on public safety, tenant protections and other issues.

The ballot will also feature two other citywide contests, with City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto and City Controller Kenneth Mejia both seeking reelection.

4) CAN L.A. AFFORD MORE COPS? Bass has been pressuring the council to free up the money to hire more officers in the new year. She’s not likely to let up, even as she begins preparing her newest citywide budget.

Still, a fight over LAPD hiring could spur the council to take a fresh look at Bass’ other major policy initiative — Inside Safe, which has been moving homeless people indoors since she took office.

Amid growing concerns about the city’s financial stability, some council members have begun exploring the idea of paying the county to deliver homeless services — an idea that Bass panned in a Daily News opinion piece last month.

That op-ed drew some icy rebuttals from County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who called the city’s track record on homelessness “indefensible.”

5) WHITHER THE COUNTY? Speaking of the county, officials inside the Hall of Administration will likely spend the coming year trying to figure out how to prevent Measure J — which requires public spending on alternatives to incarceration — from being struck down by Measure G, the reform measure approved by voters in 2024.

(Measure G, which was largely about expanding the number of county supervisors and establishing an elected CEO, inadvertently set the stage for a pending repeal of Measure J, in what has been billed as an enormous bureaucratic snafu.)

We’ll also be watching as the county’s new homelessness department gets up and running. And we’ll monitor Sheriff Robert Luna’s bid for reelection, as well as the campaign for two supervisorial seats.

6) COULD WE SEE A BUILDING FRENZY? L.A. County’s fire-scarred communities are hoping to see a ramp up in the pace of rebuilding in 2026. But will fire victims stay put? Or will they sell their burned-out sites to developers? The stakes are high, not just for those communities but for the elected officials who represent them.

Of course, there are plenty of other issues to track in the new year beyond the big six. For example, there’s the proposed sales tax hike to fund Fire Department operations; the push for higher taxes to pay for park facilities; the gambit to slow down wage hikes for hotel and airport workers; and the movement to hike the city or county minimum wage.

Then there are the preparations, and behind-the-scenes negotiations, over the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which have huge cost implications for the city.

Are you exhausted yet? If not, we’ll see you next week.

State of play

— ‘HIGHLY UNPROFESSIONAL’: The author of the Fire Department’s after-action report on the Palisades fire declined to endorse it because of changes that altered his findings, according to an email obtained by The Times. “Having reviewed the revised version submitted by your office, I must respectfully decline to endorse it in its current form,” wrote Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, about an hour after the report was made public. Cook also called the final version of the report “highly unprofessional.”

— PLAYING WITH FIRE: Two groups have sued the city of L.A., alleging that agencies ignored state wildfire safety regulations while signing off on development in areas with severe fire hazards. The State Alliance for Firesafe Road Regulations and the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns. offered what they described as 75 examples of building permits and other plans that violate the state’s “minimum firesafe regulations.”

— DIGGING INTO DTLA: It’s been a tumultuous year for DTLA Law Group, which grew from a small firm focused on car crash victims into a litigation powerhouse with thousands of sexual abuse claims against government agencies. The firm’s activities are now the subject of an investigation by the DA’s office, amid lingering questions about how DTLA amassed so many plaintiffs so quickly. The Times spoke with dozens of former clients and employees who described aggressive tactics to bring in new clients.

— RADIO SILENCE: L.A.’s parking enforcement officers were removed from the field last weekend after copper wire thieves damaged a key communications tower in Elysian Park, leaving some workers with inoperable radios.

— LUCKY NUMBER 13: The Charter Reform Commission might finally get its 13th member, just a few months before it wraps up its work. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield recently nominated Jason Levin, a onetime spokesperson for his office, to fill the seat after his previous pick, former Councilmember Dennis Zine, flamed out. Levin is an executive vice president at the firm Edelman, focusing on crisis and risk.

— NEW YORK STATE OF MIND: City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez flew to New York City this week for Mamdani’s inauguration. Hernandez, on Instagram, called the event “a reminder that the movement for dignity, justice, and humanity is bigger than any one city.”

— READY FOR SIGNATURES: The City Clerk’s office recently cleared the way for the firefighters’ union to begin gathering signatures for a sales tax hike to pay for fire stations, fire equipment and other emergency resources. The proposal comes amid complaints that department brass sought to cover up findings about the Palisades fire.

— YET ANOTHER WAGE HIKE: The fire tax proposal comes a few weeks after the city clerk cleared the way for another ballot petition — this one hiking the city’s minimum wage to $25 per hour. The proposal includes provisions to ensure that hotel employees are “paid fairly for burdensome workloads” and prohibit “the exploitative practice of subcontracting housekeeping work.”

— BIG DAY FOR THE VA: The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court order requiring the federal Department of Veterans Affairs to build more than 2,500 units of housing on its West L.A. campus. “Rather than use the West Los Angeles VA Grounds as President Lincoln intended, the VA has leased the land to third party commercial interests that do little to benefit the veterans,” wrote Circuit Judge Ana de Alba.

— CHANGING CHAIRS: One of Harris-Dawson’s top aides, senior advisor Rachel Brashier, is switching offices at City Hall. Brashier, who frequently sits next to the council president as he presides over meetings, has taken a job with the mayor, according to Harris-Dawson spokesperson Cerrina Tayag-Rivera. Brashier will serve as a deputy chief of staff, per Bass’ team.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness did not launch any new operations over the holiday.
• On the docket next week: L.A. marks the one-year anniversary of the Palisades and Eaton fires with a number of events. Among them is “They Let Us Burn,” a demonstration in Pacific Palisades where community leaders plan to highlight their demands to city, county and state leaders.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Pacific Palisades had been burning for less than two hours when word raced through the ranks of the Los Angeles Fire Department that the agency’s leaders had failed to pre-deploy any extra engines and crews to the area, despite warnings of life-threatening winds.

In the days after the fire broke out, and as thousands of homes and business continued to go up in flames, then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said little about the lack of pre-deployment, which was first disclosed by The Times, instead blaming those high winds, along with a shortage of working engines and money, for her agency’s failure to quickly knock down the blaze.

Crowley’s comments did not stand up to scrutiny. To several former LAFD chief officers as well as to people who lost everything in the disaster, her focus on equipment and City Hall finances marked the beginning of an ongoing campaign of secrecy and deflection by the department — all designed to avoid taking full responsibility for what went wrong in the preparations for and response to the Jan. 7 fire, which killed 12 people and leveled much of the Palisades and surrounding areas.

“I don’t think they’ve acknowledged that they’ve made mistakes yet, and that’s really a problem,” said Sue Pascoe, editor of the local publication Circling the News, who lost her home of 30 years. “They’re still trying to cover up … It’s not the regular firefighters. It’s coming from higher up.”

With the first anniversary of the fire a week away, questions about missteps in the firefight remained largely unanswered by the LAFD and Mayor Karen Bass. Among them: Why were crews ordered to leave the still-smoldering scar of an earlier blaze that would reignite into the Palisades inferno? Why did the LAFD alter its after-action report on the fire in a way that appeared intended to shield it from criticism?

The city also has yet to release the mayor’s communications about the after-action report. The Times requested the communications last month, and the report — which was meant to pinpoint failures and enumerate lessons learned, to avoid repeating mistakes — was issued in early October. Nor has the city fulfilled a records request from The Times about the whereabouts of fire engines in the Palisades when the first 911 call came in. It took the first crews about 20 minutes to reach the scene, by which time the fierce winds were driving the flames toward homes.

A Bass spokesperson has said that the mayor did not demand changes to the after-action report, noting that she pushed for its creation and that it was written and edited by the LAFD.

“This administration is only interested in the full truth about what happened before, during, and after the fire,” the spokesperson, Clara Karger, said earlier this month.

The LAFD has stopped granting interviews or answering questions from The Times about the matter, vaguely citing federal court proceedings. David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, said that the federal prosecution of a man accused of starting the earlier blaze does not preclude the department from discussing its actions surrounding both fires.

In a December television interview, Fire Chief Jaime Moore acknowledged that some residents don’t trust his agency and said his mandate from Bass was to “help guide and rebuild the Los Angeles Fire Department to the credibility that we’ve always had.”

The Lachman fire

Shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, a man watched flames spread in the distant hills and called 911.

“Very top of Lachman, is where we are,” he told the dispatcher. “It’s pretty small but it’s still at the very top and it’s growing.”

“Help is on the way,” the dispatcher said.

A few hours later, at 4:46 a.m., the LAFD announced that the blaze, which later became known as the Lachman fire, was fully contained at eight acres.

Top fire commanders soon made plans to finish mopping up the scene and to leave with their equipment, according to text messages obtained by The Times through a state Public Records Act request.

“I imagine it might take all day to get that hose off the hill,” LAFD Chief Deputy Phillip Fligiel said in a group chat. “Make sure that plan is coordinated.”

Firefighters who returned the next day complained to Battalion Chief Mario Garcia that the ground was still smoldering and rocks still felt hot to the touch, according to private text messages from three firefighters to a third party that were reviewed by The Times. But Garcia ordered them to roll up their hoses and leave.

At 1:35 p.m., Garcia texted Fligiel and Chief Deputy Joseph Everett: “All hose and equipment has been picked up.”

Five days after that, on the morning of Jan. 7, an LAFD captain called Fire Station 23 with an urgent message: The Lachman fire had started up again.

LAFD officials were emphatic early on that the Lachman fire was fully extinguished. But both inside and outside the department, many were certain it had rekindled.

“We won’t leave a fire that has any hot spots,” Crowley said at a community meeting in mid-January.

“That fire was dead out,” Everett said at the same meeting, adding that he was out of town but communicating with the incident commander. “If it is determined that was the cause, it would be a phenomenon.”

The department kept under wraps the complaints of the firefighters who were ordered to leave the burn site. The Times disclosed them in a story in late October. In June, LAFD Battalion Chief Nick Ferrari had told a high-ranking fire official who works for a different agency in the L.A. region that LAFD officials knew about the firefighters’ complaints, The Times also reported.

Bass has directed Moore, an LAFD veteran who took charge of the department in November, to commission an “independent” investigation of the Lachman fire mop-up. The after-action report contained only a brief mention of the earlier fire.

No pre-deployment

The afternoon before hazardous weather is expected, LAFD officials are typically briefed by the National Weather Service, using that information to decide where to position firefighters and engines the following morning.

The weather service had been sounding the alarm about critical fire weather for days. “HEADS UP!!!” NWS Los Angeles posted on X the morning of Jan. 6. “A LIFE-THREATENING, DESTRUCTIVE” windstorm was coming.

It hadn’t rained much in months, and wind gusts were expected to reach 80 mph. The so-called burning index — a measure of the wildfire threat — was off the charts. Anything beyond 162 is considered “extreme,” and the figure for that Tuesday was 268.

In the past, the LAFD readied for powerful windstorms by pre-deploying large numbers of engines and crews to the areas most at risk for wildfires and, in some cases, requiring a previous shift of hundreds of firefighters to stay for a second shift — incurring large overtime costs — to ensure there were enough personnel positioned to attack a major blaze.

None of that happened in the Palisades, with its hilly terrain covered in bone-dry brush, even though the weather service had flagged it as one of the regions at “extreme risk.”

Without pre-deployment, just 18 firefighters are typically on duty in the Palisades.

LAFD commanders decided to staff only five of the more than 40 engines available to supplement the regular firefighting force citywide. Because they didn’t hold over the outgoing shift, they staffed the extra engines with firefighters who volunteered for the job — only enough to operate three of the five engines.

On Jan. 6, officials decided to pre-deploy just nine engines to high-risk areas, adding eight more the following morning. None of them were sent to the Palisades.

The Times learned from sources of the decision to forgo a pre-deployment operation in the Palisades. LAFD officials were mum about the inadequate staffing until after The Times obtained internal records from a source in January that described the department’s pre-deployment roll-out.

The officials then defended their actions in interviews. Bass cited the LAFD’s failure to hold over the previous shift of firefighters as a reason she removed Crowley as chief less than two months after the fire.

The after-action report

In March, a working group was formed inside the LAFD to prepare the Palisades fire after-action report. A fire captain who was recommended for the group sought to make sure its members would have the freedom to follow the facts wherever they led, according to internal emails the city released in response to a records request by an unidentified party.

“I am concerned about interference from outside entities that may attempt to influence the direction our report takes,” Capt. Harold Kim wrote to Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, who was leading the review. “I would like to ensure that the report that we painstakingly generate be published as is, to as reasonable an extent as possible.”

He worried about revisions, saying that once LAFD labor unions and others “are done with many publications, they become unrecognizable to the authors.”

Cook, who had been involved with review teams for more than a decade and written numerous reports, replied: “I can assure you that I have never allowed for any of our documents to be altered in any way by the organization.”

Other emails suggest that Kim ultimately remained in the group.

As the report got closer to completion, LAFD officials, worried about how it would be received, privately formed a second group for “crisis management” — a decision that surfaced through internal emails released through another records request by an unidentified party.

“The primary goal of this workgroup is to collaboratively manage communications for any critical public relations issue that may arise. The immediate and most pressing crisis is the Palisades After Action Report,” LAFD Asst. Chief Kairi Brown wrote in an email to eight others, including interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva.

“With significant interest from media, politicians, and the community, it is crucial that we present a unified response to anticipated questions and concerns,” Brown wrote. “By doing so, we can ensure our messaging is clear and consistent, allowing us to create our own narrative rather than reactive responses.”

Cook emailed a PDF of his report to Villanueva in early August, asking the chief to select a couple of people to provide edits so he could make the changes in his Word document.

The following week, Cook emailed the chief his final draft.

“Thank you for all your hard work,” Villanueva responded. “I’ll let you know how we’re going to move forward.”

Over the next two months, the report went through a series of edits — behind closed doors and without Cook’s involvement. The revised report was released publicly on Oct. 8.

That same day, Cook emailed Villanueva, declining to endorse the public version because of changes that altered his findings and made the report “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”

“Having reviewed the revised version submitted by your office, I must respectfully decline to endorse it in its current form,” Cook wrote in the email obtained by The Times. “The document has undergone substantial modifications and contains significant deletions of information that, in some instances, alter the conclusions originally presented.”

Cook’s version highlighted the failure to recall the outgoing shift and fully pre-deploy as a major mistake, noting that it was an attempt to be “fiscally responsible” that went against the department’s policy and procedures.

The department’s final report stated that the pre-deployment measures for the Palisades and other fire-prone locations went “above and beyond” the LAFD’s standard practice. The Times analyzed seven drafts of the report obtained through a records request and disclosed the significant deletions and revisions.

Cook’s email withdrawing his endorsement of the report was not included in the city’s response to one of the records requests filed by an unknown party in October. Nearly 180 of Cook’s emails were posted on the city’s records portal on Dec. 9, but the one that expressed his concerns about the report was missing. That email was posted on the portal, which allows the public to view documents provided in response to records requests, after The Times asked about it.

The LAFD did not respond to a query about why the email was not released with Cook’s other emails. Karger, the Bass spokesperson, said the link to the document was broken and the city fixed it after learning the email wasn’t posted correctly. The Times has inquired about how and why the link didn’t work.

Former LAFD Asst. Chief Patrick Butler, who worked for the agency for 32 years and now heads the Redondo Beach Fire Department, said the city’s silence on such inquiries is tantamount to deceiving the public.

“When deception is normalized within a public agency,” he said, “it also normalizes operational failure and puts people at risk.”

Pringle is a former Times staff writer.