When California leaders sat down with President Donald Trump at a roundtable discussion on disaster aid for the Los Angeles wildfires last week, they weren’t sure what to expect.
Trump had threatened to withhold federal funding unless California met his demands for changes to water policy, forest management, sanctuary protections and voter ID. Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom was walking a political tightrope: positioning the state as the center of Trump resistance while also negotiating wildfire assistance.
“Everybody was nervous,” wondering what conditions Trump would exact in exchange for emergency aid, state Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones told me.
“He started the meeting saying there’s no Golden Age without the Golden State,” said Jones, a San Diego Republican. “That statement immediately relieved a lot of tension in the room.”
Dialing back his combative manner, Trump expressed condolences over the wreckage of Pacific Palisades, which he viewed from a helicopter.
“It is devastation, it’s incredible, it’s an incineration,” he said. “I just want to commiserate and we’re going to celebrate. We’ll be back to celebrate one day soon.”
Trump sparred with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass over the construction schedule and environmental rules on waste disposal and construction. He mused about raking forests in Austria and diverting water from Northern California. And he said developers want to start rebuilding immediately, which made me wonder if aid might be tied to using certain contractors.
“I’ve had so many calls from developers,” Trump said. “They don’t want anything. They just want to help.”
But he insisted the White House had Angelenos’ backs: “We’re going to work very hard with the mayor, the governor, the supervisor.”
Of course, Trump being Trump, there’s no way to know whether he’ll stay sympathetic as an aid package takes shape. The roundtable discussion provided no details of the dollar amount or timeline for aid, Jones said. But he’s hopeful the meeting set the tone for cooperation on disaster aid.
What this means for San Diego: While fires were torching neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades and Altadena, San Diego was fighting its own 6,625-acre blaze, the Border 2 fire, at Otay Mountain. With a history of catastrophic wildfires, San Diegans are perpetually at risk.
How the state and federal governments handle fire recovery in Los Angeles could set a precedent for future incidents in San Diego. The reported failures to insure adequate water supply and issue timely evacuation notices in L.A. can offer lessons on what not to do here.
There’s also the price tag; state aid for the L.A. fires, starting with Newsom’s pledge of $2.5 billion, could complicate the state budget and limit money for wildfire prevention in other areas.
Last week Newsom signed a bill awarding funding for firestorm recovery including evacuations, shelter for survivors, debris removal, hazard management and other emergency responses. He added $4 million to speed up rebuilding by helping local governments review building approvals, and $1 million to restore fire-damaged school facilities.
Here’s the catch; that barely begins to cover losses from the L.A. fires, whose total damages could be $250 billion, according to an estimate by AccuWeather.
CalMatters columnist Dan Walters described the $2.5 billion as “only a down payment on what the state may have to spend on fire suppression and recovery.” Even that initial payment scrambles what was already a tenuously balanced budget.
Legislators originally wanted to draw the money from Proposition 4, the $10 billion climate and environment bond measure that voters passed in November. It allocates $1.5 billion for “wildfire and forest resilience programs” throughout the state.
But Bay Area Democrats objected that the statewide bond money shouldn’t go exclusively to L.A. So, it looks like the emergency aid will be folded into general fund spending instead.
In the wake of the Los Angeles disaster, wildfires are on everyone’s mind, and the state legislature just wrapped up a special session dedicated partly to fire relief. So, I expected a slew of new legislation on fire hardening and prevention.
Not so. A review of recent bills showed only a handful tackling wildfire. State Sen. Steve Padilla said he plans to start conversations on how to rebuild after devastating fires and how to prevent them in the first place, with a new emphasis on urban neighborhoods.
“For years our focus has been fighting rural fires, but now we must turn that attention to preventing urban fires driven by hurricane force winds,” he said in a text message. “This will be a collaboration of every level of government to ensure our communities are ready for our new climate reality.”
I’ll be watching to see how lawmakers plan to make California safer.
Where Does San Diego Stand on Fire Prevention?
The region has bolstered protections after the catastrophic 2003 Cedar Fire and 2007 Witch Fire.
“One of the things folks brought up (in Los Angeles) are exit routes,” Jones told me. “San Diego has already learned that lesson.”
SDG&E has replaced wooden power lines with steel ones and added stronger, thicker wire after a downed power line sparked the Witch Fire.
On Tuesday, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to purchase an $18 million twin-engine helicopter, add more water transport vehicles and expand brush clearance.
Meanwhile local governments may look to the climate and environment bond measure to help defend against wildfires.
“The money will soon be available, and I will do everything I can to help agencies and departments apply for it,” Jones said.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
Assemblymember Chris Ward, chair of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, condemned Trump’s decision to bar transgender troops from serving in the military, calling it a return to the former “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy,” which prevented LGBTQ people from serving openly in the U.S. military. “An individual’s identity should not bar them from taking the brave and selfless call to serve our military,” he said in a statement posted on X.
El Cajon Debates Deportations
Local governments are confronting the collision of ramped up immigration raids with California’s sanctuary law, SB54. The 2017 law prevents local law enforcement officials from cooperating with immigration enforcement, with an exception for certain crimes. This week El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells proposed ordering the El Cajon Police Department to help with mass deportations, but the Council rejected that in a split vote, inewsource reported.
In December, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors took state law a step further, voting to prohibit sheriff deputies from helping immigration officers, as Kate Morrissey explained for Voice of San Diego. Sheriff Kelly Martinez, though, said her department would follow state law instead.
The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.