Commission Proposes New Local Authorities for Palisades, Malibu, Altadena After Fire

A blue-ribbon commission established by Los Angeles County after the Palisades and Eaton Fires suggests creating new local authorities for the Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Altadena to manage their own rebuilding.

The report was compiled with help from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), specifically the ” Luskin Center of Innovation, Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge.”

Though it focused on “climate” as the framework within which to deal with the fires, it also included several practical suggestions that were more specific than the general issue of climate change.

One suggestion was to create a “Resilient Rebuilding Authority,” a new local authority. The report explained:

A Resilient Rebuilding Authority (Authority) with broad financing and land acquisition powers can help residents and business owners overcome many of the choke points and barriers to rebuilding, while expediting the restoration of civic and commercial infrastructure that anchors and facilitates a community’s recovery.

Another suggestion in the report was to create a “LA County Fire Control District” to deal specifically with mitigating potential fires.

These ideas have generated local interest already. State Sen. Sasha Pérez (D-Altadena), who represents the area affected by the Eaton Fire east of Los Angeles, has proposed SB 782, which would allow the county to create a “climate resilience district” that could collect its own tax revenues without having to follow onerous local government procedures.

Though the idea of raising taxes is certain to encounter opposition, the idea of controlling that revenue locally, and reinvesting it in the affected communities, has begun to build support among local leaders.

In a recent podcast, State Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), who represents the Pacific Palisades area, endorsed the idea, explaining:

Well, [SB 782] basically allows for the capture, for the securitization and capture of the tax revenue that’s going to be generated from the economic activity that’s benefiting from the rebuild. So basically, you’re basically… Instead of all the money from the neighborhood in the near future going to City Hall, you’re able to capture some of that money in advance with the knowledge that the rebuild is going to be successful.

And so it plows that future money back in to the rebuild. So it becomes a kind of virtuous cycle where the money, where the upside is able to be captured and used for rebuild in the neighborhood.

It is unclear exactly what shape these proposals will take, but they are gaining momentum among local officials, including L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park.

The enthusiasm is driven by the idea that local residents want to control their own destiny — and not leave their fate in the hands of local officials who, many feel, failed to provide emergency services to the city, and are focused on homeless people, migrants, and political rivalry with the Trump administration, none of which helps local communities rebuild.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Full disclosure: this author participated in consultations with the community and offered critiques on the draft report.