As you can imagine I have several thoughts and observations about the current fires in Los Angeles. Once again, I'm going to put some observations out there that may label me as a conspiracy theorist, but I believe there are questions that have to be asked. The answers don't necessarily lead us to a vast conspiracy designed to take property from private citizens and transfer it to the very wealthy, favored corporations, and those that control government for purposes they deem to be proper. See Governor Newsom's plan for Los Angeles 2.0.

Newsom's plan to build back better seems to center around a couple of things. The newest iteration of a high-speed rail system goes right through the Pacific Palisades. Those houses needed to be gone. The vision he has put into print and motion for Los Angeles is the proverbial 15-minute city. One that promises everything you need within walking distance of your government-assigned residence. One in which you cannot leave your neighborhood or as we might call it in a dystopian science fiction movie, your sector. Yet the political and business elite live in mansions where they enjoy special privileges.

The Santa Ynez reservoir was empty. It was closed in February of last year ostensibly to repair or rebuild the cover or roof of the concrete structure. The reservoir still could have held 117,000,000 gallons of water. When the LA fire department testing of fire hydrants was conducted as all fire departments do on a regular basis, they worked fine for the 5 minutes that they allowed water to flow through. What the fire department didn't know was that water was coming from three backup tanks that held a total of 3,000,000 gallons which is insufficient to fight a significant fire.

When Janisse Quinones was hired in May of 2024 to head the Los Angeles water and power department, which oversees the reservoirs, she gave an interview to KBLA radio. In that interview she said her primary focus was to implement the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that would energize the department. In that interview and subsequent interviews, she said very little about the mission of the department and how she would make sure the citizens she served would have enough electricity and water. In a press conference after these fires started and it became clear that they had failed the fire department and citizens of the Pacific Palisades, she couldn't address the issue of an empty reservoir. I doubt she even knew it was empty.

Similarly, the Los Angeles fire department was led by Kristen Crowley. She said multiple times her primary focus was to continue to build a department that reflected the population specifically with regards to members of the alphabet community. This led to staffing issues that meant the fire department did not have enough people to meet their goal of protecting Los Angeles from fires. They regularly put out promotional videos, in which new hires talked about the comfort others would receive when they saw someone like themselves coming to their rescue. But one of her captains also said that if someone found themselves needing to be rescued from a fire, they had put themselves in that situation and probably didn't deserve to be rescued.

When President Donald Trump was in office the first time, he signed an executive order that diverted more water to California as they were suffering through a drought at the time. Governor Gavin Newsom's response was to file a lawsuit against the federal government to stop the program. More water flowing through some of those rivers and streams would endanger a smelt. The program was halted. In fact, reservoirs across the state were drained even further. This time to help maintain water flows in downstream riverbeds to protect the smelt and others.

2022 and 2023 saw record rainfall in California. In fact they had not seen two years in a row with that much rain since the late 1800s. Yet the water was allowed to run into the ocean rather than refilling reservoirs to serve the citizens of the state.

In late 2023, State Farm Insurance, the largest property casualty insurance in the country announced they were going to cancel or non-renew 69% of policies issued on homes that were exposed to significant wildfire danger. This did not mean they were cancelling policies issued on homes built in remote areas, rather they were cancelling policies in Pacific Palisades and similar urban areas. This was a response to the county of Los Angeles, which made it illegal to remove brush and trees for any reason. County officials said it was to protect wildlife habitat even in these urban areas. This is the same brush that has intensified and expanded the growth of the fires.

Insurance companies are taking a bad rap for what is happening, especially with people who could not get insurance. In the 2017 and 2018 wildfires homeowners insurers in California spent a total of $23 billion to pay losses. This increased their combined expense ratio to 243%. For those of you that graduated from government school, that means they paid out 143% more than they collected in premiums in prior years. That is an unsustainable business model. Yet the state of California refused to allow premium increases or to allow those companies to include valid expenses in their premium calculation. For example, the cost to purchase reinsurance, which helps protect these companies in the event of catastrophic losses could not be passed on to the consumer cutting into the profit margin. They also were forced to reduce claims payments cost as an expense, which increased because of inflation.

And lastly construction of homes. We continue to build homes out of wood. Frame homes are preferred by many people because of a principle known as path dependence feedback loop. If you want to know more about that principle, you'll have to listen to the radio show tomorrow at 9:00 AM on 92.9 FM. More importantly building regulations implemented by politicians favor wood houses which burn the easiest of any construction material known to man. Instead of building out of block, brick, stone, concrete, or metal which are much more fire resistant and have long-term benefits that far outweigh a stick built home. Most of the policies were put in place to protect the businesses that provide the materials for stick built homes. And to protect the businesses that repair those homes or remodel them. There's going to be a lot of people making a lot of money off of this disaster.

So this column has proven one of the undeniable truths of life in my world. Problems have multiple clauses and thus need multiple solutions. But in our world, people like things to be as simple as possible. Politicians will provide simple solutions, while telling you that the problem is complicated and probably beyond your comprehension. See the previously mentioned path dependence feedback loop.