Remember the halcyon days after the Los Angeles fire--you know, the one started by arsonists armed with climate change propane torches and power lines kept in disrepair--when the governor of California and the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, promised that they would cut through all the red tape and get rebuilding going quickly. 

Good times. Good times indeed. 

Well, promises made, promises kept. The bureaucracy kicked into high gear and the permits for building are flying off the bureaucrats' desks and out the doors of City Hall at breakneck pace. 

And, last week, the Mayor’s “recovery czar,” Steve Soboroff, resigned. You might remember that Soboroff was hired shortly after Bass returned from Africa (despite being warned about high fire danger) to lead the first phase of the city’s rebuilding effort. pic.twitter.com/uNp8F9NTWG

— Will O'Neill (@RealWillONeill) April 14, 2025

As of the end of last month four--count 'em, four!--permits have been issued! That, for the city, must be a record. It's an all-hands-on-deck operation, working around the clock figuring out how to use this crisis--I mean opportunity for graft--to play sim city with hundreds of acres of prime real estate. 

Folks were furious when they found out that Soboroff was getting paid so much. In response, Bass announced that Soboroff would work for free. Soboroff, though, was NOT happy.

At an alumni function for Harvard-Westlake School (a very fancy private school in LA), Soboroff vented… pic.twitter.com/a5woBupRHs

— Will O'Neill (@RealWillONeill) April 14, 2025

Folks were furious when they found out that Soboroff was getting paid so much. In response, Bass announced that Soboroff would work for free.  Soboroff, though, was NOT happy. At an alumni function for Harvard-Westlake School (a very fancy private school in LA), Soboroff vented in front of the audience that he was lied to, that he wasn’t going to get a contract, and that they didn’t even have the money to pay him anyway. Apparently the Mayor found out and Soboroff had to apologize.

The first opportunity for graft was the hiring of Steve Soboroff to lead the charge to rebuild the stricken areas of the city. Residents were outraged, and no doubt Soboroff would have used his position to benefit his buddies in the real estate biz, but looking back, the only thing worse than handing over the recovery efforts to a politically connected developer was having the city do the job. Or rather, not do the job. 

Theoretically, the city employs a bunch of people to do the kind of work that Soboroff was supposed to do, but c'mon, who's buying that? 

According to the L.A. Times, “Soboroff said he now wonders whether the mayor wanted someone of his demographic — an older, white developer with longtime relationships in affluent Los Angeles — to provide political cover in the Palisades, a wealthy, majority white neighborhood…

— Will O'Neill (@RealWillONeill) April 14, 2025

According to the L.A. Times, “Soboroff said he now wonders whether the mayor wanted someone of his demographic — an older, white developer with longtime relationships in affluent Los Angeles — to provide political cover in the Palisades, a wealthy, majority white neighborhood that heavily favored her opponent, billionaire developer Rick Caruso, in the 2022 election.”

Ya think? Could it be possible that Karen Bass, who wakes up in the morning thinking about racial categories, spends all day pandering to various racial groups, and goes to be after a long day of measuring the melanin levels of the people around her wanted a pale penis person to front for her to the rich white people?

Say it ain't so!

The Los Angeles fires certainly were a tragedy for Los Angeles, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the area doesn't just reek of burnt houses and insulation but of opportunity for graft. And there is no way that any self-respecting political machine won't seize on an opportunity as large as this to grab some of the cash that will flow in. 

Issuing permits to the current property owners isn't the best way to cash in on the potential bonanza here. 

It is impossible to imagine a situation like this in any city or state--Red or Blue--where no graft would occur when so much money is floating around waiting to be spent. And city politics are, everywhere and always, run by a good ol' boys network. It is the nature of the beast. 

But there are better and worse places, and our big Blue Cities are the worst, rivaling third-world countries in the scope of corruption. And nothing can cover up corruption better than the Byzantine bureaucracies that flourish in these cities. 

California is the land where a $30 billion high-speed train from San Francisco to Los Angeles can transform into a $130 billion unbuilt train from Bakersfield to Merced, and nobody says "Boo." So far, the estimate for the economic losses that will attributed to the LA fires is $250 billion. No doubt that is a lowball figure akin to what we were told about the LA to San Francisco train. Expect the real figure to skyrocket. 

Good thing Los Angeles has Karen Bass to lead the effort to rebuild. Imagine if Ron DeSantis were in charge. The project might eventually get finished, and where is the money in that?