Meet the Man Who Waited Over 6 Hours to Issue Emergency in LA Wildfires

Just when one thinks the debacle regarding California local leadership cannot possibly get worse, a new bombshell drops.

Massive 3,000-acre wildfire raged out of control and engulfed homes in Pacific Palisades, California, on Tuesday afternoon. Shocking and heartbreaking footage has emerged showing people abandoning their cars and running for their lives.

Residents have lost their homes, entire livelihoods, and even their lives over the past several days as fires have spread all across Southern California with no signs of abating. Meanwhile, firefighters are having issues with water pressure, thanks to politicians.

The fires would not have been so severe had California politicians led by Governor Gavin Newsom utilized common-sense solutions such as clearing out the dead brush in the woods and filling the state’s depleted reservoirs with water.

Now, actress Justine Bateman has shared a damning new revelation from her friend Eric Spiegelman, who served as a commissioner under former LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and briefly now-Mayor Karen Bass. It turns out that while Bass was in Ghana when the wildfires fire started, LA City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson took over as acting mayor and had a golden opportunity to assert his leadership.

Because Bass was away, she could not make key decisions regarding the fires, such as issuing a state of emergency.

Harris-Dawson, though, completely blew his opportunity in the most damaging way imaginable. When the Pacific Palisades wildfire started just before noon local time, Harris-Dawson decided to instead wait six and half hours for some unknown reason.

This is from my friend @ericspiegelman, who served as a commissioner under both Mayor Garcetti (and then Bass, for a moment).
There is no end to the ball-dropping this week by Karen Bass and her office. pic.twitter.com/yEPJ5pQ9HK

— Justine Bateman (@JustineBateman) January 11, 2025

This move was made despite the fact California is known as much for wildfires as Florida is for hurricanes. Of course, Florida is always prepared for the worst thanks decades of proactive conservative leadership.

While Harris-Dawson dawdled, neighborhoods in LA started to burn down and schools started catching on fire. To make matters worse, NO life-saving federal aid could be deployed during those critical hours due to the lack of state of emergency.

Because of this, the Biden regime was unable to deploy water-dropping navy helicopters until Wednesday.

Bateman also notes that Harris-Dawson supposedly does not do anything significant like this unless he has prior approval from Bass. It is unclear, however, whether the two ever made contact during those critical hours.

Just think of how many homes and lives could have been saved if Bass had been in LA and Harris-Dawson had shown leadership. One could call this criminal negligence.