A petition requesting the resignation of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass over her response to the deadly wildfires blazing through Los Angeles has already surpassed 100,000 signatures. Concretely, it is at over 120,000, with over 26,000 signing on Monday alone.
The petition was started by user "Frustrated Californian" and "urgently" requests the recall of mayor Bass over her "gross mismanagement and failure to effectively respond to the devastating 2025 fires in and around the city of Los Angeles."
Bass has been the subject of criticism over the handling of the fires, especially as she was outside the country when they started. Critics were quick to point out that she had promised to not go abroad and focus on the city while campaigning for office but was in Ghana last week.
"Not only would I of course live here, but I also would not travel internationally — the only places I would go would be D.C., Sacramento, San Francisco and New York, in relation to L.A," she had told The New York Times in 2021, addressing her extensive travels as part of the House Foreign Affairs Committee during her tenure as Democratic congresswoman.
Bass arrived in California on Wednesday night from a trip to Ghana. "Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning? And do you regret cutting the Fire Department by millions of dollars, Madame Mayor?" Sky News reported David Blevins asked. She avoided the question at that moment but said she "took the fastest route back" in a posterior contact with press. "I was able to be on the phone the entire time of the flight," she said, adding that "we are fighting for you and everyone in Los Angeles."
Bass was also targeted by high-profile actors of the Los Angeles political landscape, including former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso and LA Times owner Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong, who criticized budget cuts sustained by the Los Angeles Fire Department. "Competence matters," he said in a publication in X last week. Bass also had a public spat with Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, who criticized city authorities for what she said was insufficient funding.
The Change.org petition adds criticism of its own, saying that "water supplies have been severely strained, billions of taxpayer dollars have been misallocated or left unaccounted for, and countless lives have been lost." "Families have been displaced, homes destroyed, and livelihoods shattered—yet Mayor Bass has been absent from the frontlines, choosing to travel abroad while her constituents suffer," the document adds.
Consequently, the document demands the "immediate resignation" of bass, a "full, transparent investigation into the failures in disaster preparedness, response, and resource allocation that left our city vulnerable," and "accountability for the mismanagement of taxpayer funds intended for disaster relief and recovery," as well as a "comprehensive plan for ensuring the safety of all Angelenos in the face of future disasters."
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