A petition seeking the "immediate recall" of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for her "gross mismanagement" of the wildfires in Southern California has received nearly 60,000 signatures as of Saturday.
Six wildfires burning in communities around Los Angeles have charred more than 35,000 acres, burned thousands of businesses and homes to the ground and killed at least 11 people.
"We, the undersigned residents of Los Angeles and concerned citizens, urgently call for the immediate recall of Mayor Karen Bass due to her gross mismanagement and failure to effectively respond to the devastating 2025 fires in and around the city of Los Angeles," the petition on Change.org says.
It said the fires have left the city in "crisis," taxpayer funds are "unaccounted for" and "countless lives 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 petition continued.
Bass, a Democrat, returned to Los Angeles on Wednesday from Ghana, where she had been part of a delegation of U.S. officials selected by President Joe Biden to attend the inauguration of President John Dramani Mahama, The Independent reported.
Bass, 71, was in the African country when weather reports predicted the conditions for "extreme fire behavior" if a blaze was sparked and was still there when the first of the six fires began on Tuesday evening.
When she returned to Los Angeles on Wednesday, she refused to answer reporters' questions about her absence.
The backlash to Bass's response to the raging infernos included stinging criticism over the city's lack of preparation to deal with the disaster, dry fire hydrants and lack of water in reservoirs needed to fight the flames, and for cutting funds from the fire department's budget.
Bass has not yet commented on the petition.
© 2024 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
