Can We Blame Prop. 13 for the LA Fires? (And So Much More?)

I think we can. 

Proposition 13 made it harder, much harder, to raise taxes of any kind in California, and limited property taxes and reassessments. Basically, taxation can't keep up with the population growth of the state or with its infrastructure needs.

Take this, for example, from the NY Times:

Traci Park, the Los Angeles City Council member whose district includes Pacific Palisades, said the city’s water systems were among several pieces of critically underfunded infrastructure.

“There are environmental catastrophes waiting to happen everywhere with our water mains,” she said, adding that some were a century old. “As our city has grown, we haven’t upgraded and expanded the infrastructure that we need to support it.”

Consider the crumbling schools and roads in much of California, including Oakland, where I live. Californians voted for it because they'd rather have cash than infrastructure and because of concern trolling about older people threatened with losing their homes because of high property taxes. Blanket limitations on taxes weren't the right way to deal with that particular issue, of course: a split property tax roll dividing up commercial and personal real estate, or even some kind of age-based cap, would have done it, but no.

The Biden-Harris administration is jumping in feet first with aid for the state and city, as it would for disasters anywhere in the country. They believe that we are all in this together. Don't expect the same from the incoming administration.

Of course, there are other issues with fires and fire safety:

Greg Pierce, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies water resources and urban planning, echoed the concerns over water systems that are designed for urban fires, not fast-moving wildfires. But redesigning water systems to allow firefighters to take on a broad wildfire would be enormously expensive, he said.

A more fundamental question, he said, is whether it’s a good idea to rebuild neighborhoods adjacent to wildlands, an issue that has been broadly debated across the West as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of fires on what is known as the wildland-urban interface.