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Earlier this month, the outgoing chief of the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District wrote a blistering letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Department of Parks and Recreation Director Armando Quintero. “Governor Newsom, this letter is a direct request for your intervention,” Chief Paige Meyer wrote. The fire chief asked for immediate executive action to address wildfire risk after the California State Parks largely blocked a life-saving wildfire mitigation program. The fire district developed and funded a “comprehensive, science-based” plan to identify and mitigate wildfire risk in areas the state itself had identified as Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. But because some of the land was State Parks-owned, the plan didn’t work out as planned. Due to restrictions on what could be cut, where and under what conditions, the wildfire mitigation that was planned for 300 acres was completed on only 22. “Final project costs totaled $120,691.44,” the chief wrote, “with approximately 75 percent consumed by State Parks-mandated environmental compliance, monitoring, and oversight requirements, leaving only 25 percent applied to actual wildfire mitigation work on the ground.” This battle is happening in California right now, a year after a fire that reignited on State Parks-owned land burned down Pacific Palisades and Malibu. Laws that protect endangered species of plants are now endangering lives and property. Perhaps different administrators could interpret those laws differently and enforce them sensibly. But something has to change, and fast. The financial cost of not changing the enforcement of these plant-protecting laws is incalculable. However, teams of attorneys are working on those calculations right now. Multiple lawsuits have been filed to recover damages from the fires last January and we all will pay the price, one way or another. There are really only three sources of funds to compensate the victims of catastrophic wildfires: insurance customers, ratepayers and taxpayers. Conveniently, they’re the same people. Californians have already seen huge increases in premiums for property insurance. Some companies canceled policies or stopped writing new ones until state regulators allowed rate increases based on the risk of catastrophic wildfires. And now the cost of insurance is a catastrophe all its own. With regulators’ approval, electricity rates include surcharges to recover the cost that utilities pay for wildfire damage. And taxpayers are on the hook if lawsuits against the city, county or state are successful. Liability is already a significant budget drain in Los Angeles. Southern California Edison is offering settlements to victims who are willing to give up the right to sue the company. That won’t help with the lawsuit filed last year by the County of Los Angeles. “Edison failed to de-energize all of its electrical equipment in and around the area of the Eaton Canyon on January 7, 2025,” the complaint states, noting also that Edison “admitted in a public filing with the California Public Utilities Commission that a fault was detected at approximately 6:11 p.m. on its Eagle-Rock-Gould transmission circuit” about the time the Eaton Fire ignited “under the base of its transmission towers in Eaton Canyon.” Investor-owned utilities such as SCE have unlimited liability due to “inverse condemnation.” This means that in exchange for having certain rights to have their equipment located on public and private land, they are liable for 100% of the damage from a fire that is started by their equipment, even if they were not negligent. Related Articles Jon Coupal: Why does California even bother with a budget? Jon Coupal: Why even bother with a state budget? Susan Shelley: The Supreme Court could make election night great again Is the middle class ‘shrinking’ or ‘struggling’? The difference is important. California politicians wrongly fixate on education spending instead of results Decades ago, the state utilized fire mitigation…

Planning on playing a casual game of catch with your child on the sidewalk outside your home or on a quiet cul-de-sac? You might want to reconsider if you’re in Los Angeles, because you’d technically be committing a crime. A little-known and rarely enforced provision in the Los Angeles Municipal Code prohibits ball games on most streets or sidewalks. Violators face a fine of up to $1,000, a jail term of up to six months, or both. But that may change soon. Staff members for Bob Blumenfield, a Los Angeles City Council member, stumbled on the provision last year. It seemed “uncommonly silly,” said Jake Flynn, a spokesperson for Blumenfield, even compared with the pantheon of other quirky municipal laws in Los Angeles. (One example: Horse-drawn carriages are prohibited in one part of the city between 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. every day.) So Blumenfield put forward a motion to begin the process of repealing the law. It was approved by the council in a 14-0 vote, without discussion, last Tuesday. Section 56.16, the law set to be repealed, states: “No person shall play ball or any game of sport with a ball or football or throw, cast, shoot or discharge any stone, pellet, bullet, arrow or any other missile, in, over, across, along or upon any street or sidewalk or in any public park, except on those portions of said park set apart for such purposes.” The language of the law, with its mentions of discharging stones and pellets, speaks to its era, Flynn said. “It brings up a ‘Leave It to Beaver’-esque quality” that invokes the imagery of an idyllic, old-fashioned Southern California suburbia, he said, referencing the family sitcom that aired in the 1950s and ’60s. It was unclear exactly when and why the law came into effect, Flynn said, but the earliest reference to it Blumenfield’s team was able to find — “after talking to way too many people” — was in 1945. That was around when the population of Los Angeles was expanding rapidly. Many new communities were being built in areas that had traditionally been farms or rural land, and the number of cars on the roads was on the rise. Lawmakers needed to create new rules to keep both drivers and pedestrians safe, Flynn said. How often the law was enforced is also unclear. Flynn said he was aware of only one or two instances. Still, a repeal would end the slim possibility of enforcement in the future, which would be “a brazen injustice,” he said. The next step in the repeal process is for the Los Angeles City Attorney to draft an ordinance to that effect, which would go back to the council for a second vote. Flynn said that he was not expecting any opposition. “Our hope is that in the near future, our council members will be leading a great, legal game of catch out on the sidewalks of Los Angeles,” he said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.