A petition circulated among Los Angeles residents on Wednesday calling for their Mayor Karen Bass' "immediate recall" has gained over 50,000 signatures.
"We . . . urgently call for the immediate recall of [Bass] due to her gross mismanagement and failure to effectively respond to the devastating 2025 fires in and around the city," the petition read.
"In the wake of these catastrophic fires, our city has been left in crisis. 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 fire began spreading on Tuesday, Jan. 7. At the time, according to the New York Post, Bass was in Ghana attending the inauguration of its President John Dramani Mahama.
Newsweek reported that Bass decreased the city's 2024-2025 LAFD budget by $17.6 million from the previous year.