I knew it! Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass were lying when they said it would be “easy” for fire victims to get a permit to rebuild their homes. From March 1 through June 30, 2025, more than 5,000 fire victims have visited the government’s “one stop center,” and 948 of them have applied for a building permit. But only 44 of them have actually received a building permit.

By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)

June 30, 2025

The very first time that I heard California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass say that they were creating a “one stop center” that would make it “easy” for fire victims to get a building permit, I knew they were lying.

These 3 screenshots from their own website prove that they were lying.

This is the link to their website:

https://recovery.lacounty.gov/rebuilding/permitting-progress-dashboard/

This first screenshot is dated June 30, 2025.

These other two screen shots are close ups taken from that first screenshot.

This close up shows that from March 1 through June 30, 2025, more than 5,000 fire victims visited the “one stop center.” I’m assuming that these were more than 5,000 unique fire victims, and none of them went more than once, because it’s called a “one stop center.”

This other close up shows that as of June 30, 2025, 948 fire victims had applied for permits to rebuild their homes.

But out of those 948 requests for permits, only 44 have been approved.

That’s less than 5% of building permit requests that have actually been approved.

And when we take into account that more than 5,000 unique fire victims have visited the “one stop center,” and that only 44 building permits have been approved, that’s actually means that less than 1% of the fire victims who visited the “one stop center” have received permission to rebuild their homes.

Less than 1%.

So the claim by Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass that their “one stop center” would make it “easy” for fire victims to get a building permit was a complete lie.

Of course it’s possible that some fire victims did in fact visit the “one stop center” more than once. But if that is the case, then it only proves that the phrase “one stop center” was a lie.

Anyway, given the huge number of homes that burned down, it’s an absolute disgrace that only 44 building permits have been approved.

Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass were lying when they said it would be “easy” for fire victims to get a building permit.