Is Karen Bass Trolling Palisades Fire Victims With the ‘Deranged’ Theme of This Playground? – RedState
After the Palisades and Eaton fires in January 2025, a FireAid concert raised hundreds of millions of dollars that were (allegedly) going directly to victims for reconstruction. We know from multiple audits and grant documents that little money actually reached these people; instead, a significant portion was allocated to nonprofit organizations that would then distribute it to victims or provide services needed for recovery, such as mental health resources to help survivors heal from the trauma of those days and grieve what they lost.
So it’s truly insulting to know that a $1 million FireAid grant to the Los Angeles Parks Foundation was used to rebuild a playground at the Palisades Recreation Center with a “first responder” theme, complete with a fire truck equipped with a blaring siren that will no doubt bring back horrific memories to the children and parents for whom that noise was the soundtrack played as they fled the fast-moving flames that day.
The fire broke out around 10:30 a.m., which until then had been a perfect, albeit windy, California day, so school was in session and students were waiting on the playgrounds for their parents to pick them up.
These children from Pacific Palisades lost their home and school in the fire.
One of the few things Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass rebuilt for them afterward was a playground, designed with the theme of fire trucks and ambulances. pic.twitter.com/yTG13qnSEN
– The Eyes Source (@theeyessource) August 24, 2025
And then many of them got stuck in traffic on Palisades Drive, trying to escape.
It was a day neither of them wanted to remember, but couldn’t forget.
Spencer Pratt, victim of the Palisades fire and current candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, highlighted the madness of the theme and demonstrated how strong this siren is.
Karen Bass used fire department money to rebuild Palisades Park which didn’t even burn with this deranged design. pic.twitter.com/jkif9pw90m
-Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) August 23, 2025
Pratt said:
“You want to see one of the craziest things you can see?
“It’s the Palisades park that didn’t burn, and that the city took FireAid money to rebuild and repurpose a fire truck, a fire station, some fucking fire themed…like, what? These kids all had to get out of school, the flames are coming down on them, the moms are crying, and now their park that they have to come back to is just this trigger troll park?
“Look at this. What? What are they thinking? This is what the kids want to hear after their town burns down? Let’s put sirens in their park? Who are you to make these decisions? I think your head is sick.”
Completing this playground was a big deal for Bass, who partnered with his former opponent Rick Caruso’s nonprofit, Steadfast LA, on the project. Caruso hired a private firefighting company to save his shopping center, Palisades Village, so perhaps he doesn’t have the same terrible memories of the fire as those who lost everything.
#PalisadesFire Lakers Coach JJ Redick LA Sports Strong Foundation joins City of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Rick Caruso’s Steadfast LA in a plan to rebuild and modernize the Palisades Rec Center, the “heart” of the community. Estimated cost between $25 and $30 million…funds are currently being raised. @knxnews pic.twitter.com/rZsyI7F07L
– Pete Demetriou (@knxpete) April 11, 2025
The playground, almost 40 years old, was due for renovation before the fire; In July 2024, three themes and accompanying design documents were presented to the park advisory board for community input and collaboration: ocean, desert or forest. At the time of the fire, a final theme had not yet been decided, and the LA Recreation and Parks Board and the LA Parks Foundation thought it best to abandon the three themes they already had plans for and leave the community out of the discussion, with the argument that “if parents have not taken a stand before, doing so now would delay the project.” And the last thing Karen Bass wanted was for the project to be delayed.
The Palisades Recreation Center is completing construction of a first responder-themed playground.
The new playground, which replaces a nearly 40-year-old field, was made possible with funds largely generated by the FireAid benefit concert. pic.twitter.com/vCLSYlZf3r
– Palisades News (@PalisadesNewsLA) August 5, 2025
Once the playground opened on July 31, 2025 (less than a month late – imagine that!), residents began to voice their concerns. The local Palisadian-Post newspaper conducted an informal poll asking whether the theme should be changed, and nearly 77 percent of respondents said yes. On August 28, Nathan Younker of GameTime, the vendor who donated the playground equipment, explained that he could replace the first responder-themed signs and change the appearance of the vehicles to create a “Pacific Coast Highway” theme:
What’s now “themed,” Younker said, are a fire truck, ambulance and fire station, small and medium-sized rocker toys and play panels, including a “police climber.”
“With so many vehicles, we can use the structural elements of the playground and change the appearance of the vehicles in one [‘peace wagon’-style] a bus, a station wagon, a lifeguard buggy, etc. said Younker, which would create a “Pacific Coast Highway” theme.
Things like the fire station playhouse could be replaced with a “nature experience playhouse,” Younker said.
Probably because people haven’t started coming back to the Palisades yet, the theme of the playground hasn’t changed. It’s just another reminder of how little Mayor Bass cares about the challenges facing her city’s residents.
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