Isn't it a principle of emotional intelligence for those who have it to delay a small gratification in order to get a bigger one?

They don't have any of that in Los Angeles's blue city government, where residents who were burned out in this year's massive fires are apparently being told 'no' they don't get their rebuilding permit fees waived. The rebuilding permits, few of which have been issued, can run about $20,000 per burned-out home, according to CBS News.

But we have this:

According to Palisades News:

In a letter sent this week to Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council, the [Pacific Palisades Community Council] asked city officials to approve the Budget and Finance Committee’s recommendation to waive fees and to expand the policy to include condominiums, townhomes, mobile homes, and small, owner-occupied apartment buildings.

...

The letter argues that most fire survivors are underinsured and face major financial gaps as they try to rebuild. The group said waiving permit fees would make an immediate difference for families still paying property taxes and mortgages on damaged lots while renting elsewhere.

The council also disputed city budget projections suggesting that a fee waiver would cost $250 million in lost revenue, calling those assumptions “completely unrealistic.” The letter said many homeowners will be forced to sell their properties at a loss, and that the city will actually profit from increased property taxes and development fees tied to new construction.

Best they could do was a 'deferral' passed by the county supervisors back in June, assuming that was enacted. In other words, they may be willing to delay the fees, but they still intend to get paid. They saw the consultant report about the $250 million to be made and they want that money.

It's flaming greed, because they wouldn't be getting that money at all had the fires not happened. Now they want their $250 million, money for nothin' given that it's the residents who have to shell out to rebuild after the permits are issued (few of which have been, very few) which is exactly what they like.

This, as news rolls out that the fires themselves were largely the result of city negligence -- from empty reservoirs, to broken fire hydrants and trucks, to a failure of firefighting leadership to stamp out a smoldering arson fire in the Palisades hillsides during a Santa Ana, even with firefighter-in-the-field warnings. See here, here, and here. They should be paying the residents because of their incompetence, not the other way around.

But longer term, there is the emotional-intelligence issue.

Wouldn't it make sense from the point of view of city finances to get the houses rebuilt as soon as possible, the better to collect the property taxes from the residents who can finally live in their own homes? Residents are still forced to cough up for property taxes, (though there have been some reports of relief available) and the letter says Palisades residents have not gotten that relief.

Approximately two-thirds of the value of the Palisades properties upon which the taxes are premised is in the land itself, and the houses add the last third.

That makes the total come to about $17,241 as a median rate, and with 7,000 structures burned in that area alone (Altadena had even more burned and they are likely facing the same permitting costs) Los Angeles is talking about some real money -- to be paid year after year, not in one big pop from the permitting fee bonanza they can't take their eyes off of.

Obviously, they consider the permitting fees, which shouldn't even exist, "their" money and you can see the dollar signs in their eyes as they refuse to waive the fees.

That's just plain disgusting, as if rebuilding homes and communities weren't painful and costly enough. But penny-wise and pound-foolish is the blue-city way of Los Angeles. That's sad indeed for the residents who have already been through so much hell.

 Image: Sgt. First Class Jon Soucy, National Guard, via Wikipedia // public domain