I looked up what this guy was paying in property taxes and it's less in a YEAR than what Los Angeles residents pay to rent a 2 bedroom apartment per MONTH.

His house, which the news says he courageously saved, has a Zillow estimated value of over $3 million US, with the taxable value being well less than 10% of this.

(I am being vague because I don't want to dox him)

What's the point of all this?

He's not actually complaining about high property taxes.

What he's saying is that if he had let his house burn down he would have to pay high property taxes.

Huh?

California has a rule that keeps property taxes low for people who don't sell their houses, so by staying in the same house for 50 years, he is paying the property taxes of its value in 1975, yes 1975.

So, were he to move, he'd pay property taxes according to the 2025 value, which he couldn't afford.

The LA fires are not caused by insufficient property taxes. California and Los Angeles are awash in money. It's a management and competence crisis, not a insufficient tax dollar catastrophe.

The point of this post is not to say that if he had paid more, his neighorbhood wouldn't have burned down.

The point is to show how hard it is for young people to live in Los Angeles (monthly rents for a 2 bedroom apartment higher than what this guy pays in a year for a 3 bedroom in one of the richest communities in the United States).

It's a completely broken system and it must end, not just because it's unfair, but because it's a class-based pressure cooker that causes things like the looting that Los Angeles is apparently experiencing right now.