I’m a former SLO County mayor. Climate disasters are draining city budgets | Opinion
One year ago this month, fires tore through Altadena and surrounding communities in Los Angeles County, destroying homes, displacing families and leaving behind a level of damage that will take years to fully grasp.
Like any parent, my first concern was safety. Were children and elders getting out in time? Were families finding somewhere safe to land for the night? But my years in city government meant I was also thinking about what would come next, long after the smoke cleared and the cameras moved on.
This is the part of the climate crisis that rarely makes the evening news. Emergency crews don’t come cheap. Neither does clearing debris, repairing roads and water systems, testing air and soil for toxins, or keeping clinics open as respiratory and heat-related illnesses rise. Add in lost sales and property tax revenue, higher insurance costs and delayed maintenance, and you start to see how a single disaster can ripple through a city budget for years.
I’ve found myself moving between what residents experience on their streets and what city leaders see in their ledgers. I’ve walked through the Altadena neighborhoods where I grew up, trying to recognize the places that once felt permanent. I’ve also sat at a council dais, staring at spreadsheets and weighing how to cover future likely recovery costs without cutting library hours, postponing road repairs, or slowing down affordable housing projects.
This is the bind many cities find themselves in. Climate impacts keep arriving faster than the systems designed to pay for them and local governments — and ultimately taxpayers — are expected to absorb the damage, even when it comes from forces far beyond their control or capacity to manage.
Other states are starting to move. New York and Vermont passed climate superfund laws last year, creating a way to direct money from the largest fossil fuel companies into climate recovery and resilience, including investments in things like flood protection, grid hardening and emergency response infrastructure.
California lawmakers have spent several sessions debating whether to take a similar step, including Assemblymember Dawn Addis, who introduced the state’s climate superfund bill and represents my neighborhood. For cities watching their recovery costs climb year after year, those conversations carry real weight.
That concern is part of what’s behind this month’s Make Polluters Pay Week of Action. Across the country, people are sharing what climate damage looks like in their own communities, from burned neighborhoods to flooded streets to overheated classrooms and hospitals. Many local leaders are left asking why the financial responsibility continues to fall almost entirely on residents, even as the companies that profited most from fossil fuels remain largely insulated from the costs.
The same questions are now being tested in court. California’s climate liability lawsuit against major oil companies draws on decades of internal research and public statements about what the industry knew about climate risks. At stake is whether the financial consequences of that history will continue to be managed almost entirely by local governments and taxpayers.
I think about this in my own life, not as an abstract policy debate, but in ordinary moments. I think about it watching my child calling me scared during another smoky week. I think about it remembering late nights at City Hall, where a budget wasn’t just a document, but a set of decisions about which neighborhoods would get attention now and which would have to wait.
No single law will prevent every fire or stop every flood. But asking the companies most responsible for the damage to contribute to the cost of repairing it is a practical place to begin. It eases pressure on communities already stretched thin and gives cities the ability to plan, invest and rebuild instead of constantly reacting to the next emergency.
Heidi Harmon was elected mayor of San Luis Obispo in 2016. She resigned in 2021 to take a statewide position in climate advocacy.