The last six months have been traumatic for Los Angeles. We’ve had natural disasters like the wildfires and we’ve had man-made crises like the ICE raids tear at the fabric of our city. While almost six months apart, both events have shown a city adrift, crying out for leadership, while yearning to be put back on track to stability and success. Los Angeles can not have one without the other. Can Los Angeles come back stronger from this after this adversity and usher in a new era of optimism and prosperity?

Since the fires, I have made it my mission, through Steadfast L.A., a nonprofit I created, to help cut through red tape to help Los Angeles rebuild faster and smarter. We’ve mobilized the private sector and had real results: Samara is donating high-quality, prefab homes for people who face devastating circumstances after the wildfires. Working with Gov. Gavin Newsom, we launched a new AI tool to accelerate the approval of building permits. We announced a new public-private partnership to rebuild the Palisades Recreation Center.

Normally, a city reeling from these types of disasters has been able to rely on the federal government as a reliable partner in the rebuild. Unfortunately, Los Angeles has not had that. Instead, leaders in Washington have been busy playing politics with money we can be using to rebuild our city, help small business and get people back on their feet. To be clear, the request for $40 billion came in January and Congress has yet to act. This was not a partisan ask. In March, the full California delegation, Republicans and Democrats, asked for federal disaster aid. They’ve been met with a mix of talking points and silence. It is beyond overdue for Washington to step in and deliver the aid we desperately need. Los Angeles gives more to the federal government than we receive.

Natural disasters are a fact of life. Despite advances in technology and information sharing, the cost in terms of money and human life continues to grow. America’s electeds have a sacred duty to serve and protect our communities from inevitable, future disasters by learning from the failures of the past. There is no shortage of lessons we can derive here.

To start, there has been no after-action report, which would outline the cause of the fire, actions taken, what went wrong and what could have been done better. Clearly, lots went wrong and residents have a right to know not only what happened but how and why. This after action report needs to start at the top in City Hall and work its way down through the Department of Water and Power, Fire Department and more. At the same time, this report also needs to detail how and why city agencies failed to coordinate with each other. This report is just the baseline for accountability.

In addition, it’s not clear just who is in charge of the recovery. On January 17th, Mayor Bass appointed Steve Soberoff as the Recovery Czar. He lasted 84 days, leaving in early April. As of July 7th, six months after the first fires, we will have been without a Recovery Czar for 87 days, or longer than Soberoff actually served. How has no one been found yet? Where is the urgency to bring someone in so that the work can accelerate?

Furthermore, there is no detailed plan, timeline, cost or financing plan for undergrounding power lines. The mayor committed to doing this, but there has been no meaningful movement on this. Why? We clearly know Los Angeles needs it and issues like wildfires and other disasters will only get worse.

Finally, there is no transparency on the amounts of permits that have been issued. This is just basic and should be something the city is constantly publishing. We have heard accounts of homeowners who have had previously approved pre-fire plans resubmitted to build the same home, rejected multiple times for reasons unknown. This is not how we recover, it’s how we display ineptitude.

Squeezed between inaction at the local level and a Washington that’s abdicated responsibility, Angelenos are finding themselves in the middle as political pawns. Angelenos are tired — of burned homes, and empty promises. We need results.

Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Olympics, and that will be a state to show the world just how great a city we are. We are big, diverse, creative, tough, resilient and we have a strong moral center. But right now, we are being let down by our leaders who are not living up to the great promise of our city, or our nation. Los Angeles is a city poised to take off, all we need is the chance to do it with effective and competent leadership. We deserve better.

Rick Caruso is a Los Angeles businessman.