It's been just over 100 days since the Palisades Fire utterly destroyed the coastal enclave of Pacific Palisades, California, and portions of neighboring Malibu, and it's time to hold an accountability check.

Sadly, as many feared/predicted, despite President Trump's visit and holding LA Mayor Karen Bass' feet to the fire, recovery is slow-going and mired in controversy. Here are some highlights/lowlights:

• As of April 5, just 10 permits to rebuild had been issued in the Palisades.
• "Recovery Czar" Steve Soboroff, who'd been under fire for his $500,000 salary for three months' work, resigned in disgust after being shut out by a petulant Bass.
• Bass' hand-picked recovery consulting firm (which is also working in Lahaina) can't articulate what they're doing for $10 million in taxpayer dollars.
• A massive algae bloom in the Pacific Ocean likely fueled by phoschek (fire retardant) started February 15 and has so far killed hundreds of sea lions, dolphins, pelicans, and more.
• City bureaucrats have reportedly roadblocked nonprofits that want to fully privately fund things like a community center and one-stop info app for residents who are rebuilding.
• 1 million pounds of lithium ion batteries have been removed from the burn zones
• LA Department of Water and Power CEO Janissa Quinones is still on the job.

Here's what part of the area looked like in the immediate aftermath:

In addition to pricey mansions, the homes of working-class people were also lost in the Palisades fire, including a mobile home park on Pacific Coast Highway. “It was rent controlled,” one resident said. “I had been there for 10 years in this trailer with an ocean view. I was so… pic.twitter.com/KeDbun38Qk

— CAT-LOGY (@haapinesisfree) January 12, 2025

And that area in early April, 2025:

Permits

The biggest concern for residents was, "How quickly can we rebuild?" Los Angeles' bureaucracy is even worse to deal with than Sacramento's, and Palisadians have to deal with both. When President Trump visited in late January, he vowed to expedite the rebuilding process and took Bass to task about slow permitting. She claimed she'd signed executive orders to waive the red tape, but that wasn't quite the case. The one family that's actually started rebuilding still paid the full $6,000 in permit fees they'd paid when they built their home less than five years ago.

And they're lucky. As of April 5, less than a dozen permits to rebuild had been issued in the Palisades.

100 days since the Palisades and Eaton fires started.

Of the nearly 7,000 buildings destroyed in the Palisades fire, just 12 permits have been issued for rebuilding.

Let’s keep in mind Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass have cut all the red tape and expedited the blah blah blah pic.twitter.com/ax7rykQ98E

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) April 19, 2025

Steve Soboroff

After the fires, folks were quite (and rightly) upset when it was learned that the man Mayor Karen Bass appointed as "Recovery Czar," wealthy developer Steve Soboroff, was going to be paid $500,000 for three months' work, and wanted him gone. He agreed to work for free after that, and resigned effective April 11, claiming he'd been shut out of the process by the Mayor's office. He told the LA Times, “They haven’t asked me to do anything in a month and a half, nothing, zero."

The picture that captured it all - on Soboroff's last day, Bass was in the Palisades with Rick Caruso and Lakers coach JJ Reddick to unveil a plan (underwritten by Caruso's and Reddick's nonprofits) to rebuild the Palisades Recreation Center - and Soboroff was nowhere to be found. Wasn't even invited.

After a very messy start to the Palisades fire recovery, two former mayoral rivals Rick Caruso and Karen Bass joined forces today in a show of unity as they announce the private-public partnership to rebuild the Pacific Palisades Rec Center with Lakers coach JJ Redick pic.twitter.com/2qIQ6hIM0Q

— Maeve Reston (@MaeveReston) April 10, 2025

READ MORE: So LA: Mayor Bass Okayed 'Wildfire Czar' for $500K for 3 Months Work

Hagerty Consulting Under Fire

Although numerous community groups and people like Rick Caruso quickly created nonprofit groups to assist with recovery, Bass insisted on hiring a consulting firm as the city's official "recovery consultant," immediately hiring Illinois-based Hagerty Consulting for up to $10 million. What do they do? Well, after numerous community meetings in which Hagerty consultants have given presentations, nobody's been able to figure that out:

In Soboroff’s telling, Hagerty representatives were asked about the scope of their work by multiple people during a meeting of community stakeholders and failed to offer a clear response.

“I said to them, ‘You know, you’ve been asked twice by two different people what you’re doing, and you didn’t give an answer. I think your contract’s for millions of dollars a month. But you didn’t give an answer. So I just would recommend that you guys communicate a little better,’” Soboroff recalled.

Los Angeles doctor Houman Hemmati posted video from one of those meetings.

🔥🤬🔥 @MayorOfLA @KarenBassLA paid Illinois-based Hagerty Consulting $10 MILLION for “disaster recovery” after Palisades Fire.

Last week, after generic slide show by Hagerty Rep, frustrated Palisades residents asked for ONE concrete example of their work. Crickets 🦗

“Umm…… pic.twitter.com/LrH1YTwJm0

— Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD (@houmanhemmati) April 15, 2025

Hemmati wrote, in part: 

LA Mayor Karen Bass paid Illinois-based Hagerty Consulting $10 MILLION for “disaster recovery” after Palisades Fire. Last week, after generic slide show by Hagerty Rep, frustrated Palisades residents asked for ONE concrete example of their work. Crickets “Umm… see our website… this is literally what we do all day every day” uttered in a rambling word salad by a a frightened Hagerty “recovery leader” who had clearly never had to justify their enormous price tag or show what they’d done. 

After that answer, another attendee said, "I'm angry, really angry, because I spent 25 minutes listening to you speak, and I don't know what you said." He demanded to know what Hagerty is being paid and what their deliverables are.

An LA City spokesperson told community newspaper Circling the News:

"The City brought Hagerty on to help during the emergency and to align with the County on the recovery effort (Also hiring the firm were LA County and CalOES – California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services).

“They’re hourly, and the contract is not to exceed $10M for up to a year,” the City spokesperson said and noted that Hagerty is being paid only for the work they do, not $10 million dollars upfront. CTN asked for the hourly rate and if it is received, the story will be updated. (Note: The City replied last night that “The hourly rate ranges from $80 to $245 depending on the firm’s services being provided.)

Maryam Zar, former chair of the Pacific Palisades Community Council (and a very connected local Democrat) also called Hagerty on the carpet, telling the representative:

Each time, they ask you the same question, they say, "What are you doing here?" And each time you give them an answer, everyone still walks away a little bit like deer in headlights and they say, "Well, wait a minute, hold on, what do they do?"

In the beginning everyone thought, well, it's a big project, they're just getting their hands around it. We're gonna start to understand soon. Now it's 90 days out. . . .

And still, when we ask Hagerty what they do, we seem to get a non-answer. Literally no one on this call seems to be able to regurgitate back what you said in concrete terms.

Hagerty's had some issues handling prior disasters, which include Hurricane Sandy and the Maui fires. Two of their consultants were indicted for fraud related to reimbursements for work on Hurricane Sandy recovery, bilking more than $500,000 from the federal government.

Just what a city that has major issues with fraud and grift (as demonstrated by the ongoing bilking of taxpayer dollars meant to "solve" homelessness) needs.

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