During his last week as Tsar for the recovery of Los Angeles fires, Steve Soboroff said that he had been excluded from high -level planning from the start, which raised questions about the reasons why the Karen Bass mayor chose it and know whether the reconstruction of the palisades fire is on the right track.
The longtime idiosyncratic civic chief, who has a penchant to talk about his mind and little patience for the plush shirt protocol, was hired for a three -month quarter to a salary of $ 500,000, which will be funded by non -profit organizations. But Soboroff agreed to work for free after reprimands of the seizure of residents of Pacific Palisades and others.
SOBOROFF – whose post was announced with fanfare in mid -January – was initially responsible for creating a complete reconstruction strategy, but its role was quickly reduced.
“They did not ask me to do anything in a month and a half, nothing, zero,” said Soboroff on Tuesday in an interview at the exit of 90 minutes with The Times.
But, he insisted, he has always worked for long hours to help the palisades rebuild from a fire that killed 12 people and destroyed nearly 7,000 houses and other structures. He worked as a fixer in a way, relying on his long history as a developer and his domed rolodex to connect people, while remaining a frequent presence in the community.
A sign of his exclusion from the inner circle of Bass came within two weeks of his appointment, when the mayor neglected to inform him of his decision To reopen the palisades to the public. When he was reached by a journalist, Soboroff was not aware of the reopening plans, then expressed his disapproval – a very unusual decision for a appointed by the mayor. Bass canceled its decision the next day, among the criticisms of the member of the City Council Traci Park and others.
“I have known Steve for years and years, and he will not be so far, so he knows that I will stay in touch,” Bass said at a public event in Pacific Palisades in which Soboroff was not invited to participate. Soboroff “threw a large base” in his role, she said.
He said that he did not know why he had been excluded from the planning of the city’s resumption, although it is “possible” that the mayor’s office finds him “too aggressive”. He said he was open to an extension beyond his 90-day contract.
“Nor did I invite pressure on conferences,” said Soboroff. “People say,” Well, why are you not offended? ” Because I was too fascinated.
Soboroff said that he had helped coordinate efforts on the ground with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, called on mental health experts and fixed problems as they have presented themselves, as helping to negotiate the agreement for the temporary relocation of Charter Palisades secondary school in Santa Monica.
On Thursday evening, Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said: “Sometimes Steve sent confused messages to residents, but we are grateful for his services and contributions. The main thing is as follows: Mayor Bass is on the right track to offer the cleaning effort in the event of the fastest disaster in the history of California. ”
Soboroff, who ran without success for the mayor in 2001 and was a fervent supporter of Bass during his elections in 2022, raised his family in the Palisades. He helped bring Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center) to downtown Los Angeles and piloted the Development of Playa Vista. He also sat on the police committee and other city commissions.
Soboroff said he was now wondering if the mayor wanted someone from his demographic group – a older white developer with long -standing relationships in Los Angeles, providing political coverage in the Palisades, a rich and majority white neighborhood that strongly favored His opponent, the billionaire developer Rick Caruso, in the 2022 elections.
After the tumult on his salary, Soboroff evacuated his frustrations during a private event at Tony Harvard-Westlake school, saying that he was lied. Soboroff fell off the comments after an audio recording of his appearance reached the press.
Soboroff said that the mayor had sent him a link to the history of Times on his Harvard-Westlake remarks with the word “Wow” and an increased emoji. He then apologized to her, he said.
In his interview on Tuesday with The Times, Soboroff ceased to criticize Bass directly and praised his team.
But he expressed doubts about Hagerty Consulting, the company based in Illinois Bass tapped in early February To be the main entrepreneur to recover the city’s fires, helping to restore infrastructure and attenuation of the environment up to $ 10 million during a year, according to his contract with the City. He thinks that the city should have hired the World Engineering Company Aecom instead.
In the story of Soboroff, Hagety representatives were questioned about the scope of their work by several people at a meeting of the stakeholders in the community and did not offer a clear response.
“I said to them:” You know, you have been asked twice by two different people what you do, and you have not given an answer. I think your contract is for millions of dollars a month. But you did not give an answer. So, I just recommend that you communicate a little better, “said Soboroff.
Two participants who were not allowed to speak publicly confirmed Soboroff’s story on the meeting.
When asked if it was a problem that he, as a chief of the recovery, did not know what the main consultant of the city was doing on recovery efforts, Soboroff said: “F – A.”
When he was asked to clarify what he meant by the explanative and if he used it to underline a problem, Soboroff said: “Do you laugh at me?” Of course.”
The representatives of Hagerty did not respond when they were asked what had happened at the meeting and the work of the company on the resumption of fires.
Soboroff said on Tuesday that he thought the step The fact that Een gave to the city at the end of January was “one of the best presentations ever made to the world about anything”, while Hagety’s height was among “the worst presentations ever made in world history”.
He leaves his post with criticism mixed in a community where he has deep roots.
Joseph Edmiston, who heads the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and lost his house in the fire in the Palisades, congratulated the work of Soboroff and said that he had skillfully gathered people.
“Steve, like all of us, when you put a microphone in front of his face, he can sometimes expatier. But I think that you need someone who has his approach, that is to say that we are going to do the work,” said Edmiston. He described how Soboroff has negotiated an agreement for the body of army engineers to use conservation land as the debris locking site.
But others had less respect for the performance of Soboroff.
“If Steve ended up feeling as if he were excluded, it was probably because he has undersized,” said Maryam Zar, president emeritus of the Pacific Palisades Community Council and responsible for the Coalition of Palirecovery.
Zar said Soboroff had often not offered the type of responses that community members were waiting for and seemed to lack official information from the city.
Soboroff, whose last day is Friday, expressed his frustration that city officials told him several times that things were “under control”, without tackling the details with him.
He expressed his concern concerning the thousands of gas and electricity meters which the city will need as the houses will be rebuilt. If the counters have not yet been ordered, there could be serious delays, he said. He thinks that the city should outsource permits and inspections in the Pacific palisades so that the process moves more quickly.
Soboroff also said that the technological company Palant has designed a single -counter information application for the resumption of palisades which is “three -quarters built” and that the company agreed to manage it for free for five years, which saves around $ 5 million a year. But the city is “sitting on the paperwork” and has not yet advanced, said Soboroff.
The Bass office did not answer when asked about Soboroff’s concerns.
Bass said Thursday at the Palisades event that the city was appointing a new chief recovery director.
Soboroff was surprised that the city officials did not consult him about his successor. But he said he had heard of research as soon as the Korn Ferry head hunting started to make calls several weeks ago.
“First of all, they didn’t tell me. Ok, they don’t have to do it. Secondly, I knew 12 seconds after making their first call,” recalls Soboroff. “It’s my city. Don’t you think people will call me? “
Times Dakota Smith staff, Sandhya Kambhampati and Roger Vincent contributed to this report.
California Daily Newspapers
