One month after the devastating fire of Palisades, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, announced that she had selected a private consulting company to help the restoration of infrastructure and environmental attenuation.
HAGERTY CONSULTING, based in Illinois, will do “complete project management, to coordinate all the various private and public entities,” said the mayor on Friday. The work to reconstruct public infrastructure will also be the responsibility of the company, said Bass.
Bass, during a Pacific Palisades tour with Steve Soboroff, his recovery tsar, almost two weeks ago, said She intended to hire an external consultant to represent the interests of the city in the process of recovery of forest fires. She said that a decision would be made by the end of this week.
We do not yet know how paid the company. He will fall under Jim Featherstone, whom Bass has appointed to supervise the City Emergency Operations Center recovery group, she said.
“We have selected Hagerty, a recovery company after global disaster disaster, to provide expertise and operational support to facilitate our full recovery effort,” said Bass during a press conference during which she provided Updates on the restoration of fires and the city’s progress during the month which followed the first time that the fire of the palisades caused a generalized devastation on the coastal enclave and the surrounding areas, destroying more than 6 800 structures. At least 12 people were killed.
Hagerty Consulting, located in the suburbs of Chicago d’Evanston, is an emergency management consulting company specializing in the preparation, response and recovery of disasters. On its website, the company has a blog “Disaster Discourse” where it discusses the latest forest fires, hurricanes and other emergencies.
Bass also said that the City was still in discussion with the World Engineering Company Aecom about a separate contract, possibly to help recover costs and ensure that the City receives the federal funds that it is of.
Last week, Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said that the city was finalizing contracts with several companies.
In the days following the Bass tour of the Palisades with Soboroff, his search for a recovery entrepreneur was mainly wrapped in secrets. The mayor, as well as four members of the Council and other managers of the city, heard presentations of three companies at a meeting on camera last week.
Hagerty, Aecom and the recovery and response company in the event of a IEM disaster made brief zoom presentations during the meeting.
“They had a small pitch session. They spoke to us a little of themselves, but no decision was made, “said Bob Bublumenfield.
Since Bass has declared the state of emergency in response to forest fires, it has the power to grant the contract unilaterally, without competitive auctions or voting from the municipal council, said Blumenfield. However, funding for collection contracts will require a vote from the Council.
The members of the TRACI Park and Katy Yaroslavsky council and the chairman of the Marquece Harris-Dawson council were among the people present at the meeting, like Soboroff, the administrative manager of the city Matt Szabo and the chief legislative analyst Sharon TSO .
Soboroff, a property developer and civic chief, was appointed in his post by Bass last month. On Friday, he refused to say how much he will be paid in this role, affirming only that he did not take public dollars and that his remuneration would be covered by an anonymous philanthropic organization.
Soboroff said that he did not know who is the organization or where his money comes from.
Bass said Hagerty has also done work for the County of Los Angeles. And it has left the possibility that more private companies are hired in the coming days.
Aecom, on its website, said that it has responded to more than 400 disasters worldwide and has more than 200 “disaster resilience professionals” in its staff. The company has been working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for over 40 years, according to the site.
“We repair and restore the impacted communities by helping to accelerate a return to normal daily life,” said the company on the website. “We are generally on the ground by performing these missions within 24 hours of an event and continue to support the process of recovery and reconstruction for months, even years, after.”
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