Steve Soboroff bows out as L.A. fire recovery czar, with some parting shots
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In his last week as L.A.’s fire recovery czar, Steve Soboroff said he was shut out of high-level planning almost from the start, raising questions about why Mayor Karen Bass chose him and whether rebuilding from the Palisades fire is on track.
The idiosyncratic longtime civic leader, who has a penchant for speaking his mind and little patience for stuffed-shirt protocol, was hired for a three-month term at a salary of $500,000, to be funded by nonprofits. But Soboroff agreed to work for free after searing rebukes from Pacific Palisades residents and others.
Soboroff — whose position was announced with fanfare in mid-January — was initially tasked with creating a comprehensive strategy for rebuilding, but his role was soon dramatically scaled back.
“They haven’t asked me to do anything in a month and a half, nothing, zero,” Soboroff said Tuesday in a free-wheeling, 90-minute exit interview with The Times.
But, he insisted, he has still worked long hours helping the Palisades rebuild from a fire that killed 12 people and destroyed nearly 7,000 homes and other structures. He has functioned as a fixer of sorts, drawing on his long history as a developer and his bulging Rolodex to connect people, while remaining a frequent presence in the community.
A sign of his exclusion from Bass’ inner circle came within two weeks of his appointment, when the mayor neglected to inform him of her decision to reopen the Palisades to the public. When reached by a reporter, Soboroff was unaware of the reopening plans, then candidly expressed his disapproval — a highly unusual move for a mayoral appointee. Bass reversed her decision the next day, amid criticism from City Councilmember Traci Park and others.
“I have known Steve for years and years, and he’s not going to be that far away, so he knows I will stay in contact,” Bass said Thursday at a public event in Pacific Palisades that Soboroff was not invited to take part in. Soboroff “laid a great foundation” in his role, she said.
He said he doesn’t know why he was shut out of city recovery planning, though it was “possible” that the mayor’s office found him “too aggressive.” He said he was open to an extension beyond his 90-day contract.
“I wasn’t invited to press conferences either,” Soboroff said. “People say, ‘Well, why aren’t you offended?’ Because I was too f— busy. I had to do all that, and I don’t care who took credit for it, but I had to do it, because it wouldn’t have gotten done.”
Soboroff said he helped coordinate on-the-ground efforts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, brought in mental health experts and fixed problems as they arose, such as helping to broker the deal for Palisades Charter High School’s temporary relocation to the former Sears building in Santa Monica.
On Thursday evening, Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said: “At times Steve sent confusing messages to residents but we are grateful for his service and contributions. The bottom line is this: Mayor Bass is on track to deliver the fastest disaster cleanup effort in California history.”
With mayoral appointees, consulting firms, nonprofit groups and council members all in the mix, it’s difficult to discern who will be in charge of what.
Soboroff, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2001 and was a strong supporter of Bass during her 2022 election, 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 served on the Police Commission and other city commissions.
Soboroff said he now wonders whether the mayor wanted someone of his demographic — an older, white developer with longtime relationships in affluent Los Angeles — to provide political cover in the Palisades, a wealthy, majority white neighborhood that heavily favored her opponent, billionaire developer Rick Caruso, in the 2022 election.
After the uproar over his salary, Soboroff vented his frustrations at a private event at the tony Harvard-Westlake School, saying he was lied to. Soboroff walked back the comments after an audio recording of his appearance reached the press.
Steve Soboroff’s salary would have been funded by charitable organizations. He had defended the arrangement, saying his expertise made him worth the $500,000.
Soboroff said the mayor sent him a link to The Times’ story about his Harvard-Westlake remarks with the word “wow” and a shrug emoji. He then profusely apologized to her, he said.
In his Tuesday interview with The Times, Soboroff stopped short of directly criticizing Bass and offered praise for her team.
But he expressed doubts about Hagerty Consulting, the Illinois-based firm Bass tapped in early February to be the city’s main fire recovery contractor, assisting with infrastructure restoration and environmental mitigation for up to $10 million over the course of a year, according to its contract with the city. He believes that the city should have hired global engineering firm AECOM instead.
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.
Two attendees who were not authorized to speak publicly confirmed Soboroff’s account of the meeting.
When asked whether it was a problem that he, as the chief recovery officer, didn’t know what the city’s primary consultant on recovery efforts was doing, Soboroff said, “F— A.”
When asked to clarify what he meant by the expletive and whether he was using it to highlight a problem, Soboroff said, “Are you kidding me? Of course.”
Hagerty representatives did not respond when asked about what happened at the meeting and the company’s work on the fire recovery.
Soboroff said Tuesday that he thought the pitch that AECOM gave the city in late January was “one of the best presentations ever done in the world about anything,” whereas Hagerty’s pitch was among “the worst presentations ever done in the history of the world.”
He leaves his post with mixed reviews in a community where he has deep roots.
Joseph Edmiston, who runs the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and lost his home in the Palisades fire, praised Soboroff’s work and said he deftly brought people together.
“Steve, like all of us, when you put a microphone in front of his face, he can sometimes expatiate. But I think it takes somebody who has his approach, which is, we’re going to get the job done,” Edmiston said. He described how Soboroff brokered a deal for the Army Corps of Engineers to use Conservancy land as a debris-sorting site.
But others had less regard for Soboroff’s performance.
“If Steve ended up feeling as though he was shut out, it was probably because he under-delivered,” said Maryam Zar, the chair emeritus of the Pacific Palisades Community Council and convener of the PaliRecovery Coalition.
Zar said Soboroff often failed to offer the kind of responses community members expected and seemed to lack official information from the city.
Soboroff, whose last day is Friday, expressed frustration that city officials repeatedly told him that things were “under control,” without addressing the specifics with him.
He expressed concern about the thousands of gas and electric meters the city will need as homes are rebuilt. If the meters have not been ordered yet, there could be serious delays, he said. He believes the city should outsource permits and inspections in Pacific Palisades so the process will move faster.
Soboroff also said that the technology firm Palantir has designed a one-stop informational app for Palisades recovery that is “three-quarters built” and that the company has agreed to run it for free for five years, saving about $5 million a year. But the city is “sitting on the paperwork” and has yet to move forward, Soboroff said.
Bass’ office did not respond when asked about Soboroff’s concerns.
Bass said at the Palisades event on Thursday that the city is in the process of appointing a new chief recovery officer.
Soboroff was surprised that city officials didn’t consult him about his successor. But he said he heard about the search as soon as headhunting firm Korn Ferry started making calls several weeks ago.
“First of all, they didn’t tell me about it. OK, they don’t have to. Second of all, I knew about it 12 seconds after they made their first call,” Soboroff recalled. “This is my town. You don’t think people are going to call me?”
Times staff writers Dakota Smith, Sandhya Kambhampati and Roger Vincent contributed to this report.
