There’s no need to scout Palisades’ football team this fall. Everyone knows the passing duo of quarterback Jack Thomas and receiver Demare Dezeurn is going to be electric.
Dezeurn, who ran a 10.32 100 meters as a sophomore last season at Bishop Alemany, made his Palisades debut in a scrimmage Thursday. Several times he was used as a decoy, opening the door for receiver Harrison Carter to show his stuff.
Palisades kept Dezeurn under wraps. “We’re not showing anything today,” Thomas said.
Palisades opens against Washington Prep on Thursday. The team still doesn’t have a campus field because of repairs being made after the Palisades fire. Santa Monica College will be the site for several home games.
Receiver Demare Dezeurn of Palisdes.
(Steve Galluzzo)
Thomas is already predicting the Dolphins will play Birmingham to decide the City Section Open Division championship. Dezeurn still needs to be cleared by the City Section to play next week.
Chaminade faced Santa Margarita in a scrimmage on Thursday, and Eagles coach David Machuca said he was very happy with the play of his team’s offensive line considering that Santa Margarita’s strength could be its defensive line.
Chaminade faces Oaks Christian in an opener next week, with Santa Margarita playing Mission Viejo.
The Sierra Canyon-Corona Centennial scrimmage matched two top 10 teams and exposed issues both teams will need to improve on.
Sierra Canyon still has a competition going at quarterback, and that’s the position likely to decide how far the Trailblazers might advance in the Division 1 playoffs. Their defensive line is one of the best in the Southland. Centennial had trouble running the ball, something that needs to improve since the Huskies have a three-game stretch against Servite, Santa Margarita and Mater Dei in nonleague games.
Birmingham’s powerful soccer program has supplied three kickers to the football program, giving coach Jim Rose options with special teams. Kicking field goals will definitely be an option.
Making adjustments for multi-sport athletes, such as letting them leave early for a club practice, is something coaches must do if they want to attract the best athletes in school.
St. Francis quarterback Shawn Sanders suffered a broken collarbone in a scrimmage on Thursday and will be sidelined for a month or longer.
The move follows an executive order issued Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that allows exemptions for the Palisades and other areas devastated by January’s Palisades and Eaton fires from Senate Bill 9. The landmark 2021 law, passed in response to the state’s housing shortage, lets property owners divide single-family-home lots and build up to four units.
In recent days, Palisades residents have raised alarms about SB 9, worrying that their historically single-family-home community would be transformed by the additional density allowed under the law and become more dangerous in the event of future fires. On Jan. 7, the chaotic evacuation amid the flames led residents to abandon their cars on Sunset Boulevard and escape on foot, forcing bulldozers to clear the road so that emergency responders could enter the area.
No outcry has erupted over the addition of accessory dwelling units in the Palisades, even though they could bring similar increases in building, and have been far more common in permit applications.
Some 4,700 single-family homes were destroyed or severelydamaged in the Palisades fire, the majority of which were in the city of Los Angeles.
Newsom’s order applies to the Palisades and parts of Malibu and Altadena — areas that burned and that are designated as “very high fire hazard severity zones” by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It mandates a weeklong pause on SB 9 projects to allow the city and county of Los Angeles and Malibu to develop restrictions.
In response, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who alongside City Councilmember Traci Park had urged Newsom to act this week, issued an executive order blocking future SB 9 development in the Palisades.
“I thank Governor Newsom for working with my office to provide some sense of solace for a community working to rebuild,” Bass said in a statement accompanying the order.
But residents retain deep scars from January’s tumultuous evacuation and fear that such a situation would be even worse with a larger population, said Larry Vein, founder of wildfire recovery group Pali Strong. They also want the area to return to the predominately single-family-home neighborhood it was, he said.
“The community does not want higher density,” Vein said.
Officials’ push to restrict SB 9 construction stands in stark contrast to their efforts to allow more building on single-family-home lots through different means.
Newsom and Bass each issued earlier executive orders to streamline permitting reviews for accessory dwelling units on single-family-home properties in burn zones.
There are some practical distinctions between the two ways of adding homes. Generally, ADU law permits up to three units on a lot. SB 9 can allow four or potentially more if combined with ADU law. SB 9 units often can be larger than ADUs as well.
Yet the possibility of increased ADU construction has not attracted the same opposition in the community; instead, data indicate that it’s been popular.
The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety does not specifically track permit requests for ADUs or SB 9 projects among home rebuilds, and could not immediately verify their numbers. However, department rebuilding data analyzed by The Times includes a description of each proposed development that is supposed to note if an additional unit is planned.
As of July 28, 500 homeowners had submitted permitting applications to rebuild in the Palisades, The Times’ analysis of department data found. Of those, 73 — nearly 15% — included at least one ADU, according to project descriptions. Per the descriptions, three intend to use SB 9, but that number is an undercount, said Devin Myrick, the department’s assistant deputy superintendent of building. Myrick said the department was still analyzing its data to come up with the actual number of SB 9 projects.
Property owners have cited ADU construction as a way to return to the Palisades more quickly, with some planning to build an ADU before tackling their primary home. For others, the opportunity for building any additional unit, under ADU law or SB 9, provides a financial benefit that could be used to cover gaps in the cost to rebuild.
Vein said Palisades residents are friendlier to ADUs because their construction may not necessarily lead to a larger population. Many people, he said, would use an ADU to work from home, as a guesthouse or allow members of multigenerational families to have their own space. By contrast, he said, SB 9 duplexes inevitably will add people.
“You’ve just doubled the density,” he said.
Some pro-development organizations are blasting the SB 9 restrictions. Matthew Lewis, a spokesperson for California YIMBY, which advocates for greater home building across the state, said that residents’ evacuation concerns are legitimate but that officials should focus on resolving that issue rather than limiting duplexes.
Lewis said the proliferation of ADUs in the area’s rebuild shows that it’s not actually the potential for increased building that’s motivating the opposition. Instead, he said community groups and L.A. politicians are using that argument to thwart a law they’ve long disliked because it expressly calls for changes to single-family-home neighborhoods.
“What we’re talking about is a powerful constituency making enough noise to cause a suspension of laws that were duly passed by the state Legislature,” Lewis said. “That’s very concerning.”
Bass believes her backing of ADUs and opposition to SB 9 in the Palisades do not conflict, mayoral spokesperson Zachary Seidl said. SB 9 was not anticipated to be used after a major wildfire, he said, while streamlining ADU permitting assists property owners with reconstruction.
“The mayor with both of these positions is supporting community members in the Palisades rebuild,” Seidl said.
Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this report.
This week, reality TV show star Spencer Pratt posted multiple videos on social media savaging a proposed state bill on wildfire rebuilding. In one, Pratt told his 2 million TikTok followers that he consulted an artificial intelligence engine about Senate Bill 549. He said it told him the legislation would allow L.A. County to buy burned-out lots in Pacific Palisades and convert them to low-income housing, strip away local zoning decisions and push dense reconstruction. He urged people to oppose it.
“I don’t even think this is political,” Pratt said. “This is a common sense post.”
None of what Pratt said is in the bill. But over the last week, such misinformation-fueled furor has overwhelmed the conversation in Los Angeles, at the state Capitol and on social media about wildfire recovery. Posts have preyed on fears of neighborhood change, mistrust of government authorities and prejudice against low-income housing to assert, among other things, that the wildfires were set intentionally to raze the Palisades and replace the community with affordable housing.
The chatter has unmoored debate over a major rebuilding proposal from L.A. County leaders. Under the plan, a new local authority would be able to buy burned lots, rebuild homes and offer them back at discounted rates to the original owners. The idea is to give property owners struggling to rebuild another option to stay in their communities. There are no changes to any rules that require zoning amendments or approvals for individual housing developments.
State Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), the author of SB 549, which creates the local authority, said he understands legitimate policy disagreements over the new powers granted in the bill.
But those discussions have been overshadowed, he said.
“It’s become this total meme among the right-wing blogosphere and, unfortunately, picked up by some lazy-ass journalists that don’t bother to read the bill that say this bill seeks to turn the entire Palisades into low-income housing,” Allen said.
Some of his own friends who lost homes in the Palisades, Allen said, have been texting him asking why he’s trying to force low-income housing into the neighborhood.
“People are saying I want to put a train line in there,” Allen said. “It’s insane.”
The frenzy, in part, is due to an issue of timing. Last month, a 20-member expert commission impaneled by L.A. County proposed the local authority as a key recommendation for rebuilding after January’s Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed 18,000 homes and other properties.
Commission leaders then approached Allen about writing a bill that would allow for its implementation. Allen wanted to do it, but deadlines for introducing new legislation had long passed.
Instead, Allen took SB 549, which had nothing to do with wildfire rebuilding but was still alive in the Legislature, and added the rebuilding authority language to it. This is a common legislative procedure used when putting forward ideas late in the year.
Allen decided as well to keep the original language in the bill, which called for significant spending on low-income housing in an unrelated financing program. Multiple news articles conflated the two portions of the bill, which added to the alarm.
The version of SB 549 with the wildfire rebuilding authority in it had its first hearing in a legislative committee on Wednesday. Allen spent much of the hearing acknowledging the confusion around it.
State housing officials carved out $101 million from long-planned funding allocations for low-income housing and dedicated it to building new developments in Los Angeles.
The money will be used to subsidize low-income apartment buildings throughout the county with priority given to projects proposed in and around burn zones, that are willing to reserve a portion to fire survivors and are close to breaking ground.
“Thousands of families — from Pacific Palisades to Altadena to Malibu — are still displaced and we owe it to them to help,” Newsom said when unveiling the spending.
Like the proposed rebuilding authority, the funding does not change any zoning or other land-use rules. Any developer who receives the dollars would need separate governmental approval to begin construction.
Nevertheless, social media posters took the new money and the proposed new authority and saw a conspiracy.
Newsom called the situation another example of “opportunists exploit[ing] this tragedy to stoke fear — and pit communities against each other.”
“Let’s be clear: The state is not taking away anyone’s property, instituting some sort of mass rezoning or destroying the quality and character of destroyed neighborhoods. Period,” Newsom said in a statement to The Times. “Anyone claiming otherwise is either misinformed or deliberately lying. That’s not just wrong — it’s disgraceful.”
Not all of the debate about the rebuilding authority is based on false information.
Allen and local leaders acknowledged the need for more consensus over its role, especially given the sensitivities around recovery. Still unresolved were the authority’s governing structure, and whether it would encompass the Palisades or be limited to Altadena and other unincorporated areas.
Pratt lost his Palisades home in the fire and has sued the city, alleging it failed to maintain an adequate water supply and other infrastructure. In social media videos this week, Pratt said he and other residents didn’t trust the county with increased power over rebuilding when he believed leaders failed to protect the neighborhood in the first place.
“We’re a fire-stricken community, not a policy sandbox,” Pratt said. “We do not support the county becoming a dominant landowner in the Palisades.”
Representatives for Pratt could not be reached for comment.
By the end of Wednesday, Allen conceded defeat on SB 549. There were many legitimate hurdles to the bill passing before the Legislature adjourns in mid-September, he said. Notably, a representative for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told the legislative committee that she was opposed to the bill because the city had yet to be convinced of its efficacy.
But the misinformation surrounding the bill made it even harder to envision its success, he said. Allen decided to hold the bill and have it reconsidered when the Legislature convenes again in January.
“If we’re going to do this, I want the time to do it right,” he said.
Six months to the day that flames ravaged Altadena and Pacific Palisades, Mayor Karen Bass was preparing to mark the occasion alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom and other leaders.
But instead of heading north to the Pasadena news conference last week, the mayor’s black SUV made a detour to MacArthur Park, where a cavalcade of federal agents in tactical gear had descended on the heart of immigrant Los Angeles.
In a seafoam blue suit, Bass muscled her way through the crowds and could be heard on a live news feed pushing the agents to leave.
Ultimately, she sent an underling to join Newsom and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla to discuss fire rebuilding and recovery, as she held an impromptu City Hall news conference decrying the immigration raid.
This is the delicate dance Bass has found herself doing in recent weeks. Recovering from one of the costliest natural disasters in American history remains a daily slog, even as a new and urgent crisis demands her attention.
The federal immigration assault on Los Angeles has granted Bass a second chance at leading her city through civic catastrophe. Her political image was badly bruised in the wake of the fires, but she has compensated amid a string of historically good headlines.
Killings have plummeted, with Los Angeles on pace for the lowest homicide total in nearly 60 years. Bass has also made progress on the seemingly intractable homelessness crisis for the second consecutive year, with a nearly 8% decrease in the number of people sleeping on city streets in 2024.
A “Karen Bass Resign Now” sign on Alma Real Drive on July 9 in Pacific Palisades.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
But there is a widening gulf between Pacific Palisades, where the annihilation remains palpable as far as the eye can see, and the rest of the city, where attention has largely flickered to other issues. Amid her successes, the mayor still faces harsh critics in the wealthy coastal enclave.
“The mayor has been very clear that every day that families can’t return home is a day too long, and she will continue taking action to expedite every aspect of the recovery effort to get them home,” Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said.
Bass was on a diplomatic trip to Ghana, despite warnings of severe winds, when the conflagration erupted in early January. She floundered upon her return, fumbling questions about her trip, facing public criticism from her fire chief (whom she later ousted) and appearing out of sync with other leaders and her own chief recovery officer.
Those initial days cast a long shadow for the city’s 43rd mayor, but Bass has regained some of her footing in the months since. She has made herself a fixture in the Palisades, even when the community has not always welcomed her with open arms, and has attempted to expedite recovery by pulling the levers of government. Her office also led regular community briefings with detailed Q&A sessions.
Bass issued a swath of executive orders to aid recovery, creating a one-stop rebuilding center, providing tax relief for businesses affected by the fires and expediting permitting. The one-stop center has served more than 3,500 individuals, according to the mayor’s office.
Felipe Ortega raises the California flag at Gladstones Malibu on July 2 in Malibu. After sustaining damage from the fire, Gladstones reopened for business earlier this month.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
A number of restaurants and other amenities have also reopened in the neighborhood. The Starbucks on Palisades Drive is set to return later this month.
Bass frequently touts the Palisades fire recovery as the fastest in modern California history, though recent natural disasters don’t offer an apples-to-apples comparison.
Sue Pascoe, a Palisades resident who lost her home in the Via Bluffs neighborhood and helms a hyperlocal website called Circling the News, said the mayor has made some inroads.
“I think she’s tried very hard to repair relationships. She’s come up there a whole lot,” Pascoe said. “But I’m not sure it’s worked, to be honest with you.”
When Bass visits the Palisades, said Maryam Zar, head of the Palisades Recovery Coalition, residents tell her she has not done enough to hasten rebuilding.
“She always seems truly mind-boggled by that” accusation, Zar said. “She looks at us like, ‘Really? What have I not done?’”
The issue, in Pascoe’s view, is more about the limitations of the office than Bass’ leadership. Residents traumatized by the loss of their homes and infuriated by a broken insurance system and cumbersome rebuilding process would like to see the mayor wave a magic wand, slash red tape on construction and direct the full might of local government to reviving the neighborhood.
But Los Angeles has a relatively weak mayoral system, compared with cities such as New York and Chicago.
The mayor is far from powerless, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation and a scholar of local government. But he or she shares authority with other entities, such as the 15-member City Council and the five-member L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
“To move things in L.A., you always need mayoral leadership, combined with the cooperation, collaboration — or hopefully not opposition — of a lot of powerful people in other offices,” Sonenshein said. “And yet, the mayor is still the recognized leader. So it’s a matter of matching up people’s expectation of leadership with how you can put the pieces together to get things done.”
Take the issue of waiving permit fees.
Construction workers rebuild a home on July 9 in Pacific Palisades.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
In February, City Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the fire-ravaged area, introduced a proposal to stop levying fees for permits to rebuild Palisades homes.
Pascoe and others cheered in late April when the mayor signed an executive order supporting Park’s plan.
But as Pascoe moved forward with rebuilding her longtime home, she was confused when her architect gave her a form to sign that said she would pay the city back if the City Council doesn’t move forward on the fee waivers.
As it turned out, Bass’ order did not cancel permit fees outright but suspended their collection, contingent on the council ultimately passing its ordinance, since the mayor can’t legally cancel the fees on her own.
Park’s proposal is still wending its way through the council approval process. Officials estimate that waiving the fees will cost around $86 million — a particularly eye-popping sum, given the city’s budget crisis, that may make approval difficult.
Apart from the limitations of her office, Bass has also confused residents and made her own path harder with a seemingly haphazard approach to delegating authority.
Mayor Karen Bass speaks at a discussion with local leaders and residents to mark 100 days since the start of the L.A. wildfires at Will Rogers State Beach on April 17.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Within a month of the blaze, Bass announced the hiring of Hagerty Consulting as a “world-class disaster recovery firm” that would coordinate “private and public entities.” To many residents, Bass had appeared to give the firm the gargantuan task of restoring the Palisades.
In reality, Hagerty was retained as a consultant to the city’s tiny, underfundedEmergency Management Department, whose general manager, Carol Parks, is designated by city charter as the recovery coordinator. Bass also brought out of retirement another former EMD chief, Jim Featherstone, who has served as de facto recovery chief behind the scenes.
But based on Bass’ public statements, many Angelenos thought the recovery would be led by a familiar face — Steve Soboroff.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and her disaster recovery czar Steve Soboroff, left, talk to media during a news conference at the Palisades Recreation Center on Jan. 27 in Pacific Palisades.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Soboroff, a developer, civic leader and longtime Palisades resident, signed on for a three-month stint as chief recovery officer and was initially tasked with creating a comprehensive strategy for rebuilding. But his role was soon dramatically scaled back. When he left in mid-April, Soboroff said he had been shut out from high-level planning essentially from the start and spoke candidly about his issues with Hagerty.
The city brought in a headhunter before Soboroff left, but the position has now been unfilled for longer than Soboroff’s 90-day tenure. (Seidl said Wednesday that the city is “in the process of interviewing and thoroughly vetting qualified candidates,” though he did not set a timeline.)
In June, Bass shifted course again by tapping AECOM, the global engineering firm, to develop a master recovery plan, including logistics and public-private partnerships.
Yet Bass’ office has said little to clarify how AECOM will work with Hagerty, and at a public meeting last month, leaders of the Emergency Management Department said that they, too, were in the dark about AECOM’s scope of work.
“We don’t know a whole lot about AECOM other than their reputation as a company,” Featherstone said at the City Council’s ad hoc recovery committee.
Seidl said Wednesday that AECOM would be working in “deep coordination” with Featherstone’s department while managing the overall rebuilding process. The firm is responsible for developing an infrastructure reconstruction plan, a logistics planning in coordination with local builders and suppliers and a master traffic plan as rebuilding activity increases, he said.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, left, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and California Gov. Gavin Newsom tour the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades fire continues to burn on Jan. 8 in Los Angeles.
(Eric Thayer / Getty Images)
Hagerty, meanwhile, continues to work with EMD and has charged the city nearly $2 million thus far, Seidl said, most of which is reimbursable by the federal government.
Zar, head of the Palisades Recovery Coalition, said she was told to expect a meeting with AECOM more than a month ago, but that meeting has been delayed “week after week after week, for four or five weeks.”
“That organized recovery structure isn’t there, and that void is really creating space for Palisadians to be fearful, fight against each other, and be divided,” said Zar. “That our leaders and lawmakers have yet to come to the table with a plan is unforgivable.”
The work awarded to Hagerty, AECOM and another firm, IEM, which is assisting in federal reimbursements, prompted City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez to remark in June, “For a broke city, we find a lot of money to give out a lot of contracts.”
Bass’ 2022 mayoral opponent Rick Caruso has been a frequent — and very public — antagonist since the fires, questioning delays and taking other shots at the mayor.
Caruso’s Steadfast L.A., the nonprofit he launched to support fire victims, pushed for an artificial intelligence tool that could swiftly flag code violations in construction plans and trim permit processing times.
Steadfast representatives got buy-in from L.A. County. When they presented the tool to Bass’ team, they said they encountered general support but a plodding pace. Frustrated, Caruso reached out to Newsom, who, according to Caruso, quickly championed the technology, pushing the city to embrace it.
Bass’ spokesperson disputed the suggestion of delays, saying the mayor’s team has discussed technological innovations with Newsom’s office since February.
This week, L.A. County rolled out a pilot program in which fire survivors can use the AI plan-check tool. The city launched beta testing of the tool Wednesday.
The episode exemplified to Caruso why the recovery has moved slowly.
“There’s no decision-making process to get things done with a sense of urgency,” he said.
More than 800 homeowners in Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other areas affected by January’s wildfires have applied for rebuilding permits, according to a Times analysis of local government permitting data.
Of those, at least 145 have received approval to start construction on major repairs or replacement of their homes in the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu and Pasadena and in Altadena and other unincorporated areas of L.A. County, the analysis found.
At events this week commemorating the fires’ six-month mark, state and local leaders have celebrated the pace of cleanup efforts, touting their completion months ahead of schedule. Nearly 13,000 households were displaced by the Palisades and Eaton fires, which ripped through the communities Jan. 7 and 8.
“Now we turn the page to rebuilding, and we’re doing it with a clear plan, strong partnerships and the urgency this moment demands,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
Weekly data analyzed by The Times show an increasing pace of permit applications submitted to local authorities. Homeowners, architects and contractors working on approved projects praised the process as speedy and efficient. But some residents said that despite official promises of removing barriers and rapid turnarounds, they’ve been mired in delays.
At many sites, construction is already underway. Five years ago, while pregnant with her second child, Alexis Le Guier and her husband, Andrew, moved into a newly constructed five-bedroom home in the Palisades’ Alphabet Streets area. A lifelong Angeleno, Le Guier wanted to take advantage of the neighborhood‘s schools and walkability, as well as live closer to her parents in Brentwood. The day after the fire, they started making calls to rebuild their home.
“The thought of moving was unfathomable,” said Le Guier, 41. “Of course I’m coming back. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”
The Le Guiers, who were underinsured, benefited from having recent architectural plans, which saved them significant time and money. They made minor changes before submitting them to the city and received their permit 40 days later in early June. Their foundation was poured last week and lumber was delivered to the site soon after.
“The thought of moving was unfathomable,” said Alexis Le Guier, 41. “Of course I’m coming back. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Many of the homeowners who have secured permits similarly had recent plans to work from or other advantages, such as quick insurance payouts, according to several architects and contractors. State and local officials have attempted to streamline the permitting process, especially for those who want to build homes comparable to the ones destroyed, by waiving some development rules and fees and opening “one-stop” centers that centralize planning and building reviews.
Jason Somers, president of Crest Real Estate, a development firm, said the efforts have helped city plan checkers respond to applications with urgency.
“They are getting us permits quicker than we’ve ever seen before,” Somers said.
Somers’ firm is working on nearly 100 fire rebuilding projects, primarily in Pacific Palisades. Most of its clients, Somers said, aren’t ready to submit plans because they’re designing custom homes different from what they had previously. Somers said the city’s response so far encouraged him, but the test would come as the volume of applications increased.
“We shall see what the workflow looks like when we see 1,000 projects,” he said.
As of July 6, 389 homeowners had submitted applications to rebuild in the Palisades, roughly 8% of the 4,700 residential properties destroyed or majorly damaged by the fire, according to The Times’ analysis.
Property owners often need multiple permits. In addition to one for the main structure, the process might involve permits for demolition, electrical infrastructure, swimming pools, if included, and more. The Times’ analysis counts one application for each address no matter how many supplemental permits may be required. Additionally, the L.A. County data are limited to submissions that already have cleared an initial review by county planners.
Generally, applications at both the city and county level have been rising every week. The week of June 22 had the largest number for both the city and county with 36 and 34 submissions, respectively.
The city has approved nearly a quarter of those it’s received. L.A. County has issued permits for 15% of its 352 applications as of July 6, covering Altadena and unincorporated areas affected by the Palisades fire. In Pasadena, 20 property owners have submitted with two approved. For Malibu, 77 homeowners have submitted applications with none approved.
On average, it’s taken 55 days for the city of L.A. to issue a permit, including time it’s waited for applicants to respond to corrections, The Times’ analysis shows. The county process is slower. Once an application has been cleared by county planners, it’s been another 60 days on average for a building permit to be issued, according to the analysis.
Roberto Covarrubias, who has lived with his family in Altadena for a decade, said county officials haven’t delivered on their promises to make the process as fast as possible. His home was built in 2009 and he went to various offices seeking the original architectural plans — his paper copies burned in the fire — only to be told they didn’t exist. Weeks later, after Covarrubias hired a new architect, the county said it had located electronic plans for his old house.
Covarrubias wants to add a cellar to his new home to house the water heater and other machinery. County officials told him doing so would require additional soil testing, which he estimated would take a month and cost another $7,000. After three weeks of back-and-forth with his architect, Covarrubias said the county relented.
Any delay matters, he said. He wants to get ahead of the rush for workers and materials. And his insurance company will not release his payout until his rebuild permits are approved.
“It’s like a waterfall effect,” said Covarrubias, 50, an IT engineer.
His project remains in the permitting pipeline.
City and county officials have had to work through growing pains as they’ve attempted to implement the flurry of executive orders and programs designed to speed rebuilding.
Property owners had waited weeks in the spring, for instance, for guidelines on accessory dwelling unit construction. Last month, after sustained pressure from homeowners, the county agreed to waive permitting fees and refund those who already have paid. (The city waived its fees in April.) Both the city and the county continue testing ballyhooed artificial intelligence software to offer instant corrections to initial permit applications, with activation scheduled for this month.
The city has no immediate plans to hire additional staff or contractors to review permits because its staff is meeting its benchmarks for reviews, according to Gail Gaddi, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.
“However, we will continue to assess the needs of the department and will consider any adjustments as needed,” Gaddi said.
By contrast, County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents areas affected by the Eaton fire, believes the county will need to add to its workforce to meet the demand.
“There needs to be additional staffing whether it’s contractors or permanent staffing,” said Helen Chavez Garcia, a spokesperson for the supervisor.
One of the more promising ways to expedite permitting is through preapproved architectural designs. The idea is that property owners could pick a model home that local governments already have signed off on, meaning the only further review needed was for issues specific to individual sites. The process has been credited for helping rapid recovery in Santa Rosa after the 2017 Tubbs fire.
Here, Somers’ firm is developing a suite of 50 plans called Case Study 2.0, named after the mid-20th century showcase of Southern California architecture. A newly formed San Gabriel Valley nonprofit, the Foothill Catalog Foundation, separately is hoping to design 50 model homes by the end of the year, said Alex Athenson, an architect and co-founder of the initiative. The catalog has had one design, a three-bedroom bungalow called “The Lewis,” approved by L.A. County. Athenson expects to submit nine more by the end of the month.
If a homeowner chooses a preapproved home, Athenson said, the entire permitting process could take two weeks or less.
“It would be incredible if homeowners can have that ease of access to starting construction,” Athenson said.
There once was a time the City Section had the best quarterbacks, the days of John Elway (Granada Hills), Tom Ramsey (Kennedy) and Jay Schroeder (Palisades) all playing against each other.
This fall, the City Section has lots of quality returning quarterbacks, making it possible for them to get some attention at a time the talent level has been dwindling overall.
Let’s start with Diego Montes of Kennedy. He’s 5 feet 11, 160 pounds, an A student and certified baller. All he did as a junior was pass for 2,508 yards and 24 touchdowns and rush for 1,400 yards and 25 touchdowns. He had a 91-yard run.
“I have more stamina,” he said after a spring of running track. “We run tempo offense, so being able to get up on the line right after you bust a 20-yard run or chip away at the defense, you’re in better condition. I’m not scared of putting my shoulder down.”
Liam Pasten of Eagle Rock had 3,602 yards passing as a junior and has his own hair-cutting business, so defenders be nice because he can make you look good in other ways.
Chris Fields of Carson, Jack Thomas of Palisades, Seth Solorio of San Pedro and Elijah McDaniel of Dorsey are the rarest of the rare — they left Southern Section schools to join the City Section, coming from Lawndale, Loyola, St. John Bosco and Warren, respectively. Each has a chance to lift and provide big-time contributions this fall.
One of the top freshmen quarterbacks in Southern California should be Thaddeu Breaux of Hamilton. At least he’s expected to have the opportunity to pass and pass. Coach Elijah Asante is projecting 50 pass attempts a game.
There’s returning quarterbacks at Cleveland, Taft, South Gate, Birmingham and elsewhere, so that’s a good sign the offenses in the City Section should be in good position to roll from the opening games on Aug. 22.
They should remember there’s NFL Hall of Famers from the City Section who once wore jerseys they are wearing. The names of Elway, Bob Waterfield (Van Nuys) and Warren Moon (Hamilton) come to mind.
Official practice begins at the end of next month.
On a recent walk through the charred and twisted remains and scraped-flat plateau of the Pacific Palisades, local historian Randy Young paused a couple of hundred yards into the mouth of Temescal Canyon, above Sunset Boulevard, to let the eerie randomness of the January flames sink in. So much was erased in so little time, leaving the lasting impression, whether from afar or close-up, of a wasteland — a place almost wiped off the map.
But here, in the narrows of the canyon, where Temescal Creek tickled the roots of sycamores and cooled the air beneath the heavy branches of valley oaks, Young lighted up with the enthusiasm of an amateur botanist.
“The oak trees took all of the fire’s embers. They caught them like catcher’s mitts,” said Young, who grew up in adjacent Rustic Canyon and until recently lived in a Palisades apartment near Temescal.
The 1920s Chautauqua Conference Grounds in what became Pacific Palisades included a grocery and meat market.
(Pacific Palisades Historical Society)
Those trees, and the green (and thus less flammable) edges of the creek, helped to save a row of small, wooden cottages and a cluster of wood-shingled, pitched-roof buildings that were the remains of the 77-acre Chautauqua Assembly Camp, once the thriving nucleus of a 1920s effort to shape the Palisades as a spiritual and intellectual lodestar on the California Coast. The Chautauqua movement — founded in 1874 at Lake Chautauqua, N.Y., to better train Sunday-school teachers — swept the country in the late 19th century, blossoming into a network of assemblies drawing rural and working-class Americans hungry for education, culture and social progress. While short-lived, the local camp would form the blueprint for Pacific Palisades to this day.
Young, who has co-written books about the Palisades and its surrounding communities, stepped onto the short boardwalk fronting a modest wooden structure. “This was the grocery store and meat market,” he noted. Rounding the slope at the back, he pointed to an old Adirondack-style dining hall — now called Cheadle Hall but originally Woodland Hall — its simple post-and-beam and wood wainscoting preserved from the early 1920s. He also spoke of what had been lost over the decades: Across the glade had stood a barnlike, three-tiered auditorium. Nearby, he said, had been a log-cabin library. Up and down the canyon were dozens of river-rock cottages and timbered casitas, and 200 canvas tents raised on wooden platforms.
South of Sunset Boulevard (then known as Marquez Road), on a site that now includes Palisades Charter High School, was the Institute Camp, containing an amphitheater carved out of a natural bowl, where thousands of summertime campers would hear the likes of Leo Tolstoy’s son, Illya, speaking on “The True Russia,” or Bakersfield-born Lawrence Tibbett, who would become one of the country’s greatest baritones, perform selections from his Metropolitan Opera repertoire. The Institute Camp also housed the Founders Oak, a tree that marked the site of the community’s 1922 founding ceremony, and lots for independent groups, like the WE Boys and Jesus our Companion (J.O.C.), Methodist-affiliated clubs who made a former Mission Revival home into the Aldersgate Lodge (925 Haverford Ave.) in 1928.
A 1922 Thanksgiving gathering fills rows of the since-destroyed amphitheater set under oaks and sycamores in Temescal Canyon.
(Pacific Palisades Historical Society)
In the sylvan canyon, the Palisades Chautauqua offered a bewildering array of ways to lift oneself up: hiking and calisthenics, elocution and oratory, homemaking and child psychology, music, history, politics, literature and theater. Tinged with piety, these were, in their own words, “high class, jazz-free resort facilities.”
The official dedication of the Palisades Chautauqua on Aug. 6, 1922, would be the last of its kind in the country. It was spearheaded by Rev. Charles Holmes Scott, a Methodist minister and educational reformer who dreamed of creating the “Chautauqua of the West.” The influence of the movement was so central to the Palisades’ identity that in 1926, one of its main thoroughfares — Chautauqua Boulevard — was named in its honor.
Scott, inspired by the Chautauqua tradition’s ideals of self-transformation, envisioned Pacific Palisades as a place where character would matter more than commerce. “Banks and railroads and money is always with us. But the character and integrity of our men and women is something money cannot buy. We will prove the worth of man,” Scott declared. Residents signed 99-year leases to ensure the community’s cooperative nature. The leasehold model was also meant to prevent speculation, fund cultural facilities and events, and uphold moral standards. Alcohol, billboards and architectural extravagance were all prohibited — as was, alas, anyone who wasn’t Protestant or white.
The Palisades Assn., under Scott’s guidance, purchased nearly 2,000 acres of mesa, foothills and coastline. Pasadena landscape architect Clarence Day drew up the first plans, establishing a new axis, Via de la Paz, or Way of Peace, eventually home to Pacific Palisades United Methodist Community Church (1930) and terminating at a neoclassical, Napoleonic-scaled Peace Temple, atop Peace Hill. He laid out two tracts: Founders Tract I, a tight-knit grid of streets (now known as the Alphabet Streets) for modest homes above Sunset Boulevard, and the curving Founders Tract II, closer to the coast with larger lots for more affluent residents.
Soon after, Day was replaced by the renowned Olmsted Brothers, who refined the layout to follow natural contours, planted thousands of trees and designed a stately civic center in which they wanted to include a library, hotel, lake, a park with a concert grove and a far larger, permanent auditorium. Only one major element of that center was realized: Clifton Nourse’s Churrigueresque-style Business Block building at Swarthmore and Sunset, completed in 1924.
Residents gather on Peace Hill on Easter Sunday in 1922.
(Pacific Palisades Historical Society)
By the end of 1923, it seemed as if the Palisades was destined to become a boom town, with 1,725 people making down payments totaling more than $1.5 million on 99-year renewable leases. In early 1924, demand slumped, never to revive. To preserve the dream, in 1926 Scott abandoned the lease-only model and began selling lots. That same year the association borrowed heavily to purchase 226 more ocean-view acres from the estate of railway magnate Collis P. Huntington, installing underground utilities and ornamental street lighting in an area that would become known as the Huntington Palisades. Debt soared from $800,000 in 1925 to $3.5 million by the end of 1926.
As the 1929 stock market crash hit and revenue dried up in the Great Depression, the association collapsed. Its assets were sold off. Grand plans, like the Civic Center and the Peace Temple, were abandoned. The dream withered.
“There wasn’t a moment where they said ‘we’re stopping,’” Young said. “It just sort of petered out.”
Yet fragments endured, stubbornly. In 1943, the Presbyterian Synod purchased the Chautauqua site and operated it as a retreat. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, local activists fought off a plan to extend Reseda Boulevard right through Temescal Canyon (though buildings like the library and assembly hall had already been torn down in anticipation of the roadway). In 1994, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy acquired the land. Today, it survives as the city-run Temescal Gateway Park, its board-and-batten cabins and rustic halls weathered but largely intact.
The Business Block — since January a fire-blackened shell awaiting its undetermined fate — narrowly escaped demolition in the 1980s when a developer proposed replacing it with a concrete and glass mall. A preservationist campaign under the slogan “Don’t Mall the Palisades” saved the structure.
But by then, the character of the Palisades had begun to shift. Faint echoes of the quiet, rustic past remained, but modest bungalows had given way to mansions. The artists, radicals and missionaries were largely gone.
“It’s not Chautauqua anymore — it’s Château Taco Bell,” Young quipped, of much of the area’s soulless new built forms.
Today, thanks to the fire’s brutality, the original Chautauqua sites offer something unusual: a landscape where past and present momentarily coexist. Slate roofs held firm. Ancient oak groves performed better than modern landscaping. For Young, the fires stripped away modern gloss to reveal what continues to matter.
“When you go through a fire,” he said, “you get down to the basics.” He added: “The fires brought us back to 1928.”
Pacific Palisades is one of a long list of failed California utopias. Like Llano del Rio, the socialist settlement in the Antelope Valley, or the Kaweah Colony, a cooperative in the Sierra foothills, it was a high-minded gamble dashed on the shoals of capitalism and human nature. The idealistic outpost lingers, etched into the land, embossed in the Palisades’ deeper memory. The dream may no longer be intact, but its traces are still legible.
Pacific Palisades will reopen to the general public Saturday, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell told The Times Friday afternoon.
The affluent coastal enclave has remained closed to the public since the devastating January wildfires, months after other fire-damaged neighborhoods reopened. Access to the neighborhood was limited to residents and workers with passes. Dozens of LAPD officers have been staffing 16 checkpoints on major streets into the community, according to the mayor’s office.
Those checkpoints will no longer be staffed as of Saturday, but there “will still be a heavy police presence for the foreseeable future there,” McDonnell said.
The decision was made in conjunction with Mayor Karen Bass, with input from members of the community, McDonnell said. Bass did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The city is bracing for widespread demonstrations against the Trump administration on Saturday that will include a heavy law enforcement presence. The need to shift personnel to other parts of the city ahead of the protests was “a factor” in McDonnell’s decision, but he said it was also a necessary evolution months after the fires.
The status of the checkpoints will be reassessed after this weekend, LAPD spokesperson Jennifer Forkish said.
Nearly five months after a firestorm laid waste to a wide swath of Pacific Palisades, Mayor Karen Bass announced Friday that the global infrastructure firm AECOM will help develop a master plan for rebuilding the area, as well as a plan for reconstructing utilities and other infrastructure.
The firm will work alongside both the city and Hagerty Consulting, which Bass tapped as a recovery contractor in early February, according to the mayor’s office.
Hagerty, an Illinois-based disaster recovery firm, has a yearlong contract with the city for up to $10 million but has faced persistent questions about the specifics of its work.
The mayor’s office did not immediately answer when asked Friday whether Hagerty’s role was being scaled back.
In late January, the mayor, along with four council members and other city officials, heard presentations from Hagerty, AECOM and a third firm also seeking to be the city’s disaster recovery contractor.
After Bass selected Hagerty in February, she said the city was still in discussions with AECOM about a separate contract.
“An unprecedented natural disaster requires an unprecedented, all-hands-on-deck response — all levels of government, philanthropy, the private sector and educational institutions coming together to support the community and rebuild as quickly and safely as possible,” Bass said in a written statement Friday. “AECOM’s expertise in long-term infrastructure planning and design will only further expedite our work to get families home.”
The mayor’s office also did not immediately respond when asked whether the city now has a contract with AECOM, or what the specifics of that contract, including the compensation, are.
Steve Soboroff, a longtime local developer and Bass’ former chief recovery officer, publicly criticized Bass’ decision to choose Hagerty over AECOM as the city’s initial disaster recovery contractor. In an interview in mid-April as he was leaving his post, Soboroff raised questions about Hagerty’s role and said he thought AECOM should have been hired instead.
Along with developing a comprehensive rebuilding master plan and supporting the Palisades’ infrastructure reconstruction, AECOM will help coordinate broader public and private rebuilding efforts.
The company will work on a “logistics plan for materials management in coordination with local builders and suppliers” as well as a master traffic plan as more homeowners leap into the rebuilding process, according to a news release.
AECOM is also the “official venue infrastructure partner” for the 2028 Olympic Games, according to a March news release from LA28.
After the Palisades fire ignited, top brass at the Los Angeles Fire Department were quick to say that they were hampered by broken fire engines and a lack of mechanics to fix them.
If the roughly 40 fire engines that were in the shop had been repaired, they said, the battle against what turned out to be one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in Los Angeles history might have unfolded differently.
Then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley cited the disabled engines as a reason fire officials didn’t dispatch more personnel to fire-prone areas as the winds escalated, and why they sent home firefighters who showed up to help as the blaze raged out of control. The department, she said, should have had three times as many mechanics.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, right, and Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley address the media at a press conference onJan. 11.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
But many of the broken engines highlighted by LAFD officials had been out of service for many months or even years — and not necessarily for a lack of mechanics, according to a Times review of engine work orders as of Jan. 3, four days before the fire.
What’s more, the LAFD had dozens of other engines that could have been staffed and deployed in advance of the fire.
Instead, the service records point to a broader problem: the city’s longtime reliance on an aging fleet of engines.
Well over half of the LAFD’s fire engines are due to be replaced. According to an LAFD report presented to the city Fire Commission last month, 127 out of 210 fire engines — 60% — and 29 out of 60 ladder trucks — 48% — are operating beyond their recommended lifespans.
“It just hasn’t been a priority,” said Frank Líma, general secretary treasurer of the International Assn. of Fire Fighters who is also an LAFD captain, adding that frontline rigs are “getting pounded like never before” as the number of 911 calls increases.
That means officials are relying heavily on reserve engines — older vehicles that can be used in emergencies or when regular engines are in the shop. The goal is to use no more than half of those vehicles, but for the last three years, LAFD has used, on average, 80% of the trucks, engines and ambulances in reserve, according to the Fire Commission report.
“That’s indicative of a fleet that’s just getting older,” said Assistant Chief Peter Hsiao, who oversees LAFD’s supply and maintenance division, in an interview with The Times.
“As our fleet gets older, the repairs become more difficult,” Hsiao told the Fire Commission. “We’re now doing things like rebuilding suspensions, rebuilding pump transmissions, rebuilding transmissions, engine overhauls.”
The problem stems from long-term funding challenges, Hsiao said in the interview, with the department receiving varying amounts of money each year that have to be divvied up among competing equipment needs.
“If you extrapolate that over a longer period of time, then you end up in a situation where we are,” he said.
To make matters worse, Hsiao said, the price of new engines and trucks has doubled since the pandemic. Engines that cost $775,000 a few years ago are now pushing $1.5 million — and it takes three years or more to build them, he said.
The number of fire engine manufacturers has also declined.
Recently, the IAFF asked the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate a consolidation in emergency vehicle manufacturers that it said has resulted in skyrocketing costs and “brutal” wait times. In a letter, the IAFF said that at least two dozen companies have been rolled up into just three main manufacturers.
Firefighters battle the Palisades fire on El Medio Avenue on Jan. 7 in Pacific Palisades.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
“These problems have reduced the readiness of fire departments to respond to emergencies, with dire consequences for public safety,” the letter said.
The IAFF is the parent organization of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, the local union representing LAFD firefighters. IAFF has been running the local labor group since suspending its top officers last month over allegations of financial impropriety.
Hsiao said the LAFD’s fleet is well-maintained, and engines don’t often break down.
But the age and condition of the fleet could deteriorate further, even with an infusion of cash to buy new equipment, because the wait times are so long.
Mayor Karen Bass’ office has previously said that she secured $51 million last year to purchase 10 fire engines, five trucks, 20 ambulances and other equipment. The 2025-26 budget passed by the City Council last month includes nearly $68 million for 10 fire engines, four trucks, 10 ambulances and a helicopter, among other equipment, the mayor’s office said.
“The Mayor’s Office is working with new leadership at LAFD to ensure that new vehicles are purchased in a timely manner and put into service,” a spokesperson said in an email.
A majority of the Fire Department’s budget goes toward pay and benefits for its more than 3,700 employees, most of them firefighters.
Members of the Los Angeles Fire Department fill the council chambers to show support for former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, who was at City Hall March 4 to appeal her termination to the Los Angeles City Council after Mayor Karen Bass fired her as head of the Fire Department. Under the city charter, Crowley would need the support of 10 of the 15 council members to be reinstated as chief.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Despite the city’s financial troubles, firefighters secured four years of pay raises last year through negotiations with Bass. And firefighters often make much more than their base pay, with about 30% of the LAFD’s payroll costs going to overtime, according to the city’s payroll database. Firefighters and fire captains each earned an average of $73,500 in overtime last year, on top of an average base salary of about $140,100, the data show.
Líma said that while new engines will be useful, “a one-year little infusion doesn’t help a systemic problem that’s developed over decades.” Asked whether firefighters would defer raises, he said they “shouldn’t fund the Fire Department off the backs of their salaries.”
The National Fire Protection Assn. recommends that fire engines move to reserve status after 15 years and out of the fleet altogether after 25 years.
But many larger cities need to act sooner, “because of the constant wear and tear city equipment takes,” said Marc Bashoor, a former fire chief who now trains firefighters across the country, in an email. “In my opinion, 10 years is OLD for city apparatus.”
Bashoor also noted that incorporating a variety of brands into a fleet, as the LAFD does, can increase repair times.
“When a fire department doesn’t have a standardized fleet, departments typically are unable to stock enough … parts to fit every brand,” he said in an email. “They then have to find the part or use a 3rd party, which can significantly delay repairs.”
Of the roughly 40 engines in the shop before the Palisades fire, three were built in 1999. Hsiao said engines that old are typically used for training and don’t respond to calls.
Those that are too old or damaged from collisions or fires to ever return to city streets sometimes remain in the yard so they can be stripped for parts or used for training. Some are kept as evidence in lawsuits.
According to the service records reviewed by The Times, a work order was opened in 2023 for a 2003 engine burned in a fire, with notes saying “strip for salvage.” A 2006 engine damaged in an accident was waiting for parts, according to notes associated with a work order from last April. Two 2018 engines were damaged in collisions, including one with “heavy damage” to the rear body that had to be towed in, according to notes for an order from last July. Other orders noted oil leaks or problems with head gaskets.
Almost 30 of the engines that were out of service before the fire — 70% on the list — were 15 or more years old, past what the city considers an appropriate lifespan. Only a dozen had work orders that were three months old or less. That included three newer engines — two built in 2019 and one in 2020 — whose service records showed they were waiting for “warranty” repairs.
“The LAFD does not have the funding mechanism to supply enough mechanics and enough money for the parts to repair these engines, the trucks, the ambulances,” Escobar told KTLA-TV.
The issues date back more than a decade. A 2019 report showed that LAFD’s equipment was even more outdated at the time, with 136 of 216 engines, or 63%, due for replacement, as well as 43 of 58 ladder trucks, or 74%. In a report from 2012, LAFD officials said they didn’t have enough mechanics to keep up with the workload.
“Of paramount concern is the Department’s aging and less reliable fleet, a growing backlog of deferred repairs, and increased maintenance expense,” the 2012 report said, adding that mechanics were primarily doing emergency repairs instead of preventative maintenance.
LAFD’s equipment and operations have been under heightened scrutiny since the Palisades fire erupted Jan. 7, destroying thousands of homes and killing 12 people, with many saying that officials were severely unprepared.
A total of 18 firefighters are typically on duty at the two fire stations in the Palisades — Stations 23 and 69 — to respond to emergencies. Only 14 of them are routinely available to fight brush fires, The Times previously reported. The other four are assigned to ambulances at the two stations, although they might help with evacuations or rescues during fires.
The Palisades fire burns along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
LAFD officials did not pre-deploy any engines to the Palisades ahead of the fire, despite warnings about extreme weather, a Times investigation found. In preparing for the winds, the department staffed only five of more than 40 engines available to supplement the regular firefighting force.
Those working engines could have been pre-positioned in the Palisades and elsewhere, as had been done in the past during similar weather.
Less than two months after the fire, Bass dismissed Crowley, citing the chief’s pre-deployment decisions as one of the reasons.
Bass has rejected the idea that there was any connection between reductions at the department and the city’s response to the wildfires.
Meanwhile, the number of mechanics on the job hasn’t changed much in recent years, fluctuating between 64 and 74 since 2020, according to records released by the LAFD in January. As of this year, the agency had 71 mechanics.
According to its report to the Fire Commission, the LAFD doesn’t have enough mechanics to maintain and repair its fleet, based on the average number of hours the department said it takes to maintain a single vehicle.
Last year, the report said, mechanics completed 31,331 of 32,317 work requests, or 97%. So far this year, they have completed 62%, according to the report.
“With a greater number of mechanics, we can reduce the delays. However, a limited facility size, parts availability, and warranty repairs compound the issue,” LAFD said in an unsigned email.
Special correspondent Paul Pringle contributed to this report.
Eaton Canyon and adjacent federal land that burned in the January wildfires in L.A. County will remain closed through 2026 and maybe longer given the extensive damage caused by the Eaton fire and subsequent flooding, county officials said during a recent news conference.
One of the most popular hiking areas in L.A. County, Eaton Canyon previously saw a million visitors per year. Officials said they’ve seen a spate of trespassers in the park since the fire, including one hiker who tried to reach Echo Mountain only to get lost and require rescue. Officials are pleading with the public to stay out of the area and let the land heal.
Karen Mateer, vice president of the Eaton Canyon Nature Center Associates, speaks during a news conference last week in which officials asked the public to stay out of the Eaton fire burn scar to let the land heal.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
“With apologies to James Taylor, we’ve seen fire and we’ve seen rain, and I’ll tell you what, we’ve also seen a fair amount of air in the form of wind coming through the canyon,” said Karen Mateer, vice president of the Eaton Canyon Nature Center Associates. “Those are three of the basic elements of nature, and now we really need to focus on the fourth, the earth.”
Although it will take time for the land most damaged by the L.A. fires to heal, there are some areas of the burn scars that have recently reopened or will reopen soon.
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Here is the latest information on trails in three recent burn zones.
Eaton fire
The Eaton fire killed much of the plant life in Eaton Canyon, leaving the soil unstable. As such, boulders and burned trees can fall at any moment.
Norma Edith García-Gonzalez, director of L.A. County Parks and Recreation, said on one of her first visits to the canyon after the fire, a tree fell five feet in front of her. All hikers should heed the warnings to stay out, she said. Additionally, those who trespass could face substantial fines if caught.
For those wanting to see a waterfall like the gorgeous cascade that plummets down the mountain at Eaton Canyon, I’d recommend checking out the popular Switzer Falls. It was closed immediately following the Eaton fire, and there was some confusion about whether the trail had reopened. At last week’s news conference, Justin Seastrand, forest recreation manager at Angeles National Forest, confirmed it is open! However, the nearby Bear Canyon Trail Camp and the trail leading to it remain closed.
The burned hillsides around Eaton Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
A similar and beautiful trail, Millard Canyon, which also features a waterfall, will likely remain closed through 2026, as its restroom burned in the fire, Seastrand said.
Henninger Flats, a popular hiking destination north of Eaton Canyon, suffered even more serious damage, said Kim Bosell with L.A. County Parks. The old museum, propagation areas and restrooms are gone, and workers will need to remove that debris before the area is safe for hikers to access, Bosell said.
Before the fire, officials had planned to add Henninger Flats to the Eaton Canyon natural area, she said. “Unfortunately the fire took it before we could follow through with those plans, but what the future holds for it, we don’t know right now,” Bosell said.
Bridge fire
Last September, the Bridge fire burned almost 55,000 acres, including 25 trails on federal land.
The popular Bridge to Nowhere hike was near where the fire started and will remain closed for the foreseeable future, Seastrand told me, because the rivers and creeks in the area were seriously damaged during the fire and subsequent flooding. It’ll take tremendous manpower (and money) to bring it back online.
But, the good news is, the U.S. Forest Service revised the Bridge fire closure order last week to reopen two popular routes to Mt. Baldy, the Baldy Bowl Trail (Ski Hut) and Devil’s Backbone Trail. Bear Canyon, sometimes referred to as Old Mt. Baldy Trail, remains closed.
This reopening is more than a little bit exciting, considering the closure of these two trails was probably one of the least popular decisions that Angeles National Forest officials have made in a hot minute.
That said, you might notice these trails and others in the Mt. Baldy area, like Icehouse Canyon, are listed as closed on the forest service’s website when they’re actually open.
That’s, in part, because the U.S. Forest Service recently updated several forest websites and in doing so broke the links for several trails and campgrounds. The update rolled out about the same time that the federal government fired thousands of forest service workers. So, needless to say, it might be a minute before the website reflects reality. In the meantime, check the closure order if you have a question about what’s open. (You’re also welcome to email your local outdoors reporter!)
Palisades fire
In the coming weeks, hikers will be able to return to a handful of popular trails in and around the Palisades burn scar.
I spoke to Richard Fink, district superintendent for the Angeles District of California State Parks, who told me that some parkland and trails are closed not because of fire damage, but because they’re being used by state and federal officials in the recovery effort in the aftermath of the Palisades fire.
That list includes Will Rogers State Park, where Fink told me that the park was severely burned, but the trails are in great shape.
“We could open the trails at Will Rogers tomorrow if the rest of the park would be open,” Fink said. “There are actually a lot of trails that [the fire] really didn’t have any impact [on], and also due to our parks being closed, we’ve been able to perform a lot of the work already.”
An area of Topanga State Park near Eagle Springs Fire Road that did not burn in the recent Palisades fire.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Parts of Topanga State Park were used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for hazardous debris removal, and L.A. County Department of Water and Power is using part of the park to rebuild the power grid in the Palisades. Once those efforts are finished later this year, that region of the park should be able to reopen, officials said.
“The state park priority for parts of Topanga and parts of Will Rogers State Historic Park are first and foremost to help the recovery and then to eventually get them open to the public,” Fink told me.
The southern part of Topanga State Park suffered the worst damage in the Palisades fire and will remain closed for “a while,” in particular the area around the Topanga Ranch Motel, which was “completely destroyed,” Fink said.
There are trails that may take years to recover or may no longer be accessible to the public moving forward, he said.
The Palisades fire burned several acres through Topanga State Park, especially in the southern end of the park where structures were destroyed, as well as popular hiking trails.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
The popular Los Leones Trail will remain closed, although it suffered minimal damage and was one of the first trails the state parks crew worked on in early March. Crews cleared burned vegetation, removed landslides and widened the trail. It’s in good structural shape, officials said, but will remain closed because the neighborhood near the trailhead remains closed to the public. Once the neighborhood reopens, a crew will need to remove plants that have grown in the path thanks to a lack of foot traffic.
But, dear Wilder, I do have some good news for you.
On Saturday, I hiked with Rachel Glegg, volunteer coordinator with the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force, who took me around Topanga State Park to see the trail work that the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter’s trail crew, state park workers and other volunteers have completed.
Thanks to those efforts, Glegg said, officials aim to open the following trails in the next few weeks:
East Topanga Fire Road from Trippet Ranch to Parker Mesa, although anything beyond the Parker Mesa junction will likely remain closed to keep the public away from neighborhoods burned in the fire
Eagle Rock Fire Road, Eagle Springs Fire Road and Fire Road #30 to the Hub Junction in Topanga State Park
The Garapito Trail in Topanga State Park, which Glegg’s crew is still working on, but is close to repairing fully
Several phacelia grandiflora plants are growing along a burned section of the Garapito Trail.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
On my trip with Glegg, I just kept saying, “This is so beautiful,” as I took in the views of the surrounding city and ocean. We spotted loads of wildflowers, including phacelia grandiflora and a small patch of California poppies. Like you, I am eager to return and make more memories in this beautiful, resilient landscape.
3 things to do
A child plays at a previous migration celebration hosted by the Friends of Ballona Wetlands.
(Friends of Ballona Wetlands)
1. Get up close with birds in Playa Vista Friends of Ballona Wetlands will host its annual migration celebration from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Ballona Discovery Park. Raptors will be present for visitors to see and learn about up close. Guests can also enjoy music, purchase native plants and partake in a scavenger hunt, along with tours of the freshwater marsh. Learn more at ballonafriends.org.
2. Celebrate National Bike Month in L.A. People for Mobility Justice will host a community bike ride from 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, starting at Ted Watkins Memorial Park. As part of this celebration of National Bike Month, riders will travel through the Florence-Firestone area, learning about bike safety and local resources. Participants should bring water, along with their bike and helmet. Register at eventbrite.com.
3. Prance down open streets in Glendale The city of Glendale will close 1.3 miles of Glendale Avenue from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday for its first car-free open streets event. Let’s Go Glendale will feature live music (including a strolling mariachi) and other arts and culture programming. Visitors can walk, run, bike or take the route in any other preferred people-powered way. Learn more at glendaleca.gov.
The must-read
A female black bear and her cub scour a South Lake Tahoe neighborhood in search of food.
(Corey Arnold / For The Times)
It’s rare to see a black bear in the wild, and it’s even rarer for someone to be hurt by one, much less killed. That’s why it was so startling when news broke of the death of Patrice Miller, 71, who, a coroner’s report found, was killed by a black bear in her home. Times reporters Jessica Garrison and Lila Seidman wrote in their recent story that questions — and even disbelief — still exists around how Miller died. “We don’t believe the bear did it,” said Ann Bryant, executive director of the Bear League in the Tahoe Basin. “And I will go on record as saying that.” The bear in question has been killed. What remains is an intense debate over how California should manage its population of an estimated 65,405 black bears, especially those found lumbering around mountain towns.
Happy adventuring,
P.S.
The U.S. Forest Service is taking public comment through Monday on its proposal to log trees and clear chaparral across 90,700 acres in Los Padres National Forest, which sits north of L.A. County and features gorgeous landscapes. “But this plan falls short and threatens habitat in many areas,” according to advocacy nonprofit ForestWatch. “The project emphasizes vegetation removal in remote areas — places that pose little threat to public safety but are rich in biodiversity, cultural value and recreational importance. The plan also allows for commercial logging, and it overlaps with roadless areas and endangered species critical habitat.” You can learn more at the organization’s website, where you can submit your comment as well. You can also submit your comment on this federal website.
For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.
Myriad calamities could hit the city of Los Angeles in coming years: Wildfires. Floods. Mudslides. Drought. And of course, the Big One.
Yet this month, L.A. leaders once again balked at dramatically increasing the budget of the city’s Emergency Management Department, even as the office coordinates recovery from the Palisades fire and is tasked with helping prepare for a variety of disasters and high-profile events, such as the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Facing a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall, the L.A. City Council voted 12 to 3 last week to pass a budget that rejected the funding increases requested by EMD leaders to hire more staffers and fix broken security equipment around its facility.
The only budgetary increase for EMD will come through bureaucratic restructuring. The department will absorb the five-person Climate Emergency Mobilization Office, which Mayor Karen Bass had slated for elimination in her initial proposal to trim the budget deficit.
The funding allotment for EMD — with an operating budget of about $4.5 million — puts the department short of similar big cities in California and beyond.
As a 2022 audit by then-City Controller Ron Galperin noted, San Diego ($2.46), Long Beach ($2.26) and San Francisco ($7.59) all spent more per capita on emergency management than L.A., which then spent $1.56 per resident. Whereas L.A. has a staff of roughly 30, New York, with more than double the population of L.A., has 200 people in its emergency management team, and Philadelphia, with a population less than half of L.A.’s, has 53.
The current leaders of EMD, General Manager Carol Parks and Assistant General Manager Jim Featherstone, had specifically requested funding this spring to build an in-house recovery team to better equip the city for the Palisades recovery as well as future disasters.
“We are one of the most populous and at-risk jurisdictions in the nation, if not in the world,” Featherstone told the L.A. City Council’s budget committee April 30. “I won’t say negligent, but it’s really not in the city’s best interest to [not] have a recovery capability for a disaster similar to the one we just experienced.”
Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, pushed back against the idea that EMD’s funding level would hamper the Palisades fire recovery or preparation for the Olympic Games and 2026 World Cup.
“During a difficult budget year, Mayor Bass focused on emergency management to keep Angelenos safe — that absolutely includes ensuring EMD has continued staffing and resources,” Seidl said in a statement. “We will continue to push forward with one of the fastest recovery efforts in state history.”
Councilmember Traci Park — who represents the Palisades — was among the trio on the City Council who opposed the budget that passed last week, citing insufficient funding for public safety as one of her main objections.
“It’s inevitable that we are going to have another disaster, and we still won’t be prepared. We’ll be in the same position we were before,” said Pete Brown, a spokesperson for Park, who decried cuts to EMD and a lack of resources for the Police and Fire departments.
“We got a horrible taste of what it’s like when we are not prepared,” Brown said, “and despite all of that, we haven’t learned a lesson from it, and we are doing the same thing.”
Rick Caruso, the developer whom Bass defeated in the 2022 mayoral race, called both the budget proposal put forward by Bass and the spending plan approved by the City Council “a blatant display of mismanagement and bad judgment,” expressing incredulity over the rationale for EMD’s funding level.
“We are in an earthquake zone. We are in a fire zone. Come on,” Caruso said in an interview.
Seidl, Bass’ spokesperson, disputed that L.A. had not learned from the Palisades fire and emphasized that the spending on emergency management included “continued and new investments” in EMD as well as the city’s police and fire agencies.
Emergency management experts, audits commissioned by the city and EMD’s current leadership have warned that the department lacked the staff and funding to accomplish its mandate in one of the nation’s most disaster-prone regions.
“That department could be the world leader in emergency management, and it could be the standard for the rest of the country, but with a third of the staff and a tenth of the budget that they need, that’s not possible,” said Nick Lowe, an independent emergency management consultant and the president and chief executive of CPARS Consulting.
The general manager of EMD and an agency spokesperson did not respond to written questions last week about the approved budget.
In recent public statements, Parks disclosed that her budget requests this year received opposition and appeared to have been whittled down.
She told the Ad Hoc Committee for L.A. Recovery in March that she had sought 24 more staffers at EMD, but that officials under the city administrative officer balked at her request.
Featherstone, who is now coordinating the Palisades fire recovery, said Parks’ requests received “a qualitative negative response,” and suggested that there was a lack of understanding or appreciation of the import of EMD’s role.
“There was a qualitative opinion not in favor of Ms. Parks having these positions and people who aren’t emergency managers opined about the value or the worth of these positions,” Featherstone said.
Parks said she scaled her request down “given the city’s current fiscal situation,” adding, “I need a minimum of 10” more positions. In a memo, Parks said these 10 positions would cost about $1.1 million per year.
When Bass unveiled her budget proposal, those 10 additional positions were not included; EMD remained at roughly 30 positions, similar to previous years, which costs about $7.5 million when pensions, healthcare and other expenses are included. Bass’ budget proposal touted that she was able to preserve all of EMD’s positions while other departments faced steep staff and funding cuts.
Both Parks and Featherstone had argued for the creation of a designated, in-house recovery team, which EMD has lacked. When the Palisades fire broke out in January, EMD had no person assigned full-time to recovery and instead had to move its limited staff onto a recovery unit. Bass also retained Hagerty Consulting, a private firm, to boost EMD and provide instant expertise on a yearlong contract for up to $10 million, much of which Bass’ spokesperson said is reimbursable by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Still, Featherstone has told the City Council that, since L.A. had no in-house recovery expertise, the need to train and create an in-house team has occupied much of the initial Palisades fire recovery effort.
Phasing in an in-house recovery and reconstruction division with 10 staffers would cost an additional $1.5 million next year, according to a memo prepared by the city administrative officer. Hiring an additional 21 staffers to prepare for the Olympics and other major events would cost nearly $3 million.
Parks also requested $209,000 to repair the video system at the emergency operations center, saying the lack of surveillance cameras posed a threat to city employees.
“Multiple incidents have occurred where the safety and security of the facility have been compromised without resolution due to the failing camera system,” Parks wrote in a budget memo submitted this spring.
The request for funding for replacement cameras was also denied.
L.A. officials have long been warned that EMD lacks resources. The 2022 audit by Galperin, the former city controller, found that L.A. provided less emergency management funding than peer cities, and that the COVID-19 pandemic “strained EMD resources and staffing, causing several existing preparedness programs to lag behind, likely impacting the City’s readiness for future emergencies.”
The lack of training and funding became apparent at a budget hearing in April 2024. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky asked Parks directly at the meeting: “With your current budget, are you able to staff your [emergency] response centers 24/7 during emergencies?”
“The answer is no,” Parks said. “If there are multiple days that the emergency operations center needs to be activated, we do not have enough staff.”
During the Palisades fire, EMD said it had to bring in additional emergency management officials from other cities to sustain the emergency operations center around the clock.
Lowe said L.A. leaders had failed to recognize EMD’s role within the broader public safety infrastructure of the city.
“I’m not sure at a political level that the city understands and appreciates emergency management and the purpose of the department, and that trickles down to the budget and the size of the department,” Lowe said.
The Getty Villa Museum will reopen to the public on a limited basis beginning June 27 after a nearly six-month closure forced by the devastating Palisades fire.
On the night of Jan. 7, reports swirled that the wind-driven conflagration had reached the outskirts of the Villa. A Getty team stayed through the night, putting out spot fires with fire extinguishers and ensuring that the galleries were safely sealed off, while updating a command team at Getty Center that included Getty President and Chief Executive Katherine Fleming.
A few days later, Fleming told The Times that the teams were confident that their thorough preparation — including extensive brush clearing — would keep the museum from burning. The galleries and other buildings did remain safe, but the glittering fountain pools went dark with ash. Extensive work on the property, including intensive cleaning and testing of indoor and outdoor spaces for toxic residue, is nearing completion. The water system has been flushed, and air and water filters have been replaced. More than 1,300 fire-damaged trees were removed.
A burned hillside above the Getty Villa, where the Palisades fire burned around the educational center and art museum.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
“The site may look different to visitors,” the museum warned in an announcement this week, “with less vegetation and some burn damage to the outer grounds.”
The limited visitor hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Monday. The goal will be to help limit traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, which is the only way to reach the campus. (The Villa is not yet accessible via Sunset Boulevard.) Reservations are limited to 500 visitors daily, and free, timed-entry reservations can be booked online. Parking is $25.
Unfortunately, the exhibition on view when the fire erupted, “Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures From Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece,” had to close, but the Getty created a virtual tour. Times art critic Christopher Knighthad great things to say about it when he viewed the exhibition in person just before the fire.
The exhibition for the reopening is “The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece,” which will be on view from June 27 through Jan. 12. It will feature more than 230 works of art and artifacts from Messenia, a region in Greece where the Mycenaean civilization flourished during the Late Bronze Age.
Theater fans can breathe a sigh of relief. The outdoor classical theater will return in the fall with “Oedipus the King, Mama!” co-produced by Troubadour Theater Company.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, looking forward to reading a book in the shade by a Villa fountain. Here’s your weekend arts roundup.
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Omar Ebrahim as Schoenberg and conductor Neal Stulberg in Tod Machover’s “Schoenberg in Hollywood” at UCLA Nimoy Theater.
(Taso Papadakis / UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music)
Does Los Angeles have its own musical style? Times classical music critic Mark Swedanswers the question after attending the Hear Now Music Festival and Tod Machover’s opera “Schoenberg in Hollywood.” “Los Angeles is the home of film music. The two most influential classical composers of the first half of the 20th century, Stravinsky and Schoenberg, lived here. … The composer with the most radical influence on the second half of the 20th century, John Cage, was born and grew up here. Ferreting out L.A.’s bearing on jazz and the many, many aspects of popular music, as well as world music, is a lifetime’s effort,” Swed writes.
“A Doll’s House, Part 2” at Pasadena Playhouse gets a mixed review from Times theater critic Charles McNulty, who praises Jason Butler Harner’s performance as Torvald, while noting that costumes and set design did not entirely come together. Lucas Hnath’s play picks up 15 years after the conclusion of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 classic, when Nora famously walks out on her husband and children. Nora’s life is complicated. And so is McNulty’s reaction to the show.
Last week, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Artlaid off 15 full-time employees, accounting for 14% of its staff. Most were from the organization’s education and public programming team. Seven part-time, on-call employees were also let go, according to the museum. Sources described the morning of the layoffs as chaotic and shocking, with staff being summoned by human resources and being told they needed to be out of the building by 2 p.m. The museum said in a statement, “Education remains a central pillar of the Lucas Museum.”
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Lauren Halsey, from left, Jane Fonda and Zoë Ryan attend the 20th Annual Hammer Museum Gala in the Garden on May 17.
(Charley Gallay / Getty Images for The Hammer Museum)
The Hammer Museum raised $2.4 million during its 20th annual Gala in the Garden last Saturday. The fete honored Jane Fonda and artist Lauren Halsey, and it featured a performance by the singer Griff. This marked the first gala for the museum’s new director, Zoë Ryan, who took over in January. Last year’s party marked a heartfelt send-off for longtime director Ann Philbin, who retired after 25 years at the helm of the institution. This year, per usual, plenty of celebrities were in attendance, including LeBron and Savannah James, Usher, Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and Molly Shannon, as well as plenty of artists including Doug Aitken, Andrea Bowers, Diedrick Brackens, Catherine Opie, Ed Ruscha and Jonas Wood. Thelma Golden, the director of the Studio Museumin Harlem, paid tribute to Halsey; Danson and Steenburgen celebrated Fonda.
The Fowler Museum on Tuesday returned 11 objects to the Larrakia community of the Northern Territory in Australia. The items, which hold deep cultural and spiritual significance to the Larrakia people, consist of 10 glass spearheads and a kangaroo tooth headband worn by a Larrakia elder. Elders have worked closely with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and the museum over the last four years to identify and arrange the return of the objects. This particular return ceremony is the second time the Fowler has returned artifacts in partnership with AIATSIS. Last July, the museum repatriated 20 items to the Warumungu community of Tennant Creek in northern Australia.
More culture news
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has announced its 2025-26 theater season — the first with President Donald Trumpas chair. “Hamilton,” as previously reported, is out. Offerings include plenty of Trump-approved Broadway fare, including “Moulin Rouge,” “Chicago,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Back to the Future:The Musical” and “Monty Python’s Spamalot.”
Tony Award winner Charles Strouse, who composed the music for “Annie,” “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Applause,” has died. He was 96.
A roughly 11-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway is set to reopen Friday ahead of Memorial Day weekend, reconnecting Malibu to the Westside after months of closures.
But less than 48 hours before the planned reopening, the state said Wednesday that it remains “in the dark” regarding the city of Los Angeles’ plans for providing security to the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades area just off the highway.
Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl countered that the mayor did, in fact, have a plan to keep the area secure and closed to non-residents.
“As PCH is reopened, we will have a strict security plan in place, as we have for months,” Seidl said Wednesday afternoon. He did not immediately respond when asked whether he had shared the city’s plan with the state.
The leader of the state’s emergency services agency sent a sharply worded letter earlier Wednesday to a senior official in Mayor Karen Bass’ administration, chiding the city for not answering questions despite weeks of outreach from the state.
As of Wednesday morning, the mayor’s office had yet to provide the state with a plan for how it plans to provide security to the Palisades as part of the reopening, or whether it plans to establish new security checkpoints on arterial streets into the community, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Times.
Seidl said Wednesday afternoon that the city would put new checkpoints in place, though he did not provide specifics.
The affluent coastal enclave has remained closed to the public since the devastating January wildfire, months after other fire-damaged neighborhoods reopened. But with the California National Guard set to leave at the end of the month, officials must decide how to move forward. There seems to be a consensus among both state and local officials that the neighborhood should remain closed to the public, though the logistics of that decision remain an open question.
Checkpoints currently block public access at major ingress points to the community. But the reopening of PCH would necessitate several new checkpoints.
“Over the last few weeks, Cal OES has reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and City staff and officials – including as recently as yesterday – offering technical and financial resources to support the City as it develops a security plan,” Nancy Ward, who leads the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, wrote in the letter, saying the state would also provide financial support for federal reimbursement-eligible security costs.
“Despite this outreach, we remain in the dark regarding the City’s plans and have heard that the City may request a multi-week delay of the reopening of PCH – despite the incredibly hard work by the US Army Corps of Engineers, Caltrans, and many others to facilitate the reopening for Memorial Day,” Ward wrote.
Seidl said the city was not requesting a delay to the reopening.
The letter was sent from Ward to deputy mayor for public safety Robert Clark, Bass’ top aide overseeing police and fire issues.
Though she stopped short of directly criticizing Bass, Traci Park — the Los Angeles city council member who represents the Palisades — also expressed frustration with the process and lack of clarity.
“For months, Councilmember Park sounded the alarm on safety and called for a formalized plan from departments and consultants through the LA Recovery Committee, which she chairs. None have been forthcoming,” Park spokesperson Pete Brown said.
Concerned about the lack of movement, Park submitted her own proposal to the governor for Palisades safety as the highway reopens, Brown said.
The governor’s office had reached out to Park with concerns about the situation, according to someone familiar with the issue who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Newsom previously announced last month that the highway would reopen by the end of May, though he did not provide a specific date. His office declined to comment on the letter.
The soon-to-reopen section of highway, which spans from Chautauqua Boulevard just north of Santa Monica to Sweetwater Canyon Drive in Malibu will operate two lanes of traffic in both directions, according to a CalTrans document.
