After critics blast move to pay L.A. wildfire recovery czar $500,000, he’ll do it for free
- Share via
Faced with fierce criticism over her chief wildfire recovery officer’s planned salary of $500,000 for 90 days of work, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass reversed course Saturday evening and said Steve Soboroff would receive no compensation.
Soboroff’s original salary, which would have been funded entirely by charitable organizations, was first reported by The Times early Saturday morning. Soboroff had defended the arrangement, saying his expertise made him worth the price.
After her reversal, Bass said in a statement: “Steve is always there for LA. I spoke to him today and asked him to modify his agreement and work for free. He said yes. We agree that we don’t need anything distracting from the recovery work we’re doing.”
When Bass tapped Soboroff to step in last month as her wildfire recovery czar, the real estate developer seemed poised to provide a much-needed political lift to a mayor whose initial response to the devastating Palisades fire had faltered.
As a longtime civic leader who raised his family in Pacific Palisades, Soboroff provided the mayor a direct line to the fire-scorched community. And he was already well-known for his work developing thousands of homes in Playa Vista.
But the revelation that Soboroff would be paid $500,000 over three months drew searing rebukes from Palisades residents and public figures in and out of City Hall, threatening to undermine his effectiveness in helping the mayor restore confidence in the city and its rebuilding efforts. Such a salary would have been far more than the mayor or any other city employee makes.
Soboroff, who had spoken to The Times earlier about the criticism, declined to comment Saturday night beyond confirming that he would work at no charge.
Bass has struggled to clarify the duties assigned to Soboroff, who was initially tasked with leading the first phase of the city’s wildfire rebuilding effort. On Friday, she suggested that the scope of his work could be diminished, saying he would focus primarily on rebuilding the Palisades’ historic business district. Soboroff disputed that notion, saying he is regularly interacting with federal agencies.
With mayoral appointees, consulting firms, nonprofit groups and council members all in the mix, it’s difficult to discern who will be in charge of what.
After The Times initially reported Soboroff’s salary, Ric Grenell, who is President Trump’s envoy for special missions, spoke out early Saturday, calling Soboroff’s pay “offensive” in a post on X.
“I’m getting paid $0 — as are many people,” wrote Grenell, who sat next to Trump at a roundtable discussion in Pacific Palisades last month. “It’s a good thing there will be strings on the Federal money for California.”
L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who sits on the five-member council committee overseeing the recovery, also expressed anger over the amount, calling it “obscene.”
She said it was “infuriating” that philanthropic groups would provide $750,000 for just two people — $500,000 for Soboroff, plus $250,000 for longtime real estate executive Randy Johnson, who will report to Soboroff on rebuilding efforts — when there are many fire victims in need.
Bass said Saturday night that Johnson would also work for no pay, saying she was “grateful for his generosity and expertise.”
The mayor’s team declined to name the charitable organizations that were to have covered Soboroff’s salary. It is not clear how those organizations were raising the funds, but Rodriguez and others had questioned whether donors knew their money would be used for that purpose.
Asked initially about the criticism, Soboroff said his pay was justified by his specialized expertise and the sweeping duties he was taking on. He said he put aside other real estate and environmental consulting work — forfeiting that potential income — to focus exclusively on the wildfire recovery efforts.
Soboroff previously served on the city’s Board of Police Commissioners and on the city commission that oversees the Department of Recreation and Parks — both volunteer positions.
“I’ve been doing this for 35 years for free on some of the biggest civic projects for the city of Los Angeles. But nobody ever asked me to drop everything. This time they did,” said Soboroff, 76. “And I said OK, under the condition that my pay not be taken out of city money, or from any wildfire survivors who would otherwise benefit from that money.”
For weeks after Bass named Soboroff as her recovery czar on Jan. 17, neither he nor the mayor’s team would spell out how much he would be compensated, or by whom.
On Friday, appearing at a morning news conference on wildfire recovery, Bass and Soboroff again declined to say how much he would be paid. Ten hours later, after additional inquiries from The Times, the mayor’s team released the information.
In that email, Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl pointed to Soboroff’s extensive record in business and on city commissions, saying, “There is simply no one like Steve.”
The controversy over Soboroff’s pay marked the second time in a little over a week that Bass reversed a decision after criticism.
Last month, the mayor said Pacific Palisades would reopen to the public, prompting an outcry from residents and City Councilmember Traci Park over crime and safety risks. Bass later announced the neighborhood would remain closed.
On Saturday, the plan for compensating Soboroff $500,000 for three months generated a new round of complaints from the coastal neighborhood, where thousands lost their homes in the fire.
Pacific Palisades resident Larry Vein, whose home had smoke damage, said no one should be overseeing the recovery for “financial gain.”
Steve Danton, who is living in a temporary apartment in Marina del Rey after the fire destroyed his home, called Soboroff’s planned compensation a “money grab.”
Danton, whose family has lived in Pacific Palisades since 1999, said the city had experienced a “crisis of leadership” since the fires broke out. The lack of transparency around Soboroff’s salary only added to the community’s frustrations, he said.
Speaking to The Times, Soboroff defended his work, saying he had pushed for the mayor to hire an outside project manager to guide city agencies through the work of replacing damaged or destroyed infrastructure such as streetlights, sanitation systems and the Pacific Palisades library.
Since taking on his post, Soboroff said, he has also offered recommendations on the city’s permitting process, coordinated with federal agencies and fielded questions from “thousands of residents.”
As the cleanup phase of recovery begins after the devastating fires in L.A. County, displaced residents grapple with new uncertainty surrounding the cost and timeline for rebuilding.
“At the end of the day, I’m doing the stuff that all these other people are just studying,” he said. “I’m implementing to help people reach their goals of getting back in their houses and getting their jobs back.”
Bass and Soboroff have been an odd pairing.
At times, Soboroff has talked over the mayor while they fielded questions from the news media, forcing her to muscle her way back into the conversation.
And Bass left Soboroff out of the loop on at least one key decision — last month’s move, later reversed, to reopen Pacific Palisades to the public.
Once Soboroff learned of the reopening, he argued against it, saying he didn’t see the benefit.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
