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 first 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 emergency response 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 several public figures, threatening to undermine his effectiveness in helping the mayor restore confidence in the city and its rebuilding efforts.
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.
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, several Pacific Palisades residents voiced outrage on Saturday.
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.”
Rodriguez 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.
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 had raised the money or what else it might go toward. But Rodriguez had questioned whether donors to those groups knew how their money would be used.
Ric Grenell, who is President Trump’s envoy for special missions, also 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.”
Bass suggested earlier this week that the scope of Soboroff’s 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.
Asked about the criticism from Rodriguez and others, Soboroff said earlier Saturday that 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 Board of Police Commissioners and on the 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.”
Bass named Soboroff as her recovery czar on Jan. 17. For weeks, neither he nor the mayor’s team would spell out how he was to be compensated, or by how much.
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 week, she said Pacific Palisades would reopen to the public, prompting widespread frustration from residents and City Councilmember Traci Park over crime and safety risks. The mayor later announced the neighborhood would remain closed.
Pacific Palisades resident Larry Vein, whose home suffered smoke damage, criticized Soboroff’s salary arrangement Saturday morning, saying no one should be overseeing the recovery for “financial gain.”
Steve Danton, who lost his home in the Palisades fire and is living in a temporary apartment in Marina del Rey, had an even stronger reaction, calling Soboroff’s 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.
Soboroff defended his work earlier Saturday, 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 branch of the Los Angeles Public 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.”
“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.”
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.
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 week’s move, later reversed, to reopen Pacific Palisades to the public.
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.
