They had come to hear plans for the privately funded rebuilding of the Palisades Recreation Center that was badly damaged in the January fire that tore through Pacific Palisades.
Most of the hundreds crammed into the rec center’s old gym cheered about plans for new park space, pickleball courts and basketball hoops to be paid for by some of Los Angeles’ wealthiest and most prominent philanthropists.
But that Tuesday night — nine months to the day since the Palisades fire began — they were angry, too. With City Hall.
During public comments, Jeremy Padawer, whose home in the Palisades burned, said of the city-owned rec center: “We need this. We need churches, we need synagogues, we need grocery stores. We need hope.”
But he said he didn’t trust the municipal government to run the beloved rec center and reminded the crowd that the city, which is navigating the complex recovery from one of the costliest and most destructive fire in its history, is “a billion dollars in debt.”
Firefighters extinguish hot spots at the Community United Methodist Church of Pacific Palisades on Jan. 12.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“What are they going to do with this brand new facility when [philanthropists] turn the keys over to them?” he asked. “Do we trust them?”
“No!” the crowd shouted.
He added: “Where is Mayor Bass?” The audience cheered. Someone hollered back: “Lost cause!”
Bass and other city leaders dispute they have neglected the fire-ravaged Palisades, but the scene encapsulated the anger and disappointment with City Hall that has been building in one of Los Angeles’ wealthiest neighborhoods. There, scores of yard signs depict the mayor wearing clown makeup à la the Joker. On one cleared lot, an enormous sign, roughly 7 feet tall, stands where a home once did, declaring: “KAREN BASS RESIGN NOW.”
Residents have blamed city leaders for a confusing rebuilding process that they say is being carried out by so many government agencies and consultants that it’s difficult to discern who is in charge. They also say that the city is moving too slowly — a charge that Bass and her team vehemently reject.
Kenny Cooper, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, speaks during a news conference announcing the arrest of 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht in connection with the Palisades fire on Wednesday.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
On Wednesday, a day after the meeting at the rec center, federal prosecutors announced that the deadly Palisades fire was a flare-up of a small arson fire that had smoldered for six days, even after city firefighters thought they had it contained. Authorities said they had arrested Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 29-year-old Uber driver who is suspected of setting the initial fire on New Year’s Day.
Hours after the arrest was announced, the Los Angeles Fire Department — which failed to pre-deploy engines despite extreme wind warnings — released its long-awaited after-action report that said firefighters were hampered by an ineffective process for recalling them back to work, as well as poor communication, inexperienced leadership, and a lack of resources.
Many Palisadians had already suspected the fire was a rekindling of the smaller blaze, said Maryam Zar, who runs the citizen-led Palisades Recovery Coalition. But the onslaught of news landed “like a ton of bricks” in the frustrated community.
Zar got home late after attending the meeting at the rec center Tuesday night. Then, on Wednesday morning, her phone buzzed with text message chains from Palisadians telling one another to brace for a traumatic day — not necessarily because they would learn how the fire started, “but because we all knew that it was so unnecessary,” she said.
While people were happy there was “finally some accountability” with the arrest, she said, conversations in the Palisades quickly turned to: “Had the city been prepared, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Zar, who has spent more than a decade serving on and founding volunteer organizations and task forces in Pacific Palisades, said she was well accustomed to byzantine government processes.
“But for the first time, I’m worried because the wheels just aren’t turning,” she said.
A large sign on a fire-scorched lot at Alma Real Drive and El Cerco Place in Pacific Palisades calls on Mayor Karen Bass to resign.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
One project that has, for some, become surprisingly emblematic of working with the city is the promised-but-delayed installation of a small temporary space for the Palisades Branch Library, which stood next to the rec center campus before it was destroyed.
Cameron Pfizenmaier, president of the volunteer group Friends of the Palisades Library, said Los Angeles Public Library officials told her in July that the city would be placing a 60-by-60-foot prefabricated building — essentially a large trailer — on a grassy space at the entrance to the rec center.
It would include lockers for patrons to pick up books ordered online, computers, printers and scanners, and public meeting space. The building, she said she was told, would be up and running by August.
Then, she said, the building’s installation was delayed to October. And the location was changed, with the temporary space — which probably will stand for several years while the library is being rebuilt — now set to be placed atop two tennis courts at the rec center.
In an email to The Times this week, Bass’ office said that the building’s installation is expected to begin in November and that it should open by the end of January.
“The community is losing faith that the city is actually able to do anything,” said Pfizenmaier, who lost her home. “It’s such a missed opportunity for good news and hope.
“It’s not that hard to drop a bungalow and hook it into power. … The only thing that’s making it hard is the bureaucracy that’s preventing it.”
People play tennis at the Palisades Recreation Center on Oct. 5.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
Yet Palisadeans themselves seem divided on the library, with some decrying the proposed use of the rec center’s grassy expanse, a rare green oasis in the charred neighborhood. Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who lost his home, posted a photo of the space on Instagram, complaining that “Karen Bass and her city goons want to put a temporary library on top of it” and that he figured “the library will be designed in the shape of an empty water reservoir.”
Others have blasted the decision to place the structure atop the popular tennis courts.
In a statement to The Times, Bass’ office said the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks and the Los Angeles Public Library are gathering community feedback about the modular building, which the two agencies will share. They also are still determining how to hook up plumbing, sewage and electricity on site and are ordering books, computers, supplies and furniture, the mayor’s office said.
“This effort needed to be coordinated with and adjusted to the plans to redesign and rebuild the Palisades Rec Center to ensure the temporary site would not impede future construction,” Bass’ office said.
From the days just after the fire through July, the library lot on Alma Real Drive served as a staging area for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s emergency response, including distributing water and providing electric vehicle charging stations for Palisades residents, Bass’ office said.
Bass has issued a swath of executive orders to aid recovery, including providing tax relief for fire-affected businesses and streamlining permitting. And she has touted the speed with which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, cleared debris from the library lot, citing her own “call to prioritize public spaces in the debris removal operation.”
The lot was cleared in April in six days — 24 days ahead of schedule.
Bass’ office said the L.A. Public Library is working to select an architect from a list of preapproved contractors through the Bureau of Engineering “to expedite the rebuilding of the permanent library.”
Joyce Cooper, director of branch library services for the library, said in an interview that the Palisades Branch Library held more than 34,000 items, including books, audiobooks, DVDs and CDs.
“Pretty much our entire collection — everything was lost,” Cooper said. “It was a community hub. When the fire destroyed the branch, it took that away from everybody.”
The city established limited library services in the nascent Pacific Palisades in the 1920s, and the community got its first branch library in 1952.
The most recent facility opened in 2003 and was damaged by a 2020 electrical fire that destroyed much of the children’s collection, said Laura Schneider, a board member and former longtime president for Friends of the Library.
After a long closure during the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteers worked hard to draw people back to the library, Schneider said. Children and teenagers competed in writing contests, volunteers hosted big weekend book sales, and older people sought help with computers.
Schneider — whose still-uninhabitable home was damaged by the January fire — was first drawn to the library as a young mom. She moved to the Palisades when her son, now 23, was 2 years old and was enchanted by the big, circular window with a window seat in the fairy-tale-themed children’s section.
“I really believe it’s the heart of the Palisades,” Schneider said. “It’s a place that welcomes everyone. … There’s no community center. There’s no senior center in the Palisades. The library is as close to that as it comes.”
At the start of Tuesday night’s meeting at the Palisades Recreation Center, Jimmy Kim, general manager of the city’s cash-strapped parks department, made clear that questions about the location of the temporary library were “outside the scope” of the gathering and would not be answered. Many in the audience groaned.
The recreation center will be rebuilt through a public-private partnership that Bass and her onetime political adversary, billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, promoted in a joint appearance in the spring. There, Bass told reporters that the city’s job was to ensure the project was able to move quickly through the permitting process and that “the role of government is to get out of the way.”
Private donations from Caruso’s philanthropic group Steadfast LA will help pay for the roughly $30-million rebuilding of the rec center. Another major donor is LA Strong Sports, a group started by Lakers coach JJ Redick, a Palisades resident who coached a youth basketball team at the center and appeared at the Tuesday meeting.
Speaker after speaker praised the private donors for making speed a priority.
“I’m so grateful that this is going through private [development] and not city because otherwise it would not be up for another 10 years,” said one woman, who said she had lived in the Palisades for two decades and had an 8-year-old boy who used the park often.
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She added: “I just want to thank Rick Caruso for being the savior of our community.”
Caruso — who defeated Bass in the Palisades by wide a margin in the 2022 mayoral election — smiled and waved at her from the front of the room as the audience clapped.
A 15-year-old girl came to the microphone and said the rec center was where she learned to ride a bike and where her brothers played Saturday basketball games. Please, she pleaded with the donors in the room, hurry.
“Please don’t let us age out,” she said. “Please don’t let this take so long that kids never get to experience what I have. We’re ready to come back stronger. We just need help getting there.”
Caruso told the audience he expected construction to begin in January and for the center to reopen in January 2027. He said his group will not operate the space — the city will — but that he thought it would be in better hands if a community foundation took it over from the government.
At the end of the meeting, a City Hall staff member told the crowd that Bass had sent several staffers that night. The mayor, she promised, was listening.