LOS ANGELES — Three months ago, Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles appointed Steve Soboroff to oversee the first phase of the huge recovery effort that confronted the city after the January wildfires. “There is no one better equipped to create our rebuilding plan,” she said at the time.

Soboroff, 76, a developer and longtime civic leader, had known Bass, 71, for decades. They had worked together on initiatives from school bonds to the recovery from the Northridge earthquake. For 36 years, until 2018, he had lived in Pacific Palisades, one of the hardest-hit fire zones. She had spoken highly of him in 2001, when he ran unsuccessfully for mayor, and he had been a chair of her 2022 mayoral campaign.

But Soboroff’s 90-day tenure as the mayor’s chief recovery officer came to an end Friday, clouded by a sharp deterioration in his relationship with Bass and his influence at City Hall. There were clashes with her administration over the scope of his authority, his compensation and the extent to which the Palisades should reopen to the public.

Soboroff made clear in an interview that he was leaving unhappily and reluctantly. His argument that he should stay in the post for two years was rejected by Bass and her aides from the outset, he said, and as their divisions deepened, even another 90-day stint seemed unfeasible. A low point, he said, was when he learned City Hall had started a search for his successor without alerting him.

“How they thought that I wouldn’t find out about it — this is my town right here,” he said over breakfast at a deli in West Los Angeles. “I was the starting pitcher in an all-star game. Would I have liked to have pitched longer and won the game? Yeah. But nobody pitches more than three innings in an all-star game.”

Spokesperson for Mayor Speaks Out

Asked about Soboroff’s tenure, Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for the mayor, said in a statement that “at times he sent confusing messages to residents but we are grateful for his service and contributions.”

At a news conference Thursday in the Palisades to celebrate plans to rebuild the recreation center, the mayor said, “I think Steve laid a great foundation to follow up on. I’ve known Steve for years and years, and he’s not going to be that far away, so he knows I will stay in contact.”

Bass shared the lectern with her political rival, billionaire developer Rick Caruso, and the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, JJ Redick, the event’s organizer. Soboroff was not there.

The story of Soboroff’s short-lived return to government under Bass has been the latest challenge facing her administration as it has struggled to lead the city through its worst crisis in decades. Beset by criticism almost from the moment the fires started, she spent months dealing with turmoil over his appointment. This week, as her handpicked rebuilding czar stepped down, he warned that many Palisades homeowners will ultimately never return.

Bass turned to Soboroff during a moment of crisis, hoping for help as she faced criticism for being out of town at the start of the fires — and pressure to mobilize a recovery before President Donald Trump, a longtime critic of Democrats in California and federal disaster aid programs, moved into the Oval Office.

It was not a surprising choice: Soboroff has long been a face of the Los Angeles establishment. He is a former member of the police commission and a Republican turned Democrat who has worked on some of the city’s most ambitious building projects. He presented himself as a reliable mediator for the competing factions vying to dominate the recovery, particularly in Pacific Palisades, one of the city’s priciest and most sought-after neighborhoods.

Bass Announces Soboroff Will Take Job 10 Days After Fire Erupted

Ten days after the fire erupted, Bass announced Soboroff was taking the job. She directed him to develop plans to let residents access their properties safely and to ensure they took advantage of streamlined permitting and debris removal. And she instructed him to create a program to rebuild libraries and parks and to initiate a system for sharing resources and best practices for rebuilding.

The assignment was immediately fraught. At their first meeting, Soboroff told Bass he needed to be paid, saying the work was so time-consuming that he would have to step away from a private business. “I said this is 17 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. “I can’t volunteer for this.”

He added: “I thought I should make at least as much as an average lawyer. So I figured that would be like $300, $400 an hour, and then you start multiplying it out, and it comes to what looks like a lot.”

He said that he and Bass agreed that he would receive $567,000 for the three months, and that his compensation would come from private sources. But word leaked, and Bass and Soboroff came under a storm of criticism once The Los Angeles Times disclosed the deal’s details. After a series of increasingly awkward conversations, Soboroff said, he told her he would work without payment.

“I thought it was really poor judgment,” Monica Rodriguez, a Los Angeles City Council member, said of the compensation. “And that’s being kind.”

By all indications, that was the beginning of Soboroff’s decline in influence. He said he found himself excluded from news conferences with Bass and her aides discussing the rebuilding, and was not included when Trump flew to California to join Bass in a meeting with Pacific Palisades homeowners. “I should have been right there with her and Trump,” Soboroff said.

Soboroff’s reduced profile has complicated assessments of his performance. Initial cleanup after a disaster is typically a joint federal and local effort.

In the Palisades, his work drew mixed reviews. Some residents praised the speed with which building permits had been issued. Some complained at the ongoing truck traffic. Some felt that the job should have gone to someone who could afford to do it pro bono.

“If you want to get paid, get paid — that’s the big city,” said Ken Karmin, a business owner and investor who lives in the Palisades, just outside the burn zone. “But there were a lot of qualified people who would have done it for free.”

Soboroff Said He Fulfilled Some of His Assignment

Soboroff said he had fulfilled at least some of his assignment, including the beginnings of an expedited permitting process and a blueprint of recommendations. “She just wanted me to put the trains on the tracks,” he said of Bass.

He’s leaving the job concerned about the immediate future of the Palisades, where 6,000 homes were leveled. The other major community destroyed by the wildfires, Altadena, is outside the city’s jurisdiction in Los Angeles County.

He predicted that fewer than half the 23,000 or so residents there would ever move back because labor shortages, tariffs and California’s high cost of living would make rebuilding too expensive. At a time of anxiety about how the fires will alter the character of the city, the prediction was a startling suggestion that even the most affluent areas may be in for dramatic change.

“I think it will be between 50 and 70% who don’t return,” he said. “That’s huge.” As a result, he said he expected the Palisades to become an international community with even more wealth, where homes would go for as much as $250 million.

For all his difficulties in these recent months, he added, he bore his longtime ally no rancor.

“I would not feel awkward about, you know, going to breakfast with her now, or her with me,” he said. “I can’t imagine she won’t call me in the future and ask what I think about this or that. But that’s their choice.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Shawn Hubler and Adam Nagourney/Philip Cheung
c. 2025 The New York Times Company