Residents off Coral Canyon Road need to have it widened for fire safety.
There are six homes on Coal Canyon Road in Malibu. Four and part of another were lost in fire. Homeowners had tried several avenues to obtain funding to update the road to make it safe for firetrucks.
“We know that in the scheme of the Palisades Fire destruction, 4.25 homes is not a large number, but to each of the road’s families, it represents their financial lives and future,” a homeowner wrote. Neighbors were told that the road needed to be widened so that a fire truck could easily access the community.
One property owner hoped that FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), could help with this massive financial undertaking of widening the road. That owner found that FEMA will reimburse 75 percent of the road improvement, which would mean that they would have to look for the remaining 25 percent from another source.
The problem? They needed a sponsor to qualify for this particular grant.
The property owner on behalf of the residents reached out to Annenberg for a sponsorship/grant via email. After not hearing anything for a week, the same email was sent again and this time, Lisa Cleri Reale called the property owner.
Reale, the lead for the FireAid operations team told that owner to try Larry Vein, who she said was the founder of Pali Strong, as a possible sponsor for the FEMA HMGP.
There was a website for Pali Strong, and the property owner had trouble finding an email for Vein, so an informational message was sent, and a reply received on May 29.
“Hi. Thanks for reaching out. What would sponsoring you mean for us? Thanks. Best Lily Yadegar, Co-Founder.”
On June 22, CTN asked about the status of the grant for road widening.
“No one ever got back,” this editor was told.
CTN googled the name from the email and came up with the website “Juniors Alessandra Santini and Yasmine Santini, along with freshman Lily Yadegar, created Pali Strong, a project focused on restoring the Palisades community. This initiative launched on the second day of the fires, Jan. 8, after the flames had begun damaging some residential areas and Pali High structures.”
The high school students who also started a Gofundme, which has raised almost $39,896, were probably surprised that they were asked to sponsor a road, which is why there was no response.
Vein’s website is https://wearepalistrong.mn.co/about. He has also started a Go Fund Me and stated “Our core mission is to keep the community united and hopeful throughout the process.
Vein did receive FireAid grant money. CTN asked how much, but he never responded. On the FireAid site, it shows that $700,000 was given to three charities, Pali Strong, The Altadena Rotary/Altadena Town Council and podcaster Toni Rains, for fire-related podcast programming. Maybe he could have sponsored a road, but this particular grant closed on May 29.
The road still needs widening for fire safety.
Are you implying that Larry might be at fault here? Larry has been working non-stop to keep that community together and rebuild it since the fires. I can call or email Larry and get hold of him within seconds.
I would think that building on a canyon road would also have included the ability to receive services like trash removal, fire hydrant proximity (for insurance), sewer connections, signage for red flag days (like in Hollywood), etc.
Why is this being only addressed after the fire, the permitting agencies should have addressed this at the time of pulling the permits to build?
Another problem is that our fired departments only seem to have extremely large and heavy trucks. I have seen much smaller and more agile firefighting equipment in Japan that allow the firefighters to access narrow winding streets. One size does not fit all.
Is PaliStrong a real organization? Where can we see their mission statement? What have they actually accomplished other than raising money? Who is getting that money? There seem to be a LOT of these organizations that have sprung up since the fire but actually have done very little, if anything. Maybe someone could create a directory of organizations and their missions?
Michael,
You sound defensive. I am not implying anything, I just reported the story.
Sue
Agree, what has Pali Strong done ? I’d like to know too
Btw – he started most of the encrypted “what up” fire apps too.
The first week after the fire, I spoke to him on the phone,
He told me that he was lawyer and that his house was gravely damaged.
He thought the highlands should not re-open for a very long time (1 to 2years).
And I told him I did not agree. My house did well and I wanted to move home.
Then he said I was in the minority and I should just go along with the crowed.
I said “no way”, I wanted my house back and I was very afraid the city would eminent domain the whole area. “ With that, he blocked me on his highlands “What up” app. Then he started to sell “merch” and holding events with our city officials.
Now to find out he got FireAid money? For what?
It’s traumatizing to read this b/c I was blocked and it was so painful,
To block homeowners who may not agree with you after a wildfire, it was cruel