Maryam Zar Leads Recovery Coalition

Maryam Zar founded the Palisades Recovery Coalition.

By CHAZ PLAGER

Maryam Zar has a long history of activism in Pacific Palisades, from serving on school booster clubs, to working with the Design Review Board, to sitting on the Pacific Palisades Park Advisory Board, to chairing the first year of the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness (PPTFH), to serving two terms as the President of the Pacific Palisades Community Council. She is still the chair emeritus.

After the Palisades Fire, although the family home in the Marquez Knolls was intact, they, too, were required to evacuate. Recently, she, her husband and son (a rising senior at Palisades High School) returned to the Palisades to a condo the family owns in the Palisades Highlands. The couple also have two adult daughters.

Zar founded the Palisades Recovery Coalition (PRC) shortly after the Palisades Fire because “the fire recovery required a dedicated effort focused solely on the recovery.”

She explained that the organization is different from the Community Council because “While PPCC is a vital civic forum, its broad, volunteer-driven mandate was not designed to tackle this crisis,” she said. “PRC evolved organically with volunteers focused on this response, allowing us to work at the speed and scale our recovery demands. PRC’s singular mission is to mobilize resources, convene experts, and address complex recovery challenges in a way that complements, rather than duplicates, PPCC’s work.”

PRC applied for nonprofit status through pro bono Los Angeles attorneys and plan to remain fiscally sponsored by the California Community Foundation (CCF) until that status is secured.

“We applied to CCF because we value their credibility and were in need of a fiscal sponsor. They accepted us into their selective fiscal sponsorship program because they recognized PRC as a serious and viable post-fire recovery organization,” Zar said. Their structure allows us to focus on the work of strengthening our organization and its impact, while moving in the direction of an independent 501(c)(3) framework.”

But Zar says it’s not about her circumstances. “I don’t think there was a day I’d come out of the tunnel on PCH and not think about the heaven we lived in— but we also knew that this heaven was combustible, and I think many of us are… surprised we weren’t better prepared somehow.”

After the fires, however, they once again reached out to Steve Soboroff, the recovery officer they had worked with on the Homeless Task Force and asked if there was anything he could do to help. Soboroff replied that if Zar could “gather 30 or 40 good Palisadians to discuss things with” there might be something he could do.

From that day in February forward, the Palisadians and Soboroff would gather around a table and discuss what could be done about recovery, and soon enough, they were once again forming a nonprofit organization, this time focused on helping Palisadians recover from the fire.

Unlike other nonprofit recovery organizations, the PRC has not received FireAid money. The PRC is not attempting to accomplish multi-million-dollar projects, and most of their funds and materials are donations from Palisades families and police officers. In fact, the PRC’s office location on Sunset Boulevard, which also serves as the police stop-in station, was donated by a generous citizen.

What the PRC does are smaller tasks that focus on the policy and planning aspects of rebuilding the Palisades. “I always thought every recovery organization that sprung up after the fire matched the direction and values of the founders; for us, we love policy,” Zar said.

Their tasks range from proposing logistic plans for the recovery based on meetings with and talks with citizens, filled the void while Mayor Karen Bass had yet to decide on a company that would plan rebuilding, heads “visioning charrettes” where the community of certain parts of the Palisades come together and discuss how they want to rebuild, and recently were involved in the opening of a new police stop-in station for the LAPD on Sunset.

“We want people to think about what they didn’t have before and don’t have now, and what that ideal Palisades in the future looks like.” Currently, the PRC is attempting to organize a return of the Palisades Farmer’s Market, hoping that it will “make people feel like life is back again”.

Contrary to a rumor, Zar is not working with the Blue Ribbon Commission. “I don’t know what they’re doing, and I’m not sure why people associate me with them. I was invited to speak at the launch of the commission, and I did, but I don’t actually work with them or on their committee at all. I think that the bill (SB 549) is a good idea, but I don’t like how they’re implementing it.”

Currently, the PRC is attempting to organize a return of the Palisades Farmer’s Market, hoping that it will “make people feel like life is back again,” Zar said.