Viewpoint: We’re at a Tipping Point: City’s Response Must Be More Transparent and Accountable

(Editor’s note: This Viewpoint was originally posted on May 7 on Steadfast LA and is reprinted with permission.)

By RICK CARUSO

Nearly four months to the day since wildfires ripped through four communities in and around Los Angeles, yet our city continues to suffer from failing leadership.

The city’s chosen language – calling this disaster recovery the “fastest in modern California history” – assumes it’s more prudent to measure the response against past disasters, rather than conducting what is really needed: a clear-eyed assessment of where the mistakes were, where management failed, and how a better process can be created so hard lessons can be learned.

Their rearview mirror approach is like comparing apples to monkey wrenches because the scale and devastation of what happened in January is unprecedented, and the nature of the communities impacted are markedly different than any past examples.

On numbers alone, the estimated cost of the Palisades and Eaton fires may be 15 times more than the Camp Fire, and these most recent fires destroyed structures than the Woolsey Fire. Rebuilding is still ongoing in Paradise and Ventura County after those fires over six years ago, which can’t be our barometer for success.

We’re at a tipping point. Instead of equating this to previous disasters, we need be forward-looking and reimagine the city’s response in a way that disaster recovery has never been done before with a focus on creativity, innovation, transparency, and accountability.

In LA, we have the best and brightest companies, executives, and workers anywhere in the world and they’re all eager to contribute. But, instead of embracing this invaluable resource as the X-factor that can make our recovery both different and better, the city has shunned it.

They don’t return calls, there hasn’t been an effort to proactively engage, and there are no signs that the city wants to leverage this wealth of knowledge and ideas to drive the response, even though it’s impossible to execute a rebuilding of this size without the private sector taking a significant portion off the government’s plate.

Only when the state got involved did the city express openness to adopting an AI software-centric model – developed and funded by best in-class private sector companies – that will reduce costs and allow the permitting process – a huge pinch point in rebuilding – to take hours or days instead of weeks and months.

Despite this step forward, we still have no answers on when the city will formally make this model available to those who want to rebuild. The city has also claimed that over 1,000 properties have been cleared, but only 31 permits have been issued and they are not offering real-time updates so the public can see how many permits are being issued.

This veil of secrecy extends to the Chief Recovery Officer position. There’s still no guidance about who inside the city is dedicated to overseeing the recovery strategy, when this job – vacant for almost a month – will be filled, or what qualifications are being considered for the new candidate.

The first go-around with Steve Soboroff was an epic debacle based on his comments out-the-door, but the city refuses to offer the public any voice in the hiring process now.  There’s also the role of Hagerty Consulting, the taxpayer-funded disaster recovery firm the city contracted and allocated $10 million to in February. So far, Hagerty hasn’t provided any clarity about their scope and are not sharing any details about what they’re doing so the public can measure their performance.

Why is the city so hesitant to communicate how this process is being managed and who is in charge? Instead of having to plead for answers, there should be a daily effort to provide real-time updates about what is happening. We need a public permitting dashboard with updated metrics.

All agreements the city makes related to the recovery should be disclosed immediately and be contingent on weekly performance audits and reports about the work of these groups. And we deserve visibility into all hiring decisions so the trainwreck of the Chief Recovery Officer role isn’t repeated.

This lack of transparency is compounded by a stubborn refusal to take accountability into why the fires were so disastrous. We learned this week that city officials at the Los Angels Department of Water and Power knew there would be a monthslong water-supply shortage as the Santa Ynez Reservoir was being repaired, but did not take action to put the Pacific Palisades Reservoir back online to prepare for a potential disaster. That’s six million gallons of water the city did not have access to at a time when it was most needed.

Despite this catastrophic failure, the LA DWP head remains in her position and the city has made no moves to rectify such gross incompetence that directly contributed to families losing everything.

Conducting business-as-usual is not and has never been the answer. That means the city must change course now. Tapping the private sector to deliver real results and changing the paradigm so we’re measuring the response by how quickly families can rebuild and how expeditiously we can restore the heart and vitality of these communities – instead of judging it compared to past failures – needs to be our definition of success. That’s the only way we’re going to rebuild faster, safer, and more effectively.

Rick Caruso is Founder and Chairman of Steadfast LA