L.A. wildfire recovery czar will work for free after backlash to proposed $500K salary for 3 months

Steve Soboroff, president of Soboroff Partners, accepting his award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Affairs at the 48th Annual PRism Awards in Los Angeles, Nov. 7, 2012. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision for PRSA Los Angeles/AP Images)

LOS ANGELES — Steve Soboroff, a longtime fixture in Los Angeles civic life who is now serving as chief recovery officer for the city’s wildfire comeback, won’t take a salary after facing backlash over plans to pay him US$500,000. He would have been paid through charitable donations, not with taxpayer money.

Soboroff had defended the proposed salary of half-a-million dollars for 3 months of work, saying his expertise as a residential property developer made him worth the price. But after criticisms mounted from elected officials and residents, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass reversed course over the weekend and said Soboroff would receive no compensation.

“Steve is always there for LA. I spoke to him today and asked him to modify his agreement and work for free. He said yes. We agree that we don’t need anything distracting from the recovery work we’re doing,” Bass said in a statement Saturday. She had named him to the recovery czar position on Jan. 17.

A message seeking comment was left for Soboroff on Monday.

Soboroff, 76, raised his family in the Pacific Palisades area, where nearly 7,000 homes were destroyed by last month’s inferno. His son, NBC News journalist Jacob Soboroff, reported from the devastated neighborhood where he grew up.

He was initially tasked with leading the first phase of the city’s wildfire rebuilding effort. On Friday though, Bass suggested that the scope of his work could be diminished, saying he would focus primarily on rebuilding the Palisades’ historic business district. Soboroff disputed that notion, saying he is regularly interacting with federal agencies.

In addition to developing thousands of homes over decades, Soboroff served on the city’s Board of Police Commissioners and on the city commission that oversees the Department of Recreation and Parks — both volunteer positions.

Before the salary reversal, he told the Los Angeles Times that he put aside other real estate and environmental consulting work to take on the role of the city’s recovery officer.

“I’ve been doing this for 35 years for free on some of the biggest civic projects for the city of Los Angeles. But nobody ever asked me to drop everything. This time they did,” Soboroff said. “And I said OK, under the condition that my pay not be taken out of city money, or from any wildfire survivors who would otherwise benefit from that money.”

It wasn’t clear which charitable organizations would have covered his pay. Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who sits on the committee overseeing the recovery, called the proposed salary “obscene.”

Soboroff’s original salary was first reported by the Times.

The Associated Press