By Stephen Witt, Los Angeles County Politics
Nearly two years after the fire that gutted Pacific Palisades’ commercial corridor, the fight over who is helping small businesses rebuild — and who isn’t — is coming into play in November’s election showdown between incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman.
Maryam Zar, CEO of the Malibu Pacific Palisades (PaliBu) Chamber of Commerce, told Los Angeles County Politics (LACP) in an interview that Bass has failed the local Palisades business community throughout the recovery, while saying she believes Raman would do more.
But Los Angeles City Councilwoman Traci Park (D-Pacific Palisades, Venice, Mar Vista, Westchester), whose district includes the Palisades, painted a starkly different picture in a separate interview with LACP, saying Bass has been an essential partner throughout the recovery rather than an absent one.
“I have found Mayor Bass to be very supportive of all of the efforts that we have made in fire recovery,” said Park. “She has, for example, when it came to the permit fee waivers, done an executive directive for us that opened the door, but it required a legislative change that the city council had to work on.”
Park noted that Bass led delegations to Sacramento and locations seeking the funding assistance that her district needs. Bass has also personally gone to D.C. and has sat down with the president himself to talk about the funding assistance that’s necessary, Park said.
Zar, for her part, described a very different experience with the mayor’s office.
“We have the sitting mayor who’s done absolutely nothing for us for a year and a half, even though we’ve given her ideas, we’ve given her the ability to come through,” Zarr said. “We’ve given her patience. We’ve worked with her office. We’ve done everything. I mean, and I had a lot of patience in the beginning. I kept thinking, she’ll come through. This is a big disaster. She’s just getting all the information. Give her time. But at this point, I think it’s unforgivable that she has not yet lifted a finger.”
Zarr, who said she has spoken directly with both Bass and Raman, drew an explicit comparison between the two candidates when the conversation turned to November’s runoff.
“We have Nithya Raman, whom everybody is afraid of because they think she’s too far to the left,” Zarr said. “But frankly, she seems to be the more thoughtful of the two. She’s very, very smart. She understands the issues, and she seems to recognize what hasn’t been done. And I actually think she’ll be more effective.”
Park, when asked directly about her own record on business recovery, walked through a lengthy list of specific actions her office has taken since the fire.
“Before the fires were even put out, I had already introduced a legislative package of more than two dozen motions that has grown over time that became the foundation of our fire recovery. One of the very early things that I pushed through was the ordinance waiving the city’s gross receipts tax for businesses impacted by the fires,” said Park.
Park said she also secured a resolution supporting CDBG [Community Development Block Grant] disaster relief grant funding and has personally lobbied EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin for a broader relief package for the Palisades, including direct assistance for local businesses.
Asked directly about Raman, Park said the mayoral candidate has not visited the Palisades since the fire and has never personally asked what she could do to help, in contrast to what Park described as consistent engagement from other members of the City Council who represent unaffected districts.
A spokesperson for Mayor Bass’s office, responding via email, said the mayor established a Disaster Recovery Center directly after the fire to provide resources to residents and businesses, and members of the Small Business Administration were stationed there specifically to support small businesses, including help with Economic Injury Disaster Loans.
Pacific Palisades businesses whose locations were completely destroyed were eligible for a $25,000 grant through the LA Region Small Business Relief Fund, and Bass’ office said 50 Palisades businesses were awarded a combined $1.25 million through that fund.
Neither Raman’s official City Council office nor her Mayoral campaign office responded to several email requests and a phone call at post time.
