Pacific Palisades property owner Steve Bardack told “America’s Newsroom” Thursday that “what concerns me most at this hour is the gross mismanagement by Mayor Bass of this entire operation.”
“She has been absent and asleep at the wheel and was in Ghana until yesterday,” he said. “We don’t have a real plan, we had hydrants that were dry in the Palisades, which is inexcusable. We really don’t understand what the plan is to retrieve the hundreds of cars that were abandoned, mine included, on Sunset Boulevard.”
“There was no evacuation plan. When we got the order for evacuation, we had thousands of people trying to leave through the same egress and it turned into gridlock,” Bardack continued.
Damage from the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. (AP/Damian Dovarganes)
He then expressed concern about who is going to manage the rebuild of Los Angeles.
“We actually need a person who has proven expertise, in development, that can oversee this type of project who is an effective leader. We need somebody like Rick Caruso,” Bardack said, referencing the billionaire developer who unsuccessfully ran against Bass for mayor in 2022.
“We don’t need somebody that is going to take taxpayer-funded boondoggle trips to Ghana and be asleep at the wheel while the city is burning,” Bardack concluded.