Park Urges Newsom To Direct Unspent Disaster Funds To Palisades Recovery

PACIFIC PALISADES, CA — City Councilwoman Traci Park is urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to extend a June 30 deadline for state disaster funds and direct remaining money toward Pacific Palisades recovery needs after the Palisades Fire.

In a June 18 letter to Newsom, Park said “potentially hundreds of millions of dollars” from $2.5 billion in disaster funding approved through ABX1-4 and SBX1-3 could remain unspent, even as the Palisades faces unmet recovery needs.

Park wrote that FEMA reimbursements have fallen far short of what the city requested, with some requests still pending or under appeal. She asked the state to front funding for infrastructure needs including street, curb and sidewalk repairs, slope stabilization projects, fire-damaged streetlights and signs, storm drain repairs and mobile surveillance trailers to help the Los Angeles Police Department respond to and deter property crime.

The infrastructure requests outlined in the letter include more than $11.1 million for street, curb and sidewalk repairs, about $8.7 million for slope stabilization, nearly $12.9 million to repair or replace damaged streetlights, and smaller amounts for damaged signs and storm drains.

Park also asked Newsom to make state funding directly available to community groups, organizations and property owners who she said have been left out of recovery funding, including schools, businesses, parish institutions and underinsured condo and townhome owners.

“In the absence of the federal assistance the Palisades deserves, we must be able to depend on state assistance to make this recovery possible,” Park wrote.

Read Park’s full letter to Newsom here.