As Palisadians, many of us carry a well-earned skepticism of city bureaucratic departments. That skepticism comes from experience. At the same time, we’ve also had to reckon with a difficult reality: these systems, for better or worse, play a decisive role in shaping our futures.
At the Palisades Recovery Coalition, our mission is not to dismiss those feelings. It is to meet them honestly—and to help translate a complex recovery landscape into something residents can understand, navigate, and influence. We believe deeply that your voice matters, and that you deserve access to the knowledge that allows you to make informed decisions about rebuilding and recovery.
That belief is what led us to create our City Department Speaker Series. Our upcoming meeting with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety on January 13th is part of that effort—an intentional step toward helping the Palisades community feel confident, cared for, and empowered as we move forward.
Life after the fire did not end when national news coverage moved on. For many of us, the questions have only become more specific, more technical, and more personal. They surface late at night. They come up in passing conversations with neighbors. They linger unresolved because no search engine, hotline, or form seems able to answer them clearly—or at all.
This series exists for those moments. For the permitting question you meant to look into. For the uncertainty you didn’t know how to articulate. For the feeling that there should be someone answerable—but you’re not sure who that is.
We invite you to bring those questions to us. Write them down. Walk into our headquarters. See familiar faces. Get them off your chest and into the hands of experts who can not only explain the process, but help move it forward.
At its core, this work is about building a bridge between the world as it is and the community as it deserves to be. We are committed to making the machinery of recovery more human, more visible, and more accountable to the people it exists to serve.
We hope you’ll join us—not out of obligation, but because you deserve to be informed, heard, and supported.
Access matters. If you ever feel you’re lacking it, please reach out to us at info@palirecovery.org. We’ll see what we can do.