Community Recovery Labs

Rebuilding the Palisades starts with you.

The Palisades Recovery Coalition is bringing together residents to shape how our community recovers — and what it looks like for the next generation.

Our Community Recovery Labs (CRL) will convene a representative group of Palisadians, supply them with supporting information, and empower them to make actionable recommendations to city and state officials.

Our first topic – should the Palisades have a recovery district, a government body that coordinates and administers funding and programs to help us rebuild? If so, what powers should it have? How should it be made accountable to the community?

We are looking for volunteers to spend two Saturdays in April discussing these questions with fellow Palisadians and making recommendations that can guide our community forward.

Please join us! Volunteer now!

Volunteer applications are now open. We’re looking for residents across all backgrounds to participate.

Community Recovery Labs

A structured process for turning the community's voice into real policy.

To recover from the January fires and build something that lasts, Pacific Palisades might need some form of recovery authority — a body with enough governmental power to get things done, but accountable to the people who actually live here. That’s a hard balance to strike, and we’re not going to figure it out behind closed doors.

Community Recovery Labs (CRL) are deliberative, expert-informed conversations where Palisades residents work through the real decisions. City and state officials heard our voices in the Community Visioning Charrettes and came back with questions: Do Palisadians want a recovery district? What powers should it have? How should it be made accountable to the community?

The CRL will address these questions by pairing community deliberation with expert analysis — residents set the direction, experts suggest specific policy options and provide supporting evidence, and residents make specific, actionable recommendations. This approach is widely used at RAND and in participatory governance settings worldwide. Residents’ recommendations go directly to city, county, and state officials, as well as to the broader community.

How it works

What actually happens in a Community Recovery Lab.

The CRL has two tracks: a team of practitioners with expertise in finance, recovery districts, and disaster recovery and a group of Palisades residents. The practitioners prepare options and background information for the residents, who work together to make recommendations to policy makers. Here’s how the process unfolds:

Step

What happens

1

Convene a representative group of Palisadians

PRC will randomly choose thirty participants from among a larger group of volunteers — residents and business owners from across the Palisades — with special effort taken to ensure a representative mix of neighborhoods, ages, family types, renters, and owners.

The participants meet all day on April 11 and 25. Meals, childcare, and transportation provided.

2

Resource Team Lays Out Options

A team of practitioners with expertise in law, finance, community organizing, joint powers authorities, and local politics will prepare background materials and lay out options for a recovery district, along information about the tradeoffs for the community to weigh. These practitioners will be available to answer participants’ questions.

3

Participants Deliberate

Participants deliberate on the options, combining information from the resource team with their lived experience. Participants consider initial recommendations and craft questions for their resource team.

Facilitators guide conversations, but participants control the process.

4

Repeat

The resource team responds to assembly feedback, revising options and laying out new ones for the participants to weigh. The participants reconvene, deliberate, and make their recommendations.

5

Share Recommendations

PRC shares recommendations with city, county, and state officials as well as the public. Participants are welcome to advocate for the process and their recommendations, giving the community a credible, well-reasoned voice.

What to expect as a participant

Here's what participating looks like.

Community Recovery Lab participants commit to two eight-hour days of structured deliberation. We provide meals, childcare, and local transportation to make it as easy as possible to participate. All participants receive preparation materials in advance so the sessions can focus on real dialogue, not background reading.

Two sessions

First deliberation on Saturday, April 11. Second deliberation on Saturday, April 25. Both sessions held at Palisades Recovery Coalition headquarters in the Palisades.

Prep materials provided

You’ll receive background reading on the issues before you arrive — no prior expertise required.

Your privacy is protected

Experts are identified publicly. Deliberation participants are not. Your identity stays private, unless you decide to speak in public.

Your input shapes the outcome

These aren’t advisory sessions. The recommendations that come out go directly to elected officials.

Key dates

Proposed schedule

When

What

March 18

Volunteer call goes out to community

March 26

Participant selection finalized to ensure representative sample

April 4

Preparatory materials sent to CRL participants

April 11

First community deliberation session

April 25

Second community deliberation session

Mid-May

Results shared with elected officials and the public

Sign up

Volunteer to participate in a Community Recovery Lab.

We’re looking for Palisades residents as of Jan 7, 2025 across all backgrounds, neighborhoods, and situations — renters, homeowners, people who’ve relocated, people still on site. The more representative the group, the stronger the recommendations. Participation is open to all Palisades community members.