Original Article By Hailey Gomez
Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass claimed on CNN that vocal Pacific Palisades fire survivors, including former reality star Spencer Pratt, are spreading “misinformation” and traumatizing others.
Pratt and other survivors affected by the disastrous fire have been vocal critics of local and state leadership during the incident, questioning why and how the fire began. During an appearance on CNN’s “The Story Is With Elex Michaelson,” Bass was asked about her recent announcement that the city had officially issued its first certificate of occupancy to a developer home in the Pacific Palisades.
“Yes, but let me just say that there has been a lot of progress. Things have been moving fast. However, people are still out of their houses and so until somebody is completely back at home in their community, it’s not helpful to hear how fast everything is going,” Bass said. “Now having said that, we currently have over 340 properties, homes that are under construction now.”
The 340 properties under construction touted by Bass represents around 5% of the Palisades’ destroyed structures.
“If you look at the fires that took place in Hawaii two years ago, they have about the same number of houses that are being constructed. That means that we are a year to two years ahead of what happened over in Hawaii,” Bass added. “We have over 2,000. We’ve issued over 1,100 permits for about 600 properties. What has been challenging though has been individuals on social media and not who deliberately put out misinformation that in my opinion just continues to traumatize people in the Palisades by saying no permits have been issued, things are going slow and not acknowledging what actually is happening.”
The announcement of the new home in the Pacific Palisades was revealed Friday, with Bass stating the city remains “committed to expediting every aspect of the rebuilding process, until every family is back home.” However, the reveal got massive pushback online over the weekend after critics pointed out that the developer, Thomas James Homes (TJH), began its application process about two months before the fire broke out.
Bass continued to claim the TJH home was “burnt down” during the Palisades Fire, but admitted no family had ever lived in the home. CNN’s Elex Michaelson then pushed back, asking if she was referring to Pratt and noting he had highlighted the permit history in a post on X.
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“Well, that’s actually not accurate, but Spencer Pratt is deliberately not accurate, but I was not just referring to him. There are several people who deliberately put out misinformation and to me that just continues to traumatize a population that is already traumatized,” Bass responded.
When pressed about the timing for the permit history, Bass stated she believed the “way it worked” was that the permit was submitted, but “nothing happened” with it.
“They resubmitted a permit in April. The April permit is the permit that happened after the fire, obviously, and the property that exists that was on that plot of land was destroyed in the fire,” Bass added.
Records from the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) show the first submission for the TJH property was filed on Nov. 8, 2024.
Following that submission, four additional logs were added to the status history, including corrections issued and building plans picked up on Nov. 25, 2024. By March, the applicant returned to address corrections before the plan check was approved in April.
During the Palisades Fire, 6,837 structures were destroyed, including residential, commercial and other classifications. That number jumps to more than 16,000 when factoring in the Eaton Fire, which broke out on the east side of the county at the same time and destroyed more than 9,000 structures.
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