A Palisades Fire survivor said Friday that NBC Los Angeles’ report helped push local and state leaders to direct millions of dollars in wildfire recovery money to projects in the Palisades and Eaton Fire burn areas.
The Community Recovery Coordination Council, a Pacific Palisades community group, has been meeting with local, state and federal officials since the devastating wildfire tore through its neighbor in January 2025.
The organization said after seeing NBCLA’s report on how Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $2.5 billion fire response and recovery fund was — and was not — being used, its members began pressing public officials.
NBCLA found in May that only one fourth of the fund had been spent after the LA fires, and most of that money went back to the state.
Nina Madok, a leader with the Community Recovery Coordination Council, said the report gave the wildfire survivors leverage to fight for more money for recovery projects.
“If it wasn’t for your reporting on this pot of money that was sitting at the state level, we never would have been able to advocate for ourselves specifically to get some of that money,” Madok said.
Madok spoke from the vacant lot where her Pacific Palisades home once stood. She said she and a team of volunteers have spent countless hours advocating for government funding to pay for street, utility and environmental reconstruction.
After the NBCLA investigation was released, Madok said she and others began asking officials why more recovery money had not been released.
“We said, ‘Where’s the recovery?’” Madok said. “We had all the documentation, again, thanks to your reporting, that we were able to say, ‘Look, you’ve given money to this organization, this organization, this, that and the other thing. And hey, wait a minute, there’s stuff that we need.’”
Madok said the group met with representatives from the city, county and governor’s office and pushed them to provide more funding.
Earlier this week, NBCLA reported that the state had released more than $300 million in additional funding for critical recovery projects in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades.
Asked what would have happened to the projects without the influx of money, Madok said they would not have moved forward.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing would have happened if it hadn’t been for your reporting. If we hadn’t been alerted to this money being out there, nothing would have happened. It would have gone back to the general fund.”
Madok said items from a project list she and her colleagues sent to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Traci Park were later included in Park’s latest request to the governor. NBCLA learned Monday that the state agreed to fund about $10 million in projects from that list, in addition to the $300 million already released.
“As a result of your reporting and our asking, we were able to go back and get the right people to ask for at least some of the money and dip into that fund that was there and available,” Madok said.
The latest state funding will go toward recovery projects in both the Eaton and Palisades burn areas, though the city is expected to receive the majority of the new funds.
