Developer Rick Caruso slammed the Los Angeles city government for an apparent delay in construction at a venue that is to be used during the 2028 Summer Olympics that officials are blaming on the recent Palisades Fire.
Caruso referred to an article in the Los Angeles Times that said an expansion to the city’s convention center, set to be an Olympic venue, would have to be delayed or scrapped due to the fire.
The billionaire developer, who ran against Mayor Karen Bass in 2022 and lost, said that it should be possible to build for the Olympics and rebuild from the fire at once.
“What happened to ‘we’re going to cut through the bureaucracy’?” he asked.
In a series of posts on X, Caruso laid out his case:
It’s unconscionable that the city is now saying they have to delay critical construction for the Olympics. We don’t choose between rebuilding from the fires OR preparing for the Olympics—we do both. I have leaders from across the private sector begging to step in and help.
— Rick J. Caruso (@RickCarusoLA) February 10, 2025
We…
The worst thing this city can do is use the fires as an excuse to stall other critical work. Los Angeles has the people and resources to do all of it—as long as we don’t let the bureaucracy take over.
— Rick J. Caruso (@RickCarusoLA) February 10, 2025
Caruso managed to save his own Palisades Village mall using private firefighting services, while much around it burned as city and county firefighters ran out of water.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
