Episode 4: A billion-dollar warning –What the Tetra Tech Whistleblower Story Means for Altadena and Beyond

The fires are out. The cameras have moved on. But in the aftermath of LA County's devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, a different kind of disaster is unfolding – one that reveals the messy reality of how federal and state agencies are supposed to work together when communities are destroyed.

Today, we're diving deep into the LA County debris removal crisis, where federal dollars, state oversight, and local execution collide in a perfect storm of mismanagement. It's a story that started with a whistleblower's warning and reveals how the federal-state partnership in disaster recovery can leave entire communities behind.

This isn't just about LA County. It's about a system of disaster recovery that's failing the people it's supposed to protect, and the financial reckoning that's coming for all of us.

We kick this episode off with Kimberly's personal fire story and wrap with a local small business shout out to The Pampered Lady Florist, another long time Altadena Black-owned small business, recently re-opened on N Lake. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:03

Hello and welcome back. This is After the Ashes, a beautiful Altadena podcast. Thanks for joining us again. Today we're going to be talking about how debris removal mismanagement in both the Eaton and Palisades fires reveals deeper problems with our federal and state coordination, particularly for us being in an unincorporated area. And I just had a snack, so forgive me. Now I'm choking on my words. I'm Shawna Dawson-Beer from beautiful Altadena. I'm joined again with Steve Sachs from Altadena, who is our Alta Palace I want to call him Altina policy wonk and Kimberly Berry from surge. Thank you. So today I'm going to kick this back to Kimberly as we've been, if you've joined us a couple of times, we're trying to start off our episodes with some history and some fire stories because this is deeply personal for all of us who are sitting here. We're all, we were all heavily impacted. And so I'd love to, we'd love to hear yours today, Kimberly.

SPEAKER_02: 0:56

Great. Well, thank you so much, Shauna. I know that we've been talking a little bit about sort of framing this question and what was one of our most difficult losses or just something meaningful that we lost in the fire. And so I was thinking about this and thinking about some of the things that I lost. So I'm a total loss survivor. We lost our home, everything in it. And we were able to take a few things, but not very many things. I was able to get a few albums from my kids, but it was really just what was sort of in the path of what I could see as we were getting ready to leave. We were able to get our cats, and I did. I did pack some clothes. I tell a lot of people this, that I thought we really were all going to be in tents, and we weren't going to have electricity, and we weren't going to have showers, and it was going to be a really hard time. So I kind of thought that way, and I packed a towel and a washcloth and I thought well if I'm taking a shower and everybody else in our community is going to be around then I'm also going to want a bathing suit so I brought a bathing suit as well and then a pair of scissors because you always need scissors so I was

SPEAKER_00: 2:18

able

SPEAKER_02: 2:21

I was able to bring a few things and that is a fun story to tell because it brings some levity to just how serious and challenging the situation was and so what I lost that was probably the most meaningful was archives and I had received archives both on my mom's side of the family and my dad's side of the family my dad's side of the family was all the archives that we had and lost all of those on my mom's side of the family I later found out there's 11 cousins and so the archive was spread out a little bit and there was a little bit of relief there but I had felt really guilty about losing those archives that I had let my family down And I was just really thankful for my cousins who kind of put me back on track to what we had experienced and that I didn't need to feel guilty that they were just so glad that we were able to get out. So, and I know I'm not the only one who lost archives and family heirlooms, but for me, that was definitely the most difficult and the most meaningful thing that I left behind and was lost.

SPEAKER_00: 3:29

Thanks for sharing.

SPEAKER_02: 3:30

I want to give you a

SPEAKER_03: 3:31

hug. I know. Thank you. I would say thanks for sharing that because it is so deeply personal, but on the note of levity, I have such a deep appreciation that you took a swimsuit because we all know how difficult it is to find a good swimsuit. So to have actually taken a swimsuit is like a next level genius move. That's a pro tip for fire or any evacuation. Take the good stuff. Take some of your good lingerie too. You'll never replace it.

SPEAKER_00: 3:56

No

SPEAKER_03: 3:56

comments. It's true. I'm going to go back and just get us started with our episode titled that I glossed over jumping into this episode. For this one, you know, this is episode four and we had titled this a billion dollar warning or as I off the cuff retitled it, how much more fucked could we get? And that's going to set the stage because what this has set up is a situation that is going to make it even more difficult for us to get federal funding. Potentially. Potentially. And, you know, and I'm actually, this is all for anyone who didn't just listen to episode three What we're talking about today is the investigation into some past wildfire cleanup, the issues and allegations that came from a whistleblower around toxic debris that was left behind and the potential ramifications for that, among other things. And with that, I'm going to let Steve take it and top line us on, because you do such a great job and I know you love doing it, Steve. I

SPEAKER_00: 4:57

try.

SPEAKER_03: 4:58

Because this was yesterday's LA Times cover story. It's a huge story this week. It's going to blow up into a bigger story. story and we really want to talk about

SPEAKER_00: 5:05

it. It's definitely going to affect our advocacy in Washington. So, you know, one of the big problems we have right now is everybody's trying to get what's called community development block grant disaster relief money. And when you hear about federal money after a disaster beyond FEMA, that's the money that we're really talking about. And, you know, the$40 billion that the governor asked for, that's the CDBGDR money. Lots of that acronyms, folks. And I've been writing about this from the start, because the word from Washington was, we're not going to get that money, no matter what. And, you know, there were times when it looked like maybe they were going to give a little bit, but maybe not. And then, you know, things started chipping away at it. You know, the LA Times carried a story back in, I think, March or April about, you know, housing and temporary housing and whether it was needed. And, you know, the state had said, oh, well, we don't need as much as we put into to our grant and everyone's like, okay, so what do you need and what don't you need? And so once you start losing that sense of confidence in what's being asked for, what's actually needed versus what's potentially needed, It starts to change in color the conversation. The conversations I've had in D.C. have been, you know, what is it that California really needs? And what this administration is trying to do in California, unfortunately, is the guinea pig here and is, you know, I call it California tough love. There was a post that I wrote about it post my trip. And what they're really saying is, look, look to yourself. You know, any of us who are parents probably understand this very well. Try to solve your problem before you come to me as opposed to come to me and ask me to solve your problem anybody who works for a boss or is a boss knows that bosses hate being brought a problem without a solution and you know look at who our president is i mean if you want the epitome of the alpha type boss it's president trump like him or not and i'm not going to get into that piece of this that's that's who controls this discussion now so you know we're all already fighting with one hand tied behind our back. Initially, we come out of the gate and authorize$50 million to fight back and keep California California. Well, you know, if I'm the federal government, I say, okay, fine, then, you know, you sort out your stuff yourself. And that's sort of where this has been. That's why we've been approaching it from the alternate financing models, you know, looking at bills like 797, looking at opportunity zones, as we talked about in the last session. So when yesterday's paper came out, And the whistleblower piece was listed in there. And while it wasn't directly on point with our fire, it's pretty clear that the implications are there. And so the story was talking about what a whistleblower is for those that don't know is, I mean, you have the image of somebody standing there with a whistle blowing it saying, you know, stop whatever you're doing. And in the case here, it was Cal OES, which is the Office of Emergency Services. They had managed the Woolsey fire which goes back to 2018, and a couple of the other fires associated with that. And the person who was in charge, and they brought in the campfire, which was Paradise. And the person who was one of the people in charge of it was saying that there were misappropriations of funds. And why this is important is because what happens is the state will spend the money and then submit a reimbursement to FEMA at the federal level for the monies that were spent. And part of the reason why disasters have gotten larger is because, I mean, to be honest, disasters are profitable for states if you want money you you go in and say well you know what's the incentive to hold down the cost the federal government's going to reimburse you and so in the article at the lead of it talks about you know this is becoming a multi-billion dollar industry and that it's now becoming an industry that's growing and more profitable for the contractors and when you see allegations like this you start going okay yeah i i get it i mean you're managing billions of dollars. But the problem you have here is the federal government's involved. And as any government contractor can tell you, you cannot submit a claim to the government for money and not make good on the claim that you're submitting. So even if it's a pass-through from the state getting, let's just say, XYZ contractor submits to the states, says, I have hauled away all this hazardous waste, and they didn't actually haul it away, and the state submitted for reimbursement, to the federal government. The federal government paid the state. That's what's called a false claim. Now, whether or not the federal government chooses to enforce it or not is up to the U.S. attorneys and the Department of Justice. It's not for us. These are big words. We don't want to get into that. However, it does color what potentially is the management of these wildfires. And it comes at a very, very rough time for California because not only are we in the these other considerations where we're antagonizing the federal government. But we also have delegations going up to Washington, potentially even next week, to ask for CDBG money. And if I'm a Republican, I go, well, I mean, look at the front page of the LA Times. What's going on here, guys? So this is a really important thing for us to understand because this is the context in which we're operating now. Is that top-line enough?

SPEAKER_03: 10:43

I think it does. And I'm going to add to that just the layer, especially for those who are listening and may not be Altadena or Palisades residents who have had to go through this community cleanup or are still living in a post-cleanup environment that is wildly incomplete. And I think just to set the stage for this for context, some of the allegations from this whistleblower are very specifically that in these fires that have been referenced, Camp Wolseley, that toxic material was left behind and hidden and thus, you know, and this is by Tetra Tech. And again, if you are a fire victim or fire survivor, you know who the name Tetra Tech is familiar because it's one of the contractors who worked on our cleanup. And I think it is, again, contextually important to understand that ours was the first urban wildfire cleanup to not have what every other fire did, including the ones that are now the point of this investigation. And that was a thorough cleanup. cleanup. We had a very minimized cleanup because there was not enough money. Those who wanted to speak, you know, off record who were inside the job shared that we were underfunded by about a billion dollars. Okay. So that had to get cut somewhere. And some of the ways it got cut was by minimizing what was taken. So for example, six inches of soil removal was done in what they called the, the, the ash footprint or the actual burn scar of your house and any other structures You may have had an ADU, a back house, a shed, a garage, and so on. But everything else on your lot was left, including retaining walls, pony walls, concrete, like, for example, a driveway. Driveways that were destroyed by the heavy equipment. I was actually just at my property yesterday and looking at a small retaining wall between mine and my neighbor's driveway and seeing for the first time that when their cleanup happened after mine, that that side of it is destroyed. We were looking at it together, like, cool, we have to deal with that now, too. All of that to say, you know, what was a standard otherwise would have been a scrape of about two inches of the entire lot. That was not done. What was considered standard practice in previous cleanups was also to do post-clearing testing of every single property and then, if needed, remediation and or to make recommendations to the homeowner for remediation. None of that happened for us. They also included all of the commercial districts so that the entire community was cleaned. That did not happen for us. For those who really want to play fun games, our little, you know, what we want to call our main street that burned, that includes Lake and Mariposa and the beautiful historic Mariposa Junction building that Joey Galloway owns and has been an incredible steward of. Half of his building, for those again who are not familiar, half of the historic building stands, half of the historic building is gone. A couple of businesses in the standing portion have just been remediated and are looking to reopen or have just reopened and we'll talk about them in another context later the other half of the building is still standing destroyed and not cleared yet and for again this is the real fun part for anyone who really wants to go look and poke around there's still asbestos just sitting out there because they were not even enrolled in the EPA level one or phase one cleanup which is incredibly disturbing because you know again if you follow what some of the other groups who are looking at the environmental impact here are working on, it is the fact that we are being left holding the bag on what is going to be a future financial disaster as the result of the undoubted environmental disaster that we have been left holding.

SPEAKER_00: 14:35

Well, and I think building on your points there, Shauna, you know, while the cases involved in this particular whistleblower issue don't necessarily... affect us directly today. Our circumstances are a little different, but it does open up the door to what hasn't been done and further audits and further potential risks. And considering the fact this administration has been so adamantly litigious with UCLA and other universities and states. Like, where there's an opening, who knows what can happen? And so the reason why we think it's important is because there are people going up to Washington. There are people advocating. People still looking to the federal government to solve the problem. When we need to be looking internally, you know, we need to stop defaulting to the federal government and saying, fix our problem for us. Give us money. They're not going to. And we know that. And the longer this drags out, the more we depend on them. You know, we talk about wanting to fortify California. We talk about wanting to make California, you know, take care of our own stuff. Yet our initial reaction is go to Washington. No, we have tons of resources here available. We have the six largest economy in the world. We have no problem saying that when the time is right. That's right. Yet we act like paupers. Didn't we

SPEAKER_03: 16:03

just become number five?

SPEAKER_00: 16:04

Well, yeah, but India will overtake us. But the idea is there are riches in this state that people can't even begin to imagine. California is 40 million people. California's state budget is over$320 billion a year. It's been taken up dramatically since Governor Newsom came into power. And a lot of it is, you know, money comes from the feds, is transfer payments, et cetera. But I mean, that is a huge budget. To put it in context, if you look at the entire budget of the nation of Canada, when you convert it. I was hoping you'd give us this. When you convert it, which is 40 million people, it's equal or within 90, within 5% of the California state budget. An entire nation. And not, you know. With a

SPEAKER_03: 16:51

military, with subsidized healthcare, with

SPEAKER_00: 16:55

you name it. For$5,000 a year. They're able to do that. And yet we are sitting here wondering how we're going to find a billion dollars to do a rebuild. Or a cleanup.

SPEAKER_03: 17:07

To even just properly

SPEAKER_00: 17:07

clean it up. Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, the cleanup. I mean, my point is like, it's not that we don't have it. And that's why some of these issues are broader than what we're talking about. I

SPEAKER_03: 17:17

said, where's the money, Steve? So we always ask, where is the money?

SPEAKER_00: 17:21

Well, look, there are ways that we can unlock money that's sitting, you know, I would say not dormant, but certainly not catalyzed. But this is a bigger discussion. The point is, like, we are getting to a point where the federal government doesn't have faith in California. And really what California's words are... their actions are, is that California doesn't have faith in California. And our leadership needs to say, wait a second, let's look internally first, find our solutions. We don't care what's been done in the past. We are the richest state in this nation by far. why are we not utilizing our resources more effectively? And that's the question I'm asking. Because to me, this article is a case in point of exactly the problem in that we continue to just keep doing the same thing over and over again. And we are at a point now where we're not getting the money, where nine months later, we need to do something different. And going to Washington and asking them for the same thing from the same representatives who get told no,

SPEAKER_03: 18:32

isn't

SPEAKER_00: 18:33

going to change the equation.

SPEAKER_03: 18:35

It's the definition of insanity, doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result.

SPEAKER_00: 18:41

Indeed.

SPEAKER_03: 18:43

Yeah. But here we are sitting on a record cleanup. And forgive me, anyone who knows me, I am a broken record on this because it... makes any I don't even know have the words for how upsetting it is but we have a lot of people in the community running around patting themselves on the back showing up for photo ops about the record cleanup when in fact the town is not cleaned up

SPEAKER_01: 19:08

it's

SPEAKER_03: 19:08

really easy to say that you cleaned up and you're done in a record time when you in fact don't complete the job I likened it to you know saying that you were the first to finish a test winning because you stepped out of the room because you only did half of it and in fact failed and that's kind of what this feels like and again it just beg so many questions beyond the financial implications and this larger setup for the ongoing challenges of depending on federal funding that is not coming. And it's clear it's not coming. It's also how all of us, ultimately, the people of Altadena are left holding the bag. And as always, those who will be most impacted and the worst impacted are those who are the least represented, which is how we got here in the first place.

SPEAKER_00: 19:52

Well, and, you know, what we're touching on is a broader leadership question. And Leadership from the community is part of this, right? We as a community have to demand this of our leaders. We have to demand accountability. We have to demand that, you know, what is needed is given to us. We can't just sit here and expect our electeds to magically read our minds. Now, Shauna has no problem telling people what she thinks or what she wants. But, I mean, as a community, it's really important that we sit there and we say, you know, yes, we demand having accountability. you know, a proper cleanup. How can we get there if we don't get the federal money? If we're a billion dollars short, can we find a billion? We found 200 million to do a prop 50, you know, like we can find money. It's clearly money.

SPEAKER_03: 20:40

Somebody's got it under a cushion.

SPEAKER_00: 20:42

And yeah, I call them under the cushion. It's cushion money for the state. It was

SPEAKER_03: 20:45

cushion money.

SPEAKER_00: 20:46

But I mean, like, where can we find money to do things? Where can we shuffle things around? Where can we move things around so that we can creatively solve these problems? I... I think that's where my struggle has been. And as much as I fault the federal government for what they're doing and they're holding us- Hostage. Hostage in many respects. I also don't fault them from the perspective of, I teach my kids, solve your problem, then come to me. We haven't even begun to solve it. And we as a community, it needs to start at home, at the community level. We need to say, look, electeds, you know, Help us. These are the problems we want solved, whether it's insurance. We need to solve our insurance problems, whether it's a wildfire fund, which we will talk about, whether it's remediation, whether it's how we're going to rebuild. We as a community are going to have to do this. It's been said for nine months now. And it's going to be critical that we come together and we start to get some answers because they're not coming from elsewhere.

UNKNOWN: 21:53

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 21:54

So where do you think in Altadena, like what kind of leadership structures exist now? What are some things coming down the pike and ways that we could do this? When we say we are the community, like how do you view

SPEAKER_03: 22:08

that?

SPEAKER_00: 22:09

I think you have to live with what we have today.

SPEAKER_03: 22:12

Correct. Can we just set up again for the listener who is not an Altadinan or who may be a new Altadinan? Altadena is unincorporated LA County. So when we talk about the leadership, the structure, the electeds, there's very little and very few

SPEAKER_00: 22:25

because of the nature. We are a town of 43,000 people

SPEAKER_03: 22:27

though. Correct. We are a town of 43,000 people with one elected official who is our fifth district supervisor.

SPEAKER_00: 22:34

Who's responsible for 2 million people.

SPEAKER_03: 22:36

Across almost, actually more than 60 communities. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:40

Yeah. So I mean, so. And

SPEAKER_03: 22:43

who is terming out, meaning we don't really have a lever with that particular individual because.

SPEAKER_00: 22:48

They're lame duck,

SPEAKER_03: 22:48

yeah. They're out.

SPEAKER_00: 22:50

So what Altadena has is a lot of communities community groups and a lot of, you know, there's a lot of various, I would call atomized groups in causes. And so no one group has emerged as the leader here. And I mean, part of that is good because it allows for a lot of representation. But part of it is bad because try herding cats. It's really hard when everybody has an interest. And so when I started this whole journey back in March, when I put up my plan on the nonprofit website, the idea was... We need something to unite around. And I figured, look, I don't care. Attack it. Attack me. At least you're attacking something. At least we can have substantive conversation. As our producer here was saying, she's listening to the information. She's saying, I've got more questions now. That's what we want. That's why we're doing this. We're not afraid of saying, I don't know. But

SPEAKER_03: 23:56

we have to keep asking the questions.

SPEAKER_00: 23:58

And we have to keep discussing. And we have to keep moving forward. We're not And so in the absence of moving forward, we are static, and that's where part of this problem has become. And again, in fairness to Altadena, our freaking town just burned down.

SPEAKER_02: 24:14

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 24:14

People have few other things to worry about than figuring out all this bullshit that we're talking, sorry, stuff that we're discussing here.

SPEAKER_03: 24:20

Oh, it wasn't me. Swear jar.

UNKNOWN: 24:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 24:28

But I guess back to the point of this discussion today, understanding why, why we're struggling and why that article is scary is because it goes to the heart of the question of how do we build credibility

SPEAKER_01: 24:44

in

SPEAKER_00: 24:45

Washington? How do we build credibility with the people that we're asking all this stuff from? Or are we just wasting time?

SPEAKER_01: 24:53

And

SPEAKER_00: 24:54

is it worth... To me, to build credibility, the answer is... Do it yourself. I mean, I'm going to be honest. This isn't a pissing match. We've got to just do it and show that we're capable. I mean, getting 797 passed is a big deal. That is an entirely new security that never existed before. And it unlocks money in a way that's never been done before in economic development and community development. In a government world, in this public-private partnership, never has this been done before. That's why it's so scary. But that's why it's so innovative to others. We're doing some of this. We just need our leaders to continue to go in this direction, to continue to embrace what we're trying to do. The answers are here. We just need to use it. And again, every time we go to move forward, we can't be getting punched in the face by things like that article from the LA Times. Because I can tell you, I'll walk into an office in Washington and I'll sit down with the electeds or their staff and they'll go, okay, I just saw that piece. What do you got to say about that? And I'm like, I don't have answers.

SPEAKER_02: 26:06

And

SPEAKER_00: 26:08

then they're going to be like, great.

SPEAKER_02: 26:10

Right. So are you saying that maybe it's not worth it to spend a lot of time trying to kind of rebuild that trust and credibility with the federal government, that it would behoove us more to rely on our own kinds of solutions? Well,

SPEAKER_00: 26:25

I think if we're going to go to Washington and we're going to ask, like I've been doing, and again, I'm not saying this because I'm not talking my own book here, hearing what they're saying, like if you're asking them to hear you and you're not listening to them,

SPEAKER_01: 26:37

you're

SPEAKER_00: 26:38

talking to a wall. And then when you do it when you have these other things that are showing up that are lining up showing that what you're asking for, you're already behind the eight ball. There's no credibility in what you're asking for. There's reasons to impeach what you're saying. You're going to lose.

SPEAKER_01: 26:55

So

SPEAKER_00: 26:55

why not go ask for something that resonates? If you're going to go to Washington, don't ask for CDBG money. Ask for opportunity zones. Ask for things that they want to have that are electeds. Give them the tools to be able to sit in a room with a hostile other party and say, look, I can give this to you because it works in your community, it works in my community, and guess what? We have the tools available. Oh, and by the way, we're about to pass a bill in California that you can go use in your state,

SPEAKER_01: 27:22

North

SPEAKER_00: 27:24

Carolina. And guess what? You can twist it and do what you want to do with it, but guess what? These are models that help you. We're not doing that.

SPEAKER_01: 27:34

And

SPEAKER_00: 27:35

I know for a fact there's a group that's going to be going to Washington next week. I know for a fact they're going to go up and ask for the same thing they've been asking for all along. And I know for a fact they're going to walk in and there's going to be this article and it's going to be like, what are we doing here? Stop representing us. You're not representing us. You're representing yourself.

SPEAKER_03: 27:51

Exactly. Because ultimately it's money in another nonprofit's pocket, which should be a conversation for another time, not to malign the nonprofit. That is not certainly my intention. Our nonprofits are doing incredible work, but it does not change the fact that we have no mechanism for real direct funding to get to fire victims. Fire victims have been so screaming this from day one. We're now eight going on nine months in. And again, speaking of like our crew here where we're recording, who happened to be more impacted Altadena residents, saying, where's the money? What's going on? Where's all this money? Big and small,

SPEAKER_00: 28:26

locally, on a larger topic. That sounds like three different posts. I don't know who could have written philanthropy one, two, and

SPEAKER_03: 28:34

three. Well, I think you did. So for anyone listening, if you want to deep dive into that, because we are going to try and stick to our time schedule today. Do go find Steve's philanthropy post. There is a one, two, and a three. And you can get a little background on that. But, you know, that is an ongoing frustration for many. The only mechanism is for nonprofits, not all of which are local, to get this money and then to administer or implement it. And they don't necessarily speak for us.

SPEAKER_00: 29:00

Well, and that's the thing. And them going to Washington and speaking on this stuff without talking to the community or getting community input is very frustrating.

SPEAKER_03: 29:07

It raises questions when they're engaging a lobbyist to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 29:10

Well, I'm glad that money is being spent on lobbyists and not on us.

SPEAKER_02: 29:16

Wait, what?

SPEAKER_00: 29:16

I'm glad that they're spending money on lobbyists and not in the community. Like, where is the money going?

SPEAKER_02: 29:22

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 29:22

You know, what is it that the lobbyist is offering? Any good lobbyist would know you're going to fall on your face. Not before you get paid.

SPEAKER_03: 29:32

Not before you get paid. That's a super fun place to head into a little wrap-up. Did you

SPEAKER_02: 29:40

want to add anything? Oh, I mean, I was going to sort of start a whole new topic. So I think we can save that. I was just going to ask, and I will say it just so that we can maybe talk about it another time, but kind of in that idea of us, like, you know, working to find solutions for ourselves, you know, just wondering at each level, kind of what are some of the things available to us, you know, that we have. So I would say we don't necessarily need to talk about that now, but, you know, thinking even just about Altadena and Pasadena, right, an unincorporated recovery story versus an incorporated recovery story. That's really its

SPEAKER_03: 30:12

own episode. Exactly. As I keep saying, it's a tale of two fires, right? From day one. Again, it's a tale of two fires. The fire miraculously stopped at the Pasadena borders. Pasadena miraculously had evacuations. Pasadena miraculously had fire response. And Pasadena miraculously is managing their way through rebuild, granted on a significantly smaller scale than what we are facing. I don't want to undermine that at all. But that really is its own story. topic of conversation, right? But I think, though, to your point, Kimberly, as we talk about how we advocate for ourselves, you know, we can't necessarily all advocate for ourselves in Washington, right? We're not going up, we're not hiring lobbyists and having these conversations and doing this. But what we have talked about before and will continue to talk about is how we all can be our own best advocates and how we can organize. And I say organize because, one, people have no idea how powerful they are as individuals. Just one squeaky wheel can be so incredibly powerful. If you just continue to speak up, tell your story, tell your neighbor's stories, continue to demand accountability, even if it is from, you know, elected officials

SPEAKER_00: 31:26

with whom... Be reasonable.

SPEAKER_03: 31:27

Correct. Always be reasonable and rational and civil, which is key. You know, it's obviously you can't walk in like a raving lunatic, even though we might feel that way on some days. If you walk in with a cogent argument and some key points and what you're actually asking for that can be done, those things often are heard and people are willing to listen. They're looking for solutions too because they don't often understand our community, what it needs, or how to think through these problems. And sometimes we offer creative solutions. But to layer onto that, we are even more powerful in a way, again, that people really do not comprehend when we organize and work together. So So be it through a community group, be it through following the work that since this specifically ties into the environmental aspect, the toxic structures left behind, the toxic soil left behind. And if you have toxic soil, you have toxic air and water. You know, those are conversations that are being had and really, you know, dived into, dove into, dove into by a number of orgs, including the Eaton Fire Residents United EFRU, who have been working with a number of scientists and actually just obtained, I believe, some funding to do some further science and pull some further data. And so anyhow, I highly recommend looking at what those groups are doing, how you can support their work, how you can speak to your electeds about supporting their work, because right now that is what we have. It's Altadena folks doing it for themselves because nobody's coming and nobody's doing it for us.

SPEAKER_00: 33:06

Also, one last piece. Educate yourself It's extremely important to understand context and be educated. So take your time, do your reading, do your research, read your papers, read your information, get your data. Because when you come in with data, you come in with stats, you come in with understanding, you can appreciate the position that electeds are into and where they're coming from, at least to a certain extent. You don't have all their context because they live on a different level. But The more you educate yourself, the better off you are.

SPEAKER_03: 33:43

I think the key lesson for everyone listening, but especially for all of us in an unincorporated area and other unincorporated towns is not waiting. We can't wait for someone else to come and advocate for us. We can't. So document everything. Know your representatives. Organize for yourselves and go speak up for yourselves. Go create those relationships. Like, for example, for us, you can go direct to our county supervisor. You can go direct to our county supervisor's field representative, who's pretty fantastic and responsive. And, you know, there's no reason for anyone's voice to be lost.

SPEAKER_02: 34:20

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Shauna. And thank you, Steve. It's been a great conversation. So next week, we are going to talk about the Wildfire Fund, California's$21 billion answer to a wildfire recovery. And we are going to talk a little bit about who pays and who gets left behind more conversation on that next week spoiler

SPEAKER_03: 34:42

alert we do so on that let's as I said on the last episode I really wanted to close with a little shout out to a local business so today I'm going to talk about as I've lost my note I've managed to lose my note but I know exactly what I want to talk about the pampered lady florist so this is a long time legacy Altarina business she was just able to reopen the middle of July She had a grand reopening party and then a relaunch. Fantastic, beautiful flowers. But again, legacy black-owned business. Has been in Altadena for decades. It was really fantastic to see her come back. And I especially wanted to talk about her business. She is located on Lake just north of New York Drive. And I'm going to pull up the address for you that I had and I lost because we're doing 100 things. She is located at 1920 Lake Avenue. And that's a little mini mall. And she is number 102. But again, great local business. And this is one who does not advertise, does not have social media, and has really always leaned into the community for support. So wanted to give her some love in hopes that a broader audience can go find her services and go take advantage of them.

SPEAKER_02: 36:00

Yeah, agreed. But now we want to hear from you. So what are some of your questions from this episode? What did you think? And if you were the one who were going to be creating some of these solutions, what would your ideas be? And you can send your questions to Shauna.

SPEAKER_03: 36:16

Yeah, or to Steve, any of us. Again, you can find us on Instagram at Beautiful Altadena through our Facebook groups by the same name, Beautiful Altadena Official Group and our subgroups. And you can also find us, me, on Substack as Beautiful Altadena. And then, of course, you can find Steve, Altapolicywonk on Substack. And we also have an email, beautifulaltadenaog at gmail.com. Again, that is beautifulaltadena.com. OG at gmail.com. And we love to hear from you. So please send us a note. Yes, please do. Only the nice things.

SPEAKER_02: 36:51

It's been a hard year. Be nice. There you go. And this is After the Ashes, a beautiful Altadena podcast. Please join us again next week. Until then, I'm Kimberly.

SPEAKER_00: 37:04

I'm Steve.

SPEAKER_02: 37:06

I'm Shauna. Stay safe.

SPEAKER_00: 37:08

Stay well.

SPEAKER_03: 37:11

Stay informed. I'll take that. The adults are still in the room. We'll see you next time.