Season 2/Episode 11: Mercury in Gatorade

We open this episode with a few technical difficulties — because apparently Mercury is in Gatorade — and then get right to it!

With Steve back in Washington, DC, reporting on the drama, the intrigue, and full-on mishegas, we dive into another important conversation: The difference between EDA and CDBG-DR funding models, and why what happens in Altadena could shape disaster recovery policy nationwide for years to come. 

We revisit a lingering question that refuses to go away. Why is there still no economic development plan for Altadena and why does the County seem uninterested in creating one?

National Attention & Relevance. Has the national news cycle already moved on. We’re seeing major stories — even ones tied to national issues — getting passed over because there’s simply too much else happening. So what now? How do we keep Altadena’s story visible and relevant beyond our own echo chamber?

Politics & Accountability. We take another look at the Governor’s race, including:
• Gavin Newsom’s alignment with Karen Bass
• Bass' own polling that positions Spencer Pratt as her leading challenger
• And the question of who else is actually viable in this field

Meanwhile, the Attorney General’s investigation is actively underway, with residents reporting outreach from the AG’s office requesting interviews about their experiences the night of the fire. A clear sign that this process is moving forward in a meaningful way. 

A Community. Shawna shares a reminder to stay connected through Beautiful Altadena's Stories where daily coverage includes community news, events, citizen journalism, resources, classes, grants, financial updates, local business updates, some humor, and more. You can follow along on both our public Facebook page and Instagram. We post literally hundreds of items every week! 

This week’s Small Business Shout Out goes to Sidecca, where you can find Shawna’s vintage 70s style Altadena shirt many have asked about. While their storefront has not yet reopened following flood damage after the fire, they continue to operate through pop-ups and online and are well worth supporting. More on their website and follow them on Instagram for the latest. 

Transcript

Steve 0:00

Welcome back to Beautiful Al Tadena. Or it's the Beautiful Alta Dina podcast. I'm your co-host, Steve. I can never get this right, Sean.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Oh man, we were just saying all like the last 20 minutes, technical difficulties, technical difficulties. Microphones aren't working right. This isn't right. This isn't right. This isn't connecting. What happened to this? Um, and I thought you were gonna nail it, Steve. Welcome back to After the Ashes, a beautiful afternoon podcast.

Steve 0:30

That's why you're in communications and I'm not.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

It's season two, episode 11. Episode 11. Yes. We are recording on Wednesday, March 4th, um at um about 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. And I say all that because 11:21 here. So not in our normal times because um Steve, Mr. Mr. Steve is gone to Washington and is reporting from DC. So I feel like we're gonna like that's what we should jump into. Let's talk about what's happen why you're in DC and what's going on in DC and all the, you know. I'm trying to think of the right words I want to use, but yes. All the drama. I was going to say, those are the two words. I was gonna say the drama, the intrigue, the Michigas, but I haven't had my coffee yet, and then those didn't feel right. But I'm glad that you used the exact words I was going to.

Steve 1:21

See, we're we're even though we're 3,000 miles or 2,500 miles away, we're in sync.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Still sympatico.

Steve 1:28

We've been doing this too long. I know. Um yeah, no, I I was invited to come speak at a disaster finance closed door session with the Milken Institute. They have a um uh like a satellite office here, and that'll be this afternoon. In fact, that's where I'm going after we finish. That's why I'm in a tie. I have to look presentable for once. Um, but you know, while here, I was up on the hill yesterday, Capitol Hill, and had a lot of interesting discussions about disasters and where we stand. And there's been some developments that I think are important for people to understand. And I think that we're getting closer to some form of movement. Now, is it gonna resolve itself? No. But I definitely think that things are starting to take shape after a year.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

After a year. And what kind of movement? What would you call movement? Because, you know, for everyone who's listening who doesn't necessarily know, or let's say someone was just tuning in for the first time today. Let's talk about well, let's catch you up on the case. Steve, just recap on the last year in about 30, 45 seconds or less.

Steve 2:34

Take 500 substacks and put them into 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yeah, we can do it. I have faith.

Steve 2:40

Essentially, what's happened is there is a goal to have something called a CDBGDR. So community development block grant, disaster relief, which is a supplemental. It's not it, it it means that Congress has to vote on it separately from the regular budget. And we have been, quote, held hostage to this, in my opinion. Other people would say this, the the administration has held us hostage. I would say that we've held ourselves hostage to this money and live or dying by it. That's the 33 to 40 billion that you've heard the governor has requested, and that Trump won't give us. And it's not that Trump doesn't want to give it to us, it's just that Trump doesn't want to give it, period, because the disaster model, disaster recovery model is broken. And so the battle has been going back and forth between California, Congress, and the administration. And through the summer, there was an attempt to get CDBG money. The administration has told us unequivocally no. In the fall, they try to get into what's called the National Defense Authorization Act, which is one of the must-pass bills that Congress has to pass and it's bipartisan. So it's you hitch your ride on that. That didn't happen. It got peeled out in December, as we wrote about on the Substack. They put a standalone bill in place in the House about two weeks ago or so. It's now over in the Senate right now, based on the conversations I had. And they had what on Monday voted to end cloture. So we all hear about the filibuster. They ended the debate that the unlimited debate that they could use to stop a bill. So the bill is now on the floor. It should pass if it's going to pass in the next few days, if not sooner. I don't know. Nobody was really giving me an idea. But it would then have to go back to the House from the Senate and have to be reconciled on its side and make sure everything's in alignment, or they have what's called a conference and then has to pass the house. And if it doesn't pass the house with its amendments, then the bill dies, or the bill, you know, gets amended and goes back and forth. It's like a ping-pong game. Um this bill has some hair. I mean, that's the reality of it. So what it does is it gives it authorization to do CDBG DR. So it makes it permanent that there is now this standard program that exists as opposed to creating the program every time there's a disaster, but it doesn't authorize any money. So sorry, it doesn't allocate any money or appropriate money. It gives you the ability to do so, but it doesn't actually do anything. So it's, you know, a meeting to have a meeting, so to speak. But being up here and discussing some of the things that we've been working on, which is the EDA component, which is a different path to bringing in the money and allows more flexibility, that has got a lot of a quote, it was said to me, we've rocked a few people back. So things got a little hairy yesterday up on the hill. It was, it was an interesting day. I haven't I haven't done this in a while where it's been you could feel the knives out. I it it's been almost six years since or seven years since I've had to do that. But been here done this. This is not unfamiliar territory.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah, I believe it. Um I think do you want to talk about the EDA a little bit just so that people understand what that is too, in contrast to the CDBG money and that construct. And also I think it's you know, maybe even again, I don't want to go too deep, but for someone who's just listening to understand that you know the the CDD C D BG, all of our acronyms, man. I know that that funding mechanism is kind of the standard. That's what that's how it has been the standard.

Steve 6:23

It has become the standard. It's your standard post-disaster relief money that states and cities are dependent on to you know, essentially fund this. And that's what our electeds and our machine have been fighting for. Um but again, that is only in the last 20 plus years that that's become the standard. The standard before that was state. And the federal government would stand you up through FEMA, and then the state would come in and do the backstop. And then if there's supplemental money that comes in, the design, you know, the federal government would do it. It really changed with Northridge, 9-11, and then especially after Katrina. Katrina's when this all kind of went out of control. So what the admit what the administration's trying to do right now is kind of grab this back to some form of center. And so CDBG comes through HUD, the Housing and Urban Development Committee, um, the Housing Department of Housing and Urban Development. And to get the CDBG money, it has to run through what we call a sovereign counterparty. So that means a county or a state. And so, since most disasters typically have the state and the federal government working in sync with one another, this isn't, this has never been a problem until now. And, you know, whether right, wrong, or indifferent, you can blame Trump all you want. We have decided that we want to, we've decided that in California we're going to keep it the same way and we're going to fight for what it was. Even though we're going to fight Trump, we're still going to ask for you know billion, tens of billions of dollars from him. But, you know, let's leave that aside for a minute. Um basically what's happened is this count sovereign counterparty is sort of the Trump card that everybody's playing, no pun intended. And that the county believes or the state believes that because there has to be a sovereign entity on the other side of this, that eventually the federal government's going to cave. So, you know, I started having some discussions with some folks and started to realize that we were at this impasse. And I said, well, what if we rethink this thing? And what if we look at it from a different perspective? And there's another agency that is already congressionally authorized, it's already existing. It's called the Economic Development Agency. It's underneath the Department of Commerce as opposed to the Department of Health and Housing and Urban Development. And EDA, the economic development agency, does a lot of similar things and they do a lot of rebuilds, especially our economic development and you know, infrastructure development, a lot of the things that we talked about that we're going to need, you know, in these different regions. And they have like these regional commissions. The biggest one, the most famous one that most that people probably on the West Coast don't know, but the one out east is the Appalachian Regional District, and it's done a lot to, you know, uh do economic development along Appalachia. And EDA has a different authorization in terms of how it can form or how it can structure its grants and or how it can structure its money being allocated. And its structure allows for a bypass of the sovereign counterparty conundrum that exists on the HUD side. So if the federal government isn't getting support from the state or the state is being difficult, um, going through EDA as opposed to HUD allows the federal government to push the money out, but bypass the entities that they feel are not politically supportive and or potentially a risky counterparty. And I don't think, you know, Shauna, you you could you know this very well. I mean, it's not like the city and the county have been, you know, the uh the example are of good government lately. I mean, you know, this is cluster.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

You say you beat me to my next question, which was simply going to be, you know, what happens when you don't have that sovereign entity, right, to run it through? When you don't have, when you have a state official that is, you know, locked in battle with your federal official, and when you don't have, you know, a trustworthy county uh or city counterpart to run the money through, then what?

unknown 10:29

Right?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Like, I mean, and I and I raise that because you know, we know, I mean, we listen, we have an attorney general investigation looking into the failures of our county. So it should affect the money coming out of the cuts.

Steve 10:40

Yeah, correct. So so everybody is built around these rebuilding authorities. You saw the motion pass from the this this the county a couple months a couple weeks ago with cat with our supervisor and Lindsay Horvath, and they are ready and received ready to receive the money, but it doesn't mean it's gonna come. And the EDA, you can use nonprofits that can be stood up that don't have to be a P3, P3 being public-private partnership. There doesn't have to be a public component to this. And that's what makes this really interesting. Plus, EDA typically has a layered um capital stack. In other words, their projects require different inputs of investment from different entities to get the grant money, which otherwise, you know, the the C D BG money just flows and that's the end of it. And that will just go. I call it the grant to nowhere. It's just gonna the money's gonna go everywhere and nobody will be able to see where it went. Sound familiar, Kyrie? Well, and then and and and again, like it's not as if our our leadership, you know, whether philanthropic, whether, you know, that I call the corporate philanthropy. I'm not talking about all the philanthropic organizations, but like the corporate foundations, which are, you know, government adjacent, our entities in government, they're all looking at this to flood and you know, prop up the city budget, prop up the county budget. I mean, I'm sure a good chunk of this money will probably go to the$4 billion settlement. You know, there's many different ways that this is going to go that EDA changes that dynamic because they can bypass the whole system, especially if there's a counterparty risk or there's been a difficulty in the government executing or the local government executing its function. So while it statutorily is allowed, customarily it hasn't been done. But we all understand this administration what their feelings about customs are, too. So yeah, and so I mean and basically the people on the hill were like, oh, you can? Oh, this is fascinating. And I'll tell you that the California folks were a little bit more perturbed.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

I was going to say bristly. I was trying to think of a nice word for it. I mean, I'm sure this is upsetting their Apple cart in a really big way, right? I mean, when you're kind of hands on a ball program and a lot of people, and they were in the red zone. Yeah, yeah.

Steve 13:11

I mean, to use the football analogy. I mean, they were in the red zone, they're getting ready to score, and now all of a sudden, you know, a blitz came out of nowhere, and they're like, what does this mean? And whereas when I talk to different offices on the Republican side, because again, bipartisan, their attitude was, oh, this is what we've been waiting for. Oh, you can do this. Oh, you give more control to the locals. And, you know, it's not necessarily they can opt to go with government if government is is is cooperative. And if it isn't, they can go their own way. And look, the Palisades called for a 9-11 type uh rebuilding district from the federal side when the sec when uh the administrators of SBA and EPA were out. You know, whether you agree with what they're saying or not, this actually gets them much closer to what they're saying. And they don't need Congress to authorize it, which is a huge, huge win for, you know, because of the speed at which this can go. Now, what's also interesting is the biggest thing that the EDA, the lack of this program is the affordable housing piece. So the big reason why the EO was created back in January was based around permitting delays and the delay in getting housing built. So in discussions on the Hill, I said, well, you know, if we replaced the HUD money with, say, low-income housing tax credits instead of just a direct grant, which would still induce, you know, low-income housing to be developed because it's something we use all over the place. And considering the fact we're using it everywhere for how, you know, to address affordability housing issues, it shouldn't be a political lift in California. But what the low-income housing, what I would said was if we can tie an increase in the amount that they could use for low-income housing tax credits in disaster areas to a timeline. So let's just say you have three years after disaster declaration, that would force these projects to get through permitting quicker and thus get the rebuild started faster, which is a big problem that people see here. So it starts to address some of these broader concerns that they're having. Um and the other thing that we talked about that got a lot of traction was the idea of maybe allocating$50 billion to this, but the$50 billion is a glorified revolving loan fund. So instead of it going into a grant and then never coming back, it's money that has to be paid back as equity in the investment stack so that you know we go borrow, say, six billion dollars to do a$30 billion rebuild. We have to pay back that six billion dollars so that the next time there's a disaster, we just go borrow it and it's sitting in an account in Washington as opposed to having to go and get appropriations from Congress.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

And is that is that paying, is that an interest-bearing situation, or is that you know, I think it would be based on an equity basis.

Steve 16:10

So, like if there's appreciation in the asset value that you're doing, that you know, if there's a way to do that, you know, how can you monetize it?

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I think which is fascinating, actually. Why would you not have that? Why would you not want to have that fund to tap into at any time? I mean, it kind of takes us takes us, I hate to make this analogy or example or you know, correlation, but the wildfire fund, right? I mean, it's that it's terrible in the sense that like, you know, it's been funded for the wrong wrong ways and for all the wrong reasons and for the wrong people. But it is the only reason that any of us and our neighbors are going to even remotely recoup what we lost following this fire. And you know, to think about that, if you like day two just had knew that this fund existed. And that you could tap into this and like, hey, what do you need? What do we need to pull? How many bills? Guess what? We might have we might have had a complete cleanup and post-remediation testing. We wouldn't have been scrounging for couch change for that missing hundred million dollars.

Steve 17:05

Well, that's the whole thing, is that we could have been going from the start. And exactly the conversations here are the horse has already left the barn, essentially, for the wildfires and North Carolina. This is not just us, obviously. Even though California likes to think it's ABC, it's not. Um and ABC means anywhere but California. And the reality is everybody's saying, okay, if we're gonna reimagine this, let's reimagine this right. And these are tools that are available that potentially can be used and used effectively going forward. And if they're gonna cut the amount, and the other thing that I think is really interesting about putting it in this, not an investment model, but you know, i this capital stack potentially paying back type thing, it creates discipline that doesn't otherwise exist. And you know, we're not gonna just say that.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

I think it's important to say that when you say it creates discipline that otherwise doesn't exist. I think it's important for people to understand it's like again, it's like money just disappearing, right? Yeah, um, like we've seen with the home fire. Like we've seen with the home. Well, it's it's fire aid and homelessness. Exactly. Thank you. I was going to use the homeless example of where billions of dollars have gone. I mean, taxpayers keep voting, like, yes, we'll put more money into this, put more money into this, fix it. And for what? Like, where's this money going? You know, to$1,000 a square foot temporary shacks? I mean, it's insane. Because we know it's going into pockets every step of the way.

Steve 18:35

Again, you you have to take care of certain constituents along the way. You know, yeah, again, it this kind of a model will require PLAs, so labor will get taken care of, and those special interests will get there. So, for any for all intents and purposes, the trade should be very much supportive of this. Um, because it's gonna get the colour. We need to be showing movement, and right now everything we've got is just delay, delay, delay. Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

It doesn't pay and and and working on on like peddly money. I mean, I can't tell you, and I know you too how often I hear 3.8 million that you celebrate. I that I'm sorry, that just made me like gaffaw and spit out my coffee is people are celebrating it. Being said, like, oh,$3.8 million for 30 to 50 people to get help building an ADU. And it's like, folks, could it be any more, you know, in your face what that is? That that's like, oh great, we'll find$3.8 million to help you raise the tax base. Not to rebuild your homes, but to help you rebuild, like build the tax base. Yeah, sure, why not? We'll find that money. But$3.8 million, even when people are, I was going to use the example though, of like just people being so excited, like, oh, the the CBD G money's gonna come and we're gonna have like a hundred couple hundred million dollars, like so what? A couple hundred million dollars is literally nothing in the scope of what's needed. Exactly. We've been talking about this for uh a year at this point, and it's um it's it's wild uh the extent to which those who are so entrenched in this also, you know, either don't understand it or just willfully want to party a parrot uh parrot a party line versus actually dealing in reality. It's it's honestly like we've entered just bizarro Deluland. I don't know. I don't know what else to say about it because you know, as a bystander, and I'm not a bystander, that's the wrong word. I don't think we're bystanders, we're active uh participants in this, but it's um it's just been really interesting to see. I think you and I talk about this all the time. It's like it's quite the uh social experiment, right? To just see how all of this flies falls down.

Steve 20:50

Um it's funny. I I was walking the halls yesterday and I just finished up a meeting with um an elected and or you know, staffer with the elected, and I saw an LA County official walking down the hall, somebody I knew. And I was like, good to see you. The look on their face was like, What the hell are you doing here? You know, like all the places in in all, I mean, and not just you know, in the gin joints. Yeah, I mean, walking on the street on the hallway in the house office building, right down by where I was.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah, and like you and if you know it's if you know you know, you know exactly whose office you were coming and going from.

Steve 21:30

I mean, and and you know, it's kind of funny when you think about it because you go, okay, you know, kismet, right? Like Basher, as we say in in Hebrew, or you know, like just serendipity. And and I've had this happen to me time and time again up here, where things I I remember the first time I was up here and I was talking to somebody about this this morning, and I remember I was meeting with the House Small Business Committee talking about the court case we won back in 2017. And it was the first time this program. In 80 years, had ever been beaten. Nobody had ever done it. Everybody wanted to know how the hell did you pull this off? And so I went up there and I was talking to, I was in this round table, the small business committee. And then afterwards, I went up to the House Veterans Affairs Committee because it was a VA issue. And on the way, I ran into this group of people who I was up against in the court case. They were on the hill lobbying and I had no idea they were there. And eventually I get a text from somebody who I worked with at the time, who now actually works with me here. And they said, Oh, what are you doing up on the hill? Like they walk into the room.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Like, what are you doing here?

Steve 22:36

Do you guys know who Steve Sachs is? And they're like, oh shit, really? Like that guy, that that's a problem. And you know, I I almost feel like history's repeating itself again. You know, when I saw this official from LA, I was like, uh-huh, here we go. Well, you know, uh, things got a little, you know, the turbulence started a little bit after that in terms of you know reactions that people were having that I was getting up here.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

And that's Yeah, I wish we could I wish we could repeat the story that um you shared with me yesterday. I wish we could repeat that. I know we can't, but I can think about it in my mind and be incredibly amused and leave all of our listeners wondering uh what could possibly be so amusing. It involves I'll just say it involves some 12-year-old humor and really send your head spinning and leave it at that.

Steve 23:20

Well, the the bottom line though is regardless of all of that, it's the evidence that something's happening because otherwise they don't care. Normally they, you know, there's so much going on up here in Washington that the last thing they need to do is worry about, you know, some nobody from Altadina talking about something. So something we're saying is hitting hitting home. And that's a good thing. Because at the end of the day, guys, no matter no matter what we do, even if the plan that they have goes through, it's still gonna be years before that money's unlocked. Whereas what we're talking about can make it happen quicker.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Now, yeah, I know, which is so frustrating. So, so frustrating. Um I you know, I was gonna share for anyone who's not watching doesn't catch a clip of this because we do actually now record both audio video, and um, there are some clips, and we're gonna push all of the video to YouTube for anyone who really wants to watch us back and forth or watch and see me periodically staring at my computer or Steve doing whatever he's doing. But today Steve is wearing a tie because he's on the hill, so he's in a shirt, he's in a tie. Um, and I can't help but point out, Steve, that um, you know, you were joking about the shirt and tie, but for sure there's also gel in your hair that's not usually there. Yep.

Steve 24:41

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Oh yeah. I gotta be a girl today. And meanwhile, I look like I just rolled out of a haystack, and in this case, the haystack was my bed because um, oh my gosh, I woke up, I I shared this with you, Steve, and we were texting early that like I woke up at 4 a.m. from a nightmare. I have been lucky not to have. I know a lot of people in our community have talked about having nightmares. I have not really had those nightmares. Um, but wow, yeah, I I dreamt that I was in a house that was on fire and no one would do anything. Everyone was just hanging around, and I was like, grab like get what you really want, or like go, like toss it out the window if you really want it and grab it, or like just get out. Like, why is everyone just standing around? And then someone was like, Well, did you call anyone? I was like, Yes, and they're not coming. Like, get out of the I get out of the house. It's on fire.

Steve 25:31

It's prophetic, right? I mean, well, when you think about it from a symbolic perspective or metaphoric perspective.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Um, oh, that's from the symbolic from the sim I know from the symbolic metaphoric, here was the favorite part of the dream just before I woke up. I was looking out of a window from this of this burning house and across a uh like a big expanse of of grass and trees and green and all the things that we lost, right? And used to love so much. But and I see a distant rooftop, and they're not that so distant that I couldn't see, or in my dream I'm not visually impaired. That's nice. And um, it was a peacock on a rooftop, and the peacock was kind of sliding down this rooftop, as they do, right? You know exactly what I'm talking about. Anyone who's in our anyone who's in a community with peacocks knows exactly what I'm talking about. The goo peacocks kind of like dancing down your roof and sliding down before they do their very awkward uh dinosaur pterodactyl like flap to fly down on up and down from a roof. But anyway, the slide the the the peacock is sliding and there are two ravens on its back, like riding the peacock and just enjoying themselves. I don't know. We'll unpack it, it's like a whole episode to unpack that. If any therapists are listening and want to do that.

Steve 26:42

I'm sure therapists are like, oh shit, Johnny got some problems.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

So you're like, tell me something I don't know. Oh my gosh. So I'm gonna bring us back quickly to the EDA, CBDG, what's happening, what to look for, or what to expect to happen next, right? Let's wrap it up for people of what to expect next.

Steve 26:59

And I also want to- I really don't know. I really don't know.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

We don't know. So now we wait. We get we get to this and we hurry up and wait some more.

Steve 27:06

Well, I think what's happening is you know, the county and the city are probably having to try to put together proposals for the feds to determine what you know what they want, what they need, and what is actually required. Um and then I think the feds need to determine which way they want to go. They can go with the CDBG, but is that what they want? Or do they want to open up this new door with the EDA and make people go, well, you know what? I guess what they tell you is in business school, when you do a negotiation, they teach you you have to have alternatives or else you can't negotiate. And I think, you know, the alternatives were fund it or don't fund it, or somewhere in the middle of that up to this point. I think, you know, but the the parameters were pretty well defined. It's just a question of how much are they going to get and how are they gonna do that? I think what the EDA does is it changes those parameters and says, well, guess what? Now we don't have to do the parameters, we can go over here. And what does that open up from a funding perspective? And, you know, can we start to bring in this the AB797 as a model of what we can do, you know? Um, but we don't need to have legislation from the state. We'll just do it through this authority. Um, do we want so we bring in CRA? We can bring in, you know, do we go to Congress and we say, okay, guys, we want you to do the opportunity zones? Do we want you to do, you know, increase the low-income housing tax credits because that's the one hole that the EDA has. Um and do we have to build this capital stack? Do we look at, you know, talking to SBA and getting this shared equity model so we can fix that$200,000 or less donut hole that a lot of people have it, you know, or you know, reduce the debt that they're having to take on to get back into their homes. Like these are things that once you start to open up the EDA side, we can start to backfill a lot of these components that we've talked about, which the CDBG is very much top-down county run. And we all know what the county how much has the county done that's been effective so far.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yeah. Um, yeah.

Steve 29:14

I mean, and arguably not a lot. And you know, again, back to the questions that you and I have been going through with the media. Like, there's some serious problems that exist within the county's rebuild that we haven't even addressed.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Exactly. And that are becoming more challenging to address, and we're gonna get into that next. But um, I want to raise before we wrap up this segment, you know, why there is still like we we just talked about it having an economic development plan and all these things, and how all of this then, you know, overlays and there is no economic development plan. Yes, but that's my point. And I want to I'd like to talk about that. Like, why is there no economic development plan for Altadina? Like we have such an opportunity, having seen two of our major uh commercial corridors virtually destroyed, North Lakes and Fair Oaks, to implement, you know, again, opportunity zones, which I've been harping on for many months, as you know, and you have you've talked about this too. But like we uh I just I always go back to that example because it's right under our nose in in old Pasadena and how that opportunity zone funding was leveraged to completely redevelop a community and not to I think it's always important to know it can be done through an Al Tedina lens. I think people get nervous of like, oh, gentrification, you know, uh take getting well, no, no. It's like how do we actually have a say in how this is rebuilt and get the community that we want back because the community we we loved is gone, right? Like I I think that's unfortunately what we have to accept. That that's gone. So it's like how do we build I I hate using this Biden expression because I thought it was one of the better, oh geez, I thought that was like the worst campaign slogan ever. It's so awkward, it's terrible grammar, it's not proper English, it makes me mad wild and mad. But the editor in me is like, no, please stop. But it is, but that is it. Like, how do we build back a better community, right?

Steve 31:12

Um I think I I think that to answer your question, first of all, the can you got to get the county out of the way because the county doesn't want anything to do with economic development in Altadina. I mean, I think it's been very clear.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Um you want to say why? Because it's obvious to me, and I'm sure it's obvious to you too.

Steve 31:28

There there are there are two answers. Number one, the cynic in you says they don't want incorporation because they've been building up the sales tax base, which can allow exactly. It would give us too much freedom.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

It would give us too much control and freedom because those financials would be transparent. It's a lot harder to hide commercial financials than it is property tax.

Steve 31:46

And there's another factor here is that the county is very poor at doing economic development. I think anybody right now in Los Angeles realizes that economically we're not moving in the right direction and we have some serious headwinds. And I don't think they have any idea of what they're doing when it comes to this. Yeah. Um and I'm not the only one who shares this. There are a lot of people in the economic development space that feel very similar. We don't have the right leadership to address these concerns. And the things that we're doing are very similar to what we're doing in Altadena with the rebuild, is that we're using, you know, we're we're using thousand dollars to fix million-dollar problems or million dollars to fix billion-dollar problems. I mean, and I don't think there's a conservative plan. I don't think there's a vision, I don't think there's anything, and I don't think they give a shit, to be honest. And it's a it's a travesty because Al Tedena in and of itself could become a beacon of economic development in Southern California, considering the res rich resources, not just resources, but rich, rich resources that we have in our community. And, you know, we've got JPL, we've got Caltech, we've got the mechanisms to do it. We have aerosol. I talk about all of this all the time. I know. We don't have to do manufacturing. Or we can reimagine manufacturing. You know, I was talking to somebody last night about this, and you know, they work in economic development and they worked with the city in multiple mayors, uh, mayor administrations and you know, around redevelopment, and now they're into low-income housing. But I, you know, the question becomes well, what is what is Los Angeles is going to look like? And, you know, what what the true canary in the coal mine to me with entertainment calling back is it's yes, there's production and that's a problem, but it's the post-production and the pre-production, the ancillary businesses that are the multiplier for the industry that we lose those, you're never getting it back. And you want to maintain that that element of specialization that keeps people coming back to Los Angeles or back to our economy, back to our community. I mean, they talk about it with San Francisco, with Silicon Valley. Like at the end of the day, Silicon Valley is still businesses are leaving California, but the founders are staying in Silicon Valley and it's it's incubating out. You know, it's been hard for other areas to replicate the success of Silicon Valley in that whatever that node is. I think Los Angeles is losing this. And I think when we look at our economy here now, it's that 10 to 100 million dollar businesses that we need to really focus on maintaining. Yeah, and the family-owned businesses, the they're not going to be four to 500 companies.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Yeah, no, you've heard me talk about this many times because of you know my personal professional background and the fact that the reality is the state like the state and our city like to talk a lot about supporting small business and being boosters of small business. But when it comes down to actual dollars, you know, and putting your money where your mouth is, it does, it's not real. Or in cutting red tape and allowing permitting. No, it's a lot, it's it's cutting red tape, it's it's everything that can be done, you know, through for taxation. Um, don't get me started on the idiocy of, oh my gosh, what was the um I can't remember the A B now because you know so much has happened in the last uh year, 18 months, but the um previous um the bill that was heavily labor and union backed that effectively made it illegal to work as a consultant or a contractor.

Steve 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Help me out. What was the name of that? What was the name of it?

Steve 35:14

I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

But man, it it destroyed people. It destroyed the businesses of so many people I know. And um, this was, you know, like under the democratic banner of like if you're a democrat, this is good. And all of us who are very much Democrats were like, this is terrible. This is putting people out of business and and having them penalized for just like actually creating mechanisms uh to work that work for them. You know, it was uh and all of this was, you know, there was the fallout of Uber. It was all the fallout of Uber and not wanting to go after Uber and like make Uber, you know, pay their fair share for their employees who are ultimately employees, not contractors, based on you know the litmus that we use to make those for those definitions. But you know, the f again, they couldn't get Uber. So instead they got everybody else, they got the people with the$500,000 to$2 million a year businesses and um and decimated them. And it, you know, people who are already like, wow, like yeah, like I'm just getting by um and just making this work for myself and my family. And now cool, let's make it impossible and get us all into nightmare legal scenarios with the lead with the labor board. Um it's uh it's so misguided, right? And so I see a lot of that still just happening, and um it's it's maddening. I don't know what else to say. It's maddening, but um we can uh wrap this up. I think again, just to kind of underscore this part of the conversation, I think it's important to always remember that you know uh it's Altanina today and the Palisades, you know, it was Paradise, it was North Carolina, it was Texas, it was New Orleans, you know, it's all of these in North Carolina, all of these other states and towns prior to us, it's us right now, it's going to be someone else tomorrow. Like before we blink an eye, it's going to be someone else tomorrow because this is our new reality. And um, it's now a matter of, you know, what are we doing to fix it? Because uh we're not the first, we're not the last, and we do need solutions, you know, like as we've said so many times, like what's happening here is just a microcosm for the rest of the nation. And there's an opportunity for us and and including, and I've said this before, the states and newsome to actually do something significant that would set the tone and would create, you know, um, a replicable program for how people address this in other states in the future. And it's such a huge opportunity that's been, in my opinion, completely wasted, and it could be incredible political capital, and it's the capital, and it's not being leveraged. And to me, that's incredibly short-sighted.

Steve 37:45

They they they let the the they they let this pass when they killed 787. And again, everybody up here knows about it. Everybody shakes their head. Yeah, and they're like, what what what were they thinking? Like, why? Why would you do that? I think everybody knows the answer, but yeah, it's just we do it's frustrating, so maddening and sad. It is so as it's sad because it affects the people of Altadena and the people of California. And it wasn't in whose interest was it in?

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Exactly. We're we are just collateral damage again. So, with that, I mean I think you know, for regular listeners, you know, we didn't open with um a media roundup because we wanted to jump straight into this issue, but also because there wasn't any any major news to talk about this week beyond a couple things that we are gonna touch on. But um, I think what is worth talking about is the fact that a lot of major media, including national, in particular national media, um have kind of moved on. And uh who told you this was gonna happen. Oh no, we we talked about we've talked about this, but like for real. And I um it it's been very interesting to see the tone change and to just be told kind of off record, you know, by various editors, you know, like, hey, we're shifting our coverage. You know, there's just too much happening in the world to continue to cover local things. And um, so you know, I think uh we are going to have to be aware of the fact that it's gonna be more challenging than ever now, uh, at this 14, 15 month mark, especially going to 18 months, two years, three years, we're gonna become like paradise where they're begging for anyone to listen to them. Nobody cares. Everyone's moved on because there's been 10 other crises since. And um, not that their problems aren't real and valid and deserving and worthy of time and attention and fix, you know, fixes. They need fixes. Um, but the news, the news cycle is fast. The fact that we've been able to um, I think, stay uh as relevant and top of mind as we have for as long as we have is is uh a testament to so many people in our community working hard to keep us in this in various stories, and some of our journalists who've worked really hard to do that and uh keep us front of mind. But yeah, it was really interesting to hear with a couple of large stories, um, a couple of major out that are legit and verified and well sourced and uh you know, all of this to have them be like, well, we just don't have the resources to allocate to do the work that needs to be done. And um, yeah. Well, because our story Because there's so many other things to talk about, like a fucking war. But anyhow, yeah, we're not gonna get into that.

Steve 40:21

Yeah. Um, look, I have been trying, that's why I've been doing what I've been doing. And you know, it's it's about putting our situation into the broader context. That's where we've had to go. We've had to continue to try to drive toward that. And you know, it's really hard when our community wants to can the strength of Al Tadena is its locality and the way we are insular in many respects. But that's also our weakness because we don't put ourselves into this broader context, this broader conversation, and contextualize it for others to understand the the gravity of what we're going through. And right now, quite frankly, the only thing we have that is national news to the extent that it is, is this fight over disaster aid. And I think that's it's money, it's tens of billions of dollars. It's got people focused for however long that we have. And I think once we get through this process, you know, this is this is the moment. And if it if they get what they want with the C D BG and they start funding, it's gonna be drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, and they're gonna, you know, drag us out. So I think you know, where we can have a voice is in this conversation. I don't know how much else there is.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

I don't either. Yeah, I don't either. I mean, other than uh of course, yeah.

Steve 41:45

But Sacramento's throwing up their hands disgusted with what's going on. I mean, the legislature can only do so much. And we saw what the governor did when we got a bill to his desk on the last day. He just said, you know, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yeah, I know. Speaking speaking of Gavin, um, uh one of the news stories that did hit, you know, this morning is uh the in yesterday's that Gavin is all in on bass, on Mayor Bass, Karen Bass. He is like good for him. I this is this is the candidate I endorse fully, blah blah. It's you know, it's the Demor, it's the party um falling in love with one another. It's the machine, but like, oh my gosh, like you talk about back in a bad pony, it's a dead pony. Uh per and this is the next part that I was like, oh my gosh, you're gonna be kidding me. The other report that hit yesterday was that Bass's top challenger, like the only other candidate who's a real threat per Bass's own data and polling is Spencer Pratt. Um, which is again this is how Trump happened. This is how Trump happened. People are just fed up and then they're like, fuck it, just whatever. Vote for someone else because fuck this. You know, I get it. If people are are beyond frustrated and they're desperate for something different, but like I it's talk about out of the pan and into the fryer. Good grief.

Steve 43:08

Well, look, I mean the reality is that the mayor the mayor and and councilwoman ramen are not very far off. Now, I think that they're underestimating her. I I think that that would be a huge concern. I do too.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Yeah, Nietzsche.

Steve 43:24

And this might be part of the managing expectations to drive her down. But I mean, look, I wrote a lot about this early on, and I said that the primary is going to be driven primary. The mayoral is a low turnout election, especially in an off year and a midterm. And those districts, the seats in Los Angeles are going to remain where they are. There's no real competitive congressional district races. I mean, maybe Sherman and Jake Levine or Levine. I but I mean, the reality is it's not like you're gonna have this big turnout that's gonna Bring people to the polls and that favors her. And that's always favored her.

unknown 44:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

And you know, I mean the incumbents are always favored. Incumbents are always favored.

Steve 44:11

And Congress Councilwoman Robin has offended a lot of who would otherwise come out to support her, the DFA. And that part is split. I don't think Adam Miller, who's the centrist, has the gravitas to get to where he needs to get to and the speed at which it needs to happen. I mean, he doesn't have Matt Mahan money behind him. So I mean, yeah, the only other guy is Spencer Pratt, and he knows how to get eyeballs.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Yeah, or not. Exactly.

Steve 44:42

What do they say about DC? It's Hollywood for ugly people.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

I mean, it's very much like in this case for highly augmented people in the welcome to California.

Steve 44:54

Well, but I mean it it it's Hollywood, right? Like we had Schwarzenegger. Jesse the Body Ventura was the governor at that time. Rodel Reagan. I mean Schwarzenegger. Yeah, Rottle Reagan. I mean, it's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

We all voted for a movie star. It's not surprising. No, no. I mean, again, Trump. It was like Trump, you know, it was the apprentice. It was like, you know, oh, Trump, the business different. We all got right. Yeah, we I know we're trying. I wish I could forget. I'm waiting to wake up for that nightmare. He's not a movie star, but he was the first time.

Steve 45:26

But he was always very much in that like entertainment, you know, reality world. Um, I mean, look at gray hair don't care. Our governor is another one. You know, he's talking about gray hair don't care.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Is that a thing? Great hair doesn't care. Oh, well, here I am.

Steve 45:42

I have a buddy. That's so we all have trail names, and mine is El Toro because I just want to get off the mountain as quickly as possible. His is gray hair don't care. And I'm gonna give that to Governor Newsom right now because he is gray hair and he doesn't care about us. Uh that is it's it's it's about as good as it comes.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Um, well, on that cheery note, um, I want to touch before we wrap up this episode, I want to touch on a couple things quickly. Um, the AG investigation that Alf Dom for Accountability secured um is underway. People in the community. I actually had someone in my group, an elder woman in my group, shared an email she received from the AG's office from the DOJ, and she shared it and she was like, Oh my gosh, is this a phishing scam? What is this?

Steve 46:27

I was like, correct. The California DOJ. Be careful because you don't, you know, there's the other one here.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

There's a different in you, the one that you don't want to hear. There's the one that you do and the one you don't hear from. But she that this one, the one here you don't want.

Steve 46:39

No, you you don't want to be the school school superintendent and have the black the the the uh windbreakers show up.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Yeah, no shit. Uh oh my gosh, the windbreakers, yeah. Uh that talk about that is other nightmare material. We favorite a lot of nightmare material.

Steve 46:52

Um in Washington, I mean, I expect that. I know.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

There it is. You're in the you're in it. So she um was concerned that it was a phishing email or a scam, right? I was like, oh no, that that's real. Um and so we're still trying to figure out, you know, kind of how this is happening. Are these people that contacted the office with reports previously um in this first round or like where this is coming from? But um a number of people have been contacted, which has been very interesting. But the point being, um, you know, I'm going to remain optimistic that this is in fact a real thorough investigation and that um Altadina does get some justice and accountability out of it. And you know, if you're in if you are in our community west of Lake, uh keep an eye on your inboxes, you know, and or if you have a story to share, you know, maybe you want to reach out and uh and share it. I don't know. Um the fact that they're listening to the community is huge because that has not happened at all. None of that was taken into factor for the other um reports because they were not true investigations. So it's I'm kind of heartened to see that. So with that, can you I was gonna talk about um you know, wrap it up with our small business shout-outs. Um can you believe that it's Purim, by the way? I was speaking, so this actually does tie in. I can't I don't even know what day or month it is anymore. Like my birthday's in a few days. I'm like, what? Like, and you're a Gemini.

Steve 48:20

I I definitely am a Gemini.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

I know. It's a it's a wild, wild time for us right now, astrologically, but we won't we won't dig too deep into the street. I don't even know. I I can assume that's what I'm saying. Do you know what so you don't know your rising sign then? No, I'm very curious to know what your rising sign is, but we'll unpack we'll we'll dig into that another day. Um, so actually, I was talking to this actually does all tie into the small business shout-out. I, for the first time, actually recommended a few builders. And I love Miss Cleo. No, I don't suggest that Miss Cleo build your house. So I don't know. She couldn't do much worse of a job than some of the builders that are in Algentina right now. One who I won't name, but oh my gosh, I think I'm gonna call them Miss Cleo from now on. Um, so thank you for that. I needed that today. Um I have been really hesitant to refer or you know, recommend any builders. I've been asked a lot, like who would you use or who's your contractor? And I have an amazing contractor, but I'm not even confident he's the right person to rebuild this house, um, or that he'll even have the bandwidth because he's working on so many mega projects. And um I've really been torn, but I've spent so much time in Altadina the last few months. I'm up there like every other day for hours. And um I've spent now I'm like watching houses go up. I mean, I'm obviously following the dirt business. I'm looking at foundations being laid. I'm noting where soil compaction happened, where it half-ass happened, where it didn't happen at all, and I'm just extremely disturbed because that house will be compromised in an earthquake. Uh, and that's not an if or when, but an if, or if, but when, right? Like we know, like I don't think we're gonna have another fire anytime soon, but we are gonna have a major earthquake at some point. And um, that's at least in my mind with the rebuild. But um, with that, I've now seen a few builders who are absolutely rebuilding the right way. And um, one of I so I'll share them here. I mean, one is GABA construction. I had a great conversation with Joab. I also got to he's building homes for developers right now and investors who purchase lots. Um, but very interestingly, I he caught my eye because he had built um a replica of a craftsman home um adjacent me, just south of Farnsworth Park. Um, not for the owner who lost it because they chose to sell and leave. But the developer, investor who bought that lot said, you know, the home that was here was perfect. Like the home that was on this lot is the perfect home for this lot. And he rebuilt a replica of this craftsman down to battling the county to get approval to find the right material to do the beautiful um notched dove um exposed wood beams uh and eaves. Like absolutely, but which you know the county's trying to stop us, but as we all know, that's not what burnt what burnt our houses down. So that I was really impressed. He also built a modern, did a modern build for another developer up on Monta Rosa, and that just hit the market. So I as I keep saying, if you're gonna consider anyone, make sure you can really walk through their builds and look at finishes and look at grout and tile and floorboards and outlets and really see and open cupboards and like really see the quality and craftsmanship, open doors and windows of how these these homes were built, right? Because you you can really feel the difference. So I was really impressed with him. It's Joab at Gabba Construction, that was one. The other is Um Joey at Gold Coast. I I call him Gold Coast uh Construction, but I think he's actually Gold Coast Solutions. Um, Joey's also, you know, um been at this a long time, um, doing a lot of builds. And by the way, Joab, who I just mentioned, is also doing work in the Palisades, like it's in it's beautiful stuff. Um, these other guys, um, Joey at uh Gold Coast, again, really beautiful work, doing it the right way, taking time and really good to the owners. Um, really impressed with him and his work. So that he went on my short list. Um, a company called Sky Builders, um, who that's uh Robert and Zach. They are um, and it's um for anyone who wants to Google them, I believe that's Sky Builder Z-R-H, and um they are actually Israeli, first generation Americans, Israeli Americans, their parents, their dads, so it's it's Zach and Robert, but their dads started the business. They've been doing both remodels, run-os, and ground-up builds for two generations, and they function as a design build. So they, you know, you can come with your own plans, but the way they love to work is that they will actually design your home, do all the structural engineering, do all the permitting, help you eke everything you can out of your insurance policy if you have insurance to lean on. And I was actually really impressed with their craftsmanship. Um, I'm gonna meet with them today, in fact. I'm kind of excited about that. And um, have you, Steve, have you not heard me ever excited about the prospect of rebuilding until now?

Steve 53:12

I was really here. But what's interesting is and I I think it's really important that you qualify this, that you know, you've been approached by multiple builders and multiple people in this space to you know endorse their projects and exhaust their or endorsed their products for consideration.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

Correct. I keep being offered referral fees or compensation.

Steve 53:36

I just I think it's important that listeners.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

No, it is, and thank you for bringing that up. Thank you. I don't do pay-per-play. Uh, and as anyone who's been listening well knows, like Steve and I take no money, um, we self-fund all of this. Um we we're not funded by anyone or any interest because you know, every every dollar, including from the best nonprofits, comes with strings because everyone has needs that have to be met. And um, you know, I'm just not interested in that for this. So as long as I can continue to do it on my own independently, that's exactly what I'm gonna do. So, yes, I was very clear um when I shared, and I'll be clear here, and I was clear with the builders too. Like, I'm I expect zero consideration for any of this. That's not why I'm sharing. I'm sharing because I want my neighbors to have good homes that they can come back to, homes that are affordable, builders they can trust, people that are truly gonna take care of them, and for our neighbors not to continue to get fucked because that is happening, and it's so disturbing, especially our elders. Um, it it's every time I see it, I'm so deeply bothered. Um, and there's just so little we can do. What do you tell someone who's having a bad build underway, who's already contracted, already hundreds of thousands of dollars deep and wildly undersured? What do you say? You say nothing because what are they gonna do? There's nothing for them to do, they're gonna sue and get nowhere, you know, because as we all know, like you don't really get any, these guys have no money, and there's you know, I mean, you get their bond, and that's like a drop in the bucket. I mean, it's just um it's bad on bad on bad, but I wanted to have something talk about something good, and these builders are actually doing things that are good. There's another one-stop shop for anyone who wants that kind of experience called Synergy. They actually opened up an office on Lincoln. Um, I met their head of marketing, actually, Steve at Unincorporated Coffee, had a great chat with him, went and toured their studio, looked at their materials, looked at some of their builds. Um, they've come out of Napa, where they rebuilt a lot of Napa after their major wildfire, and um, their work was also beautiful. So I just wanted to share that. But you know, there there are some good ones, and I know we're hearing tons and we're seeing tons, but I also know that, you know, even, and of course I've already talked about Foothill Catalog, Altina Collective, there there are some really great resources, but even in those resources that are so great, um, you know, it's uh how do I put this? Even they have lists of builders who aren't all great. There are some people on their list of approved vendors that, you know, bluntly wouldn't be on my list. Um, and I wouldn't let them build anything for me ever. Um, but yeah, it's uh, you know, I think the bottom line here is everyone's got to do their due diligence, do their homework, don't take anyone's, including my word for it. Go see a build, walk through it, talk to past clients. How are these holds homing up hold homes holding up five to ten years later? Right? We're we're all making million dollar plus investments. Know exactly what you're getting and what you're getting into, and um, if this helps someone listening, great. I really hope that it does. Um with that, I was gonna say I was sharing like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it's Purim. And I said that because when I was talking to Sky Builders yesterday, because la Purim was actually last night and yesterday, um, you know, he was like, Oh, Hakasumeak. And I was like, wait, what? What what holiday? What? What do you what like I was like, oh no, they're gonna revoke my due card for real this time.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

Um we know about two.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

It's Purim. So and everyone should use the Purim. I I love Purim. But anyhow, it was uh it was a great uh reminder of the fact that uh I was thinking it made me think of the passing of Jewish Temple's calendar, and that like I share that in through our substack, um not just substack, but rather through our um social media. So a reminder, and I remind people in our group, and I remember one of our oh, my dog is barking because he actually saw the mailman. He's deaf as a doorpost. He can't hear anything, but he visually saw the mailman, so it's on. That hasn't happened in like since the fire, actually, because he's never seen the mail. But uh back to this, uh, and forgive me, listeners with the dog. That's Spike in the background, my five-pound uh attack poodle, uh, old man. Um follow our social media stories both on face. If you're on Facebook, it's there, on Instagram if you're there. I literally post and share like 500 plus events and happenings and calendars every month. People are constantly saying, like, where do I follow? Where do I find this? Where I always miss everything. Go to our stories, really look at them daily. There'll be tons, like specials at rest, local restaurants, all of that. Like, um, you know, anyhow, it's it's worth, you know, just taking a minute, you'll get you'll get it, you'll find everything you need. And I will finally end on this note. I always get asked where this shirt is from, this Altadina shirt. I it's actually was my profile photo on my social media before the fire because I loved this shirt. It was one of the first and few things that I quickly replaced. This shirt's from Psydeca. I love this kind of like 70s vibe because I'm a 70s baby. And uh yeah, you can find this at Sideca, and Sydeca is still not fully opened, but they've been doing a bunch of pop-up shops, and Sydeca, for anyone who'sn't familiar, is located at Lake in Mariposa at Mariposa Junction.

Steve 58:46

And with that, we're just at one hour.

SPEAKER_01 58:48

There we are.

Steve 58:49

All right, not bad.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

A special, a special episode, a very special episode.

Steve 58:55

Yes, yes. Thank you for bearing with us for those of you that have had to listen to a bunch of a political science lecture.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

We try to make the poli sci fun.

Steve 59:05

Well, I try.

SPEAKER_01 59:06

And weird, and a little weird. Let's keep our poli sci weird because you know that's what we want for Al Tedina. I'm gonna keep Al Tadina weird. Indeed. Good good luck to the newcomers. They don't even know about our initiations yet.

Steve 59:19

Well, hopefully you get hopefully we get this up and people can hear it. Because I know I know Washington's very much wanting to understand.

SPEAKER_01 59:27

We're gonna get it up. We've had a little uh delay for our listeners wondering why we're paddling on about this. We've had a little uh technical uh difficulty again. Uh man, Mercury retro Mercury's in Gatorade again. And it it is Gatorating in a big way because our files exported but aren't uploading. And so it's now a help ticket, and hopefully that will be resolved. ASAP, because we want to get these episodes live. So um we hope you're listening to these soon. Steve, enjoy the rest of your trip. Thank you.

Steve 59:54

I'll see you when I get back.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

We'll see you when you get back. Um, for everyone listening, Steve Sachs, Alta Policy Wonk on Substack, Shana Dawson Beer, Beautiful Altadina. You can find us. Well, you can find us both on Substack, and but you can also find me and our groups and all of our wonderful things for locals that have been going for a decade plus everywhere. Yes, let's look for beautiful Altadina.

Steve 1:00:14

And we've got to go back to the Instagram thing. I know you want to. Do it, do it, do it, do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

We're gonna get Steve on social media one way or another.

Steve 1:00:23

All right, but hi Sean. We'll see you later.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

Hi, Steve. Bye, everyone.