Who's Running This Place?

We open with more politics, because whether people like it or not, policy and power are shaping every part of disaster recovery.

The Races Ahead

We dive into the Governor’s race, including a look at Matt Mahan’s visit to Altadena and why he missed the moment. We break down his platform, who we think is actually positioned to win, what candidates are getting wrong, and what they would need to do to get it right.

We also touch on the Los Angeles Mayor’s race, where Steve believes Karen Bass still has the advantage, and the growing question of who may emerge to lead the County as the next CEO.

Legislation Watch

We run through key bills and policy efforts now in play:

• HR 5366 – Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2025, seeking to extend tax relief for survivors, thanks in large part to fire survivor advocates from Paradise's Camp Fire continuing to fight for all of us
• John Harabedian’s hearing on extending the Mortgage Forbearance Relief Act
• AB 1642, from John Harabedian and EFRU (Eaton Fire Residents United), focused on wildfire contamination standards for standing structures including homes, schools and commercial structures
• SB 1352, Prang’s property tax legislation, and what it could mean moving forward

Rebuild Reality

We revisit the County rebuild dashboard and the broader affordability crisis staring survivors in the face. Between Insurance battles, taxes, debt taken on to rebuild and rising costs everywhere, how are ordinary families supposed to afford to remain here after all of this?

We also share a little fire survivor humor from the community, including the surreal experience of browsing Zillow listings for burned lots with marketing copy like “Old Fence Poles!” You can't make this stuff up, folks. Sometimes you laugh because the alternative is screaming.

Small Biz Shout-Outs

This week we’re encouraging everyone to shop local for Spring, Easter, and Passover at Adelaide, Carciofi and Altadena Beverage / Zinnie’s Table

Plus, Some Weekend Events

• Sierra Madre Wisteria Festival — featuring Altadena favorites Kat’s Macarons and Cleo’s Critter Care
(March 28, 12pm–5pm)

• Electric Fever at Eagles Hall
 (Saturday, March 28 at 7pm)

• No Kings Rally at Altadena Community Church
 (10:30am–12pm)

This episode was recorded on March 26. 

Transcript

Steve 0:00

Welcome back to After the Ashes, the beautiful Altadina podcast on LA fire recovery through the public policy lens. Oh boy. Sorry. This is because you had one job, buddy. One job. I didn't flub it this time. And we're recording this episode on the 26th of March. It's episode 13, season two.

Shawna 0:27

Lucky 13. If we hadn't had so much wild craziness this month and we're recording on our regular schedule, I feel like episode 13 would have hit on a Friday the 13th and could have been quite entertaining.

Steve 0:40

Two weeks ago.

Shawna 0:41

Yeah, exactly. Which was when we should have been recording.

Steve 0:45

Yeah.

Shawna 0:46

But here we are now. Here we are now. We're back. I know some people were really worried. Like, oh, did you stop recording? Did you give up on the podcast? I'm like, no, none of those things. Life is happening, but we are absolutely back and on it and continue as you should see. Steve and I with our daily back and forth, like, make this note for the podcast. Don't forget about this. We can't forget about this. Don't forget about this. And then it's just too much. Uh we have to like cut it, cut, cut and figure out what we have time to talk about. But um, you know, I think today for our little media roundup bit, um, I we want to talk about the gubernatorial race and what's going on with the governor's race and some of our candidates. And uh, oh, Steve, I can see Steve grinning over there. Um, Steve, you want to take it away with that? Do we who what do we want to talk about first?

Steve 1:35

I'll let you guide the conversation since you like to. Oh my gosh. I oh Steve. It is a beautiful Altadena podcast, Shauna.

Shawna 1:44

All right, all right, Steve. So this is Steve's way of being like, I'm not sure where I want to touch on this.

Steve 1:51

Seriously, I was like, I don't even know where to start.

Shawna 1:53

Exactly. So I'm gonna punt it, but because I have managed to uh maintain a successful happy marriage, I understand how to phrase this, and he just did. Steve is very good at playing this game, both politics and having a wife. Uh jokingly, I am the work wife. So he he knows how to uh to be very nice to me. Uh, I am not running this show. How I'm running half this show. I'm running half this show, Steve. We're gonna talk about the mayor, the uh governor's race. We can also talk about the mayor's race. Man, that's another entertaining shit show. But uh, let's talk about the governor's race. And you know, there's a lot to talk about there and unpack. There's a lot of concern in democratic circles that um that field. You don't think so?

Steve 2:40

No, I think that's total bullshit.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Me? Yeah, I'm with you.

unknown 2:49

Yeah, I'm with you.

Shawna 2:50

Okay, sorry. I thought I had a little technical glitch. It was weird. My screen went wild for a second there. Um, there is some concern that um there are so many, you know, candidates that are going that, you know, with no one dropping out, that they're gonna splinter the vote and we could end up, you know, with oh, oh no, a Republican in office. Um again, not gonna happen. I don't think so either.

Steve 3:21

I mean, I'm being honest.

Shawna 3:23

Hey, you know, there it is. Um, one of the candidates. Well, one of the candidates, so we've had a lot of interesting stuff, but I think one of the candidates, it's kind of interesting. I was hearing people saying, you know, oh, I think uh, you know, Matt Mahan might end up, you know, pulling it out and being an interesting candidate. And um, and it was kind of funny that Steve and I were both in our own in our own bubbles, kind of having our own conversations about this guy. Um and um I was reading some of his policy notes and commentary, and I was like, oh, okay, okay, this kind of aligns and then Steve. Yeah, it does, right? Well, well, it does, it does. And it was like, oh, it's like Steve wrote this guy's policy, but also I see I I mean, if only I could I if I had the money, Shauna. You just run, just fuck it, just run. You should run. Yeah, why not? Run now. It's not too late, apparently. Um, well, you could just, you know, say that you are as plinter the vote and make things even more wild.

Steve 4:23

Um look, I got I got a face for radio, so oh come on, Steve.

Shawna 4:29

So yeah, the interesting thing here. So so it took me, so yeah. So this guy, you know, is kind of emerging as a potentially a serious candidate, right?

Steve 4:38

Uh he was always a serious candidate, yeah.

Shawna 4:40

Yeah, but he's coming up. But so I was like, why is his name so familiar? Why is it so familiar? And then I had to go back and do a little search search in my group, and I was like, oh yeah. So Matt Mahan came to Altadena, as many politicians do, to say to make, you know, illustrate a point about our community being left behind and and the failures in the rebuild and failures in the cleanup and failures post-disaster and yada yada. But I remembered this post specifically in my group because people were so angry about him. And it was like, oh, great, another cat carpet bagger coming to town to take advantage of our tragedy and make it a uh talking point on their campaign trail. Do you remember Swallows? What's that? Do you remember Swallows? Nohan. Is he Mahan or Mahan? I don't know how to pronounce his name correctly. I didn't hear it.

Steve 5:25

I think it's Mahan, Mahan, Mahan. Yes. I mean it's Barger, Barger, whichever way you want to go.

Shawna 5:30

She's Barger. 100% Barger. People say Barger. Well, that's weird and it's incorrect. Her name is people call me Shawana. It's not my name. Uh I'll answer to Shawana. I get Scott. But I am, in fact, Shauna. I get Scott. So we'll call him Matt for the sake of our conversations. Let's call him Matt. But you know, Matt had come as part of his you know campaigning and did this whole thing, and it really pissed off people in Altadena. The lot, I mean, even the person whose lot he was standing on, she was furious. She was like, didn't get permission, didn't contact me, re-victimizing ew, you know, tone deaf, like, what is wrong with these people? We're we're not your soundbite. Get the fuck out of town, you know. So, Matt, you might be in trouble with Altadina voters unless you come back and remedy that. But yeah, yeah. Overall, um, it's time to, you know, to remedy. Um, sorry, it's time, you know, to start looking at what these candidates are talking about and who's real and um could potentially govern this state. And um, and he had some really great policy ideas. And I hope that if he does come back to Aldadena, he actually talks to people in Altadena who actually are tapped into and understand this community so that he doesn't make that misstep again.

Steve 6:49

You know, because I thought that, you know, he's the one after what Eric did Swallow did when he came to town.

Shawna 6:54

Oh my gosh, what a mess.

Steve 6:56

I just thought, you know, that was embarrassing too. And I mean, I I can't, you know, Shauna. I I'd heard that somebody said he's the AI candidate. Meaning he was his points are written by AI, like they're good points. He's got great points. I mean, hell, I I agree with 85 to 90 percent of what he says, just because he's saying, look, the system's broke and we need to fix it. Yeah, the problem is, is you could say the words, the question is, and this is the question I asked when Mahan back in January when he when he um announced his candidacy. I said, Are you ready for this? Because the only way he wins, labor is not gonna come to the table for him. It's gonna be the Caruso dynam dynamic that happened in the city, right? They lined up behind Bass. He was Caruso was gonna have to beat Bass without labor. Same thing with Mahan. He can't win that nomination without with because labor's not gonna do anything to support him, nor any of the interest groups in Sacramento. Like he's he's the outsider. Okay, fine. He's got Silicon Valley money, great, you got a lot of money. That's awesome. I wish I had a lot of money. Yeah, but you gotta you got a good talking point that resonates with a lot of voters, but you gotta have a connection with the voters. Like, that's the other thing about politics, is there has to be that je ne sais quoi. Like, there has to be something that hooks you, and you know, the all in podcast he he that was like from that was like you and I sitting there, you know, you interviewing me. Like that's his that's his people, right? And I think there was like one smile, no real joke cracks, you know, none of that. Like how are you gonna get people to want to have a beer with you, right?

Shawna 8:59

I know you have to be likable. Didn't anyone learn anything from Clinton? Or even now, frankly, from you know, Trump. It's like how many people, especially men, who are like, Oh, I want to hang out with that guy. Like, I would hang out with him. There, there's a lot of people. And that was Clinton's appeal. Except Clinton appealed to women too. Yeah, there's a seduction, it's it's a game for all the wrong reasons, it turns out, but that's another conversation entirely.

Steve 9:21

I look, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that's the way it is, right? It's a popularity contest, and I think that that's part of the problem is that he he has to you have to believe that he's going to take the fight. And you know, he talks about it in the all all in podcast. I I encourage anybody who wants to know about Mount Mahan to get he did want it, it was on Monday. He was on there.

Shawna 9:46

And it's it's more than an hour, it's a doozy, but it's you know, you if you want to get in depth with the candidate, it's in depth.

Steve 9:52

But what he said was, you know, what he recognized was this is going to be a movement, it's not a single person. And that's important, that's an important distinction because if you really want to take on Sacramento, you're not just taking on the governor's seat, you're taking on entrenched interests, and you have to persuade, as I said in January when he announced, you have to persuade electeds that you know, my dad always used to say, Don't bullshit don't shit a bullshitter, or don't bullshit a bullshitter. Like these people live in this world, they are the cynics of all cynics. You better be able to hit that and make them believe that you are going to protect them, otherwise, they're going to continue to line up behind the interests that are going to continue to feed them. And so, you know, he has to be something more than just good talking points that look great in the LA Times or in Politico. You have to be able to go to the heart of these people. And you got to be able to say, I am going to protect you, and I'm going to get you what you want, and I'm going to take on interests like labor, I'm going to take on interests like the people that are going to stop your agenda that own Sacramento. And they're not just going to step aside and just go, Yeah, you know, we'll let this guy come in. Like that, that's not how it works. And, you know, that to me is the piece that I think is missing. And I've said this to his people, I've written it on the Substack. He needs to show something else. Like, there has to be an edge. You can't be milk toast in California. And I'm waiting to see that. You know, the word, it was interesting. The readers of my Substack will know I've been hitting this hard this week. And there was in the Political's playbook this morning, there was a line at the end of his um of this piece about Mahan from Eric J. Eric J is a campaign guy who worked with a friend of mine down here when he was running for office. And it was basically like mid-April, you're gonna see it. We're coming. Like you're gonna see a bump in the polls, and you're gonna see us move. So hopefully that's true, you know. If it's not, you know, the campaign's done. And you know, it's gonna be very similar to his benefactor and endorser, Rick Caruso, who you know, is that his funding camp? Well, Caruso is gonna run. Did you read the there was that new set uh website? I I don't know if I sent it to you. At Julia Wick. Yeah, I told you about it. Julia Wicked.

Shawna 12:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about Julia, yeah, and that she's writing at that new publication.

Steve 12:35

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Julia Wick writes good stuff.

Shawna 12:38

I Julia Wick, for anyone listening, was LA Times.

Steve 12:41

Yeah. And, you know, and she's LA through and through. I think a buddy of mine went to high uh school with her at Harvard Westlake. Like she's she's been here forever. And you know, basically, what Julia did was, you know, she wrote a lot about Recruso and Rick Crusoe's vacillation between the Senate, or sorry, the the mayor and the governor, and did he want to be one or the other? And then when Mahan announced, and and you know that that was you could tell Caruso got right behind him, so he was off the hook for running for governor, and then it was just about whether he was gonna run for mayor or not. And you know, it's just I just I Mahan's got a really interesting road, and his biggest competitor in this election is not the other Democrats, it's Steve Hilton. Because the majority of the voters that are backing Steve Hilton should be backing Mahan because their vote, they go, I don't care if Steve Hilton wins. I mean, the Democrats are playing the old game that they did with Adam Schiff, where they're gonna prop up Steve Hilton so that he wins, and then he or even Bianco, and then you know, like they did with Steve Garvey, and then whoever the nominee, which in that case it was Schiff, walks away with the with the election. The worst thing that can happen to the Democrats right now is to see Mahan and Swalwell or Katie Porter get through because then you're gonna have a true battle, and that battle is gonna be for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. A battle that's going on everywhere within that party, and they don't want to go there. And you know, the effectiveness of the Democratic Party in California, I mean, everybody reflexively like says I want to be a Democrat, but the reality is as a governing body, they are a fucking failure.

Shawna 14:32

Yeah. That's an understatement.

Steve 14:35

And it, you know, the amount of money that gets wasted here is unbelievable. And you know, it's funny.

Shawna 14:43

Unbelievable enough. I would love to know what you could probably fund another nation with the amount of money that gets absolutely wasted in this.

Steve 14:56

It's insane. And and and there was an article this morning uh on real clear politics, and it contrasted. I was just reading it before we got back on, you know, blue states and red states. And I'm not gonna get into the blue state, red state divide, but the point was pointing out that you know, the bay, the the bridge across that that got hit by the boat in in uh Baltimore, it's gonna take twice as long and twice as much money as they thought it would. And and you know, the uh the butt the point being like you know, the abundance theory, right? Just takes too long to do anything regulatorily, getting anything done in California with all the lawsuits and all the other things that do things. Yet they contrasted it with the Cesar Chavez, how quickly they've removed Cesar Chavez from everything in California in the span of a week. And it's like we have the means to make things work. It's just a question of where we want to devote those resources and what's the incentive. Are we incentivized not to actually solve the problem, not to actually build the project, not to actually get anything done, and just basically cost overruns like a defense contract? You know, that's sort of what we're seeing. Right. And you know, and so what Mahan is saying, and he's right, and readers of my pages will know I'm the same way, whether it's the Billionaire Tax Act, whether it's the you know half cent, half percent increase here in uh Los Angeles County for healthcare, whatever it is, the answer is not add more tax. The answer is let's actually still just use the money if we're getting what we're supposed to pay for, like 40% of our budget in California is allocated to education. Our educational standards are something like below the state of Mississippi right now. And we are we have record revenue, and that money is on autopilot at the at the at the educational space, but yet we're dec we have a declining student body. I mean, LAUSD is is a case in point of that. Yet employment is up when to meet the standards of where it was when the student body was 40% larger. Yet what what's going on? It's just the distortions are there. And you know, with the Billionaire Tax Act, it's like let's take on billionaires. Sure, I get where you're coming from. You know, billionaires, we we do have wealth concentration in this country that needs to be addressed. That there is no doubt in my mind about that. However, I don't believe that we just need to give a blank check to the unions for$100 billion. By the way, they chased 27 of that out of the cut out of the state. The guys going down to Florida. But, you know, what are we doing? I mean, we the it's not as if we are destitute for healthcare. Since COVID, the healthcare funding coming to our state has increased 80%. The cuts that will be coming will reduce those numbers by 30% because of an accounting gimmick shift and the way they want to get compensation in emergency rooms for people who are here undocked with uh without documentation. That's that's what this is. That's what this horrible dyster, you know, dystopia that they're creating from healthcare is. We will still be 50% more than we were before COVID, which was already high. And it's it's it's as if we're our our healthcare system is gonna crash. It's not. Isn't people got fat, dumb, and lazy because they just got money coming out of their you know what's in this is the present, this is the presentation that hasn't come in. So this is what our governatorial election really is about, and the Democrats don't want to have this discussion. So if it's just Swalwell and Hilton, everyone's gonna tune out Hilton because Hilton's just gonna be considered a Republican, it's a New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, who cares? Swalwell wins, that's it. But if it's two Democrats, then it's a different discussion.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Yeah, absolutely.

Steve 18:57

All right, there's my So who's your money on? I think it's gonna be Swalwell because I don't think Mahan's gonna make a move. I Mahan's gonna have to totally change his MO. Mahan wins on message if he can do two things. One, he can gain a little edge. Have a little like, you know, gravitas, like like we're doing right now. Like have a little bit of a punch. Show that you're ready to fight because these people, the unions, the interests up in Sacramento, you're going for their bread and butter. They're not gonna just sit back and let you take it. They're gonna bloody you up and see if you really want it. This isn't a vanity project. To them, this is their world, and you're stepping into it. And not just him, but Silicon Valley too. Number two, he's going to have to appeal to Republicans. He's gonna have to make the case that a vote for Hilton is a is it's a wasted vote because Hilton's gonna get through to the general and then he's gonna lose. He's just gonna lose by virtue of the fact, no matter how compelling his vision is, he is not going to win because he's a Republican. He's gonna have an R next to his name. So if you throw your vote away for him in the primary, you're throwing away not only him, you're also throwing away Mahan. If you believe in what Mahan is saying, if you believe in what Hilton's saying, you should be voting for Mahan.

Shawna 20:22

Yeah, it's true. I I think, yeah, we'll see how it shakes out.

Steve 20:25

But that's what that's if you can't make that pitch, Shauna, it's done.

Shawna 20:29

I know. It's over. Yeah, it's over before you've even started. And I hope Mahan, I genuinely hope Mahan makes it back to Altadina and does it a little better with the community because um we've offered it.

Steve 20:41

I wanted him to come meet with us and have the opportunity to do it right. That's how I positioned it. Like, hey, let's do this the right way. Let's do this where you can meet the community. Actually, you know, not just make it a press stop, but actually make it real.

Shawna 20:56

Yep. Talk to the people for real. Come and talk to them. So that's where there's consultants making God knows how much money.

Steve 21:06

Oh, God. You know, that billionaire tax act, the beat their ass, because that's what BTA really stands for. Like, you know. You don't think that they don't have a sense of humor in in Sacramento. Come on. That guy, I mean, that political piece that he got published, holy God, did you see that?

Shawna 21:25

No, I don't know that I did.

Steve 21:27

Okay, so this guy, Dave Reagan, who's Regan, who's the guy who is behind all this, the head of the healthcare worker SEIU healthcare workers, he got a piece published in Politico yesterday, an interview. I mean, it was your typical thing, but I couldn't believe that he told a story on the record that basically said Gavin Newsom asked him for a favor, asked him for a Christmas present, get rid of the Billionaire Tax Act, and he turned down the governor. What's the message? He's more powerful than the governor. I'm sitting going, wow, you got some balls, man. I was gonna say that's balls. Wow. Like it not only look, if you're telling the story in a cocktail party, that's one thing. Like, you know, hey, guy, here's it. Let me tell you this story. You know, like I I can always say, especially if you have a couple drinks, like I get it. I mean, I I've been known to do things like that myself. However, in publication in black and white, on a on an article that was on their national page.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

I don't know. I don't know. See how it goes.

Shawna 22:44

We'll see where it goes. Um, shall we? I we we covered so much of our uh media roundup in the last episode. I feel like, you know, I'm glad we touched on the governor's race. I don't want to touch the LA City mayor's race with a 10-foot pole right now. Um Bass is gonna win.

Steve 23:02

You heard it here.

Shawna 23:03

No way. You for real? You really think so?

Steve 23:07

I do.

Shawna 23:08

I don't know who's gonna have it, but I don't think it's gonna be her. I think there's enough concern and discontent that I don't think it will be her. I know the incumbent the incumbents always got it.

Steve 23:20

I know it, but it's too low. Labor's gonna make sure it's gonna be 2022 all over. No, she's won. When Caruso said no, that was the end. I mean, Horvath could have won. It was funny reading the piece too, um, that Julia Wick did because they talked about Lindsay Horvath the way I did, you know, the the allure of running for you know the mayor instead of sitting in the backwoods of the county administration.

Shawna 23:46

You know, like the allure. No, thank you.

Steve 23:49

Yeah, but she's she basically wants to, and of course they hit her on the what the measure R or whatever, measure whatever the thing was, measure G, the gift that keeps on giving. Um but you know, it basically said she wants to run for CEO, which is okay.

Shawna 24:08

Hey, but she won't be alone. She's not the only one who wants to run for CEO. Who do we all who else do we think wants to run? Yeah, exactly.

Steve 24:17

All the queens will. Um what I mean, do you even know who Adam Miller is? No. Okay. So there you go. That's out Austin Butner's replacement. Okay. Spencer Pratt.

Shawna 24:31

I mean, at the end of the day, he I mean, you know, he's a he's a he's a fun internet per he's a fun internet personality. He's brought some interesting points to light. Is he a mayor or a serious candidate? No. Not even close, buddy. I'm sorry. I don't want to be like, I don't want to be, you know, dismissive in any way, but just no. And labor hates. But but he will pull a wild amount of votes, I bet. I mean, not unlike when, you know, again, Trump.

Steve 25:01

And labor hates Nithia.

Shawna 25:04

Which is too bad, because she's not all bad. I mean, she's been associated with some things that, you know, huh. Um, but show me any candidate who hasn't, right? We talk about this all the time. There's no perfect political candidate. But uh, you know, you choose who's going in the direction. Are you raising your hand? You think you are, Steve?

Steve 25:22

I'm teasing.

Shawna 25:23

Well, get in the game, Steve. You can't play from the sidelines. Oh. Just saying. You can't armchair this one.

Steve 25:35

So look, I I'm not a resident of Los Angeles, so it's not my problem.

Shawna 25:40

There we are. Oh my gosh, I'm yawning during the podcast. It's been, I like I said, this month has been about a year. No, you're not boring. I'm just tired. I haven't had an I don't know what I have. I haven't had enough sleep. I'm tired. Uh, let's talk about legislation. Because there's a lot of that going on. Which one are we going to start with? Let's try so let's start with our HR. Let's start with HR 5336, the uh federal disaster. Sorry, I'm gonna screw it up repeatedly. I wrote it down wrong. Again, I told you I have a little bit of dyslexia. This is where it shows it shows up. So yes, HR 5366-5366, the Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2025. Um yeah, you know, this is a big one that our neighbors to the north in Paradise, California, have been championing for years and working hard on because um, you know, they had to fight so hard uh not to lose significant chunks of their settlements where they got, and you know, for anyone followed what happened in Paradise, they got completely screwed because while their utility, their public, their private for-profit utility PGE, it was PGE, yeah?

Steve 26:48

Yeah, yeah.

Shawna 26:49

Um, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. I'm I got it right. Um did start their fire as well, similar to what just happened to us here in Altadino with the Eaton Fire and SE. There uh was no wildfire fund at the time, no ratepayer funded big fat insurance, you know, uh policy of a fund with 22 to 23 billion dollars sitting there just waiting to cover for them. So instead, what ended up happening um is their utility went bankrupt. So they got really, they just got so screwed. I mean, they it was just like horror upon horror for these guys. Um in the way that you know, that we are experiencing on in our own way on our on our own many levels. But one of the things that that happened is that even though they were already we're seeing diminishing returns on these uh minimal uh recovery, you know, settlements, right? They're their recovery from this this bankrupt utility, um, that's they're still waiting. It looks like they're not even ever going to get the final payment they were owed. They're eight years in and they're probably not gonna get the final payment they were owed. Um, and then there's the whole matter of their um, oh my gosh, like there are people. I I I follow some things with the Paradise folks. We talk about the Army Corps of Engineers and and how we had a very incomplete cleanup here because it was under bid for us and and they accepted that and let it go. And we got less of a cleanup than any other uh cleanup that's happened here in the state. But um, what's going on there is that the Army Corps at year eight is just now coming after some folks for their insurance funds for uh to cover that cost and putting liens on properties. Okay. This is the shit we all have to look forward to. Eight years down the road, surprise, here's a lien on your property because we don't think we got the money from your insurance company. Um, but uh let me get back down the topic. The topic is the is taxation. These guys have been through so much. And then one of the things that they they ended up, you know, getting screwed on again uh was losing a lot of their settlement money to tax, right? Because even though parts are not taxable, even in the current construct, like personal injury is not necessarily taxable. Um, some portions of non-economic damages like pain and suffering are not taxable. But even then, if they can attach some of that to property loss, and then it is taxable. It's very merci, it's very mercurial, right? How it plays out. So these guys have been fighting and fighting, not just for themselves, but for everyone, not just in the state of California, but everyone who experiences this kind of disaster, that they actually have some form of federal tax relief. And that is what this is. This is a federal disaster tax relief act, and they got it past committee. So it's as we know, that's just the first step, and they have a they still have a long road ahead, but they did get it past committee. And um, you know, I think we're all rooting for them because this not only is about them, it's now about us and it's about everyone else this happened too, right? It's like what you fire survivors when you're desperately trying to be made whole, which is highly unlikely in the first place, um, even with litigation and insurance. Um, when you throw in, you know, this other element uh of tax, it's just like insult upon injury.

Steve 30:12

So this bill, if I understand it right, Shauna, is in a continuation. So they got a bill that gave them that gave them up until this year, and then it expired. Correct. And then this would take it from the end of this calendar or the end of 2025, December at basically January 1st, 2026, through to 2028. So that's what this is, is that this is an extension of the the yeah, what they had before. So the bill is sitting, I mean, the fact it's been passed before should be okay. It's in the I think so too. It went through ways and means and went through finance. Well, again, it should, but doesn't mean it will. I mean, so we'll see. Again, we'll see.

Shawna 31:01

We'll see. But you know, thank you to our neighbors. Thank you to our fellow fire survivor neighbors who are continue to fight. Yeah. So I but again, I just want to say thank you to them for continuing to fight. I mean, they they've you know set one of the many examples of what you know you have to do. Many of them have become legislators, they have be, you know, they're writing policy, they're showing up and fighting, they're doing all the things that we're seeing play out here that we're doing because it's so what I'd like to tell people is once you get on the merry-go-round, you can't get off because that's when the other side wins.

Steve 31:34

Like you cannot stop once you start. Yep. And it's unfortunate because not a lot of people understand that. They think, oh, I'll just take it issue. I'm done. It's done. It's never done.

Shawna 31:46

It's never done. So we've also got, you know, um uh John's bill, your boy John. So uh John Herabedian uh penned a bill along with um the um oh my gosh, uh EFRU, Eaton Fire Residents United. And that is the um group led by um Jane and and her crew um who are working hard to represent uh owners of standing homes contam that are, you know, well, if you have a standing home, it's contaminated. To what degree is the question. But uh for anyone who's not familiar, um, a lot of those families have been really left out. Um, they were not part of the Army Corps debris removal that's coming up right now because a lot of people are finding some of the worst contamination is sitting underneath and around standing homes. And um, it was not touched by the Army Corps. They were not eligible. That was part of the incomplete cleanup that happened here. They um, you know, are battling insurance to to fight, you know, over the fact that no, you can't just wipe down a wall and it's fine. I'll never forget like my friend relaying the story of one of the insurance adjusters, adjusters coming into her house and saying, you know, it doesn't even smell that bad. Like barbecues smell worse than like, would you tear your house down because your neighbor had a barbecue? Like some absolutely stupid shit when her home is full of lead. Like, dude, uh wildfire, why urban wildfire smoke contamination is not a neighbor's barbecue. Uh, but this is the kind of thing people are dealing with. And you've got, you know, a combination of things. You have people returning to homes that are unsafe uh because they don't have a choice. They financially do not have a choice. And that's families includes families with young kids, you know, who are most vulnerable, you know, little little kids in an increased lead environment, not a great outcome, right? We know that there's tons of study data on this. So, but people are doing that because they don't have a choice. And then you've got our renters who are living in unremediated, you know, places that were not properly remediated where the the landlords are like, oh, well, we cleaned it, we cleaned it, we hired a cleaning company to clean it. That's not cleaning it. You know, for those who don't understand, it's like all the soft goods have to go wall coverings, window coverings, in often cases flooring, all of your ducts and venting, your HVAC, you probably need new windows. Um, it is, and then of course, the clearing underneath the property around the property and remediation and importing of clean soil. It is not insignificant and it is not inexpensive. And there is no funding for it, and there's no standard for it. And it has allowed the county and the insurance companies to absolutely leave people out to dry. So their bill is AB1642, and they are seeking to set wildfire contamination standards so that there is a standard of testing and a standard of what is an acceptable threshold that would hold accountable entities like the county, entities like insurance companies to actually cover these losses and allow people what is needed to get back home and allow them to be able to afford to stay out of their homes while these things are happening. And again, for context, for those who don't know, you know, we're at month 14 going into 15, and there are people with standing homes that are sitting out there like ghost houses in the community while new builds are going up right next to them, and their homes still haven't been touched because they're still fighting their insurers and trying to get money. It's really gross. So gross.

Steve 35:19

I mean, thank you for taking that on. Well, it doesn't jump, thanks to putting on a bill to prolong the um the moratorium on insurance companies cutting people.

Shawna 35:33

Yes, mortgage, yep. There was a um a um hearing on Friday that I was sorry to miss. Um I had been asked, you know, by a few folks in the community to come and and stand there and support and give testimony on that's so that is about extending the mortgage relief act by another, the forbearance act by another, I believe it is two years.

Steve 35:56

Well, there's that insurance.

Shawna 35:59

Correct. Correct. But the issue, you know, again, so people understand is that those who are out of these homes, um, both for a rebuild or because their standing home is so contaminated, they still can't go home and the remediation is still being done. Um, you know, they're also facing down the barrel of mortgage payments. Like you got to pay a mortgage, you got to pay rent, yeah. It's it's crippling. It's financial destruction. It's gonna put people in financial ruin. Um, and we we've talked about this a lot on this podcast, the fact that, you know, the destruction of wealth between equity taken away, uh, loss of property for those who cannot return, um, inability to rebuild, uh, you know, the it's just it's it's you know, I think we heard it called in by the Guardian. It was called, you know, climate gentrification. Well, the Guardian also.

Steve 36:53

But um Well, they they took it from the Wall Street Journal.

Shawna 36:56

Oh, they might have. Okay. Well, I think it's I don't think it's anybody.

Steve 36:58

I think it's that's more to book at the Guardian.

Shawna 37:00

I think it's a pretty yeah, I think it's a pretty uh common common thing. It's what it is, though. That's what it is. Is that you know, people are just being like pushed to the brink of financial ruin and being forced out of you know their towns, and it's like if the fire didn't take you out, the fallout of the fire will take you out. So we talked about the disaster after the disaster.

Steve 37:21

This is the you know, the question about the you know, and then there's the donut hole, right? There's the yeah, the money from the settlement andor insurance versus the rebuilding cost and making up that delta, which is also a major issue. Um I know there's people out there that are trying to figure out how to solve that problem, and there's that that's that's not there. I mean it the what I've been told is in the next six months we will probably see, unless they come up with an answer for this donut hole, people are gonna come through the other side of this and they're gonna say, you know what, I just can't afford to rebuild, and a bunch of properties are gonna go in the market.

Shawna 38:08

I mean, it's and it's you we we know it's that, but it's not only that, it's also people who have figured out how to cobble the funds together. I know too many people who are, you know, they've they've got an S, they they've got the insurance that they had that was not sufficient. They've got GoFundMe dollars from friends and family and colleagues. They've got an SBA loan, they've got an another loan. You know, I can I cannot tell you how many people I know who are like, oh, we're basically living on our loan money because otherwise we can't afford to survive and we still can't afford to rebuild. And then those who can't afford to rebuild are like, great, we're gonna cobble this together and miraculously rebuild, even though we're not quite redoing it right or the way we want to do it. And it's sure as hell not representative of what we lost, but at least we can rebuild a house. But then PS, we're gonna be so far upside down on that house, I don't know how we can afford to stay in it unless we really do get significant money and can get us out of debt. Uh, because if you can't, you're so upside down you're forced to sell. So that's the other half of it.

Steve 39:10

And I think that's where a lot of this is coming to is that we've prolonged the inevitable, but the inevitability is coming, the bill's coming due. And you know, short of a massive solution that comes in that can raise a couple billion dollars to create a mechanism for people to draw on to make up the gap that exists, especially with low to moderate income, and you know, people who don't, you know, and and the answer I've always said is shared equity. I mean, we can do it at a state level with the California Dream for All. We should be able to do it here, make it the Altinian Dream for All. But again, nobody's asking me for my opinions on this. They haven't asked me to drop that bill. I've tried. You could, you would, you could and you would. You know, what I'm also hearing and seeing is that there's a definite resistance to some of these newer ideas for whatever reasons. And, you know, it it's not that we can't, it's that we won't. And I think that that's probably the most galling part of all of this is that we have been able to solve our problems from the start. And you know, we write these bills and we create these solutions, and we get to the other side of this. Like, like Shauna, I know you're about to talk about Prang's bill. I mean, that's a whole other piece to this is that if Prang's bill fails again, you're gonna go through all this process and maybe cobble together all that money, maybe beg, borrow, and steal to put it all together. And you're living in that house that was on the books for$100,000, and you're gonna get hit with a million dollar tax assessment. And people are gonna be like, okay, what?

Shawna 40:56

Yeah, we keep we keep saying lots of folks are about to have a pretty, I suspect in the next few years, a pretty uh rude awakening.

Steve 41:05

I mean, not only is your insurance gonna go up, not if you can get it, now you're gonna be you know, layer on all these pieces, and if you're at a low tax basis, like you're gonna get crushed when it comes time for tax. And for those that are on fixed incomes, it's gonna be horrible.

Shawna 41:23

Yeah, it's crippling. It's crippling, it's gonna put people out of their homes.

Steve 41:27

The worst part is that nobody's even talking about this.

Shawna 41:29

You know, we brought it up last summer. And yeah, we brought it up last year in a couple of episodes. Everyone believes that everything's fine, right? Well, that's what they're gonna be holding. Right. And and we just keep saying, Oh, don't worry, don't worry, everything's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. Like you're not gonna be taxed on all this. It's just the little increase. It's just you might get taxed, you know, on that increase beyond the the 10% allowance of like for like. Like if you're doing a new, if you're doing a completely different house, you're getting taxed on the the increase and the difference. That is not what this actually says. I know it's what they keep telling us, but it's not what it actually says. Can you talk about your experience even on your flight back to DC without we don't have to name names, but it's such a great story.

Steve 42:10

And I was I was sitting next to an elected who was there for a fly-in, and you know, the elected mentioned the pranks, you know, situation. And he's like, Look, here's the here's the flyer that says everything's gonna be fine. And I said, read the fine print. He goes, What do you mean? I said, Well, if you read the fine print, it's talking about that you know, what it's not saying is if you buy your house, let's just say you paid a million dollars for your house, right? And your house is on the books for a million dollars. If you pay a million dollars to rebuild your house, yeah, your property tax is not going to be affected by it because the cash value is the same as the like for like. I said, but the difference is is like for like does the statute Prop 13 talks about the like the the stat the cash value of the home. Anytime the cash value of the home changes because you put an investment into it, that increases the property tax value of that home. And it has nothing to do with square footage. In 2018, Jackie Irwin tried to get a bill passed that talked exactly about this to make it both square footage and cash value, and the assessors killed it. And she tried to do it because there was a big fire out in Malibu. Then last year, Nick Schultz was trying to do the same thing. That bill got killed because the assessors don't want this. So now Prang is talking to someone else and they got another bill that's 110%. Look, whether it's it's 100% or 110%, it's irrelevant. The reality is that everybody's gonna have that 10% and they'll just get the same tax value if that bill goes through. If it but I asked this question of this elected, I said, if it's so clear why you're getting a bill passed, you're not getting a bill passed for 10%. That's bullshit. No, you're getting a bill passed because that 10% allows the hundred percent. Below it to come back in for 150%.

Shawna 44:03

So if anyone wants to dig into this, uh prank's uh and and doesn't know who we're talking about, we're talking about our tax part.

Steve 44:10

What's prank doing this year? Running for reelection.

Shawna 44:13

Thank you. You you you got my punchline. That was it. It was like, you know, um, if this is no problem, why do we need a bill? Why do we need SB 1352? And um if we do need SB 1352, um, should we be why are we not concerned that it's already failed once? And what makes us think it's not gonna fail this time?

Steve 44:33

But you know, committee last time.

Shawna 44:36

But it sure is a good talking point when you're running for re-election, which prank is.

Steve 44:40

So, you know. This is this is the one that's gonna hit everybody's they're gonna hold the last messages of people are gonna go rebuild, they're gonna get all the way to the back end of this, you're gonna be 65, 70 years old, you have a hundred thousand dollar basis on your house, and you're gonna turn around and get hit with a million and a half dollar property tax bill. Yeah. Or assessment based upon that.

Shawna 45:00

Assessment, yep. And a major, major increase, thousands of dollars, thousands.

Steve 45:05

Which, if you're on fixed income, that could be a problem.

Shawna 45:08

Yep. And even if you're not, why why are we paying this? And and this is this this thing of the stack of like we're we know that our insurance premiums are going from a grand or a couple grand a year to north of five, to five, six, seven thousand dollars a year to insure in this community. Oh my gosh, Steve, don't tell me that. How high is your insurance, Steve? What are you paying?

Steve 45:33

But just know it's gonna be a lot higher than you think it is.

Shawna 45:37

Well, I'm accounting, I'm figuring that it's gonna, you know, five X, but it sounds like it may even be worse than that.

Steve 45:44

Just be ready.

Shawna 45:45

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. How can any of us afford to be here?

Steve 45:49

Well, I think that that is a real reflection of what the insured cost and the insured liability should be. Remember, these homes are expensive now. You're not insuring a$50,000 house, you're insuring multi-million dollar homes. Yeah, and so you have to have the risk evaluated according to what you're insuring. It it can't be divorced from that. Okay, but having said all that, I know. Oh, this is a depressing conversation. The part that's most galling about this is the fact the county's not being honest with people. Exactly. And they're not they're not being straight with us about this property tax issue. We've said that since the fall, we said that last year. And it's just it's par for the course.

Shawna 46:35

It is par for the course, I'm afraid. It's just this is it. Like I was said this in in the context of something else. It's just like the county, our leaders just continue to lie to us over and over and over. And then to watch everyone, you know, in this circle who've tried to align themselves with these people because they believe that there's going to be some favor for them, or they're getting funding via them, or they're getting funding via, you know, one of the major nonprofits running this business of recovery that, you know, um has its own political agenda and its own political alignments, but all of those things, you know, you have all of these people lining up, acting like everything's great, doing the backpatting, showing up for the photo ops, taking awards. I'm embarrassed for these people, like to show up and accept an award and be used. Like you're being if to not realize the degree to which you're being used, and then to do that, and then to talk about it and be proud about it. Oh my gosh, if someone tried to give me an award right now for anything that we're doing, I would be like, absolutely not. The optics of that are are no hard no.

Steve 47:41

But what I do say is good grief.

Shawna 47:44

It's I I'm like, but meanwhile, this is what's happening. Like, you cannot, we can't act like everything is fine and great when the majority, like so many in the community, are getting left behind, being forced out, being pushed out. And those who aren't are just have this looming reality that this it's like an impending doom. You know, it's this is the thing that comes up every time people ask me, like, oh, aren't you rebuilding already? It's like, well, one I can't afford to right now. I have to wait. But even if I could afford to, like what I'm doing is putting up walls, you know, because that's a whole other thing, right? That we just spoke about in our last episode. Oh my gosh, because of all of the bizarre encroachment and county, you know, sleep at the wheel and developers and new property owners just building willy-nilly whatever they want, and nobody stopping it and going, oops, it's a civil matter. That's what I have to do is build a freaking wall. I'm putting a six-foot wall around my entire property on the property line because I have to protect myself from encroachment because nobody else is going to.

Steve 48:44

But I'm not what we paid our tax dollars for.

Shawna 48:48

Right. And this is what I'm getting at is that, you know, to stand up and and and align yourself with any of these leaders right now is just embarrassing. You know, you you've gotta, if you really are with and for the people, then you need to start calling out what is happening. We don't all have to be anti. We correct. I mean, there is that. It is that. And it doesn't mean that we can't work with county, that we don't want to work with county, that we don't want to work with electeds. We absolutely should do that. We have to do that, we need to do that. Everyone needs to come together to work through these issues. But that doesn't mean showing up, smiling in photos, and acting like everything's great. It's not. It gets really, really tiring being like, oh, the sky's falling, the sky's falling, and simultaneously being right. I say I say this all the time. Like, I'm so sick of being right. Like, for God's sake, somebody please just do the right thing and prove me wrong. I would love that. I would love it so much. I welcome that day. I can, I would be love the day when I go, hey, great, I was wrong. They they took care of that. That got fixed. That is is being handled. Someone's looking out for us. It's not happening. What can I say? It's not happening. On that note, should we uh move on to our our next top and final topic for this episode, which is um, you know, let's um let's take a little uh look at the oh my god, what a segue. Let's take a look at the dashboard. Okay, our rebuild dashboard, everybody's favorite. Um, the permitting progress dashboard. For anyone who's curious, you can find this online anytime, any day. They update it daily, which is awesome. So hat tip, props to county for that. Um, too bad they're trying, it's only functional and so highly functioning because it's their propaganda tool, but I'll take it. Um, it is you can find this at recovery.lacounty.gov backslash rebuilding. And um, if you just even go to recovery.lacounty.gov, you'll you'll get to where you can find this permitting progress dashboard where you can view the latest data on rebuilding permits. So um as of today, our day of recording, March 26, 2026, if you're going to go strictly off of the county data now we and that they're using for this particular dashboard, um, we know that Altadina lost um more than 9,000 structures. Actually, it's like 11,000 structures. Really, they're looking at like nine, right? Like 9,000 homes. But per this, they the way that they have this written is that Eaton Fire alone is 5,936 damaged or destroyed parcels and 6,746 damaged, destroyed units. Okay. Their average day uh business days to permit issuance right now for residential is 122 days, so just over four months. And that tracks. That's what people seem to be experiencing four months, some who are um having a little bit harder time uh or other nonsense and and you know uh tomfoolery. Uh they're at like a six plus month mark. Um, and I'm so sorry for those folks because that is just insane. But the average is four months. That's to me, that's reasonable enough, but it does also speak to that two-year rebuild timeline, right? Um, especially when you factor in plans and all the time, you know, you could have six to 12 months of work just before you even submit for a permit. Yeah. So, you know, it's this is a lengthy process. But all of that said, there are now 1452 permits issued and 911 um buildings, homes actually in construction. Okay.

Steve 52:36

Um, so as we look at that ADUs or no?

Shawna 52:40

Nope, that is separate. There's a hundred, uh, there's 94 ADUs in construction, but those are on those properties, right? So I'm not counting those as their own number because it's still just one property. It's one family rebuilding. So if we're gonna use their very, very conservative numbers, not that 11,000, not the 9,000, but this 5,936, very, very the artificially low number of what we of families that are displaced. And then that 911 homes in construction. Um, that puts us at 15 rebuilding. Okay. That's where we're at. And if you if you factor in all the permits that are in play right now, um, that's 20%.

Steve 53:24

So that means 85% haven't been done.

Shawna 53:28

Well, 85% haven't broken ground, and 80% just shy of 80% have not even um tried to get a permit yet.

Steve 53:40

Correct.

Shawna 53:41

Okay.

Steve 53:42

After a year and a half, a year and a almost year and a quarter now.

Shawna 53:47

So it's when you drive around Altadina, it's actually encouraging. You see a lot of um architecture going up, you see a lot of homes going up, buildings um, you know, apparently not all right or on their own properties and not not to code. But, you know, there's a lot is happening, and there's cause for optimism. And, you know, I have neighbors and friends who are have been are back at their homes or um in deeply in the burn zone, not like your situation, Steve. I'm not calling Steve out, but Steve just happens to be very fortunate to be in a uh spot where um yes, remediation was necessary and you were displaced for your home from your home for some time, but like you still have the you're in a pocket where you have your architecture, you have your your community, right? You didn't that they didn't all burn down.

SPEAKER_03 54:29

Right.

Shawna 54:30

But you know, the other side of town where it's was really, really, you know, um the density of the destruction, right? Where everything is gone. Um, it's so encouraging to see so much going up, but then you really realize that like we are so far, so, so far from being done. Wow. And I think it also speaks to how much uncertainty there is that, you know, I don't think it is unreasonable. I I would bet money, in fact, that to say that half of Al Tedinans who were total loss, that half of our total lost neighbors, um, don't know what they're doing yet. What haven't made a decision?

Steve 55:08

Either they can't population was over there.

Shawna 55:11

They're either not doing it yet because they don't have the money, or they don't have the means, or they don't know what they want to do, or they're just overwhelmed, or they're just sitting and holding out until getting through this lawsuit to figure out if they're gonna stay, if they're gonna go, you know, and see how things shake out with all of these uncertain factors. And when you think about that, it's horrifying because Altadena, you know, is our people, our community. I mean, we lost our our our diverse architecture and our history and all of that. But to think about on top of that, losing the diversity of our community. That to me is the the lot the real loss that should be non-negotiable. And uh nobody's doing anything to try and protect any of that. Except for, you know, all of us in our little corners, people like you and I, you know, and there's many of us, thank goodness, but fighting in our corners. But man, do we have an uphill battle?

Steve 56:02

There's a lot of really good people out there, even at the county.

Shawna 56:04

Oh, yeah.

Steve 56:05

100%, 100%. I talked to you.

Shawna 56:08

I know, I know. So I want to end on um before I do the small biz shout-out and talk about some events happening this weekend because it's a busy event weekend. I would like to share some fire survivor humor. I was looking at properties for sale because I was curious, right? I was looking at some of the land for sale, and in particular, this one um parcel of land that's a third of an acre and and uh probably about you know 7,000 square feet of it is is is buildable. And it's way up on the mountain, like north of Loma Alta, way up there. And I was like, and it's for sale for like 250, okay? And a part of me is yes, and so a part of me is like super delusional, like, oh my gosh, can I buy this land? You know, and then I'm like, fool, you can never insure this, like you cannot insure anything that far up the mountain. Like, forget even CFP on your own. Huh? You can, you can. I can't afford to. I mean, do you know what it would cost to insure up there?

Steve 57:02

I mean, again, how you deal with insurance.

Shawna 57:06

Oh my gosh, but man the views, right? So this got me down a rabbit hole of looking at listings and the the marketing titles on all of these listings. And I have to say, I have to add to this that um, you know, you have to remember um that uh it's not always like someone chose to market something this way. It's um it's the AI pulling, right? So in my post, what I shared, oh my gosh, I have to actually pull this up to and and now my thing is it's here we go. Um, you know, if you go through, if you want to go, if you want some fire survivor humor, go on to Zillow or Redfin or your you know property search software of choice, and look at the marketing headlines for all of the burnt out lots for sale in Aldadina for winners like sweeping views, gently sloping terrain, serene setting, blank cavis, desirable neighborhood. There's no neighborhood, quiet private road. Yes, because you're in the middle of nowhere where you're for sure your house will burn down again. Lush native landscaping. It's weeds. Okay, it's like it's overtaken by weeds. Uh again, beautiful pocket of Altadena. Oh, is it like one that's left? We don't know. Um, oh, here we go. Prior utility connections. Um, here's a doozy. Someone thought this was smart. Yeah. Prior utility connections. Yes, exactly. Um, this is a good one. Hosey fireplace. Yeah, that's a good one after a whole town burnt down. Exactly. Wait, and my personal favorite. Oh my gosh. I I I'll I wish I could just like turn, I will turn my laptop around, even though it's a mess for everybody to enjoy. Old fence poles. Okay, that's what it says. It's a burnt-out lot with the chain link falling apart and all the and it says old fence poles. You can have this lot for$599,000 and it comes with old fence poles. Oh my gosh, the neighbors, that we were just like laugh, it was like the uproarious laughing laughing. But like one neighbor said, if I were selling my lot, I would pen this. Diamond in the rough. Some usable pavers remain on this freshly excavated excavated dirt patch, currently being stored conveniently in a pile on top of a collapsing retaining wall. Bring your handyman and your architect and your concrete guy and your framer and your electrician and your permit expediter and your plumber and maybe your therapist and your spiritual advisor too. Won't this one won't last long.

Steve 59:42

They really said that?

Shawna 59:44

Our neighbors, our neighbors have. I love our neighbors and they're and they're like we we are all surviving with our sense of humor. Everyone was there. So many people were like, oh my god, I needed that. Um, since the fire, our naked lot could now be called right on the galf golf course with sweeping views of downtown LA. That's because that pesky country club, all of the homes, fences, and trees have burned to the ground. Oh my gosh. So that's it. We leave this, we we leave this one with a little bit of uh fire survivor humor because uh if we don't laugh, I don't know what else, you know. I think my humor is the only thing that saved me.

Steve 1:00:24

Well, what I wrote a I wrote a vet, I wrote a thing the other day, and I said something about oh, when I was talking about a year ago, and I was at that event with an elected in South Pass, and I was wearing my fire chic outfit, and my wife's like what's your what is your fire chic outfit?

Shawna 1:00:42

What's fire chic?

Steve 1:00:43

I got some clothes because we went to Mexico for a friend's birthday, and I was like, I have no clothes, I need to get clothes. Oh my gosh. It was like, you know, AG pants that were khakis and a shirt, and it was like, you know, the fire chic, right? Like, you know, it's as close as you can expect.

Shawna 1:00:57

And I want to briefly I want to briefly add for anyone listening, you know, when we talk about like, you know, Steve's situation and and people and his neighbors like him who were lucky enough to have a standing home, and all these people had like this the horror of survivor's guilt because uh they could go home after a few months of remediation, it doesn't mean they didn't lose everything, nearly everything inside their homes, like your clothes, everything. So I think it's important to mention that.

Steve 1:01:18

I mean, it's just yeah, there was no way my wife was gonna let me dry clean it. She's like, Nope, it's you know that's not safe. Yep. Yeah, I was like, I don't have any nice clothes because I was living in what the same four pairs of shorts and jeans for you know five four or five months, just like you get whatever we took was that all we could get.

Shawna 1:01:40

So yeah, it's true.

Steve 1:01:41

So you were in that outfit and no, no, it was just she mentioned that with the fire chic, and I'm like, Oh, I know, kind of like disaster humor, you know. It's sort of I know.

Shawna 1:01:51

I we we were at Beautiful Al Zena um, you know, office hours yesterday, uh, as I've shared, we're doing that on Wednesdays 11 to 1 at various coffee shops, and all Al Tedina neighbors are welcome to join us. But one one guy was saying to another another woman, like, Oh, hey, he's like, Oh, I love this outfit. And she was like, Oh, I just this is what I live in now. I I went to Old Navy and bought this, and like because I just don't even know what to buy. And like every time I try to shop, it's like crippling anxiety. And she's like, The longest time I couldn't buy anything, and she's like, I just she's like, um, you know, this is someone who had like beautiful under things before. She's like, Yeah, I just buy jockey underwear in bulk now. Like, I just can't, like, you know, it's uh, I don't know, it's it's a never-ending thing, right? And again, this is why our humor serves us. We gotta have it because and also we have the blessing of um of of having so many. Well, and it's a double-edged sword, but we're lucky to have each other to go through it with because going through it alone, I can't even imagine. So on that note, thank you.

Steve 1:02:54

We have a lot of what you do to keep us going, Shauna.

Shawna 1:02:57

Well, we're all doing our part, right? Well, most of us we're we're trying. We're trying. A lot of us are doing our part. Um, we have a lot of community events this weekend. Spring spring has sprung, right? We had the um spring equinox last week. Um, we have so I'm gonna talk a little bit about spring Easter, Passover shopping in Altadena, um, because we have so many shops that have completely, you know, brought in new inventory for that purpose. So we have Adelaide on Fair Oaks, which you've heard me talk about before. Um, North Fair Oaks, just across from Fair Oaks Burger. Oh, I have hiccups now. Um, really beautiful spot. And she's her um merchandising is beautiful, the her taste is beautiful. She's also a florist. So gorgeous flowers, gorgeous um floral arrangements, plants, um, home goods, etc. Beautiful shop. Um, if you have not gone to Adelaide, go check Adelaide out, and especially now with the season change for spring and you know, again, Easter. Um, she has so many beautiful things. So does um Carchofi, which is our stationery shop at Mariposa Junction. I don't know if any of any for, oh my gosh, talk about something we didn't talk about. Half of Mariposa Junction are beautiful at Mariposa and Lake, that gorgeous brownstone block of building that's like the only thing that even approximates uh uh downtown for us. Um half of it survived, half of it didn't, the half that didn't. And when we had wind a couple weeks ago, it collapsed. And that speaks to, I mean, it's horrifying that we lost the last of that historic structure. Yeah, yeah, all of it came down. But also the fact that that's just like hanging out in the community where people are like, you know, our uh one of the best restaurants in the nation, Betsy is next door and Carchofi is next door. And uh yeah, no big deal. There's just still contaminant city. Yeah, exactly. There's just, you know, still contaminant out there and wildly unsafe, you know, masonry left that just came down in a wind, like a big bad wolf blowing your house down. It came down. But, you know, beyond the um, again, just the county just leaving us in the most shamble of states, um it also just, you know, is really sad to see that that facade that they'd really hope to preserve came down. And I know the owner of the building, Joey Galloway, did at least um preserve the uh the lettering, the original lettering that was on the building. Uh, he was able to preserve that in hopes of putting it up on whatever comes back. So, anyhow, Cartofi has been closed because of that whole mess. They just reopened. She's on that section, in that section um on Mariposa, just west of Lake, that did survive. So please go and support her business. And then um a little further over on the east side of town on Allen, um, you have Altina Beb, um, which is also where Zinny's table is. Zinny Table, Zinny's Table was their separate housewares and shop and florist, but they brought it all into one house following the fire. They also have so many beautiful florals and housewares, and they've also got really great craft food and and great um uh wine. In liquor and beer selection. So yeah, head there and support our small businesses. They need us now than ever. Someone was talking about how much they miss the MINIC market and are hoping it comes back. And there's no word about whether they're going to come back or not. But I just said, you know, guys, while we're all waiting for businesses to come back, support everybody that's still here. They need us badly. Small business is struggling. Go support our small business. So with that, we have a few events on Saturday, this coming Saturday, March 28th. It is the Sierra Mad Sierra Madre Wisteria Festival, which is quite beautiful. And while these this is our neighbor and not us, I share it because some of our Altadina folks are going to be there participating. We have like our local Altadina Macaron lady, Katz Macaron. She will be there with a booth. Clio's Critter care will be there. Cleos Crittercare, for anyone who's not familiar, she's uh our only um Altadina um small wildlife um rescue. You know, if you every time someone's like, oh my gosh, I found a baby squirrel, oh my gosh, I found, you know, an injured possum, oh my gosh, I found you know, baby possums without a mama. She's the person everyone calls and who takes those animals in. So go see her at that event, support her, donate some money. She's actually in the process right now of trying to find a new home base. And really, this has been like a many months process and hasn't found anything despite having rent to pay and being able to offer people a tax write-off. Um, you know, she needs support. So go show up if you can. That is on Saturday, March 28th, 12 to 5 in Sierra Madre. Um, on the same that morning, if you want to start your day, we have another No Kings rally happening, and the Altadena section segment of that is happening at the Altadena Community Church or the lot that was the Altadena community church before it burned down. And I'm not a church person because uh, you know, I'm I'm not a church goer, I'm not Christian, but the um that church was my favorite for the signs that they had up. I'll never forget there was a sign that they had on their on their sign once it was like, you know, eight, like, uh what was it? It was like basically um when atheists are being better Christians than Christians, it's time to reflect, you know, and I was like, oh my gosh, I love this community church. So I was really sad that like this amazing community fixture um burned down, but they're not surprisingly, they're hosting this. So on their lot at um that is on the north side of Altadena Avenue, Altadina Drive rather, just um east of Lake. So yeah, so just look for basically Altadena and Lake. Um, they are going to be hosting the No Kings rally that is also Saturday, the 28th, from 10:30 to 12. And then in the evening, um, you have like an awesome group of Altadina musicians and artists coming together to um do their big show, Electric Fever, that'll be at the Eagles Hall that night, also Saturday, March 28th. And I believe that kicks off 7, 7:30 p.m. Um, and there are tickets online, there are discounted tickets. I think they're like half off for Altadena people. If you happen to be an Eagles member, there's a portion of that show you can attend for free. So all that info's online. I'll drop links into the show notes. I really hope people um show up and show out this weekend to support all of the wonderful people in our community.

Steve 1:09:17

All right. And with that, Shauna, I think it's time to wrap this thing up for those that have time to wrap it up. Take us out, Steve. Thank you. Huh?

Shawna 1:09:26

Take us out, Steve.

Steve 1:09:28

I'm Steve Sachs, the Alta Policy Wonk. You can find me at Substack, the Alta Polic or Alta Policy Wonk Shauna.

Shawna 1:09:35

Beautiful Altadena online on Instagram, on Substack, and our um neighbors only groups are on Facebook. You can find us in our subgroups there. Beautiful Altadena.

Steve 1:09:46

So hopefully we'll see you next week. And in the meantime, have a good one.

Shawna 1:09:50

Yep. Thanks everyone for listening. I know it's another long episode. We appreciate you. We'll see you on the next one. I know.