How Do You Make Complicated Simple?
Simplicity is the greatest complexity...
What does Altadena (and as a proxy, California and beyond) want? Pretty basic.
We want their electeds to do what they are supposed to (get organizations to do their jobs).
We want our lives simplified.
We want to see our city restored as best it could.
We want to have faith in the systems we trust to accomplish these tasks restored.
We want insurance to do what was promised.
Sure there are a laundry list of more, but these are the basics. Housing, government, safety, confidence we can go about our daily lives. It is exactly what the electorate wants, but ours is driven by a wildfire which devastated our town.
What do we not want? Excuses.
There is money, but people do not like the color of it.
There is a way to compel groups to do their jobs, but people do not want to do the hard work or have the uncomfortable conversations.
Electeds are like Goldilocks, they want it “just so.” If not, they say “the system is ungovernable.” Maybe it is time to find those who can govern.
A year later, people just want the promises they were given, executed. The social contract is broken here. It is a proxy for the bigger breaks in California.
The tools which those who are in Power asked for have been given (SB 782). The decisions were made to remove certain options from the table (i.e. AB 797). Time to put up or shut up.
I think the “ask” is as clear as it could be.
We tried. We tried to give a path to give people dignity, a path to finance the rebuild, and it was inexplicably taken off the table. We are still here, waiting.
Noise was created. Groups formed to represent portions of the rebuild, using money donated by people moved by the fires through our foundations. Resources were “catalyzed.” We have a ton here in Los Angeles. Execution, however, remains unresolved. People feel left behind. They feel dejected. People ask why, with all the riches, we continue to misfire. What is the reason? It is not for lack of capability, it must be more. There are glimmers of hope, but the feeling is what is the Plan?
As we said yesterday, there must be a Plan. We all know it. It hides in plain sight. It must. It needs to be drawn together as it is purposefully opaque. We struggle to put the clues together here for people. Does it rebuild your house? Does it restore your loss? Eventually, but that is no comfort to those who want to be home, to celebrate the holidays as the rest of us, including those who are leading the rebuild, from what was theirs not what their current reality is. What is the Plan for us not you, is the real question. Are you celebrating Christmas in a car, RV, or rental? How many more will you? Who will not be there because of the failures? Where is the accountability? Daily drips of failures. The callousness of your ability to sit outside the zone, not affected, and then sit back and hold off solutions to us is the height of why we have no trust in government. It is you who are driving the conversation and decisions, so own it. Leaving every day, going back to your “normal” allows you to have that separation.
The Substack tries to explain the behind the headlines, the “why” we do not have the Plan. It is a failure plain and simple. No one person is at fault, though we look to those who lead to be the leaders instead of pointing fingers. Who cares what the President does, find another way. No money? Find it. Regulations in the way? Remove them. Get the job done. Look at Pennsylvania and the rebuild of I-95. They waived everything to get it done. 11 months later and here we are. We spend $300 million to fight Trump but where is the money for Altadena? In government, the priorities are the people not yourself.
I think back to Tom Steyer’s letter to the editor yesterday in the Journal. He did the typical. Used “affordable.” Talked about the same talking points. It is indicative of the group think of the consultant class and the tone deafness of the electeds and perspective electeds to our true problems.
He laid out how he wants to make Education work. Well look at UCSD’s internal report. Students come in with A-’s in Public Schools and cannot do remedial math. We spend more per capita on students here in California public schools and they fail.
He wants to deal with utilities, saying they are a special interest which dominates Sacramento. Well, no sh*t. Look at the Edison contributions for Prop 50 and the re-up of the wildfire fund, which in and of itself is public risk for private enterprise.
He wants to build more housing. Housing is the California version of “King Corn” for the Iowa primaries and Ethanol. Anyone against it could lose Iowa because it is corn heavy. Well, if you are against building more housing, you are against the Trades Unions. How much do we spend on affordable housing and homelessness, not to mention rent control? Look at our affordability. “Build more housing” sounds great but it has accomplished nothing.
Then there is homelessness. Celebrating a 4% drop in Los Angeles is a failure when up to 40% of people experiencing homelessness have jobs and should be housed. That number is not a dent, it is a fluctuation. It is a park being rejuvenated, giving people something to cling to in an otherwise dire situation, but not an indication of substantial progress.
Wildfires? It was a procedure cluster which is now to blame for the Palisades burning to the ground. Is the Palisades only? Nope. Read the Los Angeles Times yesterday.
Do we want to talk about the promises? The “rich rebuilding Altadena” told the community groups leading up to SB 782? Well that promise was a fallacy, as La Canada is not part of our Climate Resilience District (though that is good since our money will not flow out, but it was part of the sell to certain community groups).
I could go on and on, but, you in Altadena know all this. You know failure. You know frustration. You know who and what are not meeting the moment. You are the butt-end of the failures. The rest of California sees them but they can tolerate them because the failures (a) do not affect them directly or (b) they feel too powerless to do anything about them. They sleep in their homes (most of them) while we live the devastation.
We are repackaging the same ideas which failed us as “affordability,” a nice euphemism. It is not affordability which matters, it is wealth. We need to make that our Northstar. It should be the guiding light for whoever is running. Maybe Steyer is listening, but he has not heard it yet. Maybe one of the others will get it. Maybe someone new will jump in and distinguish themselves from the others, looking like a leader among followers What a great distinction.
We in Altadena, are the ground floor, the result of the failures. We can also be the ground floor of the successes, the re-imagination, the future. We continue to see what is happening writ large in our day to day. People were unable to get insurance payments because the Insurance Commissioner was too cozy with the insurers. Our system was faltering before these fires ever hit, moreover. People have no money to rebuild utilities and all because the State wants the Feds to foot the bill, not because there is no money. Every day someone has to sell their real estate for less than it was worth on January 6, they are doing so because the State vetoed our bill to solve that problem, not to mention bringing in more money to do the rebuild. What about getting funds to help rebuild for homes? Where is that program? Where are the bills? We wrote a ton of them and they languish. What is so frustrating, is we can actually solve the problems. It is like being a thirsty person and seeing a stream of water but not being able to get there because of some giant blocking us.
When you look around and you are frustrated, you are allowed to be. Who is blocking us?
We try to move the conversation here. It takes time to land the plane in politics when the system does not want to compromise. They know you are tired. They know you are worn out. They use it to their advantage. It is a scandal in the purest sense, just as we wrote on Sunday. The promise is made and it is not executed. Why? We know there is a reason, we just are not being told.
There is a moment for someone who wants to do something to make it happen. Step in. Solve the problem. Do it different. Align around wealth. Stop the vapid promises. Trust is broken so rebuild it here and see where it takes you. Gubernatorial candidates come through, have their pictures taken, and then leave. They “hear” but they do not “listen.” There is no attempt to “solve.” Fix the problem, or at least try.
What is so frustrating, is like so much in California and our nation, there is a way. Imagine what could happen if someone, one of the groups professing to want to rebuild, actually did it?
We have the Plan. We have the source of money. We just need the group to help us get from A to B. If you do it, you can truly transform not only Altadena, not only California, but so much more. The people of Altadena need it. Please. Just. Do. It.