The First Rumbles

And the bills have not even passed yet

It was bound to happen.

The bills are sitting, waiting for the Governor to sign them and alas, here we go.

Rumbles. Mumbles. Whispers. Do our electeds and leaders (not elected) know what they are going to do? Do they understand what is coming? Did they do what we had been warned about? What did we sign up for? They knew exactly what they were doing.

“I know I was promised something.”

There is that pit in your stomach.

I have felt it, you have felt it.

The heat rises in your cheeks. You realize you were duped. You were told something, you went to your friends, your family, your trusted community, and put your name out there, you promised because you were told something. You knew when you made the promise, there was doubt in your mind. You knew you should have gotten more explicit promises, but, you trusted. “Things were moving fast,” you thought. These were extraordinary times. The “old rules” do not apply. Come on, the entire town burned down right? They need me. Could someone be that cynical?

“The bills were needed,” you were told. “I was needed!” Ah, hubris. “It was about Altadena,” you justified it to yourself. “We can sort it out after the fact if there is problem,” was the answer when you asked about the criticisms you read and heard. “We need speed,” was the mantra (forgetting we are now 10 months later).

Your better instincts told you something did not fit, but you still went along. This is history. These are the people who get history. They are not going to screw me over.

There were those naysayers in the corners. What did they know? The “experts” told you, it was ok, they do not know what they are talking about. Just “be there for us, and we will be there for you.” You know there are billions of dollars at stake, but again, you do not know what that means. You are a community person. You were sitting at the big table, but you claimed to be naive when it suited you.

SB 9. SB 782. The assessor. You start to see the pieces. Tax Increment Financing. It is so esoteric. You are recovering from huge losses. Finance. Land use. Politics. It was beyond you, but you still sidled up the bar to drink.

The curtain is pulled back a little bit. People started talking, but again, “you were promised, you were in the room, you were privy to the inside baseball.” Still, there is a nagging thought in the back of your mind.

Then, conversations start to happen. What you were hoping for were not included. What happened? Those whispers of doubt creep in. The pit in your stomach. The feeling of shame. You were taken. You bought it. Could they possibly do it? “No,” you say, “I was promised.” Did you get it in writing? Is it public? Was it you who offered the words? Were they the pro or you?

Then it happens. The whispers become spoken. The rumblings become roars. The “discretion” does not matter anymore. You make the phone call. You have their cell phones. The calls go unanswered. The texts are no longer returned. E-mails are not answered. It happened. You were no longer needed. The shame creeps up. You did it. You told your community one thing. People trusted you. The thing everyone was warning about could not happen, and alas, there it is.

Community groups start to ask, “what can they do?” The Power is already concentrated, you were check mated. The Climate Resilience District (CRD) is the centerpiece of the recovery. You cannot veto it. You traded that veto away for “promises.”

You were told the veto “was not needed. It has never been needed.” If that is the case, why did they need special legislation for it? You knew the question but let it go. The appointments to the CRD? Your input is no longer needed. Your community? It is now at risk. It is not going to stay the same. Gentrification is coming. You do not get a say. Your tool is gone.

CRDs are financed through Tax Increment increases. The incentive is to turn over the property as quickly as possible and as high in price to pay for it. Gentrification is how you do it. Density? Now you realize why SB 9 was not exempted in Altadena. Assessor words versus paper? Why else did he want a bill introduced? Why did the Governor veto AB 882 in 2020? The promises made in all those meetings in words are not able to happen in law. Values must go up. Fixed incomes are not able to make the new tax payments. More houses need to sell. California has a housing shortage, so people will continue to buy.

SCE’s offer now starts to look even better. It has had a couple weeks to settle. Without any way to hold back the CRD, your community has to start to look at other options. Taxes are going up. Values are too important to rebuilding. Billions of dollars are being raised, not for your group’s priorities, rather for the biggest real estate deal ever in LA’s history.

Who cares if the people running it do not even know what they are doing? It is not like you can stop it. Get $100 million or so started and then what? Like the Bullet Train, once it goes, there is no stopping it. Utilities are going to be replaced come hell or high water. Contracts will be awarded. Here we go. The machine’s wheels start going. Even if you wanted to try and stop something, the population is dwindling. People are leaving. New people are years away from coming.

Those people you represented are now gone. Your organization and name are not important. Those “grants” you got from the FireAid are expiring. You provide no value. Follow on grants are going to be for those select “few” who played by the rules and are a benefit to growing the community, the “new community.” Billions of dollars are at stake folks.

2028 comes around. SRP runs again, but Altadena is a quarter of the 43,000 it used to be. The new Supervisor does not care other than to take care of those who are benefitting from the rebuild. Campaign donations people. Altadena is merely an investment. We lost our veto. SRP’s CRD.

You are sitting there right now, whispering, knowing this moment was your moment and you traded it away.

You think, “what can I do?” You say, “I need to stop it, need to raise my fist, raise my voice, not be played.” But then you say, “if the future is going to be the CRD, I do not want to offend those who are running it, for maybe, just maybe, they may need me again.” Truth is, you will not be needed, but you tasted the sweet nectar of Power, so you’re saying “maybe there’s a chance?”

And there it is. You do not pick up the phone. You do not call the LA Times to use the limited voice you still have.

You do not shame those who made promises and are now selling your cause out. You do not call out those who gentrified the town while standing side by side with the community. You do not apologize to those who stood, like crazy people, yelling into the air, telling you what was coming.

You do not press the story to make the Governor realize if he does not veto SB 782, the whole image of rebuilding a historical community, so rich in story, will be gone. His Presidential campaign depends on supporting the vulnerable. He knows he has AB 797 which is a tool that allows for the level of community input and control to do what SB 782 could possibly do, but without the drama. But it is to the community to say something.

You are faced with that moment, where you look in the mirror and say, “what did I get into?” Your ego allowed you to. The worst part, it was your choice.

You got taken. The oldest trick in the book. Now, do you recede into the background or do what you really feel is right? Do you stand up and stop this at the last moment?

Welcome to the game. Don’t say you were not warned.