Speaker 1: Okay, b La Talk fifteen eighty. Good morning, God bless,
Happy Monday. What a Monday already. I'm dominate Taprima. This
show is called First Things First, and my very first
thing every day is prayer, and then prayer again, and
then prayer some more, and then we go, let's get
it started. Man, you got a lot of prayer today.
It is a mindful Monday. So the way we do
things around here technical difficulty or none. Way we do
things around here. Our one we look local. Our two
we go national, international, and beyond. And in the third
hour we do a deep dive. Now our two typically
starts with Sahara Ali and our Mindful Monday segment. So
we get get our heads together right, get ourselves present
and intentional for the week that will be the week
we would like to manifest, so to speak. We do
that in the top of the second hour, a guided
meditation and affirmation, a little astrological outlook with Tara Ali,
who is a meditation instructor, a yoga teacher, is Soundbath,
Special to Life coach, and more, and today is Black
Marriage Monday. You know, we kind of got on a
different little schedule because we wanted to get the gen
Z perspective for Messy Monday, and we had to do
that before the gen Z folks went back to school,
back to college. And so we're doing our Black Marriage
Monday today and we'll be talking with doctor James Smith.
He's a communications specialist. So it doesn't just apply to marriage.
It can apply to your situationship, relationship, even your breakup.
Who knows, maybe your job. But it is Black Marriage Monday,
so we're gonna focus on those long term, committed style
relationships like the one James Farr is in. James Farr
is with Me this morning. He's the host of The
Conversation Live on the weekends here Saturday mornings to be
exact Altadna Ford, and he is also a writer for
the LA Progressive.
Speaker 2: Good morning James, Good morning Dominique. How are you well?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm we're here and we were here, yes,
and we're overcoming adversity to do what we do. So
that's a blessing. I'm blessed. How are you you know what?
I'm here?
Speaker 2: I'm in the fight, I'm swinging. Is it mercury retro grave?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: We'll have to ask Sahara when she gets on be
honest with you, because it sure feels like it. Me
and my girlfriend went all the way to Anaheim last
night to see Daniel Caesar. Okay, right at the pond
well whatever is that the name of the place, The
Honda Center where the where they play hockey, right, and
the stub Hub people send us a message.
Speaker 3: Good news you've been upgraded, which.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of before with a concert that's usually
airline tickets.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Turns out they were lying because they took us from
the really I see so that we purchased. They said,
now you're down in the pit, right. I didn't realize
that Daniel Caesar has so many twelve year old fans.
Speaker 3: What does that say about me and my emotional maturity?
Speaker 1: I didn't know, you know, I just like, oh, I
love me.
Speaker 3: So Daniel Caesar, I get there. Everyone else is twelve.
Speaker 2: Then all that aside Dominique, as you were in there
chronologically more mature than anyone in the building. Perhaps perhaps
what was the best part of it, right, Well.
Speaker 3: Don't know. I didn't get to the punchline yet.
Speaker 1: We get we get another text from them, We've been sorry,
you've been put in general admission, which they won't tell
us what it is and basically what it ended up.
We didn't get to go to the show because basically,
I guess they over sold it. I don't know what
they did, but they took away our tickets, and so
we had the option of going in there with a
huge crowd of twelve year olds and not knowing where
we were going to be and getting charged the really
big price that we paid for great tickets, or going
home and hoping for one day getting refund.
Speaker 3: It was such a bummer.
Speaker 1: We drove all the way back, didn't see any Daniel Caesar,
actually not one song.
Speaker 3: We saw a lot of twelve year olds wheeling around. Though.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of that where they just take
away your ticket and then they send it, send us
all these texts, We're sorry, we understand that you bought
these tickets and we're giving you these other crappy tickets.
But sometimes this happens and we do our best and
blah blah blah. I never heard of that.
Speaker 3: Have you heard of that?
Speaker 2: Well, I've seen people get upgraded, I don't, but when.
Speaker 1: It was really downgrade and then eventually you're in general admission,
whatever that means, and then.
Speaker 3: They stopped texting us back.
Speaker 1: I feel like I felt like I was lost in
a scam somewhere.
Speaker 2: I'm sympathetic.
Speaker 3: You're laughing on me. I got you.
Speaker 1: We drove all the way to Anaheim for no reason.
So Daniel Caesar call me.
Speaker 3: Call me. Daniel Caesar called me.
Speaker 1: Surely you wanted to season Black Women.
Speaker 3: At show? Good morning with all the twelve year olds?
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, James Farce here, we do have a
lot to talk about.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm still like, really.
Speaker 1: Sad he's And also I'm questioning myself because he's one
of my favorite artists right now, and I'm thinking, does
that mean I have the emotional maturity of a twelve
year old.
Speaker 3: I'm just wondering.
Speaker 1: All Right, we'll get to We got a lot. We
have a lot on the list, right, James got News,
traffic and sports and the more on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do appreciate you, Miles.
Speaker 1: I didn't know next time you got to tell me,
Miles be on top of the stuff. Okay, why am
I hearing that? Oh that's my that's me. Sorry, it's
like that today. It's like it was like that yesterday.
But we're here and we're good. So James, what's going
on over there in.
Speaker 3: The Alta Pass pass out?
Speaker 1: I saw this uh breakdown in the LA Times this
weekend talking about their top takeaways from the new investigation,
the new reports on the Alta Dina fire, Alta Dina
Eating Canyon fire. And I guess you know you cover
this weekend week out. But to me for the LA
Times to basically put Southern California Edison on blast like that,
making it sound like they were negligent, that they were
covering things up, and that they were incompetent, I found
that pretty that should be pretty dire for Southern California Edison. First,
kb LA, now here comes the LA Times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well I am not surprised in what the
La Times reported because it's just the facts, right, I mean,
and we hope that they remain in fact in evidence base.
I've also reported, as you know, on this extensively in
KBLA and Black Press, USA, LA Progressive and the like.
But the key takeaways is the Altadena this fire happened
in twelve seconds, comedy. What was fully known, and we've
known this since early last year, immediately following the fire
that this utility pole, which had been decommissioned. ARCD started
a fire under brush that they did not maintain. They
had Win advisory, National Weather Service advisories, all of these
four warnings that something catastrophic could happen, and what ended
up happening is we ended up with a hurricane without rain,
eighty mile an hour winds, seventy foot tall wall. The
fire came burroling down on this community. It's what we've
always done. There have been twelve independent point of views,
independent videos. At a surface, there was never a question,
and up until very recently, Edison has been in court
saying that, well, we don't know what started. Now they're
kind of looking at well, possibly at us. But the
fact is I had attorney Doug Boxer on Saturday and
he's saying affirmatively that Edison could have settled this matter
forty five days after the event. There's so many different
things that Edison could have done to help displaced and
burned out families. They chose not to while it's simultaneously
paying dividends, record profits in their CEO clocked sixteen point
five million dollars as a compensation for burning out of town.
I don't know how that works, but it worked for him.
Speaker 1: Well you know what I mean, we are so what
you're really saying is it's nothing new because we knew,
Like you said, we knew all of that.
Speaker 3: But it seems like it.
Speaker 1: Would be harder and harder for them to keep playing
dumb the way that they have been in court. And
it also to me explains why so few people still.
I mean, it's a couple thousand I think that have
taken their deal. That may sound like a lot, but
out of what nine thousand or more people, that's.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, upwards of thirty thousand. There's not a
true accurate account of how many people are displaced. There's
no way to really qualify that. But we do know
the number of structures, about ninety four hundred total structures,
homes and businesses. What I believe Edison's strategy was from
a legal standpoint, of course I'm not a lawyer, but essentially,
as long as they can kick the can as far
down the road, you have to look at what was
happening kind of underneath this and run timelines. Chronologically. They're
paying dividends shareholders. This is strictly about profit, not people,
and so we'll get to a point where Edison will
not take this to trial. The preponderance of evidence is
too damning.
Speaker 3: For them, right, So they're going to lose.
Speaker 1: So so they're they're just slow walking it. What are
they hoping like residents die off? I mean, what is
the payoff if you know you're gonna lose of slow walking?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, there's no morality in capitalism. I mean,
that's what it is. There's no ethic in capitalism right there.
The key is for them to keep the meet running,
for them to continue to generate profits for their shareholders
and stakeholders. But what eventually will happen is they, I believe,
based on you know, a council that I'm speaking with,
they will settle this case before the two year statue
of limitation.
Speaker 1: Yeah okay, well, I mean to me, you know that
that articles, like you said, wasn't a lot of new stuff.
But the fact that now the mainstream is totally reporting
the opposite or you know, a much more dire picture
than what they are admitting to in court not good
news for them.
Speaker 3: And you know when you talk in your piece about.
Speaker 1: The fire that destroyed Black Altadena and we can't forget
almost twenty people died in that fire, that.
Speaker 3: You know this is.
Speaker 1: This has got to help, I guess for the people
who are trying to make the case, for the people
that are not taking the deal, because the more we know,
the worse it gets for southern California.
Speaker 2: Edison, Yeah, I just learned just last week Dominate that
there are eleven confirmed suicides as a result of this fire,
and so the trauma and the toll keeps getting more
and more. Eric Rodriguez, as recently as May, a survivor
who was in the rebuilding process, got two over his head.
According to his letter that he left for his family,
and he decided to unlive himself. Whether or not this
impacts the litigation is yet to be seen. Edison knows
their exposure. They knew that from the very beginning. I
don't think it's going to move the needle one way
or the other. Both sides are looking for a resolution
that if this thing does go to trial and plainish prevail,
that pushes out any compensation for years, and so it's
a balance of how do you get people compensation. I
don't want to say justice, that's their citicide, but I
don't know that people feel any better. I think what
people would much rather see is District Attorney Nathan Hoffman
criminally indict Southern California Edison and Edison International and charged
them like they did in Butke County, with counts of manslaughter.
Nineteen people died dominique. That's a homicide. That's not we
sanitized and say they died or their death right. But
what was the causation? It's a homicide, it's not murder,
but at a minimum, it should be reviewed and investigated
as manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter at the least. And that's what
legal experts are saying.
Speaker 1: And DA Hoffman has not ruled that out right, he
just hasn't moved.
Speaker 2: I asked d. A. Hawkman in April of last year,
if the evidence came back and supported causation of Edison,
and if there is shown to be negligent, let's just
cite the LA Times, right, if what people are reading
in that fifty something page investigation by the Los Angeles
County Fire Department, I don't see how this doesn't work
to the level of a criminal charge. He hasn't said
one way or the other. But how long does the
public allow the district attorney who one said he was
the hard middle and tough on crime too. You and
I both know Dominie black folks voted for this DA.
Speaker 3: Well, not this black folks. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean I know because I saw plenty
of signs in my community that said same lawn sign
that said black lives matter, said Nathan Hoffman, which I
found very confusing. But yeah, and I don't, you know,
I don't know that it seems like that matters. Maybe
it does, maybe it doesn't to I mean, everybody has to.
Every DA has to run for reelection at some point,
but it seems like, you know, he's pivoted more more
openly sort of maga in his stances since being elected.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's the potential of destabilizing the utility that
so there's that concern. But District Attorney Hoffman has an
election coming up, he has an announced that he's going
to run for reelection in eight of course he will, right.
I don't see how this isn't a He loves the
celebrity case. He loves a high profile case. Charging Edison
would certainly elevate his profile nationally and internationally, but I
don't think he should do it because of that. He
should do it because it's the right thing to do. Dominicue,
you or I are responsible for nineteen people dying in
thirty plus thousand people displaced in nine thousand structures. I
don't know how we don't get charged.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well we'll see.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're going to see because to your point, Yeah,
he may love that elevation any politician would of their
name during an election season. But I think also it's
what it's elevated for. I don't you know, I don't
know that he's seeking the Yeah, we'll see the approval
of of that of black Altadena. I'm just saying, I
don't know if that's on the top of the.
Speaker 2: Vote. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and and as they should. The other thing is,
you know, when you're speaking about this DA, we've seen that, uh,
he has decided to back down on charges against that
cop who was a whistleblower, the cop that took all
the video or all the all the that taped all
of the racist commentary from the l a p D
with in the hopes that there would be disciplinary action, racist, sexist, homophobic,
ablest and the DA had thrown a felony at this
guy now it looks like he's backed it down to misdemeanors.
And what that tells me is that, you know, when
a lot of people speak out, it does move the needle,
because I think everyone was outraged.
Speaker 3: It wasn't just us.
Speaker 1: Once again, it wasn't just black folks. We started to
see people on the West side going, what is happening?
What message are we sending the cops if we punish
them for being whistleblowers?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, they circled the wagons. They expect
what Da Hawkman did initially was protect the organism, right,
It wasn't to look at the intent of what the
officer did in recording it. I mean, we want officers
to come forward, We want them to root out this
kind of behavior because it shows up in their enforcement
when they're on the street.
Speaker 1: I mean, we always say aware are the good cops,
but then you get you know this and that the
young woman in Pasadena that we talked about another officer,
Tyson Crutchfield, who was punished and eventually fired for or
pushed out. I don't know if it was fired or
pushed out, but for speaking out against her own partners.
So what message are we sending, and I feel like
the officer got so much public support, even his name
was Daniel Flores, even though Hawkman's people, the DA's office
was saying, well, this guy wasn't really in it for good.
Speaker 3: He was just in it to get a paycheck.
Speaker 1: But whether he was in it for a check or
for not a check, I think the message is clear.
If you got sixteen felony charges against you for calling
out racism and sexism in the department, that's you know, a.
Speaker 2: Problem, that's that's that's not the culture. The culture is
not reporting your colleagues. I talked with someone very familiar
with labor negotiations and police unions, and I don't know
how to sanitize this dominique, but what I'm told is
that police eat their own. They are far We know
how brutal they can be right to the public, we
see it, But in terms of how they turn their
apparatus on each other is pretty vicious. And so it's
not a surprise that anyone that speaks out and kind
of goes against the system. It's not a surprise that
those who participate in acts of violence and show up
as violence workers promote up the ranks. This is rewardable behavior.
What Officer Flores has done is completely went against the system.
Some call it a blue wall of science. I think
it's just culture and violence and this type of behavior
is just accepted and it shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, James Fars here, you're invited in all always
it eight hundred and nine to fifteen eighty, eight hundred nine,
two oh fifteen eighty.
Speaker 3: We do have a lot to talk about KBLA Talk fifteen.
Speaker 1: I want to touch on before we run out of
time with you here, James Fire, I want to touch
on an article you wrote about this deal between well
the deal that Governor Newsom is possibly championing here with
Southern California Edison that would I guess he's trying to
keep them solvent. Is that the logic behind it?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the logic is the utility cartails are lobbying.
There's no bill language. Yeah, but what the utility cartails
are looking to do is to reduce the amount of
compensation that fire survivors would be able to recover. And
that would be compensatory damn, which is or perhaps like
emotional distress. So they're looking to kind of go retroactively,
which would significantly impact again the recovery for fire survivors.
Why the governor would do this is yet to be seen,
But I think the more important question is why are
legislators potentially going to allow this to have That's a
greater concern and many many think it's because everyone has
their own bills or pet projects. The governor has the
final pen and so what you won't see is any
of the legislators speak out publicly and challenge him. You
will hear them speak out against the insurance companies and
the utilities. What the public needs to do is to
get in contact with their legislators and let them know
if this bill is afoot. The closer session is this week,
that they need to stand in that gap and make
sure that all rate payers in the state of CALIFORNI
you won't be penalized when there are wildfires or fires
caused by utility companies.
Speaker 1: I don't know how that you know how that can be.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like I understand we need utility companies.
They do have shareholders. I'm trying to figure out why
we're so desperately trying to protect them when they're making
record profits. I mean, when you know Pedro Pizarro got
this huge bonus, they're not hurting. Why can't they pay
the victims of the eating fire? Why can't they pay
it out? They've got plenty of money.
Speaker 2: Now, the money is already there in a rate paying
that the utility payers have already paid into this account, right,
and so the money is there. What Edison is trying
to do is to mitigate against right so that they
keep the money. This is essentially dominate. This is already
to rate payers money that they're returning back to them
that they've collected by way of feet, We've already been
legislated to pay into these wildfire recovery funds for this event.
Edison is only concerned about their bottom line. It is
just strictly capitalism and profit over people. They tell that
they want to be Pedro Pizzarro to cel says he
wants to be a good neighbor and a community member.
This is not how that shows up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But okay, so here's the thing. Yes, we I'm
not under Southern California, Edison.
Speaker 3: But rate payers get.
Speaker 1: Taxed, get fees, and there's already a cap on what
the utilities are on the hook for because we the
people already have been tasked by our own lawmakers for
covering the butts of these utilities. But they're talking about
even further restrictions now, they're talking about putting ceilings on
what you can get for pain and suffering in the
like right, right, So why there's I guess when I'm
not innderstanding and since there's already this cap, there's already
these protections of how much they're on the hook for,
why do we need more? Why is the governor or
why are some lawmakers feeling like we need to protect
them even more when they're clearly thriving and they're already protected.
Speaker 2: It's the money in politics. No one wants to come
up against the utility cartels, lobby and muscle right. They
have to get reelected. The other thing is you're looking
at private versus public and I know a short on
time private utility companies versus public utility companies. It's the
private utility companies that we've been talking about for the
last decade or so that are the cause of these fires.
Pasadena hasn't had a fire, La hasn't had a fire.
You know, the cities that have public utility companies because
the attention to maintaining the system is much more detailed
than what the private company things are doing. It's profit.
They knew, they knew that pole was a loaded gun
waiting to go off. They just didn't care. Fifty two years, Dominique,
it had sat up there with this potential, and then the.
Speaker 1: Fact that they didn't clear the brush around that you know,
around that station is crazy to me. They said over
ten years or something they hadn't cleared it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they received certifications every year that the things
were being handled. So it's a corrupt system all the
way through, with the appointments from the certification boards. All
of that failed, Alta Dina on January seventh, twenty twenty five,
all of them.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad that some folks are still striving for justice.
I'm glad that, you know, a lot of people have
not given up on getting their fair share or had
been forced to cave into the utilities.
Speaker 3: Not such such a great deal.
Speaker 1: And I'm thankful that you continue to on this, James,
thanks so much for giving us an update.
Speaker 2: Thank you, dom wep a good day and.
Speaker 3: You as well.
Speaker 1: Mindful Monday with Sahara Ali is next. After that, we
open up these phone lines and talk pol tricks. As
Sahara would say, it's KBLA Doc fifteen eighty