Speaker 1: This is Let's be clear. Who's Shannon Dorny. Hello, let's
Speaker 1: be clear listeners. I'm Rachel Darvish. I'm one of the
Speaker 1: thousands of people affected by the Pacific Palisades fires that
Speaker 1: continue to burn. I'm honored to have been invited to
Speaker 1: host this episode of Shannon Doherty's podcast. I've been a
Speaker 1: lifelong fan of hers. She was such a strong voice
Speaker 1: for women in all communities. She was never afraid to
Speaker 1: speak up. I'm not afraid to speak up either, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to the shortfalls of the government. I'm
Speaker 1: a lawyer. I'm not a celebrity. I'm a lawyer and
Speaker 1: a mom and a resident of this town that has
Speaker 1: been ravaged by an apocalyptic fire. If you've been following
Speaker 1: the news, you may have seen a viral exchange between
Speaker 1: me and the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom. If you've
Speaker 1: been following the news, you may have seen a viral
Speaker 1: exchange that I had with the governor of California, an
Speaker 1: unplanned viral exchange with the governor of California, and when
Speaker 1: he visited my town of Pacific Palisades. This was not planned.
Speaker 1: I was in the middle of a live interview when
Speaker 1: I saw the governor and decided to ask him how
Speaker 1: he was going to help me. I've lived in Pacific
Speaker 1: Palisades since since I can remember. I was born in
Speaker 1: the USALE Hospital and my parents had come here from
Speaker 1: me Ron fifty years ago. So our first our first
Speaker 1: experiences were at the USALA campuses, and then we immediately
Speaker 1: moved to Pacific Palisades where we had a home in
Speaker 1: the Alphabet streets. That home is gone, so my childhood
Speaker 1: home is gone. I was able to see that firsthand.
Speaker 1: You never know what that is going to feel like
Speaker 1: until it really happens. And I haven't lived in that
Speaker 1: home since I was six years old, but wow, what
Speaker 1: a feeling that was to see the beginning of my
Speaker 1: life in Pacific Palisades. I was erased. Part of the
Speaker 1: reason I wanted to raise my daughter in the Palisades
Speaker 1: was because of the experiences I had at that home
Speaker 1: seven one to nine Island Street. I mean, the memories
Speaker 1: were probably the best, going up and down the street
Speaker 1: Fourth of July with our with our neighbors, something that
Speaker 1: you only find in a small town like Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 1: We don't have that in other towns in Los Angeles. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the status of my home at this at this moment,
Speaker 1: so unfortunately, the first home I lived in burned down
Speaker 1: in the alphabet streets. Over the years, we moved a
Speaker 1: few times. I'm not sure the status of a couple
Speaker 1: of the other ones, but the house I'm living in
Speaker 1: at the moment is standing, which is a total miracle
Speaker 1: considering our neighbor and the person across the way was
Speaker 1: also burned down. I've had a couple of chances to
Speaker 1: to now experience the community right now and devastation. I
Speaker 1: don't think you have seen it. I don't think you
Speaker 1: will see it because it can be categorized probably as
Speaker 1: the worst fire I think in the history of the country,
Speaker 1: but it's not even going to do it justice because
Speaker 1: of some of the the aspects of it being on
Speaker 1: such a grand scale. We have now experienced a lot
Speaker 1: of natural disasters in California, and I think the unease
Speaker 1: I'm feeling, not just having been in this experience, is
Speaker 1: I don't know what's next, considering I don't trust how
Speaker 1: my government is handling my situation. So the fear I
Speaker 1: have is I'm sort of living in a no man's
Speaker 1: land right now. Like everyone else, if we could go
Speaker 1: back to the moment I had to I spotted the gun.
Speaker 1: You can only imagine the feeling of standing in front
Speaker 1: of your daughter's preschool that you had just dropped her
Speaker 1: off at. I had just dropped Chloe off at Methodist Preschool.
Speaker 1: I'm wearing the T shirt for the school. Dropped her
Speaker 1: off at nine am, went home and tried to sort
Speaker 1: of do what I do every morning after I drop
Speaker 1: her off. And this was the first day back to
Speaker 1: school after three weeks of holiday for the kids, so
Speaker 1: they were so excited to be back in school, and
Speaker 1: I was kind of happy to get back to a
Speaker 1: schedule again. And I mean within just a few moments,
Speaker 1: I got a notification of a fire, and as soon
Speaker 1: as I put my pen down, put the laptop down,
Speaker 1: and walked out to the front of the house, devastation
Speaker 1: was at my doorstep. And there are no feelings, no
Speaker 1: words that can describe what it feels like to one
Speaker 1: hundred percent, one hundred percent be certain that your house
Speaker 1: isn't going to be standing. That was what I felt
Speaker 1: when I walked out the front door, and I said,
Speaker 1: let's roll. We can't we can't risk it going down
Speaker 1: that hill after grabbing some artwork that my mom had
Speaker 1: done and some basics for my daughter. We had to
Speaker 1: sit in about four hours of traffic to get down
Speaker 1: the hill down to Sunset Boulevard. In the meantime, all
Speaker 1: you can think about is the fire is right behind you,
Speaker 1: and there's not a single fire truck going up the hill,
Speaker 1: and there's not any space for a fire truck to
Speaker 1: go up the hill. Having lived there my whole life,
Speaker 1: I knew that this was going to be a major
Speaker 1: disaster because there are no other ways really to get in.
Speaker 1: We saw that Palisades Drive was another disaster where people
Speaker 1: were abandoned their cars. Fortunately on the Ambonita our way down,
Speaker 1: that didn't That didn't happen. We had such great people, neighbors,
Speaker 1: local employees who were there for the day, day workers,
Speaker 1: they were directing traffic. I mean, you better believe our
Speaker 1: community came together so beautifully to get us down that
Speaker 1: hill again without a single without a single government official appearing.
Speaker 1: We didn't see a police officer, we did not see
Speaker 1: a fire truck. I all I know is I kept
Speaker 1: hearing from people up and down this line of cars
Speaker 1: there's no water, they're saying there's no water. They're saying
Speaker 1: there's no water. And the last thing I remember was
Speaker 1: we turned We tried to turn on our hoses before
Speaker 1: we left so that we can leave them for the
Speaker 1: fire department when they got there. And I'm not even
Speaker 1: sure there was water in our hoses for them to
Speaker 1: use at that point. That's why when I was in
Speaker 1: front of Methodist Preschool and I spotted the governor, no,
Speaker 1: I had no control over my desire to approach him.
Speaker 1: I had to know. And this is the guy we've
Speaker 1: elected to take care of us sky we elected to
Speaker 1: understand us through the good and the bad. We give
Speaker 1: him a lot of good. Our state is very wealthy.
Speaker 1: Our state is the fifth best economy in the world.
Speaker 1: Our state rules, our city rules. It did, But those
Speaker 1: are questions we need to dress down the line. Every
Speaker 1: time I watched the clip with the governor, I get
Speaker 1: more and more uncomfortable. It's a reminder of who to
Speaker 1: trust and who not to trust. I think I didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily vote for the governor. I didn't not vote for him.
Speaker 1: Whether he is my elected official by my vote doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: He's there. I got to take them for what he
Speaker 1: is and at that moment, and every time I keep
Speaker 1: watching this video, I am reminded that my governor lied
Speaker 1: to me, and he lied to me to my face
Speaker 1: in front of cameras. So you know, down the line,
Speaker 1: if he wants to say he didn't lie, I think
Speaker 1: we have the evidence to the points to the contrary.
Speaker 1: After the viral moment, I did exchange information with the
Speaker 1: Governor's office, and I've read some reports that the governor's
Speaker 1: office has assisted me in some ways, and I can
Speaker 1: guarantee you that I've gotten zero assistance from the governor's office.
Speaker 1: I have requested that the governor include me in any
Speaker 1: communications or interactions with the President. That's never happened. I
Speaker 1: don't believe him. So I was asking for somebody who
Speaker 1: has some credibility to be present when he's having these
Speaker 1: conversations with the White House. I'm a mom. I want
Speaker 1: to know. I've got There's so many of us out
Speaker 1: there that are wondering what the heck we're going to
Speaker 1: do with our kids. We are they going to go
Speaker 1: to school? Are they going to go to school? Every
Speaker 1: single school in our in our town burned down, And
Speaker 1: when the governor is looking at me, telling me he
Speaker 1: has four kids, and that somehow that is that is
Speaker 1: the reason I'm supposed to believe him that he feels
Speaker 1: for me with while he's wearing aviator sunglasses and I
Speaker 1: can't even see his eyes. I wonder if he would
Speaker 1: be different if his house had burned down. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it really takes, you know, personal personal loss to
Speaker 1: be able to commiserate with someone or at least be
Speaker 1: able to show your your concern, because I didn't get
Speaker 1: any of that from him, And now here we are,
Speaker 1: what week a week later, almost, and the clip may
Speaker 1: be viral, but there's nothing. There's nothing that's come out
Speaker 1: of it for me as far as what kind of
Speaker 1: answers I'm able to get. The most recent communicat I
Speaker 1: had with the Governor's office included me requesting that I
Speaker 1: be present when the President elect visits, because I believe
Speaker 1: the governor had extended an invitation to him. And my
Speaker 1: response was the response that I got was that they
Speaker 1: don't even know if he's coming. So I have a
Speaker 1: couple of responses, but all I've gotten really are copy
Speaker 1: and paste you know, would you like to go to
Speaker 1: this shelter? Sort of offers from them every time I
Speaker 1: watch the video clip, it reminds me of, you know,
Speaker 1: the difference between being a man and a woman in
Speaker 1: this society. I I don't know if the governor would
Speaker 1: have lied to a man to his face. Would he
Speaker 1: have Is that something he might have done? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I felt very vulnerable at that moment. Here I am
Speaker 1: standing in front of my children's preschool and this man
Speaker 1: is looking at a mother and lying to her. Still
Speaker 1: sits with me. I also did request the governor contact
Speaker 1: me personally. That's never happened to date. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of misconceptions about Pacific Palisades, but I'd like to
Speaker 1: share something really dear to me. When I was about
Speaker 1: ten years old, there was something in the Pacific Palisades
Speaker 1: that we'd do every October Halloween ish, and it's called
Speaker 1: Moonlight Madness. And they would shut down the streets that
Speaker 1: were around the village in the Palisades, which is currently
Speaker 1: the Cruso built Village, and all the stores would be
Speaker 1: open and we would be the streets would close, stores
Speaker 1: would open late till ten PM, and we'd walk around
Speaker 1: and there was this beautiful shirt that one of the
Speaker 1: stores sold that I bought as a ten year old
Speaker 1: and it said, if you're rich, you live in Beverly Hills.
Speaker 1: If you're famous, you live in Malibu. But if you're lucky,
Speaker 1: you live in Pacific Palisades. And we had been so
Speaker 1: lucky for so long. We will continue to be lucky.
Speaker 1: There is a misconception that everybody in Pacific Palisades is rich.
Speaker 1: You don't know the struggles that I'm listening to that
Speaker 1: I'm personally going through in order to know what our
Speaker 1: next move is a lot of people in Pacific Palisades
Speaker 1: were dropped by their insurance company just prior to this incident.
Speaker 1: We have a letter that is informing us that we
Speaker 1: will be dropped as of March. So where does that
Speaker 1: put us at the moment? Ensured? But as of March,
Speaker 1: obviously we will join the ranks of the others that
Speaker 1: have to go towards the California Fair Plan for additional coverage.
Speaker 1: What's the goal for me and my neighbors. We need
Speaker 1: to come back and we need to come back strong.
Speaker 1: We have a future in this city. We built it
Speaker 1: and we can build it again. We just need the
Speaker 1: government to do the right thing. I think one of
Speaker 1: the things I've whittled down at this point is is
Speaker 1: that I'm not interested in necessarily name calling as much
Speaker 1: as I want to. But what we know is that
Speaker 1: there are two people that are sort of irrelevant to
Speaker 1: the solution. And when you have a governor who is
Speaker 1: making deals with electric companies that cause fires in order
Speaker 1: to help them out of bankruptcy so that they don't
Speaker 1: pay they're victims. It scares me. It scares me to
Speaker 1: think what we're going to be getting, what we're entitled
Speaker 1: to to be able to recover from this, because this
Speaker 1: is going to break a lot of people. So don't
Speaker 1: get it in your head that we're sitting here able
Speaker 1: to get through this with any sort of ease. That's
Speaker 1: not the case. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican,
Speaker 1: and I hope that in any disaster situation, people can
Speaker 1: consider themselves human beings before they can consider themselves member
Speaker 1: of any party. Democrats are helping Republicans, Republicans are helping Democrats.
Speaker 1: That's the reality of this situations. It's the beauty of it,
Speaker 1: and I hope that this is a lesson for the future.
Speaker 1: Karen Bass promised us that she would not be taking
Speaker 1: international trips that was a promise that she made, an
Speaker 1: election promise, startening to know that she violated that with
Speaker 1: a trip to Africa in the midst of her burning down.
Speaker 1: So it was West Africa versus West Los Angeles. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what part of how quickly she made
Speaker 1: it back was supposed to make me feel better when
Speaker 1: this was a storm brewing that she knew about well
Speaker 1: before she left. We have questions here about LEDWP. We
Speaker 1: have questions here about Karen Bass personally, personally, whether she
Speaker 1: has liability or not. Obviously we know about immunity that
Speaker 1: she would be that she would be protected from. But
Speaker 1: these decisions that were made were the were the reasons
Speaker 1: why this fire was not controlled in the way that
Speaker 1: it could have been. When you have fire hydrants that
Speaker 1: are empty, when you have aqueducts that are empty, and
Speaker 1: when these have been empty for long enough where somebody
Speaker 1: should have known better, what can you do other than
Speaker 1: sit and write it out. I guess and and hope
Speaker 1: that and hope that these poor firefighters can fight fire
Speaker 1: without water. That's what we did. We watched television all night,
Speaker 1: hoping and praying that somehow the miracle of no water
Speaker 1: would would solve this fire. We deserve better. Guys, deserve
Speaker 1: so much better than to know that you're your mayor
Speaker 1: left town knowing that the major aqueduct was empty, knowing
Speaker 1: that the water pressure in these hydrants would be affected,
Speaker 1: and not and knowing this for a long time, knowing
Speaker 1: that her budgetary cuts would have affected the manpower that
Speaker 1: we need to fight these kind of fires. We've called
Speaker 1: these the Polisades Fire and the Eaten Fire, and we've
Speaker 1: labeled them by the communities that they've been that they've
Speaker 1: start it in. I submit to you that we need
Speaker 1: to give the governor and the mayor the legacies that
Speaker 1: they deserve. Why don't we name them after them? These
Speaker 1: major catastrophic events deserve the legacy of the Newsome name
Speaker 1: and the basqu name, so that Californians and Los Angeleans
Speaker 1: don't make the same mistakes again. We need to turn
Speaker 1: the state around. And it doesn't mean voting for a
Speaker 1: different party. It doesn't mean voting for a different anything.
Speaker 1: It means voting for a different person. And we need
Speaker 1: better options. I think a lot of people think their
Speaker 1: civics duties and when they graduate from high school or
Speaker 1: after sixth grade or whenever it is they teach au civis.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember, to be honest, but I think
Speaker 1: we need to realize that you've got to pay attention,
Speaker 1: and if you don't, and if you fall asleep, these
Speaker 1: are the kinds of things that seem to happen to us.
Speaker 1: So me, you, all of us, let's not make the
Speaker 1: same mistakes twice, because we can do better and we
Speaker 1: can hopefully get rid of irrelevant people that are not
Speaker 1: helping us move forward. One of the things I will
Speaker 1: never forget is when I read that Shannon Doherty had
Speaker 1: said when she was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I
Speaker 1: remember her saying that she would wake up some days
Speaker 1: and say why me? And then some days she would
Speaker 1: wake up and say why not me? Wow? Can you
Speaker 1: say that? It takes a lot. It takes a lot
Speaker 1: for someone to be able to say something like that,
Speaker 1: And it's an honor to be able to speak to
Speaker 1: you on a platform where somebody would be able to
Speaker 1: self sacrifice like that, Why not me? I became a
Speaker 1: mother a little bit later in life than maybe I
Speaker 1: was supposed to, But when I did, it woke up
Speaker 1: something and meet it. I'd never even k you existed,
Speaker 1: and now my biggest concern is where does my daughter
Speaker 1: go from here? We all know children are the future,
Speaker 1: and if we mess up this generation, I don't think
Speaker 1: we're going to have an earth anymore with their I
Speaker 1: don't know how much planet there's going to be left
Speaker 1: to burn by mismanagement and incompetence. So my concern is
Speaker 1: that my daughter stay in school. I'm concerned that she
Speaker 1: interacts with her friends. I'm concerned that she's not worried
Speaker 1: about why a house or why a house may burn down,
Speaker 1: or why the aqueducts aren't full, or why the fire
Speaker 1: hydrants weren't able to get enough water to help her
Speaker 1: friends home not burned down. I have to tell her
Speaker 1: why we can't play at Brennan's house. I have to
Speaker 1: tell her why we can't go to Amalia's house. I
Speaker 1: have to tell her why we can't go to Charlotte's house.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to have to tell that to
Speaker 1: any three year old, that we can't go to your
Speaker 1: friend's house because it burned down, and we can't go
Speaker 1: to our house because it almost burned down. We can't
Speaker 1: go to our house because it's dangerous and toxic to Gobert.
Speaker 1: We'll make it work. Adults will make it work. We'll
Speaker 1: find a place to sleep, We'll do all that. But
Speaker 1: I got to find a life again for my child
Speaker 1: who is now displaced. And my child can now say
Speaker 1: that she is a victim of the homeless policies, the
Speaker 1: holistic homeless policies of the Mayor of Los Angeles. I
Speaker 1: want to thank iHeartRadio for inviting me here. I want
Speaker 1: to thank the legacy that Shannon Doherty has left. I
Speaker 1: want everyone to sometimes in their lives, ask that question
Speaker 1: that she did. Sometimes you ask why me, and then
Speaker 1: sometimes you ask why not me? And that will ground you.
Speaker 1: If you want to help those who have lost everything,
Speaker 1: there are many ways to do that. You can go
Speaker 1: to Dreamcenter dot org, the California Fire Foundation, and the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, just to name a few.
Speaker 1: Please stay safe and thank you.