Looking back on the Thomas Fire a month after it broke out, keeping up water-saving habits, the new head of LA's Dept. of Children and Family Services.
The Thomas Fire, one month later
Exactly one month ago, the devastating Thomas Fire ripped through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties ... torching more than 280-thousand acres and destroying more than a thousand structures.
The blaze began during a high-wind event on Dec. 4th, in two separate locations in Ventura County, according to Cal Fire (the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection). This week the federal government announced that funds will be released to aid victims of the fire.
We talked to many different victims at the time who were facing the fires, so we reached out again to John Halford, a veterinarian that lives and works in Ojai.
How DOJ's change to pot prosecution affects CA's biz
It's been four days since California legalized recreational marijuana, but its future just got hazy with today's announcement by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the Justice Department will let prosecutors aggressively enforce federal pot laws.
Take Two looked at what this means for the state's fledgling industry with Alex Kreit, professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where he teaches marijuana policy and illegal drug law.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
What does this mean for people who want to buy recreational pot in California?
I don't think it's likely that legal sales will stop, at least immediately.
Certainly if I was running one of these businesses I would be very concerned, but the reality is is that people who are operating these stores and who have the temporary licenses selling marijuana already, they're already committing federal crimes and it's possible they could be prosecuted for what they're doing right now.
What does this mean for established businesses who have their permits, or may still have a permit to sell medical marijuana?
There is separately a restriction in place right now in the federal budget that prevents the Department of Justice from using money to prosecute medical marijuana businesses.
So if you're already operating a medical marijuana store, this announcement might make you think twice about about whether you want to go into the recreational side of things.
Could arrests happen immediately?
Just because the memo has been rescinded, that doesn't necessarily mean that prosecutions are going to start.
It's entirely possible that some of these local federal prosecutors offices – or maybe even all of them – decide, 'hey we want to stick with the status quo and we're not going to use our resources to go after state-legal businesses.'
Who are the federal prosecutors that oversee Southern California, then?
Right now it's an acting U.S. Attorney. [President] Trump has not appointed a U.S. Attorney to fulfill that role for the long-term.
It's kind of all the more curious about the timing of this that Sessions would announce this policy while they're still U.S. Attorneys positions that haven't been filled, particularly in California.
This is going to be a big point of contention, I would imagine, in the nomination and confirmation of whoever it is that Trump ultimately chooses.
Sorry, California: You always need to conserve water, even after the drought
Wednesday's manual snowpack measurement kicked the year off with a disappointing start. At just 1.5 inches of snowfall, it's the second-lowest measurement since the state started officially tracking snowpack in 1964.
It's not time to sound the alarm just yet, but it is an opportunity to revisit our water-saving habits. And who better to revisit water conservation with than Felicia Marcus, chair of the California State Water Resources Board.
When she spoke with A Martinez, Marcus explained that though we're not on "red alert" right now, we should still have a heightened sense of awareness. "We still have a few months in the winter season when we get our major rain and snow and just a few big storms," said Marcus, "But it's still worrisome because of what we've all been through."
It's only been eight months since California has officially been out of the drought, but the shadow still looms over the state. And those water saving habits we picked up during that period? We should keep them up...for the most part.
We may not have to be quite as stingy with it as we were at the height of the last drought but it just makes sense to save water all the time because then you have more reserves in your local groundwater and your local reservoirs particularly in Southern California."
The April 2015 monthly snowpack measurement was the lowest recording ever for that month. Governor Brown responded with the state's first mandatory water restrictions, requiring cities cut as much as 25 percent of their water use. Wednesday's record brought the second lowest measure ever. So, why no announcement yesterday?
"You don't want to be the boy who cried wolf on this one. April of 2015 was into the third year of a drought with what ended up being the worst snowpack overall in 500 years...and the reservoirs were perilously low. Right now our reservoirs are really pretty full...well above average in most places. But overall, in the state we're in a much better situation than we were in 2015."
But the tides can quickly turn, Marcus warns, and if these conditions keep up for another year, we can find ourselves back in the same spot as a few years ago. Therefore, we must keep up our water saving habits now. Here are Marcus's best quick tips for conserving water:
Be stingy with water outdoors on your lawn and ornamental landscaping—"They don't need much water."
But DO water your trees—"It's really important to water your trees and water them properly."
Shorter showers—Kind of a no-brainer, but it's a fairly big one.
Check for leaks (particularly in your toilet) — "It just takes a little bit of food color to figure it out and usually, you just need a new flapper and you're going to save tons of water." (Here's a helpful YouTube video that walks you through it.)
The future of LA's foster care system
There are more than 30,000 children in the Los Angeles County foster care system, and the Department of Children and Family Services is responsible for their welfare. But the agency has been under fire in recent years.
In 2013, eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez died after suffering horrific torture by his mother and her boyfriend. Several social workers investigated claims of abuse at the boy's Palmdale home but decided he should stay there. Criminal charges were filed against four DCFS employees related to the case.
Under this cloud, the department has a new leader. In December, Bobby Cagle, stepped into his role as the director of DCFS. A Martínez sat down with Cagle to discussed his plans for the agency.
Interview Highlights:
What are your first impressions of the L.A. Department of Child and Family Services?
BOBBY CAGLE: This department's practices are advanced. Many of its programs are models for the country. I'm still learning, but I'm impressed with my first look at things.
What's your first big challenge?
CAGLE: Getting into the community will be the biggest challenge. I really want to approach this by learning rather than coming in with a prescribed approach. Part of that is about talking to as many people as possible who are interested in child welfare. Also, talking to as many of my 9,300 staffers as possible.
You were commissioner of Georgia's Division of Family and Children's Services, which has seen an increase of children in foster care: 9,000 in June of 2014 to 13,000 in March of 2017. In your opinion, does foster care make kids safer?
CAGLE: It can. I come from a different place on this subject because I was in foster care. Foster care, when done well, is good for kids, especially when they come from difficult situations which we see often. The key to doing social work well is having time to develop a relationship with families where trust is established. Failing that compromises our ability to do good work.
What if you take a kid out of a bad situation and aren't putting them in a safe place? How do you balance the complexities of removing kids from an unsafe home?
CAGLE: The data shows that children are rarely maltreated in the foster care system. However, just removing a child, even from a bad situation, is extremely traumatic. So we have to balance that knowledge.
Do you have a long-term plan for transitioning kids out of foster care? In L.A. the system has become a kind of feeder to homelessness.
CAGLE: The very same thing was a concern in Georgia. And we have been looking at ways to ease the transition in L.A., making sure that we're available to youth after they turn 18 and up to age 21. We can provide services for them. They can remain in our care, and we try to keep those kids as close as we can. We're trying to make sure they have the kind of skill set to operate as an adult--both with hard and soft skills and graduating high school and college.
One of the most high profile cases involving DCFS over the last few years was that of Gabriel Fernandez, an 8-year-old Palmdale boy who was tortured and killed by his mother's boyfriend. What was your reaction to this case?
CAGLE: Honestly, I try to take things I see in the media with a grain of salt, because often, the true things that have happened can't be released. But in this case, it was obvious that there were failures on the part of people who should have been protecting that child. And to its credit, the department owned up to that. That's an important part of being a good department. The public has to be able to trust us, and if we make a mistake, we've got to own that and tell the public how we're going to do things differently going forward.
What's the tipping point to take a child out of their home?
CAGLE: The most difficult thing I've ever done is remove a child from a home. You would think that, given some of the poor circumstances in which children are raised, that they would be happy to have someone take them out of that situation. In the very worst circumstances, I have taken children out of homes kicking and screaming with the assistance of law enforcement because kids love their families no matter what...
The tipping point for me as a social worker, when I did removals, was the moment when I could not guarantee myself that that child would be safe the next time I came in. If I left there with any doubts, I would opt for removal. The flipside of that is the judges who look at the legal standards around this and are intent on scrutinizing everything to make sure the removal is absolutely necessary and meets that legal standard, which is a good thing for us.
*Interview has been edited for clarity.
Assembly continues to explore single-payer health care
California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon faced a lot of resistance when he shelved the Healthy California Act in June.
The proposal called for a single-payer option for health care in California.
At the time, Rendon called the bill "woefully incomplete." For one, the bill didn't include details on how the state would pay for it. There were protests. Rendon said he received death threats.
And perhaps that pushback is what led Rendon to task a committee with taking a more in-depth look at whether California could create and pay for a single-payer option.
In September, Take Two spoke with that committee's co-chair, Assemblyman Jim Wood. He said it was doubtful that the committee would have new legislation to present in January:
There may be a variety of authors who decide, based on the information that we pull together, to introduce different bills. I'm not going to commit to saying the committee itself will absolutely introduce a bill because I don't know that that will happen.
Now, with the assembly back in session, where do things stand?
Assemblyman Wood joined Take Two again for an update.
Last time we spoke, you said you don't believe it's possible for us to overhaul our health system without cooperation from Washington. Do you still think that?
Absolutely. We need the money from the federal government, and there are a lot of potential stumbling blocks that would prevent us from getting that.
We get about 52 percent of the money for healthcare in California from the federal government, and that is almost $200 billion. Without that, I don't see how we go it alone.
What is the biggest stumbling block?
If you're talking about the federal government, there are some waivers we would need to get, and if we're going to role Medicare into this system, it would require a change in federal law. We get waivers over time. They often take years to accomplish, and so time is going to be one of the challenges we're going to face.
You don't sound optimistic, Assemblyman.
We heard from the governor of Vermont in our hearing who said, you know, you should be looking at this with a new governor and a new president and try to get all those pieces in place to allow you to move forward. But he said, 'I don't see how you get it in California. We couldn't get it with a friendly administration when we tried to implement our single-payer in 2014.'
Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Will Oscar rule changes hurt animated indie films?
The Oscar nominations had been announced and Eric Beckman's phone was blowing up.
Beckman is the founder of GKIDS, a scrappy indie animation distributor specializing in hand-drawn and international animated features like "Boy and the World," "Song of the Sea" and "When Marnie Was There" — all Oscar nominees.
“The first film we picked up was ‘Secret of Kells,’” says Beckman. “That got the Oscar nomination and did phenomenally for us. It wasn’t really until we had the double nomination in 2012 with ‘Chico and Rita’ and ‘Cat in Paris’ that we said, ‘Oh, yeah. Maybe it’s not a fluke. Maybe there’s something here.’ And then we started really picking up a lot of films.”
But the calls in March 2017 weren't congratulatory. The Motion Picture Academy had recently altered the nominating process for Best Animated Feature.
Previously, the nominating committee for animated features was split equally between animators and members from other branches. Hoping to improve low voter turnout, reports Variety, the Academy decided that anyone who joined a nominating committee could now participate in the process.
Some people thought this would make it harder for indie films, which fewer people tend to see, to get a nod. But Beckman isn't too worried.
"I think good filmmaking will always win out. If the Emoji movie gets a nomination, they'll realize there's something wrong," he says.
Nora Twomey co-directed “The Secret of Kells,” the first GKIDS release to receive an Oscar nomination. "Audiences are beginning to broaden out again and look at animation as something other than just something you can plonk a three year old in front of then walk away. You can express and talk about issues," she says.
Peter Debruge, Variety’s chief film critic, says Oscar attention has been the key to GKIDs’ success.
"They were showing the kind of movies that the animation community in Hollywood wanted to celebrate. And as soon as these movies were coming out in theaters, they were getting Academy Award nominations. And that so validated the mission of this company," he says.
GKIDS has earned nine nominations for Best Animated Feature in the past decade — more than Dreamworks or any other studio's animation division, except for Disney/Pixar.
But the Animated Feature category isn't without controversy. In 2015, the wildly popular "Lego Movie," a presumed Oscar frontrunner, didn't receive a nomination. That same year, GKIDS received two nominations, for Studio Ghibli’s "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" and Cartoon Saloon’s "Song of the Sea."
Headlines called the "Lego snub" "inexplicable" and "awful." Individual Academy members went public with their dismay. There were widespread calls for reform.
It wasn’t the first time GKIDS played the spoiler.
In 2012, “Cars 2” became the first eligible Pixar movie in history not nominated for Best Animated Feature. GKIDS received two nominations that year.
"If you look at Pixar and Dreamworks animation movies, these are some of the highest grossing films of the year," says Variety’s Debruge. "And for that reason, these companies covet that prize. And they kind of resent when a little movie comes along and elbows into their category."
The Academy declined to speak with us on the record despite multiple requests but stated that their rules change isn’t designed to directly impact GKIDS — or anyone else. It’s a response to the fact that computer animation is now so ingrained in live-action movies that both types of production are intertwined.
The concern among GKIDS fans is that broader involvement in the nominating process could move the nominees toward more mainstream Hollywood fare.
French filmmaker Benjamin Renner, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2014 for the French movie "Ernest and Celestine," views the new nominating process as a challenge but says he understands the Academy's logic.
Renner says if an American movie got a big nomination in France it would cause a scandal. "In a way I think it's even better for us," he says. "Because that means we have to be even more focusing on making great film in a way."
The Ride: looking into the crystal ball of 2018 trucks, SUVs, and electric cars
Now that 2018 is underway, we thought we'd drive right in. For our weekly look at personal mobility, we're going to look at some upcoming events that will affect how we get around this year.
We've got new trucks, new technologies, and a major new law. It's time for the Ride, the 2018 preview edition.
"One in seven cars sold right now is a truck, that's 14 percent of the market right now," says Carpenter. "They are contributed by just three models: Ford F-150, Chevy Silverado, Ram 1500."
Auto sales were down in 2017, declining 2 percent, and Carpenter expects that to fall again in 2018. "Pent-up demands seem to have been met at this point. In 2018, sales are expected to fall to 16.7 million," says Carpenter.
In the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week, automobile companies are expected to dominate. "Mercedes will release a new info-tainment system, Honda may put out a few robots," says Carpenter.
Also this week, Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) proposed legislation that would only allow zero-emission vehicles to be sold after Jan. 1, 2040. Ting said the bill is necessary to meet California’s pollution reduction goals.
"California has emission standards that are getting tougher and tougher. The only way the state is going to meet those standards is getting rid of vehicles emitting altogether," says Carpenter.