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A View From My Chair 012225

1/30/2025

A VIEW FROM MY CHAIR

by Mike Stafford, Chairman of the Board 2025
January 22, 2025

The Rams exited the NFL playoffs despite a valiant try at a comeback this past weekend. I was touched by the LAFD initials the Rams coaching staff wore during the playoffs honoring our LA firefighters and their valiant efforts fighting our local fires.

I remember another day when a wildfire was connected with a football game. It was October 20, 1991. I was watching on TV the San Francisco 49ers hosting the Detroit Lions at Candlestick Park. The game took place not long after the blaze erupted and the television cameras would cut periodically to the smoke in the distant with announcers sounding increasingly alarmed. One of the local newspaper columnists wrote years later, how all the fans in the lower section of the stadium were covered with ash from the fires as the smoke drifted over the stadium.

The Oakland-Berkeley Hills Fire was the worst fire in California history at the time. I thought of that fire because of the talk about rebuilding in the Palisades and Eaton areas and lessons we need to learn to avoid future catastrophes. I looked up the report to see what was said back then and there were many similarities with that fire and ours.

Conflagration is a word you do not often hear but that is how the 1991 report starts, “A devastating conflagration occurred in the scenic hills of Oakland and Berkley, California on October 20, 1991.” I was at the Palisades Community meeting last week at Sinai Temple and one of the fire officials used the same term, calling Palisades a community conflagration. The Berkeley Hills burned 1600 acres, killed 25 people, and destroyed 2449 single-family homes and 437 apartments and condo units. 790 homes were gone in the first hour. Steep slopes, narrow roads, downed power lines, flying embers led residents to panic and abandon their vehicles.

While hot temperatures were not an issue with the LA Fires, a prolonged period of drought, low relative humidity, and strong winds were common to both Oakland and LA., although in Northern California, in October, they were Diablo Winds not the Santa Anas.

Interestingly, according to the report, nearly 90 per cent of large southern California wildfires happen during Santa Ana season September thru December. The LA fires started just one week after the traditional Santa Ana season.

A potential similarity is a previous smoldering fire not fully extinguished and reigniting from strong winds. At the Sinai Temple meeting, one of the residents referred to a New Year’s Eve fire in the Palisades indicating she felt it was the cause of the January 7th blaze because it must have smoldered. In the Berkeley Fire, a small blaze started the day before when winds were calm and it was put out by a brush crew, but the next day it reignited. An LA fire official said at the meeting the New Year’s fire was fully extinguished and for it to have reignited would have been miraculous.

In Berkeley, communications during the early stages of the fire was not coordinated. LA used a unified command system. However, the private agency running the evacuation alert system caused confusion by sending at least one evacuation notice to everyone in LA County.

Water was a problem for the 1991 fires as well as for Palisades, especially. In Berkeley, hydrant connector issues were a problem, power loss to the pumping stations were another issue. However, the report says “no water supply system might have been adequate for a wildfire of this magnitude.” In addition, the report points out “The entire system had been designed for normal operations.”

So what other lessons did we learn from Berkeley that we might hear again one day in a report on our LA fires? Some suggestions were cleaning brush, vegetation, using the yard as a fire break, using noncombustible roof coverings, no part of the house on poles or pilings. Others included, placing utilities underground, more water tanks in the hills, bigger pumping plants, backup systems including salt water systems, portable generator systems, widening escape routes, vegetation control programs, and fireresistant roofs.

One year after the Berkeley Fire, 30% of the residents chose not to move back and rebuild. The report mentions “Although the public determines acceptable levels of risk from fire in wildland areas lawmakers react to the perceived needs of constituents and enact the regulations controlling that level of risk.”

And there will sadly, but importantly, be memorials. California Office of Emergency Services

BIZ NEWS OF THE WEEK

Google Aims for 500 million AI Users - The CEO wants Gemini to reach the goal by end of 2025. Google’s AI chatbot is trying to catch up with ChatGPT which rolled out in 2022. Investing.com

New Women’s Basketball League – It’s called Unrivaled and debuted last week. It’s not a rival to the WNBA. In fact, it’s to give some players a chance to play during the offseason and avoid going overseas. ESPN

Free Money From the IRA – Remember that tax rebate you were eligible for back in 2021 but didn’t claim? If you really were eligible, the IRS will send you the money after all and, here’s the best part, you don’t have to do a thing. CNBC

UCC UPDATE

UCC General Board - Meeting January 27

CHAMBER HIGHLIGHTS
Burbank
Chamber Mixer
January 30 Claytivity Pottery Studio
5:30pm to 7:30pm 912 W. Isabel St. Burbank

Calabasas
Networking Luncheon and Workshop
NEW DATE - Thursday, January 23rd, 11:30am - 1:00pm
Cambria Hotel
Sponsor: Payani Media

North Valley
Multi-Chamber Breakfast
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Join North Valley Regional Chamber, Granada Hills Chamber and
Chatsworth Porter Ranch Chamber for a networking breakfast

Sherman Oaks-Encino
Join us to network at our Monthly Mix & Mingle in person!
Tuesday, January 28th, 5:30pm
Location: Stretch Lab Encino, 17613 Ventura Blvd. Encino, CA 91316
End your workday by making new connections and strengthening relationships with other business,
nonprofit, school, and community partners.
Lite bites included.
Current members: $20
Future members and Past-due members: $30
Add $10 to above for registration after 1/27 and at-the-door.

Studio City
Studio City Chamber announces opening of new Artelice Patisserie location
12430 Ventura Blvd, Unit 100, Studio City, CA 91604.

Toluca Lake
Shout out to Board Member Renee Clark for hosting a clothing drive for Eaton Canyon Fire victims.

West Valley-Warner Center
New newsletter name – Valley Biz Connect

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A View From My Chair 012925

1/30/2025

A View From My Chair

by Mike Stafford, Chairman of the Board 2025
January 29, 2025

LA Must Be Exceptional Again, Too

It’s been quite a week plus a few days. Looks like American exceptionalism is back on the table. LA must be exceptional again, too, and chambers of commerce can help.

It’s not just about making America great as President Trump has said repeatedly and it’s not just how a country views itself like former President Obama famously pointed out in a 2009 news conference while visiting France “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Sure the Greeks had the dawn of civilization and the Brits the Magna Carta but what have they done lately?

David Ulin in his book Sidewalking seems to echo President Obama’s view saying "One of the ideas I want to argue against is a sense of Los Angeles’ exceptionalism, that this city is fundamentally different than any other, although in many ways it is."

Again, it’s not just that LA is different from any other city or America is different from any other country or better or imperfect for that matter. What makes America and by extension Los Angeles exceptional is a unique experiment of the idea of self-government.

I saw the makeshift press conference regarding the wildfires the other day with businessman Steve Soboroff taking charge alongside the Mayor as the newly appointed Chief Recovery Officer. The recent LA wildfires, with its mix of political errors and steadfast determination to overcome tragedy along with the public’s tremendous outpouring of support for victims and public safety personnel can be the catalyst for a renewed focus on establishing civic institutions as primary drivers of our civic leadership. Our member chambers of commerce along with our community business partners have been active in the recovery process from the start.

Christopher Beem in the LA Times nearly 30 years ago wrote …America's civil society is not what it used to be. In the past generation, families have disintegrated and participation has fallen dramatically in neighborhood groups, civic and political clubs, churches, PTAs and volunteer organizations. Many therefore conclude that the collapse of civil society is largely responsible for the sorry state of American society. Intractable problems of crime, drugs and the underclass; escalating violence in the media and our streets; a shrill and belligerent political climate; rising tensions between races and classes; the evaporation of even the most basic social courtesies--all these examples of our unraveling social fabric ostensibly result from a collapsed civil society.

Many remember 40 years ago when Los Angeles seemed to be on top of the world. In 2014 Rob Montz in Reason Magazine reflecting on that time wrote Los Angeles hit peak swagger in the mid-1980s. After a decade of dwindling population, Los Angeles County was again gaining, about 120,000 people per year. Hollywood had near-perfected the summer blockbuster. The city's downtown subway system was finally completed. And a Soviet-bloc boycott had left the L.A.-hosted 1984 summer Olympics to serve as an ostentatious demonstration of American exceptionalism.

His article’s title? Los Angeles Is Killing Itself: The romantic, popular conception of the city bears increasingly little resemblance to Los Angeles today.

An LA Commission 2020 report also written in 2014 summarized it this way: “Year by year, our City—which once was a beacon of innovation and opportunity to the world—is becoming less livable.

You can read the list of reasons here: LA 2020 Commission Planning Report

Rob Montz concludes his article by quoting one of the contributors to the LA Commission 2020 report, Milken Institute's Kevin Klowden "It boils down to if you can change how the bureaucracy works."

Montz concludes, “It's improbable the city can pull that off. Perhaps that's a pessimistic take, but does the recent history of Los Angeles justify anything else?”

There was a time in LA when chambers of commerce and the business community, along with many civic organizations were the drivers of so much of what was good in Los Angeles. Steve Soboroff leading the recovery efforts for the wildfire may also be reminding our government leaders how they should really serve the people.

BIZ NEWS OF THE WEEK

Overture to Supersonic Flight? – Remember the days of the Concorde when you could leave France and arrive in America 90 minutes before you left? It’s been a long time but an American company just broke the sound barrier in the Mojave Desert. The company, aptly named Boom, is looking to bring back supersonic flight by developing a supersonic commercial airliner. CNN

ChAIna – ChatGPT was not available in China but Ernie was. Didn’t hear about Ernie, China’s answer to ChatGPT by search engine company Baidu? No one did. But now here comes Deep Seek and for sure Silicon Valley has heard of this AI venture. BBC

A Dollar an Egg? – That could be in our future. Forbes

UCC UPDATE

UCC Executive Board – Meeting February 24
State of the County Luncheon – March 5
LAPD Captains Luncheon – April 2

CHAMBER HIGHLIGHTS

Burbank Chamber
Mixer January 30
Claytivity Pottery Studio
5:30pm to 7:30pm 912 W. Isabel St. Burbank

Calabasas
Congratulations on the installation of the chamber’s new board this past Saturday night and for
70 year of serving the community.

Filipino-American
Mompreneurs – February 19 at 6pm

North Valley
Education Connection meeting February 5.

Sherman Oaks-Encino
As Los Angeles continues on the path to recovery, we’ve been so fortunate to connect with many of our members. We’re grateful to know that you’re safe, and we want to applaud the efforts you’ve made to help others.

We’ve been staying up-to-date through our elected officials and participating in various webinars and calls. With so much information out there, we encourage you to check trusted sources. We’re also updating our Wildfire Resources page as new information here. becomes available. If you have any updates or resources to share, please don’t hesitate to email us here.

Toluca Lake
Community Clean Up – February 22

West Valley-Warner Center
Reimagine Ventura Blvd. (Phase 2)

Date: Thursday, January 30, 2025
Time: 6 pm to 8 pm
Place: Woodland Hills Library, 22200 Ventura Blvd.
Phase 2 is focused on "Greening the Boulevard;" trees / landscaping, community placemaking, and beautification, while also including pedestrian improvements (especially those required under the Americans with Disabilities Act). As a reminder, Reimagine Ventura Blvd focuses on the segment between Woodlake and Sale. If you have any questions, please reach out to [email protected], or Seth Samuels at [email protected].

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A View From My Chair

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A View From My Chair 012225

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A View From My Chair 012225

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A View From My Chair

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