December 11, 2025 • 30 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 3 (12/11) - David Goldblum, director and writer of the documentary "Big Rocks Burning", joins the show. More on the Milk Vetch Plant.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't. I am six forty. You're listening to the John
Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We are on every
day from one until four o'clock. After four o'clock John
Cobelt Show on demand, that's the podcast, and listen to
what you missed. And we've had quite a jam packed
show with big headlines since one o'clock. So if you
haven't been able to be with us, please go look
(00:23):
for it on the podcast. I'll tell you about some
of it coming up later in the hour. I want
to get right to David Goldbloom here. He is director
of a really a powerful emotional documentary called Big Rock Burning,
and it's about people who live in Malibu's Big Rock
Community as they try to come back after the fire
(00:45):
that wiped out many of the homes there. Let's get
to David Goldbloom on.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Thanks for having me, John, I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Really glad to have you, and I'm a little fired
up because we just found out the new details about
the Palisades fire. What got you in? What motivated you
to do this documentary?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Oh? Well, I guess a little bit of craziness. My
home burned down and the fires and that night my
community very tight knit community in Big Rock and Malibu.
We formed a WhatsApp group and people That's how we
were getting information out together. That's how we were finding
out that no help came. There was a standdown order,
(01:27):
no firefighters, no water, and the reservoirs were kind of
became a news network overnight, and everybody just kept saying,
we have to get our story out there. How come
not one firefighter came to our mountain the entire night.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Of the fires.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And I kept hearing that for a couple of nights,
and the more people kept saying, we got to get
our story out there. Eventually, I was just like, Okay,
if we want to tell this story, I'll jump in
the ring and I'll shepherd it. And I think over
forty residents who had lost their homes reached out to
me and said, you know, we're on board, we'll do
whatever we kind of help you.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And where is Big Rock in Malibu exactly so people
not familiar can place it.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So if if you think about the Palisades fire, it
went down the pH and really the first mountain enclave
leading towards Malibu was was Big Rock once you pass
Pacific Palisades. So it's kind of at the beginning of Malibu.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
And what what fired. Jurisdiction covers that community. I think
La County, La County, So that's who you were waiting
on to come and nobody did.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, there were apparently there was a stand down order and.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
The standown order events.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, one of the residents heard it on a dispatch.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
It's really common in fires, right, a standout. Rather than
send more guys, send less guys. In fact, don't send anybody.
Stay home.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, I guess let it burn with the mantra.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, you know what what what it really was, wasn't it.
It really was the philosophy. After the first don't know,
a couple of hours, it's like, ah, nothing we can do,
let it go.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, And it wasn't just fire to somebody in the film,
she called nine one one and they kind of just said, sorry,
we can't help you. And she was stranded on a mountain,
like on a boulder, Yeah, with fire all in coon
like all around her and just there was every man
for themselves.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
How do you feel like like today? I don't know
if you heard. We've got another round of stories from
the attorneys representing the Palisades owners and it looks like
the state put a stop to the LA Fire Department
cleaning up the January first fire, which is where the
rekindling happened, because they wanted us to protect the Milkfitch plan.
(03:48):
So no bulldozers, no fire lines, no tamping down the hotspots.
When you hear these things, and there's been a lot
of these stories, how do you feel, like, what does
that do to your psyche?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's really sad and it's really disappointing. And I was
on an La Times Studio podcast the other day and
I said, it makes you kind of not want to
be here anymore. You know the fact that nobody has
stepped up, nobody's taken accountability, nobody said we messed up.
And what I wanted to do with our film is
to show the human stories of loss and grief and
(04:22):
resilience too, and kind of show these were real people
who lost everything.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I felt and I didn't know anybody in your film.
I felt so sad for everybody. I thought sad. I
felt angry, and it's like this shouldn't happen to these people.
These are regular people just living their lives.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, thank you, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
It's what kind of reaction. Have you gotten to the
film and where's it playing and how can people find it?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It's been incredible because I think this whole issue has
become somewhat of a political hotbed, and I tried to
I tried to focus on the human stories. Yes, we
call out a lot of people for what they did
or didn't do, but it seems to have been well
received all over the map, maybe except for Carabath, but
(05:16):
everybody's really appreciative. And we premiered at Malibu City Hall
to a sold out crowd in August, and I think
almost everybody there had lost their homes and some fire.
And then we've been around the country. We were at SCAD, Savannah,
Mill Valley, Newport, Santa Fe. And now we're coming to
PBS on the anniversary of the fire, so to be
(05:39):
broadcast into twenty million homes across California.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
All right, So you've done a lot of film festivals
and now PBS and it's going to be on January seventh.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yep, the anniversary of the fires.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Oh that's great. So it's going to be seen all
over the country. I mean, it's impossible not to get
emotionally affected while you're watching it. I actually had to
stop it a couple of times because you know, I'm
covering this stuff every day, and you know, nothing bad
happened to me. That's why I cannot imagine what it
must feel like to suffer the trauma. And then you
(06:14):
get reminded of it every day or every week. You know,
as more and more of these stories come out, it's
got to be just just unbelievable. But you know, there
was a sense of optimism in some of the people
also with the sadness. Yeah, it was fascinating to see
like all those human, human emotions playing out at once
in the aftermath.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, there's one character in the film. He stayed behind
and he fought with a garden hose, and that was
the kind of seme of that night. The people who
stayed behind were fighting with garden hoses and pool water
and bathtub water. But his home survived the night of
the fires. And then the next morning, Yeah, he went
(06:55):
around and he went from home to home. That's how
I found out my home had burned down. He took
everybody's address and the WhatsApp group and he was driving
around telling people whether their housemade it or not. Because
we were all kind of wanting the sense of closure.
And then he got back to his home and his
home was burning, and.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, that's one of the toughest parts of the film. Yeah,
because he's just standing there looking out over where the
house used to be and he had saved it, and
then he tried to help everybody else out and that's
when the fire came back and got him. It's just, yeah,
that is some story you mentioned in passing that Karen
Bass didn't necessarily have a good reaction. Has she seen
(07:39):
or she heard about the movie? I mean, what.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
You know, I when I we started three days after
the fire, and I had reached out to everybody. I
was trying to get everybody to just kind of have
a voice. And I reached out to Karen's office and
really was persistent, really trying to get her to, you know,
be on camera have an interview, and they kept just
saying she's done a lot for the community in Malibu already,
(08:06):
and she has a busy schedule. And I was kind
of like, I'll come anywhere, you know, I don't know
where she's been in Malibu. I haven't seen her, but
she was not I don't think she wanted to be
part of this.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
No, no, Well, the movie is fantastic. I'm glad that
it's going to be on PBS and the whole nation
can see it. And you've had great reaction at the
film festivals. And it's thirty minutes, but it's some of
the most powerful thirty minutes you're ever going to experience.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Thank you, John.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah, So good luck with it, and as time goes on,
anything you need from us to publicize it further or
in any way try to make life better for the
people there in Malibu, just let us know.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Okay, thank you a quick send your show.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Thank you very much, David Goldblum, and again PBS on
January seventh, the anniversary of the fire, and you get
to see his documentary. That's two documentaries out. Now we're
going to talk. I got to talk about I'm still
like nuts over this milk vetch plant and what we
found out from Roger Bailey, the Palisades Attorney. I'm going
(09:17):
to talk a lot more about that coming up.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Six forty run every day from one until four o'clock.
You can follow us at John Cobelt Radio on social
media and moistline is eight seven seven moist eighty six,
eight seven seven moist eighty six and tomorrow's Friday, and
we're going to play back two rounds of it, one
at this time a little bit after three twenty and
then again a little after three point fifty tomorrow. I
(09:45):
just got it. You know, We've had a lot of
people on the show. There's been a lot going on today,
and I just want to talk about what we did
at two o'clock, which you if you weren't around it,
to please please please listen. Roger Bailey, the attorney for
the Housays residents who were wiped out in the fire,
He shared with us texts and maps. It is true.
(10:09):
It is true. State Park reps the night of the
January first fly a fire known as the Lachlan Fire,
and the day after they interfered with the LA Fire
Department in putting out the fire completely. There was a
there were hotspots, there was smoldering land, smoldering rocks, hot rocks,
(10:34):
hot tree stumps, the whole thing and they needed a
lot of treatment by the fire department. Whatever the procedures are.
They needed to bulldoze to create a fire line so
if it flared up again, there would be some kind
of protection to halt the flames again. This is in
(10:55):
the middle of extreme fire warnings and extreme wind warnings
from the National Weather Service. And the first thing that
the state parks employees did, and we are going to
get the names of these people two three am on
January first. God, that's got to just be less than
(11:19):
two hours after it started. There is a text that
went out to one of these Parks department employees. Hi, Christy,
are at the fire and Christie replies, I will be.
I'm getting ready now. And then Christy is told there
is federally endangered astragallus along to Mesical fire Road. That's
(11:45):
the Latin name commonly known as the milkvetch plant. Supposedly endangered,
but as Roger Bailey pointed out, it actually tends to
recover very well after a fire. Would here's the memo.
Would it would be nice to avoid cutting it if possible?
(12:07):
Do you have avoidance maps? I have a couple of
resource advisories on standby. I'll wait to deploy them until
you get on SENE and assess the situation. Definitely will
want to send them down. Meeting these avoidance maps if
heavy equipment arrives, and Christy writes back, Okay, I'll let
(12:27):
you know. So while people are sleeping New Year's Eve
into New Year's Day two o'clock in the morning, the
demise of the Palisades was already starting to happen, already
destined to happen, because in this text exchange, it's clear
(12:53):
that they're not going to bull those paths to prevent
the fire from rekindling and spreading because there are milk
vetch plants there. You can't make this up. And so
that's why there are photos of a State park employee
(13:13):
interfering with the LA Fire Department. That's why the fire
department rolled up the hoses and left. They were getting
pressured from the Parks department. The fire started on State
park land, and as Roger Bailey said, if you look
in the manual, it is mandatory that you close the park,
send inspectors to the park, and then when you see
(13:33):
the hotspots, take action with cal Fire or whoever's needed
to mitigate the situation. They did none of that. And
if you remember started by in Our Citizen and Gavin
Newsom had first said that, well, the state wasn't aware
of the fire, and that was a lie. They were
(13:54):
aware of it within an hour. Secondly, that the fire
started on federal land, that's a lie as well. It
started on state land. State employees were aware of it,
and they sent employees down there to interfere with LA
fire department because they didn't want the milkvech plants to
be bulldozed. I know it sound like I'm a crazy person,
(14:20):
but I'm telling you that's what happened. Roger Bailey, the
attorney for the Palisades homeowners, has confirmed that this is
really true. Newsimus says said it was climate change, not
climate change. Yes, they were aware of the fire, and
(14:42):
yes it started on state land, not federal land. The
state land that where the brush wasn't cleared. And so
what happened. We had twelve people died for the milkvetch plant.
We had sixty in sixty eight hundred and twenty two
structures burned because of the milkvetch plant, because the decisions
made by these unknown employees in the Parks Department. Now
(15:09):
this is before Karen Bass went off to Ghana. Did
she not talk to Kristin Crowley, the fire chief and
other fire officials, since there were warnings of the winds,
(15:30):
warnings of the fire danger. Now Karen Bass claimed that
she never heard that there were all these warnings, And
I think she's a liar. I've flat out don't believe
that she can assume me if she wants she's lying.
She had to know this. Why didn't she have a
meeting because of the extreme wind warnings, the fire warnings like, hey,
(15:53):
are we putting this thing out? If you're mayor and
you have you have fire danger in your wild lands
within the city limits, you should know about rekindling of fires.
Basic knowledge you must have. So did you have the meeting?
Was there was there a discussion? No? What about Kristin Crowley?
(16:17):
That's when you start looking around, Well, if this rekindles,
do we have water? Genisiniz, how's that reservoir? Oh? That's empty? Two?
And maybe you could have warned everybody in the Palisades that, look,
we don't have any water, and we don't have firefighters,
and we don't have fire trucks and the state won't
(16:38):
let us tend to the smoldering fire because of the
milk vetch plant. I mean, maybe somebody could have gotten
on the phone. Maybe this is where Karen Bass, if
she was doing her job, calls up Gavin News and says, hey, Gavin,
they won't let us put out the hot spot from
the Lockman fire because of a milk vetch plant. Could
(16:59):
you just say something about it? Of course, he might
have been into his second bottle of tequila, so he
might not have been able to respond. I I just
I don't know what else to say. This is actually
what happened. This is really the world we're living in,
all right. We got more coming up.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
We're out every day from one until four o'clock. After
four o'clock John Cobet Show on demand on the iHeart app,
and you do want to listen to the two o'clock
hour where we talk with Roger Bailey about the new
bombshell stories of how it's text messages have been released,
depositions are being administered to state parks employees. And yeah,
(17:48):
they got in the way of the LA Fire Department
to save the milk fetch plant and that's why the
fire was able to rekindle on January first, Well, it's
January first fire rekindled on January seventh and became the
Palace ex fire that did so much destruction. It's really true. Listen,
please to that two o'clock hour podcast. You know, I
(18:09):
saw this is the first thing I saw this morning
when I woke up. I get up about five thirty
in the morning, and I look at the Los Angeles Times,
and sometimes they have something good this. Everybody loves the
county fairs, right, that's they go on all summer and
(18:30):
it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of food,
it's rides, it's animals, it's games, it's it's supposed to
be great. It turns out that many county fairs in
California are hotbeds of corruption. In fact, the LA Times
did an investigation and found fraud, theft, and other issues
(18:55):
at twenty five of the seventy seven local fairs in
California racked with fraud and mismanagement. It looks like who
is ever managing many of these county fairs, they're stealing money.
Let me give you an example. They started with and
(19:16):
then I'll talk about the ones in southern California here,
but they start with excuse me, Humboldt County. The former
bookkeeper of Humboldt County is doing federal court. She's pled
guilty to stealing four hundred and thirty thousand dollars from
the fair. Do you know where the police arrested her?
(19:39):
At a local casino, So she stole the money just
to blow it at a casino. There's a photo of her,
and she's got studs or staples, four of them in
her lips. She's got a she's got some kind of
(20:00):
stutter staple on her bottom lip at the corners of
her mouth, and one on the edge of her top lip.
The hell's that? And she stole four hundred and thirty
grand to blow it at a casino. Wow. Workers from
four Fares, according to the La Times, have been prosecuted
(20:21):
in the past few years for theft, bribery or embezzlement.
More than a million dollars stolen. A carnival company, tally Amusements,
was paid a half a million dollars by the San
Diego County Fair to settle a lawsuit that fair officials
had engaged in bid rigging when they were handing out
contracts to run rides and games on the Midway San
(20:44):
Diego County judge wrote that the evidence supports favoritism, fraud,
and corruption. That let's see what else here. Kern County
twenty nineteen. That ought found that the state and officials
at the current county fair had allowed gross mismanagement to
continue unchecked for years. In fact, there's a main story
(21:10):
which is very long, prints out to about fifteen pages.
But then they have a companion story in the La
Times which breaks down county by county the basics of
each fraud. Let me go through some of these. There's
twenty five of them. I don't have time for that,
but I'll give you some of the better ones. Contra
Costa County Fair, ninety thousand dollars in cash stolen from
(21:34):
an employee as they were trying to deposit it at
an ATM account at two am. The president of the
fair's board then publicly questioned, why would anybody deposit money
in a remote place at two in the morning. Do
you know what the Governor's office did. Newsom's office. They
(21:55):
removed the president because he spoke public about an active investigation.
He just said out loud what every normal person would say.
It's like, why are you going to an ATM way
out in the middle of nowhere with ninety thousand dollars
so because he said that he got bounced. Del Norte
(22:22):
County Fair twenty nineteen audit that fair officials spent more
than twelve hundred dollars improperly on alcohol, overspent on hotels,
and a manager employed a close family member. Humboldt County Fair. Oh,
that's the four hundred thousand dollars that the bookkeeper ran
(22:45):
to the casino Okay. Kerrent County Fair. OH. The former
maintenance supervisor at the current county fair facing criminal charges
for stealing scrap metal. Another state audit found that the
Kerrent County the fair, chief executive, and board members enjoyed
lavish lobster dinners using state credit cards. Los Angeles County
(23:10):
Fair twenty sixteen state audit found the fair had paid
its president more than a million dollars in salary a
million dollars. Orange County Fair twenty nineteen state audit found
that fair officials did not report when an employee embezzled
nine thousand dollars, and Fair officials spent more than two
(23:31):
hundred thousand dollars on food and beverage. Without keeping track
of who ate the meals or what purpose they served.
That's a hungry group. In Orange County, Santa Clara County,
the fair's former director of marketing pleaded no contest to
taking forty thousand dollars in kickbacks after awarding a security contract.
(23:53):
Statis Laus County twenty twenty three audit found that fair
officials improperly used state credit cards on lavish dinners for
the fair's board of directors, including Prime rib and Ribbi Stakes.
Ventura County Fair twenty twenty three, Four men pleaded guilty
to stealing more than five hundred dollars in cash from
(24:14):
a safe at the fair office. That included a man
who worked for a payment company At the fair twenty
twenty five. Yolo County, an audit found that fair officials
spent two hundred and twenty thousand dollars on their credit
cards without receipts, five thousand dollars in gifts gifts, twenty
(24:39):
eight hundred dollars in party supplies, and nearly one thousand
dollars in personal items, and I'm only giving you half
of them. Is everybody corrupt, right down to the people
who run county fairs. I mean really everybody, and there's
so much like Penny Anti stuff. Can't you buy a
(25:01):
steak and cook it at home? Can't you invite everybody
over for a barbecue in the backyard. What a bunch
of greed bags. It's not their money, it's tax money,
it's our money. Yeah, this is unbelievable. What's going on
in the state and has gone on for quite a while.
Got more coming up.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
You're listening to John cobelts on demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Ron every day one until four. Follow us at John
Cobelt Radio on social media and if you want to
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(25:49):
And at John Cobelt Radio for everything else. Let me
see where am oh yeah, this happened just today. The
psycho that killed Charlie Kirk was in court today for
the first time, and it's because his attorneys don't want
(26:14):
cameras to be used broadcasting the trial and he shows up.
Tyler Robinson's his name, and he shows up and apparently
throughout this court hearing, he's sitting there smirking and chuckling
and joking around. This is the guy who put the
(26:34):
bullet in Charlie Kirk provo Utah is wearing a blue
button down shirt and a tie, and his attorneys were
arguing that the media shouldn't be allowed to film his
hearings because it's gonna taint the jury. This would be,
I guess the pre trial hearings. But the judge allowed
(26:55):
cameras in for a while, but more than two hours
were behind closed doors, and he looked calm Accord a
New York Post and even smiled as he appeared to
whisper joking comments to one of his lawyers before the
hearing began. Lawyer here, Stacy Visser, She's got to be
(27:21):
a nice woman, huh, mentioned representing this guy and wants
to keep the public from finding out how the trial goes. Yeah,
that's a good idea. She complained to the judge that
the media had violated his broadcasting order because I'll get this.
Robinson was shown in shackles Apparently that's part of this
(27:46):
gag order where the media is not allowed to show
Tyler Robinson in shackles because that's gonna taint the jury.
Wells in shackles because he murdered a guy and there's
plenty of evidence, Like, there's no question he murdered a guy.
I don't think I can take much of the jury. Well,
I don't know. We've got a lot of people listening
on the podcast. But uh so he sat there, and
(28:08):
you can you can. Can you imagine if you were
falsely accused of murdering Charlie Kirk of all people, and
the death penalty is possible here. Plus you know it's
caused a lot of grief across across the whole country,
and you're being you're being wrongfully accused. What would you
(28:29):
be doing, huh, screaming, yelling, jumping up and down, waving
your arms. Instead, he's sitting there, calmly, chuckling and laughing.
To me, that's always the telltale sign of guy's guilty
when he's got no angry, upset reaction to being accused
of murder. Where the death penalty is on the case
(28:52):
is on the line, on top of it all and
he's just saying, eh, this is cool. See, he killed
Kirk for a cause. He was angry over Kirk's transgender comments.
He was the guy who had the furry as a
boyfriend or whatever the hell it is, the furry friend, right,
(29:14):
So he's got a furry friend. He's upset that Kirk
was making negative comments about accepting transgenders, and so he
kills Kirk. And so he thinks he's done a good thing.
He's like that other nutcase Luigi Mangioni in New York
City who killed the healthcare executive. They're proud of what
they did. They're happy that they did it. They felt
(29:37):
it needed to be done to settle injustice in the world.
So he's not angry and out right, but he's got
the dopey attorney there, right Stacy Visser, and her big
issue was like, well, we don't want the public to
see this. We don't want him shackled. I don't know,
you murdered somebody, You're gonna get shackled. This is Stacy
Visser says, it's our understanding that the shackles are visible.
(30:00):
And some audio from the council table was heard. There's
been filming of computers and materials on the council's desk.
That's entirely inappropriate. I think the bullet in the neck
was inappropriate. I don't know about filming some computer screens.
(30:20):
Just don't you feel like you're insane. It's hard not
to feel that way. Conway is coming up next, and
we'll be back tomorrow at one o'clock. Hey, you've been
listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always
hear the show live on KFI Am six forty from
one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course,
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Can't. I am six forty. You're listening to the John
Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We are on every
day from one until four o'clock. After four o'clock John
Cobelt Show on demand, that's the podcast, and listen to
what you missed. And we've had quite a jam packed
show with big headlines since one o'clock. So if you
haven't been able to be with us, please go look
(00:23):
for it on the podcast. I'll tell you about some
of it coming up later in the hour. I want
to get right to David Goldbloom here. He is director
of a really a powerful emotional documentary called Big Rock Burning,
and it's about people who live in Malibu's Big Rock
Community as they try to come back after the fire
(00:45):
that wiped out many of the homes there. Let's get
to David Goldbloom on.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Thanks for having me, John, I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Really glad to have you, and I'm a little fired
up because we just found out the new details about
the Palisades fire. What got you in? What motivated you
to do this documentary?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Oh? Well, I guess a little bit of craziness. My
home burned down and the fires and that night my
community very tight knit community in Big Rock and Malibu.
We formed a WhatsApp group and people That's how we
were getting information out together. That's how we were finding
out that no help came. There was a standdown order,
(01:27):
no firefighters, no water, and the reservoirs were kind of
became a news network overnight, and everybody just kept saying,
we have to get our story out there. How come
not one firefighter came to our mountain the entire night.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Of the fires.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And I kept hearing that for a couple of nights,
and the more people kept saying, we got to get
our story out there. Eventually, I was just like, Okay,
if we want to tell this story, I'll jump in
the ring and I'll shepherd it. And I think over
forty residents who had lost their homes reached out to
me and said, you know, we're on board, we'll do
whatever we kind of help you.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And where is Big Rock in Malibu exactly so people
not familiar can place it.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So if if you think about the Palisades fire, it
went down the pH and really the first mountain enclave
leading towards Malibu was was Big Rock once you pass
Pacific Palisades. So it's kind of at the beginning of Malibu.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
And what what fired. Jurisdiction covers that community. I think
La County, La County, So that's who you were waiting
on to come and nobody did.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, there were apparently there was a stand down order and.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
The standown order events.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, one of the residents heard it on a dispatch.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
It's really common in fires, right, a standout. Rather than
send more guys, send less guys. In fact, don't send anybody.
Stay home.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, I guess let it burn with the mantra.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, you know what what what it really was, wasn't it.
It really was the philosophy. After the first don't know,
a couple of hours, it's like, ah, nothing we can do,
let it go.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, And it wasn't just fire to somebody in the film,
she called nine one one and they kind of just said, sorry,
we can't help you. And she was stranded on a mountain,
like on a boulder, Yeah, with fire all in coon
like all around her and just there was every man
for themselves.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
How do you feel like like today? I don't know
if you heard. We've got another round of stories from
the attorneys representing the Palisades owners and it looks like
the state put a stop to the LA Fire Department
cleaning up the January first fire, which is where the
rekindling happened, because they wanted us to protect the Milkfitch plan.
(03:48):
So no bulldozers, no fire lines, no tamping down the hotspots.
When you hear these things, and there's been a lot
of these stories, how do you feel, like, what does
that do to your psyche?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's really sad and it's really disappointing. And I was
on an La Times Studio podcast the other day and
I said, it makes you kind of not want to
be here anymore. You know the fact that nobody has
stepped up, nobody's taken accountability, nobody said we messed up.
And what I wanted to do with our film is
to show the human stories of loss and grief and
(04:22):
resilience too, and kind of show these were real people
who lost everything.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I felt and I didn't know anybody in your film.
I felt so sad for everybody. I thought sad. I
felt angry, and it's like this shouldn't happen to these people.
These are regular people just living their lives.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, thank you, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
It's what kind of reaction. Have you gotten to the
film and where's it playing and how can people find it?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It's been incredible because I think this whole issue has
become somewhat of a political hotbed, and I tried to
I tried to focus on the human stories. Yes, we
call out a lot of people for what they did
or didn't do, but it seems to have been well
received all over the map, maybe except for Carabath, but
(05:16):
everybody's really appreciative. And we premiered at Malibu City Hall
to a sold out crowd in August, and I think
almost everybody there had lost their homes and some fire.
And then we've been around the country. We were at SCAD, Savannah,
Mill Valley, Newport, Santa Fe. And now we're coming to
PBS on the anniversary of the fire, so to be
(05:39):
broadcast into twenty million homes across California.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
All right, So you've done a lot of film festivals
and now PBS and it's going to be on January seventh.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yep, the anniversary of the fires.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Oh that's great. So it's going to be seen all
over the country. I mean, it's impossible not to get
emotionally affected while you're watching it. I actually had to
stop it a couple of times because you know, I'm
covering this stuff every day, and you know, nothing bad
happened to me. That's why I cannot imagine what it
must feel like to suffer the trauma. And then you
(06:14):
get reminded of it every day or every week. You know,
as more and more of these stories come out, it's
got to be just just unbelievable. But you know, there
was a sense of optimism in some of the people
also with the sadness. Yeah, it was fascinating to see
like all those human, human emotions playing out at once
in the aftermath.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, there's one character in the film. He stayed behind
and he fought with a garden hose, and that was
the kind of seme of that night. The people who
stayed behind were fighting with garden hoses and pool water
and bathtub water. But his home survived the night of
the fires. And then the next morning, Yeah, he went
(06:55):
around and he went from home to home. That's how
I found out my home had burned down. He took
everybody's address and the WhatsApp group and he was driving
around telling people whether their housemade it or not. Because
we were all kind of wanting the sense of closure.
And then he got back to his home and his
home was burning, and.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, that's one of the toughest parts of the film. Yeah,
because he's just standing there looking out over where the
house used to be and he had saved it, and
then he tried to help everybody else out and that's
when the fire came back and got him. It's just, yeah,
that is some story you mentioned in passing that Karen
Bass didn't necessarily have a good reaction. Has she seen
(07:39):
or she heard about the movie? I mean, what.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
You know, I when I we started three days after
the fire, and I had reached out to everybody. I
was trying to get everybody to just kind of have
a voice. And I reached out to Karen's office and
really was persistent, really trying to get her to, you know,
be on camera have an interview, and they kept just
saying she's done a lot for the community in Malibu already,
(08:06):
and she has a busy schedule. And I was kind
of like, I'll come anywhere, you know, I don't know
where she's been in Malibu. I haven't seen her, but
she was not I don't think she wanted to be
part of this.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
No, no, Well, the movie is fantastic. I'm glad that
it's going to be on PBS and the whole nation
can see it. And you've had great reaction at the
film festivals. And it's thirty minutes, but it's some of
the most powerful thirty minutes you're ever going to experience.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Thank you, John.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah, So good luck with it, and as time goes on,
anything you need from us to publicize it further or
in any way try to make life better for the
people there in Malibu, just let us know.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Okay, thank you a quick send your show.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Thank you very much, David Goldblum, and again PBS on
January seventh, the anniversary of the fire, and you get
to see his documentary. That's two documentaries out. Now we're
going to talk. I got to talk about I'm still
like nuts over this milk vetch plant and what we
found out from Roger Bailey, the Palisades Attorney. I'm going
(09:17):
to talk a lot more about that coming up.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Six forty run every day from one until four o'clock.
You can follow us at John Cobelt Radio on social
media and moistline is eight seven seven moist eighty six,
eight seven seven moist eighty six and tomorrow's Friday, and
we're going to play back two rounds of it, one
at this time a little bit after three twenty and
then again a little after three point fifty tomorrow. I
(09:45):
just got it. You know, We've had a lot of
people on the show. There's been a lot going on today,
and I just want to talk about what we did
at two o'clock, which you if you weren't around it,
to please please please listen. Roger Bailey, the attorney for
the Housays residents who were wiped out in the fire,
He shared with us texts and maps. It is true.
(10:09):
It is true. State Park reps the night of the
January first fly a fire known as the Lachlan Fire,
and the day after they interfered with the LA Fire
Department in putting out the fire completely. There was a
there were hotspots, there was smoldering land, smoldering rocks, hot rocks,
(10:34):
hot tree stumps, the whole thing and they needed a
lot of treatment by the fire department. Whatever the procedures are.
They needed to bulldoze to create a fire line so
if it flared up again, there would be some kind
of protection to halt the flames again. This is in
(10:55):
the middle of extreme fire warnings and extreme wind warnings
from the National Weather Service. And the first thing that
the state parks employees did, and we are going to
get the names of these people two three am on
January first. God, that's got to just be less than
(11:19):
two hours after it started. There is a text that
went out to one of these Parks department employees. Hi, Christy,
are at the fire and Christie replies, I will be.
I'm getting ready now. And then Christy is told there
is federally endangered astragallus along to Mesical fire Road. That's
(11:45):
the Latin name commonly known as the milkvetch plant. Supposedly endangered,
but as Roger Bailey pointed out, it actually tends to
recover very well after a fire. Would here's the memo.
Would it would be nice to avoid cutting it if possible?
(12:07):
Do you have avoidance maps? I have a couple of
resource advisories on standby. I'll wait to deploy them until
you get on SENE and assess the situation. Definitely will
want to send them down. Meeting these avoidance maps if
heavy equipment arrives, and Christy writes back, Okay, I'll let
(12:27):
you know. So while people are sleeping New Year's Eve
into New Year's Day two o'clock in the morning, the
demise of the Palisades was already starting to happen, already
destined to happen, because in this text exchange, it's clear
(12:53):
that they're not going to bull those paths to prevent
the fire from rekindling and spreading because there are milk
vetch plants there. You can't make this up. And so
that's why there are photos of a State park employee
(13:13):
interfering with the LA Fire Department. That's why the fire
department rolled up the hoses and left. They were getting
pressured from the Parks department. The fire started on State
park land, and as Roger Bailey said, if you look
in the manual, it is mandatory that you close the park,
send inspectors to the park, and then when you see
(13:33):
the hotspots, take action with cal Fire or whoever's needed
to mitigate the situation. They did none of that. And
if you remember started by in Our Citizen and Gavin
Newsom had first said that, well, the state wasn't aware
of the fire, and that was a lie. They were
(13:54):
aware of it within an hour. Secondly, that the fire
started on federal land, that's a lie as well. It
started on state land. State employees were aware of it,
and they sent employees down there to interfere with LA
fire department because they didn't want the milkvech plants to
be bulldozed. I know it sound like I'm a crazy person,
(14:20):
but I'm telling you that's what happened. Roger Bailey, the
attorney for the Palisades homeowners, has confirmed that this is
really true. Newsimus says said it was climate change, not
climate change. Yes, they were aware of the fire, and
(14:42):
yes it started on state land, not federal land. The
state land that where the brush wasn't cleared. And so
what happened. We had twelve people died for the milkvetch plant.
We had sixty in sixty eight hundred and twenty two
structures burned because of the milkvetch plant, because the decisions
made by these unknown employees in the Parks Department. Now
(15:09):
this is before Karen Bass went off to Ghana. Did
she not talk to Kristin Crowley, the fire chief and
other fire officials, since there were warnings of the winds,
(15:30):
warnings of the fire danger. Now Karen Bass claimed that
she never heard that there were all these warnings, And
I think she's a liar. I've flat out don't believe
that she can assume me if she wants she's lying.
She had to know this. Why didn't she have a
meeting because of the extreme wind warnings, the fire warnings like, hey,
(15:53):
are we putting this thing out? If you're mayor and
you have you have fire danger in your wild lands
within the city limits, you should know about rekindling of fires.
Basic knowledge you must have. So did you have the meeting?
Was there was there a discussion? No? What about Kristin Crowley?
(16:17):
That's when you start looking around, Well, if this rekindles,
do we have water? Genisiniz, how's that reservoir? Oh? That's empty? Two?
And maybe you could have warned everybody in the Palisades that, look,
we don't have any water, and we don't have firefighters,
and we don't have fire trucks and the state won't
(16:38):
let us tend to the smoldering fire because of the
milk vetch plant. I mean, maybe somebody could have gotten
on the phone. Maybe this is where Karen Bass, if
she was doing her job, calls up Gavin News and says, hey, Gavin,
they won't let us put out the hot spot from
the Lockman fire because of a milk vetch plant. Could
(16:59):
you just say something about it? Of course, he might
have been into his second bottle of tequila, so he
might not have been able to respond. I I just
I don't know what else to say. This is actually
what happened. This is really the world we're living in,
all right. We got more coming up.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
We're out every day from one until four o'clock. After
four o'clock John Cobet Show on demand on the iHeart app,
and you do want to listen to the two o'clock
hour where we talk with Roger Bailey about the new
bombshell stories of how it's text messages have been released,
depositions are being administered to state parks employees. And yeah,
(17:48):
they got in the way of the LA Fire Department
to save the milk fetch plant and that's why the
fire was able to rekindle on January first, Well, it's
January first fire rekindled on January seventh and became the
Palace ex fire that did so much destruction. It's really true. Listen,
please to that two o'clock hour podcast. You know, I
(18:09):
saw this is the first thing I saw this morning
when I woke up. I get up about five thirty
in the morning, and I look at the Los Angeles Times,
and sometimes they have something good this. Everybody loves the
county fairs, right, that's they go on all summer and
(18:30):
it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of food,
it's rides, it's animals, it's games, it's it's supposed to
be great. It turns out that many county fairs in
California are hotbeds of corruption. In fact, the LA Times
did an investigation and found fraud, theft, and other issues
(18:55):
at twenty five of the seventy seven local fairs in
California racked with fraud and mismanagement. It looks like who
is ever managing many of these county fairs, they're stealing money.
Let me give you an example. They started with and
(19:16):
then I'll talk about the ones in southern California here,
but they start with excuse me, Humboldt County. The former
bookkeeper of Humboldt County is doing federal court. She's pled
guilty to stealing four hundred and thirty thousand dollars from
the fair. Do you know where the police arrested her?
(19:39):
At a local casino, So she stole the money just
to blow it at a casino. There's a photo of her,
and she's got studs or staples, four of them in
her lips. She's got a she's got some kind of
(20:00):
stutter staple on her bottom lip at the corners of
her mouth, and one on the edge of her top lip.
The hell's that? And she stole four hundred and thirty
grand to blow it at a casino. Wow. Workers from
four Fares, according to the La Times, have been prosecuted
(20:21):
in the past few years for theft, bribery or embezzlement.
More than a million dollars stolen. A carnival company, tally Amusements,
was paid a half a million dollars by the San
Diego County Fair to settle a lawsuit that fair officials
had engaged in bid rigging when they were handing out
contracts to run rides and games on the Midway San
(20:44):
Diego County judge wrote that the evidence supports favoritism, fraud,
and corruption. That let's see what else here. Kern County
twenty nineteen. That ought found that the state and officials
at the current county fair had allowed gross mismanagement to
continue unchecked for years. In fact, there's a main story
(21:10):
which is very long, prints out to about fifteen pages.
But then they have a companion story in the La
Times which breaks down county by county the basics of
each fraud. Let me go through some of these. There's
twenty five of them. I don't have time for that,
but I'll give you some of the better ones. Contra
Costa County Fair, ninety thousand dollars in cash stolen from
(21:34):
an employee as they were trying to deposit it at
an ATM account at two am. The president of the
fair's board then publicly questioned, why would anybody deposit money
in a remote place at two in the morning. Do
you know what the Governor's office did. Newsom's office. They
(21:55):
removed the president because he spoke public about an active investigation.
He just said out loud what every normal person would say.
It's like, why are you going to an ATM way
out in the middle of nowhere with ninety thousand dollars
so because he said that he got bounced. Del Norte
(22:22):
County Fair twenty nineteen audit that fair officials spent more
than twelve hundred dollars improperly on alcohol, overspent on hotels,
and a manager employed a close family member. Humboldt County Fair. Oh,
that's the four hundred thousand dollars that the bookkeeper ran
(22:45):
to the casino Okay. Kerrent County Fair. OH. The former
maintenance supervisor at the current county fair facing criminal charges
for stealing scrap metal. Another state audit found that the
Kerrent County the fair, chief executive, and board members enjoyed
lavish lobster dinners using state credit cards. Los Angeles County
(23:10):
Fair twenty sixteen state audit found the fair had paid
its president more than a million dollars in salary a
million dollars. Orange County Fair twenty nineteen state audit found
that fair officials did not report when an employee embezzled
nine thousand dollars, and Fair officials spent more than two
(23:31):
hundred thousand dollars on food and beverage. Without keeping track
of who ate the meals or what purpose they served.
That's a hungry group. In Orange County, Santa Clara County,
the fair's former director of marketing pleaded no contest to
taking forty thousand dollars in kickbacks after awarding a security contract.
(23:53):
Statis Laus County twenty twenty three audit found that fair
officials improperly used state credit cards on lavish dinners for
the fair's board of directors, including Prime rib and Ribbi Stakes.
Ventura County Fair twenty twenty three, Four men pleaded guilty
to stealing more than five hundred dollars in cash from
(24:14):
a safe at the fair office. That included a man
who worked for a payment company At the fair twenty
twenty five. Yolo County, an audit found that fair officials
spent two hundred and twenty thousand dollars on their credit
cards without receipts, five thousand dollars in gifts gifts, twenty
(24:39):
eight hundred dollars in party supplies, and nearly one thousand
dollars in personal items, and I'm only giving you half
of them. Is everybody corrupt, right down to the people
who run county fairs. I mean really everybody, and there's
so much like Penny Anti stuff. Can't you buy a
(25:01):
steak and cook it at home? Can't you invite everybody
over for a barbecue in the backyard. What a bunch
of greed bags. It's not their money, it's tax money,
it's our money. Yeah, this is unbelievable. What's going on
in the state and has gone on for quite a while.
Got more coming up.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
You're listening to John cobelts on demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Ron every day one until four. Follow us at John
Cobelt Radio on social media and if you want to
subscribe to the our YouTube channel, we put longer segments
on all the time. You go to YouTube dot com
slash at John Cobelt's show slightly different YouTube dot com
slash at John Cobelt's show and subscribe and then you'll
get notifications every time we put these longer form videos up.
(25:49):
And at John Cobelt Radio for everything else. Let me
see where am oh yeah, this happened just today. The
psycho that killed Charlie Kirk was in court today for
the first time, and it's because his attorneys don't want
(26:14):
cameras to be used broadcasting the trial and he shows up.
Tyler Robinson's his name, and he shows up and apparently
throughout this court hearing, he's sitting there smirking and chuckling
and joking around. This is the guy who put the
(26:34):
bullet in Charlie Kirk provo Utah is wearing a blue
button down shirt and a tie, and his attorneys were
arguing that the media shouldn't be allowed to film his
hearings because it's gonna taint the jury. This would be,
I guess the pre trial hearings. But the judge allowed
(26:55):
cameras in for a while, but more than two hours
were behind closed doors, and he looked calm Accord a
New York Post and even smiled as he appeared to
whisper joking comments to one of his lawyers before the
hearing began. Lawyer here, Stacy Visser, She's got to be
(27:21):
a nice woman, huh, mentioned representing this guy and wants
to keep the public from finding out how the trial goes. Yeah,
that's a good idea. She complained to the judge that
the media had violated his broadcasting order because I'll get this.
Robinson was shown in shackles Apparently that's part of this
(27:46):
gag order where the media is not allowed to show
Tyler Robinson in shackles because that's gonna taint the jury.
Wells in shackles because he murdered a guy and there's
plenty of evidence, Like, there's no question he murdered a guy.
I don't think I can take much of the jury. Well,
I don't know. We've got a lot of people listening
on the podcast. But uh so he sat there, and
(28:08):
you can you can. Can you imagine if you were
falsely accused of murdering Charlie Kirk of all people, and
the death penalty is possible here. Plus you know it's
caused a lot of grief across across the whole country,
and you're being you're being wrongfully accused. What would you
(28:29):
be doing, huh, screaming, yelling, jumping up and down, waving
your arms. Instead, he's sitting there, calmly, chuckling and laughing.
To me, that's always the telltale sign of guy's guilty
when he's got no angry, upset reaction to being accused
of murder. Where the death penalty is on the case
(28:52):
is on the line, on top of it all and
he's just saying, eh, this is cool. See, he killed
Kirk for a cause. He was angry over Kirk's transgender comments.
He was the guy who had the furry as a
boyfriend or whatever the hell it is, the furry friend, right,
(29:14):
So he's got a furry friend. He's upset that Kirk
was making negative comments about accepting transgenders, and so he
kills Kirk. And so he thinks he's done a good thing.
He's like that other nutcase Luigi Mangioni in New York
City who killed the healthcare executive. They're proud of what
they did. They're happy that they did it. They felt
(29:37):
it needed to be done to settle injustice in the world.
So he's not angry and out right, but he's got
the dopey attorney there, right Stacy Visser, and her big
issue was like, well, we don't want the public to
see this. We don't want him shackled. I don't know,
you murdered somebody, You're gonna get shackled. This is Stacy
Visser says, it's our understanding that the shackles are visible.
(30:00):
And some audio from the council table was heard. There's
been filming of computers and materials on the council's desk.
That's entirely inappropriate. I think the bullet in the neck
was inappropriate. I don't know about filming some computer screens.
(30:20):
Just don't you feel like you're insane. It's hard not
to feel that way. Conway is coming up next, and
we'll be back tomorrow at one o'clock. Hey, you've been
listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always
hear the show live on KFI Am six forty from
one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course,
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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