Senate Standing Committee on Labor, Public Employment and Retirement

Good morning. The Senate Labor, Public, Employment and Retirement Committee and the Assembly labor and Employment Committee will come to order in 60 seconds. The Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee and Assembly labor and Employment Committee will come to order. Good morning everyone. Thank you for attending today's Joint Hearing on the LA wildfires and work.

On January 7, high winds and dry conditions ignited a series of fires in Los Angeles metropolitan area. Within days, fire swept through the region, cutting through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena and displacing hundreds of thousands of residents, workers and businesses.

By the time the fires were 100% contained, 29 people had lost their lives and just under 40,000 acres burned and thousands of structures were damaged or destroyed. The destruction is immeasurable, almost too much to bear for many thousands of residents, workers and businesses lost their homes, their jobs and their livelihoods.

The sad reality is that this is not the first natural disaster that California has had to reckon with and unfortunately, in past disasters, our haste to clean up and rebuild quickly has cost us opportunities to create an emergency response framework that focuses on equity and uplifts our local workforce. California must not back down from our core values.

We must ensure a livable wage. We must protect worker safety and deliver equitable access to jobs and ensure that we are rebuilding stronger. We should not compromise our values or cut corners to get to the finish line faster.

We can rebuild quickly, safely and equitably and create opportunities to uplift our historically marginalized communities and all of our workers in the process. Although recovery and rebuilding efforts have already begun, a complete return to normalcy is a long ways off.

In the meantime, we must focus on ensuring that our recovery efforts prioritize worker safety and equity, prioritizes our small businesses, prioritizes our residents, and therefore no worker should be forced to work in a dangerous environment, an exploitive environment. We must educate workers about their rights and enforce these protections, and we must ensure that California businesses come first.

To that end, it is imperative that the state take a proactive role in ensuring that contracts for the cleanup and rebuilding are awarded to vetted contractors with a record of compliance with health and safety laws and a workforce that is representative of the impact to communities.

In other words, those most impacted by the fires should be first in line to rebuild their communities. Our investments should help employ the same Californians who lost everything, which will strengthen our local economies in the process. We cannot respond to every climate disaster by simply awarding contracts to the lowest bidder and bidders from out of state.

We know these communities are resilient, but now is the time to support them and to ensure that they are as resilient as they can be. This hearing is an opportunity for the Legislature to hear directly from impacted workers and employers so that the state can be an effective partner in the recovery process.

And I want to thank all of my colleagues for joining me today. I especially want to thank my goodness good colleague from the Assembly Labor Committee Chair Ortega. And I want to invite you to say a few words.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning everyone. Excited to be here today to have this important conversation about the LA wildfires and particularly in ensuring that we talk about workers.

Unfortunately, we've seen many instances since which we had fires or other emergencies happen throughout the state or even in day to day lives of workers where their health and safety is not prioritized.

And so I wanted to ensure that we had this conversation today to learn about what is happening on the ground with these workers as we begin the recovery efforts, the cleanup efforts, and then moving forward with rebuilding the area that's been devastated.

Not just to hear about what is happening today, but also to learn about what we can do better as a state moving forward. Unfortunately, this will not be the first, nor will it be the last climate crisis that we have.

And so as a legislative body, it is our responsibility to hear from those who are doing the work and to protect them from it, and to protect them to ensure that we recover, but that the recovery is equitable and that their health and safety is absolutely prioritized.

I am encouraged to hear from the different panelists today, excited to hear from them, from their experiences, from what they're seeing, but more importantly about what we can be doing better as a legislative body, either through our budget process or through future legislation.

You know, I've been on this Committee for, well, I've been on this body a little over two years now as a Chair of labor and Employment in the Assembly, being responsible for over 19 million workers.

It is disappointing to say at the least, to hear that often our departments are not ensuring that the health and safety of workers are being prioritized.

It is in fact the reason I've requested an audit of our OSHA Department and I'm waiting on those results to ensure that we're following up and creating legislative processes to ensure that they're always protected and workers are on the front line, have an opportunity to be heard, but most importantly to feel safe.

Every worker should have an opportunity to go to work in the morning and come home at night. And that is my goal today. And, and listening to what we're doing in LA, hearing about the recovery efforts, hearing about the process moving forward and how we can best support all of it. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Co Chair. I now want to just open it up to other Members who may want to say a few words before we call our panel.

I just want to thank both of you for doing this and for our consultants and our staff. I don't know that this has ever been done. We've done piece work here and there, but such a comprehensive approach. So I thank you very much.

Well, thank you. And I do want to recognize the staff. When we started to hear from some of the workers and see some of the temp flyers coming around the Capitol and hearing from some of the local contractors who were having difficulty accessing the opportunity to participate in rebuilding their communities, we felt it was very important for us to have this conversation, a deeper conversation to see what the Legislature can do to help, but also to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to protect all workers and residents who are impacted by this horrible disaster.

We are going to begin with a series of panels. Panels, three panels that will focus on the cleanup progress. We'll hear from our disaster recovery experts and then from our state agencies and organizations that are assisting the region.

We're going to call our first panel to the table, which is going to provide a worker perspective and give us some overview of how, what the need is for protecting and uplifting workers in this moment. I wanted to call Derek Irwin, engineer from LA County Firefighters Local 1014 to the table. Megan Ortiz, Executive Director of IDEPSCA.

Sarah Flocks with the California Labor Federation and the building trades will be joining us. They are on their way. Chris Hannon with the State Building Trades and Eddie Alvarez with the LA County Building Trades and Construction Council.

You all could give a more detailed introduction for your and you each will have a moment to speak and then we will open it up for questions. And Derek, why don't we start with you because we know you have a flight to catch, so we want to make sure we respect that.

I appreciate that. Thanks. I have to pick up my kids at school down in Orange County later this afternoon, so good morning and thank you, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas, Assemblymember Ortega and Committee Members for holding this hearing today. My name is Derek Urwin. I've been a Firefighter for nearly 20 years, serving proudly with LA County Firefighters IFF Local 1014.

I'm also an adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA and a Member of the UCLA Johnson Comprehensive Cancer center where I conduct firefighter cancer research.

Most people are well aware that as firefighters we take pride in our duty to serve the public and we regularly put the well being of others ahead of our own without hesitation.

But what many people are not aware of is that the International Agency for Research on Cancer actually classifies firefighting as a Group 1 carcinogen in the same category as other cancer causing agents such as benzene and ionizing radiation.

This is due to the increased incidence of cancer among firefighters and the multiple carcinogenic exposures that we endure daily in the line of duty. Despite this acknowledgment by the scientific community, the biological mechanisms that drive cancer risk among firefighters remain largely unstudied and interventions to reduce cancer risk and exposure remain largely elusive.

What's more is that much of the research into cancer risk among firefighters to date has examined firefighters from outside of California, not taking into account our burden of both municipal and wildland firefighting duties that sets apart our exposures as uniquely severe.

Those studies that have examined California firefighters exposures and cancer risk have been limited in size and scope to a few hundred participants, whereas there are over 30,000 of us that serve our great state.

The recent urban conflagrations at the Eaton and Palisades fires are prime examples of the extreme exposures faced yearly by thousands of California firefighters in the line of duty.

These incidents were characterized by days or weeks of exposure to carcinogenic products of combustion resulting from thousands of burning structures, vehicles and their unknown contents without the benefit of effective respiratory protection or other interventions to reduce exposure.

The long term health impacts of these and years of repeated exposures in the line of duty are currently unknown, highlighting the need for us to bring the full weight and effect of our state's top notch system of research universities and medical centers to bear on this critical knowledge gap.

In 2023, the Legislature passed AB 700 establishing the California Firefighter Cancer Prevention and Research Program, which funds community engaged participatory research partnerships between University of California researchers and the California Fire Service.

This was a huge leap forward in the effort to reduce cancer risk among firefighters, funding eight new research projects with between $300,000 and $750,000 over a two to three year period.

While this has been a great start, these are relatively small research grants in order to reveal the biological mechanisms that drive the development of cancer among firefighters and to develop interventions to reduce cancer risk. Additional funding is needed to establish large longitudinal cohort studies of thousands of California firefighters that span multiple years.

Projects of such scale are Often funded by the NIH with budgets on the order of millions of dollars per year. But we in California are are fortunate to have the resources to both Fund and conduct such research in house, allowing the full breadth and depth of California's cancer research expertise to engage with the fire service to study our unique set of exposures at scale.

In closing, I can assure you that my brothers and sisters on the job will always stand ready to fight fire. Despite knowing that our line of work often leads to a cancer diagnosis.

We humbly ask your support in continuing to Fund the California Firefighter Cancer Prevention and Research Program, which could tilt the odds just a little bit in our favor. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Urwin. I want to pause there. I noticed that more Members have come. I want to thank Assembly Members Rodriguez and Harabedian for joining us today. We did say a few words in opening up the discussion. I don't know if you want to say a few words and then we'll continue with the panel. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ortiz.

Okay. Is this thing on? Yes, it is. Good morning. Good morning, Chair. People, thank you so much for holding this hearing today. It's really important, really important also that you're including base building organizations that have been on the ground throughout the various climate accelerated disasters in Los Angeles and across the state.

IDEPSCA is one of the largest worker center organizations in California. We're a proud Member of the Steering Committee of the California Domestic Workers Coalition as well.

And for over 30 years we've been rooted specifically in the migrant worker community of Los Angeles with six locations across the area rooted at the intersection of worker rights, migrant rights and health and safety rights with a really unique focus on domestic workers and day laborers.

We serve and work with thousands of day laborers and domestic workers who are not hard to reach, but rather they're hardly reached. They're not working in the shadows, but rather have been forced into the shadows by legacies and exclusions rooted in chattel slavery and anti migrant sentiment.

And it's our mission as IDEPSCA to make sure that all rights and protections are a reality so that all workers can live and work in their full dignity. IDEPSCA began in earnest working in the area specific of wildfire response back in 2017. So this is not new to us.

Specifically we were called in as reports came of workers in the Thomas Creek and Rye fires specifically being exposed to toxins while cleaning up post fires, but also acting not just as second responders in the cleanup, but even being hired privately as almost first responders. To holes down expensive houses.

I think it's also important to note that especially in the area like Palisades and Malibu, workers and Latino workers explicitly represent about 37% of the of the worker population in that area, Whereas they only represent 7% of the resident population.

So I think it's a very important and stunning statistic which explains explains why on the night of January 7, 2025 when the Palisades fire started, we started to get calls immediately about workers trapped in Malibu and the Palisades. As PCH was closed, employers did not inform those workers about evacuations.

The majority of these workers, based on a 2016 study and mapping that we did of workers transportation routes to and from their workplaces in the great Los Angeles area, these workers work anywhere from 7 to 60 miles away from their home places. The specific group of workers that was trapped on on that side of PCH happened to work, happen to live in El Monte, almost 50 miles away.

With PCH closed, it took them about five hours to get home, with our help guiding them, literally using Google Maps to help them figure out alternate routes home that night so that they could get home to their families. Whereas the fires on the east side had not even started yet.

I think it's also very important to note that what we saw in the 2017 Woolsey fires really informs what has been our organizational response in 2025. In the 20172018 Woolsey fires, IDEPSCA conducted a surve of about 200 day laborers and domestic workers that really looked at the long term impact and how long recovery took.

And I'm going to put recovery in quotation marks because what happened is that, you know, we know that homeowners weren't really allowed to rebuild for about two years afterwards. And that's only. And that does not account for the many homeowners who moved out of the area.

We have to remember that for domestic workers and day laborers, this is a workforce who work in multiple homes in one area. So it's not one home, one job. It's actually multiple jobs and multiple streams of work that have been lost on a long term basis. For this workforce. One of the things that we heard is workers being forced to stay to care for homes for pets during the wildfires.

One of the reasons why we were so able to quickly respond was the fact that since we've been out in the area since 2017 and 2018, we already have a robust network through mass texting, through WhatsApp, through social media, who work in constant communication with the night before the Fire started as the high wind warnings went out.

Most of those materials were not in Spanish. We had to create those materials to warn workers who we know work in those areas of the high winds and what was the risk? Based on our experiences, the bus routes. We also happen to be in the area in December because I don't know if y'all remember.

Will remember, there was a fire in December. It was smaller in the Malibu area. It was the Franklin fire. Right. And we were talking to workers, majority working in the area, who had no idea that the bus routes were closed that go down PCH to 254 because there was no signage. And most workers do not.

Even though most people, yes, do have cell phones, it doesn't mean everyone knows how to access it the same way. So we were at the bus stops where workers were trying to get to their jobs with employers asking them, why are you not here? And then that understanding that these are not. This is not a workforce that drives every day, but rather is relying on public transportation.

So we were there telling workers about what the closures were and also teaching workers how they could measure the AQI in the area where they were so that they knew what was the proper protective equipment to don, even though that is the responsibility of the employer. I could go on, but I won't.

And I know my time is limited, but I think some of the lessons that we've learned and what I think some of the areas that I think we need to move forward in is outreach and education is super important.

And outreach and education through various programs like the Domestic Worker Education and Outreach Program, the California Workplace Outreach Program, DWOP and cwop, respectively, those are important, and they're really important. And they need to be funded and better funded so that we can really reach workers. But we can't educate our way out of. Out of a disaster.

We cannot expect that education is going to bring about sudden goodwill of employers, many who do not even consider themselves employers. We have to acknowledge that just recently we passed and made into law SB 1350, which for the first time ever acknowledges that household domestic service workers, which include gardeners in many cases. Right.

Are covered under Cal OSHA protections. And that goes into effect in July. And that only covers about half of the actual domestic worker and day labor workforce force. So we need to make sure that we expand those protections so that all domestic workers and day laborers have full occupational health and safety protection.

Something that we've been working with Senator Durazo for a long time with. But we also need to make sure that enforcement is real.

So we need to make sure that all enforcement agencies, including Cal Osha, including the labor Commissioner's office, are on the ground and visible so that employers and homeowners know that they have responsibilities and there are teeth behind those responsibilities as well. I'll close my statements there, but I'm happy to answer any questions. And thank you again.

Madam Chairs, Members, Sara Flocks from the California Labor Federation and we represent 2.3 million union Members and their families in the state, many of whom have lost homes and many many more who lost jobs during the fires. And I just wanted to thank both committees for holding this hearing. Disaster recovery really does present an opportunity.

It's an opportunity to invest in workers and communities to make them more resilient. But there is a risk and the risk is that recovery is just going to deepen and worsen the inequities that already exist.

And you are going to have the most vulnerable and Low wage workers bearing the burden of recovery, risking their lives, losing wages to build the most back the most affluent communities in the state.

So this hearing is so important so we can focus on what are the short, midterm and long term goals so that when this happens again, whether it's LA or any other community, we are prepared to address those iniquities. I'm going to start. We represent so many different workers, so I have a lot to cover.

But I'm going to start with a huge thank you to the workers who were the first responders, the firefighters, the ones who are in homes, who are working, health care workers, public sector workers, all of those workers who were there to do the recovery and work day and night.

And we need to remember during this recovery that we have to take care of them as well. Like Dr. Urwin said, this was a massive fire. We don't know what the long term health effects are going to be.

We need to look out for that for first responders and firefighters, but every other worker who was on the front line, that means investing in the firefighter cancer Fund, but also tracking what's happened in terms of workers comp claims or other kinds of incidents that are happening and making sure those workers are taken care of.

Public sector workers. So many public sector workers responded and are now trying to provide services to people who have been affected by the fires. Emergencies, people, you know, emergencies we need to contract out is what they say.

We need to make sure we are not contracting out these jobs and use it as an opportunity to fill the vacancies in the public sector, whether it's through expedited hiring or through other means so that we make sure when another disaster happens we have the people on the front lines to respond and do the service provision that is so important that also goes to any emergency waivers.

There was immediately Executive orders during the disaster that give waivers of certain protections for workers, waivers to health facilities in terms of licensing and staffing we need to make sure that anytime there's an eo, there's a sunset on that and that those waivers are lifted and we return back to the status quo as soon as possible because these are protections for workers and for patients and other people.

I'm going to yield, of course, to my colleagues from the building trades to talk about all of the work that they are doing and they are going to talk a lot more about the debris cleanup and the contractors doing rebuilding.

But there are going to be a number of homeowners who are hiring private contractors, not hiring through contractors, having people who were already domestic workers doing cleanup. We need to make sure that there is as much on the ground enforcement and education as possible.

Part of that, there was a great packet, but we have the packet from Cal Osha. There should be as much direct outreach as possible to these homeowners so they know what to look for and know that they are on the hook as employers. So just a picture of what PPE is supposed to be used.

Just the knowledge, something very clear so that they see, okay, contract. Hey, are people not. They don't have masks on? Okay, I should probably figure that out. I know the labor Commissioner has done in certain areas, digital billboards, direct outreach as much as possible.

So people in this area, because you can do a focused targeted outreach, know that the state is watching, know that if they're going to be violating the law and that homeowners know the law, that there are consequences to make sure there's that focus.

So that with all the risks in terms of the toxicity, that they know that there are people watching. And then also there are so many workers who have lost their jobs. The home is also a workplace. And so all of these homes that were lost, there's a workforce, associated businesses were lost. People have been displaced.

So we need to make sure that there are the protections there. We learned during the pandemic that if you keep people attached to their work, they are more likely to avoid long term unemployment. So we need to make sure that there are recall and transfer rights for workers.

I know Senator Durazzo knows a lot about this since she, she ran this Bill. Hospitality workers had recall rights so that they could be rehired by seniority.

We need to look at that in terms of areas that have been hit by disasters, workers who are able to transfer to other locations, they should have the ability to do that. I know Senator Smallwood-Cuevas knows about transfer rights. That's something to make sure that we don't have massive unemployment as a Result of dislocation.

Workers also need child care. Families need child care. We need to make sure that our child care is fully funded, that their facilities are prepared for disasters and workers are trained. We need to make sure that these especially home based that there is places for children to go. Schools. A lot of students have been displaced.

Their school may be operational, but they may be living far away in temporary housing. There should be funding for home to school transportation to make sure those kids aren't going to a school near their temporary housing but can go to the school they're used to so they have some continuity in their education.

We need to make sure that funding is there. That's some of the short term, in the long term for building resiliency. There's been great work done about making sure we can get support and assistance, a safety net to people during these fires. I know the state has done some. The feds have their disaster unemployment.

We are going to be hit by disasters. We have seen them. Workers are going to be displaced and they're going to be at risk of losing their homes and being driven into bankruptcy.

The state should have a centralized disaster relief Administration and infrastructure that we can get money into so they can turn around and get funding to workers regardless of their immigration status and make sure that they have that relief. Housing support.

Sometimes after you have the immediate relief, you're going to have trouble paying your mortgage or your rent or you need home repairs.

The state could have a Fund, a revolving loan Fund where we offer zero interest loans to people to get through these emergencies after disasters and then when they're through they pay it back and so that money is there for the next disaster victims.

This is something that Golden One did during the recessions when state workers were being paid in IOUs. So there is a model out there for this. We need to make sure we have disaster resilient workplaces. Does this mean looking at the. We've already have an indoor heat standard.

Are there other things we need to do to make sure workplaces are prepared in case they are hit by a disaster? Senator had worked on this making sure workers are able to leave when there's a threatening disaster. Do we need to expand on that given the different climate crises coming? And then just we need to invest in disaster related jobs. Is this something where we need a job corps?

Do we need apprenticeships and training and programs that we get people into career track jobs that are focused on this kind of recovery work, this kind of preparation work and resiliency so figuring out what we can do as a student to say okay, this is our reality. We know this is happening.

How are we prepared and use this to create good union jobs that also are an opportunity for people. So thank you very much. I look forward to future conversations.

Thank you Ms. Flocks. And I see Eddie Alvarez has joined us and please share your remarks and then we will come to the dais for questions.

My apologies for the time change. Good morning Madam Chair and Madam Chair, staff and Members of the Committee on Behalf of Executive Secretary Ernesto Medrano and our 106,000 Members.

My name is Eddie Escoto Alvarez, a Member of the Member and council representative for the LA and OC building trades and a resident of AD 52 and Senate District 28.

Not only do we represent 160,000 Members, we represent all construction workers in Southern California, union and non represented to make sure that everyone has a safe working condition and they afforded a middle class lifestyle with a health care and a pension.

We wanted to give you an update on what is happening comes to workers on the fire cleanup and the fire rebuild and the Palisades and Eaton fires. I grew up and live not too far from where Eaton fire was started.

I remember seeing on TV where it started from a small brush fire and led to the destruction that we saw in Altadena. While nothing is ever perfect, this is a must time that we must be vigilant right now. The continued cleanup and further rebuild must have labor standards.

But the only way we can do this is to have a community workforce agreement that is mandated by the state or local municipalities. Currently there is no community workforce, which means there is no local hire, no apprentice mandate and no skill and trained mandate because the money is being directly paid through the Army Corps of Engineers.

I had a conversation before I came up north with the affected unions which is mostly Teamsters operators and laborers on the city side of la. It's the Teamsters who is actually doing the work because Republic Services is a teamster shop.

So they're actually doing a lot of the hauling away work that we see right now going through Palisades. On the General cleanup side, the actual folks who are going in every single day with hazmat suits and whatnot. Mostly represented workers, right?

Mostly represented workers because it's mostly union contractors, mostly signatory contractors and to be honest with you, they're the only ones who could really provide that type of workforce. But since we have no mandate, we have no community workforce agreement. We have no, as we used to call them, pla. We can't mandate any of that. We can't make.

The Federal Government is not going to make us do any of that. Right. Because they're paying the money by you paying the Bill, essentially, or giving the money or giving direction to the City of Los Angeles, Altadena, the county. We can mandate all those local hire requirements.

We currently have these agreements with the City of la, lausd, the Port of la, the Port of Long Beach, Inglewood, lax, and most of Expo park, where we're starting to gear up for the Olympics. These are all projects, intangible projects that you see every single day when we either. And at Burbank Airport, too. I apologize.

We just expanded the local hire at Burbank Airport. Yes. We hope in next week through negotiation, to make sure that it's more inclusive of the people who may not live in Burbank, but who live in the regions that use Burbank. So Pacoima, the northeast, San Fernando Valley, all the way down to.

Almost all the way down to the Southeast, actually. And putting veterans, local hires at the top of the list, including graduates of those school districts, Glendale, Pasadena, Burbank. But this is what we do. A lot of, you know, this, this is what we do for a living. But the.

And we are going to have a long cleanup ahead of us. I was talking to a counterpart of mine with FEMA and he was on the FEMA fires. I'm sorry, excuse me. He was on the Lahaina fires. He's now on the, on the fires here in the Palisades and in Alphadena, they only had 2,000 homes destroyed.

In Lahaina, we have 15,000. Right. Just to give you an idea of where we're at. Right. And we. The rebuild is going to take us. The colonel there told me it's going to take us about a year to clean all that up. Right. And that's perfect. We're talking. Everything goes on schedule. Right.

So if we get some, some good rain like we're getting tomorrow, slow it down. Right. We do that during, again, during the fall, we got to slow it down again. So. And the rebuild itself. I will talk about the rebuild here in a minute. That will just take us just as long.

And now that we found out today with the steel and Wood tariffs this is going, we're getting worried and not. And I'm not worried.

You see, a lot of pundits on TV happened right after the fire that said we're going to start busting workers in from out of state and we're going to start putting them in Marriotts because we're not going to be able to do the rebuild. That's a bunch of baloney.

We have workers right now in the, out of the IBEW. Local 11 has a thousand people out of work, okay? Thousand people out of work. We're trying to build the la, as some of you know, we're trying to build the LA Convention, expand the LA Convention center.

We have enough workers as we speak to rebuild the convention center, build a new SOFI stadium and do the whole entire rebuild, okay? With union labor, right? With union labor. We train. This is what we do. We look at the markets, we take apprentices and we say, okay, this is what we got to train up.

This is what we got to put into, right? Because we forecast, remember, four years ahead of time, five years. Because when we hire, when we, when we take an apprentice in, we're telling them we're going to have work for you for at least five years in your area, right? Or at least somewhat work, right?

So we, we have to do our fiduciary responsibilities as employers, right? To make sure that they're going to have that work coming. And I'm telling you, we got it right. But to, to do that, we need help from the state because we're not going to get it from the feds. Just it's not going to happen.

We all know that. And we need help from the state and we need help from the county to where we can put community workforce agreements, where we can put local hire mandates, we can put local hire requirements. We can do it.

I just want to give you some stats of what our nonprofit, the Apprenticeship Readiness Fund, is doing. There are our arm that does all the training we've duplicated across the state. Chris Hann started this, I want to say, seven years ago. We duplicated it in Alameda County also.

But we've enrolled almost 6,000 people at about give away the pandemic. So we're going to call it five years. Okay? Almost 90% of those folks that have been placed, So I think 1700 people, 1700 people have been placed. Almost, almost 90% of those are black and brown. Okay? 90% of those are black and brown.

The one stat that really stands out of what we're doing on the training side is 30% women. The national average is 3. Right? The national average is 3. And we're putting people into, putting people into programs. We're not just train them up, hey, have a nice day. We're putting people into apprenticeships at 30% that are women.

That's not doing anywhere else in the country. We put more apprentices anywhere else than anywhere else in the country. But to do that, to do that, go back to our original point, we have to have this community workforce agreements on the disaster relief and disaster rebuild.

How to know what that would look like on the, on the private side work. But I think, you know, one thing we've been throwing back and forth, there's gonna be any type of public subsidy, may it be time expedition, may it be a dollar spent, right?

There has to be some type of step on the layer stands Community Workforce Agreement. That's the only way we can do this, right? If we just, we won't worry about that. We're just gonna build, build, build. Well, we're going to create another problem like we didn't Katrina, right? I worked down there.

I saw the aftermath after the Bill was done. It was. They never really recovered, to be quite honest with you. They never really recovered. You can walk into the ninth Ward down there and see what happens when something's not built properly, it tumbles down, right?

And obviously we're not going to do, we're not going to let that happen here in California, in Los Angeles, because we have the best trained skill folks in America. But that the laissez faire economy of just not letting labor do what they do is not going to do us any, any good.

So we implore you to, if there's any type of public subsidy, may it be time or money to fast track these projects, make sure there's community workforce agreement attached to it, make sure there has to be. And if we already have in places, we already have these type of agreements, we already have labor standards.

Don't roll them back, right? These are short term, these may look like short term wins, but we are providing long term careers. I myself have a product of this, right? My father's an elevator mechanic. I'm a laborer by trade, right? Don't tell my dad. I'm a labor by trade.

He hates when I say that he wanted me to be an elevator mechanic. Still does. Weird thing, but I'm a direct product of this. So when I speak of this, I'm not just speaking to you as a guy who works for the Bill and trader. I'm direct product of this, right?

And so we are providing long term careers which provides middle class homes, right? A pension and health care. I've been through the whole entire system on this side and it works. I just bought my first home in Los Angeles, right. Just because of this. Right, because of this. So I thank you. I'll be here for any questions that you may want to answer. Thank you very much.

Say thank you so much to the panel. I'm going to turn it to my Members, fellow Members here who may have questions, and then I will have a few questions for the panel.

I want to, just before the questions, say, this has been the most sort of thorough kind of discussion of what is happening on the ground with real examples and real data. And I want to say how grateful I am to all of you for joining us.

What you shared, unconscionable to think that workers are trapped in fire zones, that they don't have communication in a language that they can understand, that we have trained apprentices in these communities who could be building their own neighborhoods, but yet there are not local hire agreements for them.

And that, you know, our firefighters, we will see the effects of this down the line in their health. So I can't say to you how important the information that you are sharing with us is.

And, and hopefully this line of questions will help us flesh that out even more as we think about what our role is in addressing some of the concerns that you've lifted up today. So I will turn it over to our Members. Assemblymember.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate all the testimony and comments. And obviously this is incredibly important in the rebuild process. I'm fortunate enough to represent the district that encompasses the Eaton fire, so we're dealing with this on a daily basis.

I want to thank all of you for everything you've done, especially our brothers and sisters at 1014 who were there on the night of the fires and are still there and haven't left, and all the workers throughout the whole LA County region who have done so much and people are struggling and people can't breathe still and people are looking for some help and everything you guys said rings true. And we are trying to work on a daily basis to help everyone, to help everyone get through this. It's going to take a long time.

And so your help is essential, educating us, telling us what we need to do at the state level, working with our local partners to continue to make sure that this is equitable, everyone is included, no one's left behind, and so appreciate everything that was said. One question, I just want to start with

Mr. Alvarez, good to see you as always. I think that what you're hitting on is complicated because we worked on these issues as soon as this happened with trying to see what a workforce agreement would look like with federal agencies doing the work and trying to lay out something that would encompass what you just described.

And I want to sort of dig into this a little bit more because my understanding is it's extremely hard to do. We obviously as a state allocated $2.5 billion. We are paying these bills. However, federal agencies are doing a lot of the phase one, almost all the phase one and phase two debris removal and remediation work.

And my understanding is the law is pretty clear that you can't Institute community workforce agreements even when the state is paying the bills, but the feds are doing the work. So can you just opine on that? Is the information that we're getting not correct?

Kind of depends on who's paying the final Bill. Right. And then also that's my always understanding from it. And also if it's who's leading the, who is leading the effort is always comes down to. So with the federal leading the effort, there's really like you said, nothing we can do. Right. There's nothing we can do.

But if somehow we can take it out of the Fed's hands. Because remember all the, all the, all homeowner has to do is when they sign, if they don't want the Feds to do the work themselves, all they have to do is have it that they is, have it inspected, that it meets federal requirements. Right.

No homeowner is mandated. They have to have the Feds clean it up. Yeah, they just have to meet, they just have to meet the local requirements.

Right. And I do think that that's, that's where the tension has been 100. The, the conversations are ongoing and I, I think all the electeds involved here have had these conversations and are continue to explore that. So I appreciate you raising it.

Do you, do you believe that a workforce agreement could be applicable and enforceable in a situation like this where it's private homeowners rebuilt. Are you envisioning a CWA for the rebuild or are you just talking about the debris removal remediation up until the rebuild?

I think we can have one for the, for the rebuild too. Obviously with private, you know, with private investment that's harder to do. Right. Legally. But if you're getting one, if you're getting one cent of public money to rebuild. Right. And, or, or, or you're being expedited. You're being expedited. You're expediting your permitting process. Right.

So there is public interest going into what you're doing. I think we should have to look, we should definitely look into that now on the public, just on the dollar send. If you're taking a public cent, then yes, we can, we can implement a cwa. Right. Because it's public money.

But on the timelines, that's a little bit different. And you know, something we're working with the City of Los Angeles is to make sure, just on the city side is to make sure that there is a contractor list already ready for homeowners.

So when they're ready to rebuild, there is a prepped list of good contractors, mostly union contractors that is on that list. They can go to maybe General contractors, electricians, whatever it may be to rebuild their homes. Right.

I think, I think that's critical, what you just described. Yeah, there's a shortage. There's this weird dichotomy of both supposedly a shortage of workers and contractors, and yet thousands of people out of jobs. It's hard for me to reconcile both of those. Yeah.

And so I do think that you guys have a huge role in getting in front of many of these victims who are trying to rebuild. Showing them that there are plenty of good workers that are ready to work and trying to expedite that process for them, I think is really critical.

So I appreciate everything you're doing and continue to do and look forward to working with you on it. And real, real quick pivot to miss Flocks, I appreciate everything you said. You had mentioned a centralized sort of disaster relief apparatus. So, you know, some folks in the state would say we already have that.

We have Cal OES, you know, we have CalRecycle, CAL FIRE. What exactly are you envisioning that the state doesn't already provide?

I would say that a centralized area where you could be able to turn around and give benefit, relief benefits to people, so have that infrastructure in place that if, and I believe this happened in some, in Pajaro and some of the other areas where people could get a $1500 check, believe it was.

So something where we have it set up, we have edd, that's unemployment. But if you're a victim of a disaster, you have a lot more needs. And it might not be that you lost your job, but you lost your school, your home, other things.

And of course we have a lot of people who are not eligible for unemployment or for du, for the federal disaster, unemployment. So having something in the state where we can be able to turn around and upon appropriation, of course, from the Legislature, we can just be able to get those checks out to people.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Can I actually just add to that? Because I think one of the challenges too is not just checks. I think with the current system right now in Cal oes. It's even about getting that critical ppe. You know, recently Cal OSHA just passed you know, new regulations of the type of masks that are needed in this.

In this cleanup area. And workers are having a hell of a time getting the actual mass necessary from Cal oes. I'm just going to say the truth. You know, these P100s with the special filters that are needed to actually deal with the chemicals that are on the ground.

So I think yes, it's about the getting cash relief to deal with that immediate need. But also thinking about the worker side. How are we also getting that critical equipment out and effectively fast way so that workers and homeowners honestly and residents are safe.

Thank you for that. I had a. Just a clarifying question because there, there are so many different departments that are involved in a natural disaster that I just wanted to ask a quick clarifying question maybe for all of us to kind of set the stage of who are all the different departments that we're working with.

So I, and, and I don't know who can answer this and maybe it's one of our, our folks up here. But I know that there's the federal, there's the state, there's the city, there's the county and so who are all the departments that are currently involved and the different aspects of the.

That what happened in the immediate now moving towards phase one of the cleanup and then moving towards the rebuilding. Does anyone know that?

I will take that. Okay, thank you. Because. And I was going to comment in a minute. When I was in the Administration, for example Orville Dam, 180,000 people are evacuated. A lot of workers are threatened by what is happening.

For the first time we put the equivalent of a CAL FIRE incident management team together and didn't have it in the Department of Water Resources. And we had every Department at the table. So if there was any Department that had a hand in that disaster, they were at the table.

And when you have fire disasters, the incident management teams do that. It is, it is firefighters from outside the area. I mean when the Big Sur fire happened, I lose track. Six or seven years ago I was communicating regularly with somebody from the Glendale Fire Department who was managing the team that was all these people.

Cal OSHA was there OES was there. Just anybody that had a hand in the disaster was in that. And the question is, is how that continues over time.

Because what was mentioned from the representative of the trades about the cleanup that and I think some of our colleagues have worked to expedite this in this one when we lost 900 houses just above me. The fact that homeowners could do it and the government was the backup meant that homeowners struggled.

And then after a period of time, the government came in, and that was a mistake. We learned that was a mistake. It should be what's happening in some of the places in Los Angeles where it's like, let's not wait. Let's help the homeowners. Let's not make them struggle.

And so there are these combined efforts with everybody at the table, and the oversight that should probably happen over time is, how did that work? Was there somebody that was not at the table that should have been? Are there some of the regulations like Ms.

Flocks was talking about that should have been in place to be tools when that is happening?

And I want to say in our next few panels, we're going to hear from the Army Corps of Engineers, and I think they can sort of break down exactly who is responsible for what. I really want to appreciate. And I think what you said, Senator Laird and Assemblymember Armedian, it is complex. It involves a lot of.

Madam Chair, a lot of layers of government and state and federal agencies, and in this instance, even, you know, who's in Altadena and who's in the Palisades. Right. It's. It's. It's complex.

So I think if we can, when we hear from the Army Corps of Engineers, I think we should really drill down on that, especially as it pertains to the contracting and what regs can be followed, what additional requirements can be added to ensure that we are, you know, to that point, bringing our local hire and ensuring high labor standards on these projects.

So I want to turn it over to Senator Durazo and then Senator Laird, I think you had a question as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the panel. I just within week or two weeks, after all the briefings that we were given, I asked the question about where are these jobs? How are these jobs going to be protected? How are we going to make sure that there's a union standard, the quality of the work?

I was given one answer, which was, all of this is going to be done with good, you know, union standards. Okay. A couple of weeks later, I start to hear, and I'm asking, you know, verification from those out in the field. No, it's not happening that way.

So a couple of, you know, and every week was a different answer from different people as to how this was being done as far as the work standards and the most consistent, you know, of course, is that the trades, they know what's happening on the ground.

Of course, our firefighters and our public sector know what's happening on the ground. But it was very, very frustrating. And I think that we need to as jumping ahead in terms of a recommendation.

We need a manual on what will be covered and what won't be covered automatically, what needs to be done in order to make sure that these are going to be. That the people working these jobs are going to have the protections. Because right now, it's all over the lot. It's all over the lot. And that gets abused.

I think also in terms of worker, just a quick thing on the availability is we not only do the trades have enough, but our community worker centers have workers ready to be trained. They're not trained, but they're used and they're not and they're exploited because of that. So we have to do that enforcement.

There is no, I mean, I had a leaflet that I got a temp agency that was just asking for, well, we'll show up on time. Reliability to show up on time. There's no requirements on training, certification, nothing. It was just show up and you'll get $20 an hour. We need a thousand workers to do this.

So I think we can, when it's a little bit calmer, like now, we need the help of those who know this. We need a manual on what is covered, what is not covered.

As Senator Harabedian said about, you know, what is covered and what's not covered and what do we need to do that we can use the procurement, procurement process. We can use a lot of processes in this, in this state to make sure that people are not getting abused and left out of safe and healthy working conditions.

Thank you, madam.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just going to make an observation and the panel was great in and the panel went only so far, only because some of us unfortunately have extensive experience and I have an accident prone home region, just completely accidentally prone.

So when the Pajaro levy was mentioned that went out and immediately displaced a few thousand people. What was not mentioned was the battery storage fire which was taken off the newspapers because it was a few days after the Los Angeles fires where people were evacuated in a four mile thing. Highway 1 was closed for four days.

And you go through the things and that's how you learned that there are certain workers that were disadvantaged that you wouldn't think about it. I mean when we had the 100 year storm, we had bus drivers and buses just trapped up in the mountains because the roads had slid and, and the communications were out. We didn't know where they were. And trying to, to figure that out.

One of my friends from college grew up in the Palisades and his mother in the late 90s was just home with a home care worker and the home care worker evacuated and the, the older person was evacuated to the home care worker's house because there was nowhere else where else to go.

And if you think of when the highway fell in in Big Sur last Easter, there there were a thousand day trippers that just thought they were gone for the day, that were trapped and were sleeping in their cars and but there were all these hospitality workers that were completely trapped and had no ability to get in or out or do things.

And when you look at some of these battery storage and Aliso Canyon, which I had a lot of experience when that gas leak happened, the, we were worried about the workers and there was, there were all these disaster plans, but there was nothing for monitoring, health monitoring and, and it was the Los Angeles Department of Health that finally to meet a need, put up the stations in the neighborhoods around Aliso Canyon. And it is a Professor at CSU and finally EPA that are monitoring the heavy metals that went in the plume and outside the battery storage site.

And so I know that Senator Durazo was talking about a manual for another piece of this, but there really is a lot to learn from these in a way that you might not think of it unless you went through it and trying to figure out with workers in mind at all levels, hospitality, home care, transportation, just what do you do, what's their safety and how does it work.

And then one last sort of unrelated comment. A week ago, the Education Budget Subcommitee, which I chair in the Senate had a Hearing on the schools in the fires and, you know, Paradise, I think it took seven years to rebuild the school. And so our focus was, could we do something that is quicker?

And when 40 miles of highway was out in Big Sur, Caltrans built a bridge in five months. And they, they ordered the steel before the design was final because it was life and death that people were cut off from everything. And so I have asked in two different hearings if we could use design sequencing for schools.

Do you have to go architect, design procurement? Can you stack them on each other in a way that it go quickly? And they laughed at me because I said the people in the Department of Finance were flummoxed by the question. They were just flummoxed. They weren't sure how to do it.

And yet I think, and of course this will be in the manual that comes from Senator Durazzo's request on who the workers are that do the design sequencing. But those are the kinds of things that have to come out of this disaster as well. So these kids don't wait seven years for their school to be rebuilt.

Thank you, Senator Laird. Madam Chair

Thank you. I noticed our other panelists arrived, so I want to give Chris an opportunity to do his statement. But, but the reason I asked. Who. Are all the different departments understanding the complexity of what happened in these fires? I also understand that these are natural disasters that are going to happen, unfortunately, over and over again.

And I do not want to leave this hearing or other hearings not understanding who the different departments are we need to be in communications with. But also where do we go from here in terms of accountability? Because we're often being asked to fast track resources or legislation to get things moving after a natural resort disaster.

And workers are at the front line most of the time. Workers who look like myself and who are currently, to be honest, terrorized by our current Administration.

And so I want to be able to ask those questions of the departments who are responsible for ensuring that the resources that we vote to ensure go out efficiently and effectively and as soon as possible to those who need it, but also be able to ask questions and understand what is happening and how do we move forward with future natural disasters so that we're not always asking the same questions or to be honest, upset about the same responses.

To hear that workers are not getting the ppe that is, there is something that I've heard way too often, whether it's the farm workers, whether it's the COVID disaster or whether it's today. And that's why I asked that question, who are the different departments? How are they working with each other? And how do we as policymakers better understand how we put all these pieces together moving forward? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I. I saw that Chris Hannon has joined us, and we want to open it up for him to say a few words. And Derek, we know you have a flight to catch, so thank you for your testimony.

But before you go, I did have a question about some of our what we should be expecting. I think what you're hearing on this dais is that we want a new approach.

We want to use this as an opportunity to figure out how the state can regulate these disasters in a way that helps to address not just the urgent and immediate need, but what we're going to forecast to come. And your work looking at the health of firefighters raised a question for me.

You know, what are we thinking in terms of the types of impact or potential cancer or health risk that we might see in our firefighter ranks moving forward? And how should the Legislature be prepared to deal with that?

Yeah. So we know that from our routine duties, exposure to products of combustion increases cancer risk by driving a number of the key characteristics of carcinogenic exposures that can be things like DNA damage, epigenetic alterations, et cetera. But we don't actually really understand how those mechanisms result in illness. Right. This is one of the reasons that cancer is such a complex disease.

And so one of the things that would be highly beneficial would be to have something analogous to, like the World Trade Center health Program, but for California firefighters who have this repeated burden of exposure to, you know, wildland fires, urban interface fires, and now more frequently, these urban conflagrations that are happening around the world, and that may be a part of our future technology come.

And so this is something that's essentially like a combination of health monitoring, but also research to understand the impacts of the exposures and what adverse health outcomes will come of it.

Simply put, we don't know what the outcomes will be, but we know that the exposures are severe and that they drive biological mechanisms that can increase the risk for a number of adverse health outcomes, not just cancer.

And having a structured program in the state that's funded is what would really make the difference for us in the fire service. Right. Like, currently, we're conducting a research study called the California Firefighter Cancer Research Study that my research partner and I at UC Davis established about two years ago utilizing University of California Climate Action funding.

But, you know, going forward, we need the funding and the infrastructure to continue that type of research, leveraging the University of California system, leveraging the Department of Public Health and the other extensive resources that we have throughout the state so that we have a program that's both robust, established and long term, so that we can be prepared to meet those unknowns that are very likely in the future when it comes to adverse health outcomes, not just from the Eaton and Palisades, but, but from all of our occupational exposures and our excessive burden of those exposures.

And I appreciate your work and your insights today.

Thank you.

Mr. Hannan. We'd like to give you a moment to give share your remarks and appreciate you making it through security. We know it's tough to get through, but please go.

Absolutely. Thank you. Honorable labor chairs, honorable Committee Members, and forgive me if I repeat anything that my brother Eddie Alvarez said or Sister Flocks said. You know, some of the comments were made and the purpose of this hearing is for us to be responsive and for us to do better.

And whether it be the safety of the firefighters or the safety of the workers that construction workers that clean up and rebuild the areas after the fires, it's important for us to always look to do better. And in 2022, the State of California and the Legislature passed a Bill signed into law by our Governor, SB 978.

SB 978 set up a process when the State of California was awarding contracts to clean up the devastation and the debris in the fire area that it could ahead of time, pre qualify contractors, set up a method, and this is as much about safety as it is about being efficient.

It set up a method for the contractor to pre qualify and their ability to employ workers and their ability to employ workers at a prevailing wage rate so that we can support workers living in communities.

The ability to employ workers that have in a workforce that's a skilled and trained workforce that's trained when you're in these dangerous areas, do it not only for the geography but for the for the hazardous materials and debris and remnants that are left that we're able to work.

And we're trained to work in those areas, safely employ apprentices so that we're not bringing people off the streets.

As Senator Durazzo and many of you have shared flyers with me, basically calling people to come out, put themselves in harm's way for a wage that does not match either prevailing wage or the Davis Bacon wages that the Federal Government requires without the training to work safely and protect themselves so they can go home, but also to not spread further harm to the community and to the other workers and community Members in the area.

So it set up a procedure for them to use A skilled and trained workforce, pay prevailing wage, also a history of working in the field and a safety modification rate Low enough to show responsibility that they're not going to put workers in harm's way.

To my knowledge, this has not been utilized as it was intended to be utilized by the State of California because of the funds flowing through the Federal Government and not flowing to the State of California for the State of California to procure these services.

The Federal Government, from what I understand has, and forgive me if this is a repeat, has been doing a good job and engaging through the Army Corps of Engineers contractors, and in our case union contractors and employing skilled and trained workers.

We believe it would flow even more efficiently through the laws that you set up through this body and the State of California. It doesn't have to stop there though. The rebuild should also happen in the same way. It should also happen where workers can afford to live in the community. Local workers can be involved.

But local workers are not being put in harm's way without training. So they should be graduates of apprenticeship programs. They should be enrolled in state approved apprenticeship programs.

And the people and the families that have already suffered too much because of these disasters shouldn't be exploited by contractors utilizing workers that are not trained to rebuild, whether it be their home, their school, their community center, their temple or any other part of their community.

So we can use this as a model to rebuild and we can insert these regulations a lot easier when funding is being provided, whether it be the state or a local level. We have training centers that have been training for years that have the workforce.

But we can also ramp up specialized training for hazwoper like the operating engineers and the laborers are doing now. That happens across every trade. So happy to talk more about it. Forgive me for being late coming in, but we appreciate hearing the workers perspective on this issue.

Thank you so much for that, Mr. Hannan. I think we are in total agreement that the values and laws that we have put in place to create more opportunity to protect workers, to insure workers who are doing the work can afford to live in those communities.

And I guess my question is, you know, in this LA example, what percentage of the work, the share of the work do you have? And when I say you, I mean you as in us. What percentage do we have in terms of these laws that we have passed these rules around cleanup, around the future rebuilding?

In this example, can we say, you know, if we could say of all of the dollars that are going down into this region, our 2.5 billion, what share is actually being utilized in the way that the Californians have envisioned it?

I think right now the money flowing in through the Army Corps of Engineers has been accomplishing where a majority of union labor is being used, skilled and trained labor is being used. I don't believe it would be exclusive, but I believe a majority and as we deploy more, we'll be able to know more real time what's happening.

We know if it flowed through the state and the state laws that are on the books as of today, it would be insured. Obviously in both cases we need to do compliance, make sure that contractors aren't slipping through the cracks.

You know, if people were passing out those flyers, there probably was an opportunity somewhere to get untrained workers out there. So we know it's happening.

I think whether it be through the, through the State of California, the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement, or through the County of Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Contract Administration, if it's on a school, LAUSD has a great labor compliance program. I think the majority probably right now is being accomplished that way.

But as we rebuild, we hope this is not the case. We hope that contractors aren't going to individual businesses or homeowners and preying on them, knowing that if they don't say yes, they'll go to the next street and they'll find somebody to there. So we hope that people act responsibly.

We can do a lot when we're providing assistance to ensure guidelines like for the cleanup that when we rebuild and our membership has the capacity across all the unionized trades.

We have apprenticeship training centers local in the area we have adjacent to the Eaton fire is the Flintridge center where they're preparing community Members for opportunities in the trades. The local union halls in Pasadena, adjacent to the Eaton fire are regularly don't have room for thousands upon thousands of applicants.

Not because they don't have the capacity to train them, but because the jobs aren't available. We're in a unique spot where normally the firefighters save all of us and bail us out. This one got away. There's tremendous devastation.

Let's use it as a way to empower the thousands of applicants that didn't have a space to get into one of those programs before. Let's empower them to come into those programs. And across Los Angeles County, there's nearly as many apprentices in Los Angeles County as the most in any other state. Not quite.

Almost more in that one county. So you can't tell me that our membership that can maintain the 80 million square feet of schools in Los Angeles can't also rebuild the schools. I know flowing through Los Angeles Unified will accomplish that.

But we can build everything in there and we can rebuild it together and also uplift people and also being respectful that we can't take away the devastation and the impact on people that have happened. And we want to be respectful and we want to be graceful about it.

But when we rebuild, empowering workers and making sure that people aren't exploited and taken advantage of, and I don't just mean the workers, you know, with contractors that are willing to exploit their very own workforce and their family, you know, what are they willing to do to their customer?

So we want to make sure it's done to the highest level. And we know we can do it. We can build anything you all can imagine.

And I have one follow up question because you said the majority of the work now is looking as if it's meeting the standards that we put in place. But certainly as the rebuild grows, as individual homeowners are making these decisions that might not be the case.

Can you share a little bit about, you know, what are the apprenticeship requirements in terms of what level of participation they need to have on these jobs per the rules and, you know, what does it look like for an apprentice to be able to be a part of building in this moment and particularly on these projects that may go on and on and on. What does that mean for the apprentice?

Yeah, so we should have plenty of room for apprentices and need for apprentices also. Not just room, but need for apprentices. But we need skilled journey level workers. And the requirements through the State of California would have been at least 30% of the journey level workforce need to have graduated from apprenticeship programs.

And if they're not a journey level worker, they're enrolled in a registered apprenticeship program approved by the State of California. If it's flowing through the Army Corps of Engineers, the Davis Bacon requirement apprenticeship is optional. So they both.

You can utilize apprentices in both the state's prevailing wage, the state's skilled and trained workforce requires it, and the state's prevailing wage also requires for every, for an apprenticeable craft for every five hours, one apprentice hours worked. For every five journey level hours, one apprentice hour. For the federal, it's optional, so you can use apprentices.

And from what we've seen and what we've heard, and Eddie can probably speak better to this, but the experience from the operating engineers and from the laborers are that the majority of the contractors that are being engaged are union contractors.

They already do utilize a skilled and trained workforce because that's how we perpetuate the training for our future generations. That's happening to a large extent, but as they roll out more, we'll see how that works.

But if it continues the way it is now, the largest portion of them are union contractors employing union Members that have been trained, that are getting the proper haswopper training, that know how to handle and how to protect themselves and the community around them. So we believe that's happening.

But as we rebuild, the guidelines aren't set up yet. The county has a strong project labor agreement that Eddie and Executive Secretary Medrano and all those affiliates work under. The City of Los Angeles does. The Los Angeles Unified School District does.

But we want to make sure none of those things are waived in the, you know, trying to save time. It doesn't take time to any extra time to have a meeting to make sure that the workers are prepared. A two hour meeting before a job and a pre job meeting that doesn't take extra time.

You know, we're going to hear about employers claiming workforce shortages. If you work through the State of California's robust apprenticeship system, the local union halls and your local building trades, we're going to have the workforce, but we're also going to be able to grow the workforce to be able to meet the needs.

And that optional piece is problematic for me because what apprenticeship does, and particularly when it is coupled with community benefits of local hire, it says that those young men and women who are at Flint Ridge who live across the street from the fire zone, some of them lost their homes, that they will have the opportunity to learn on the job, earn on the job and rebuild their own communities.

And they look like the communities that were impacted by the fire. If it's an option, that means that won't happen. That means that we then are not multiplying our investment in not just rebuilding, but creating pathways and careers for those most impacted communities. So I have a real problem with the fact that it's optional.

I'm glad to hear that it's happening, but to be quite honest, I have not seen one piece of data to show me what those numbers look like. It has not been produced. I've asked, so I'm glad to hear that. We are hearing anecdotally that it's happening.

But I think as state Legislature Members we should be able to hear directly from contractors and to see how they're ensuring that Our investments are putting folks to work in good union jobs and making sure that everyone has access. Mr.

Alvarez, if you could make the ask and this is contingent on happening this way, but if, and we need every bit of help we can get from the Federal Government, but if we could have the resources coming in to be deployed through the State of California, you know those high standards for apprenticeship for, you know, all the support the California Workforce Development Board did to support high road training programs to support the pathways into these union sponsored apprenticeship programs, those things get utilized better.

So if the one ask is if the federal resources and the state and all the local resources come through the State of California and then flow through the types of policy that we've worked on decades to empower local workers, to empower trained workers, to empower, empower women coming into our trades, those things will be more successful.

One of the things that Chris hit on is the compliance part. Our best community workforce agreements is where we have the strictest compliance. The compliance cost is about 1% of the overall project. Right. And everywhere we have good compliance is our best agreements because it doesn't just hold contractors feeds the fire.

It also makes us accountable to make sure what we're doing also right. Make sure we're getting those people hired. And, and it makes us learn as we move forward into future negotiations and future rebuilds, right. Of what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong.

And the not having that compliance as you talk about is the biggest thing for us because we love the numbers. Obviously we love having these numbers also because we learn from it of where we're meeting our goals or where we're not meeting our goals.

But when we don't have a community workforce agreement, it's just hard to do because it's essentially an unfunded mandate that you're selling, hey, you should be doing this. And it's one of those things well, you should be doing, but I ain't going to do it right.

And when we have a mandated into a community workforce agreement, hey, it's in, you got to do it. Let me see some numbers. And again, I meet, during I've, in my career, I've met a hundred of jacs where we go over these numbers. And I've called contractors myself saying, hey man, I'm just giving you a heads up.

You keep doing this for another month, you're off this project, right? I mean they're going to find you, right? Or they're going to do something.

But we got to be able to have that community Workforce agreement to be able to actually put the feet to the fire and say, hey, look, this is the labor and companies meet to get this done.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And I know that compliance is critically important for all of us. We need some receipts on the ways in which these dollars are being spent and that they're being spent in a way to build a future workforce and to make sure workers are protected. I wanted to just ask Ms.

Ortiz a question, and I know we spent a good chunk of time on the construction side of things, but I wanted to find out how you talked about the workers who are out of work, who've been out of work. Can you say a little bit more about that?

And where are they getting resources because we don't have the Unemployment Insurance. What is. How are those workers being able to weather this disaster?

Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. So, yeah, we've seen, literally as soon as the fire started, hundreds of workers who have called us. We have a list of about 500 day laborers and domestic workers across the fires. I want to remind people there were actually five fires happening at one time.

I know we're talking about the big Eaton and the big Palisades fires. There were fires in Hollywood, up in Sylmar as well, where there are also smaller pockets of workers who were impacted as well. So we have a list of about hundreds of workers. There's probably up to 500 right now that we're trying to go through.

I will say the majority. We're giving them resources, and it's falling on a lot of the nonprofit organizations to provide cash assistance, grocery assistance, diapers, food.

Our main office in Pico Union looks like a warehouse right now because of all the materials that we're giving out, including PPE, and that critical support, and most of that money has come from private philanthropy, to be quite Frank.

The concern is that if it took workers two years to recover from the Woolsey fire, we're anticipating five years, even longer, as these homes get rebuilt, as businesses get rebuilt in the area. So that's really how, through a lot of private investment is how we are supporting workers.

There have been smaller funds through the City of Los Angeles that are actually done already supporting some of those workers. But I will say also there are some requirements that make it tough.

For example, providing ITIN numbers, which I know a lot of workers, especially given the current federal Administration, are very concerned about giving up to get that information. So right now we are going through a robust intake process and distribution process to administer about $1.0 million that we've received to directly for day laborers and domestic workers.

I appreciate your reference of this California Worker Outreach Project and other programs that address this outreach and help to resource some of that. And certainly those workers are under attack in so many ways and I think we do have to figure out what is the way that we can help to support them in in this time.

I, I think we are going to conclude this panel. If there are other Members who have questions before they go, please feel free to ask.

I want to thank you all for your participation, for your information and recommendations to this, this body on what we can do to protect workers better and to make sure they are safe and able to weather the storm financially. So thank you for your time. Next we're going to be moving to our employer perspective panel.

I wanted to ask now Angela Lee, Director of Olive Tree Learning Center, Katherine Peoples, CEO of Houzd Construction and Development. Rebecca Rasmussen with the Altadena Chamber and Jermaine Hampton with the Workforce Development and Special Projects for the LA County Economic Development Corporation. Please have a seat at the table.

And Jermaine, I think you're the main event in the room today. Our other panelists are going to join via Zoom so staff is help us get those camera set up. Okay. We will start with Katherine. Katherine Peoples with Houzd Construction and Development.

Good day Madam Chair, Senator, Assembly and Committee Members. My name is Katherine Peoples. I'm the proud owner of Houzz Construction and JRM Development as a minority construction company based in Los Angeles.

Thank you for the opportunity today to speak on this critical issue of equitable recovery for local and small business workers in the aftermath of the devastating wildfires.

As a construction firm specializing in demolition, grading, General contracting and registered on the SAM.gov systems, our company stands ready and fully capable of contributing to the recovery and rebuilding efforts in the Altadena and Palisade areas.

Willing to hire Union labor Despite our qualifications and proactive efforts including attending numerous sessions and submitting multiple sources sought inquiries, we have yet to receive an opportunity to partner with subcontractors under the major disaster contractor EEC that has the five year contract held under Region 9 for disaster recovery efforts.

The current system designated to provide fair access to opportunities is instead shuttering out qualified small business and local businesses like ours. It is not due to lack of credentials or capabilities on our part or those that are locally. We have diligently prepared and maintained and required the paperwork and certifications.

Yet the bidding opportunities consistently overlook local companies like ours in the Altadena and surrounding areas. Reinforcing the unequitable playing field in the construction industry, it is disheartening to see large, well established firms consistently securing contracts while small qualified minority local business owners are being left out despite meeting all prerequisites.

This disparate, this disparity, excuse me, is not only undermines our business, but also limits our job opportunities for our skilled union workers. Ensuring equity in disaster recovery is not a moral responsibility. It is actually an equitable necessity to strengthen our communities and workforce by expanding opportunities to include more small local businesses and contractors.

We are looking for fresh perspectives. If that's done so, I bring to the Committee today a potential solution that might be considered in helping to bridge the gap and create more opportunity for local and minority small businesses as we rebuild and recover.

And that would be possibly considering a crowdsourcing initiative that would be promoted by social media because at this time that's the best way to communicate. Where in small businesses could pitch their licensures, they could pitch their services directly to community or potential contracting opportunities, including government agencies and large corporations.

Through this initiative, businesses could showcase their past projects, highlight their skills and certifications and willingness to work with union laborers because that is key with any government contracting.

Our integrating technology driven solutions and procurement process with something like this crowdfunding aspect would eliminate barriers that traditionally are keeping small businesses out of the loop and having opportunities to be involved in the recovery aspect.

I urge the Committee to take decisive action to reform the current procurement process to ensure that there is a level playing field when it comes to providing opportunities for communities of color and those looking to locally work within the community. I close out my comments at this time. This is Katherine Peoples.

Thank you very much Ms. Peoples. Next we will go to Rebecca Rasmussen with the Altadena Chamber.

Good morning. Thank you for inviting us to speak today. My name is Rebecca Rasmussen. I'm a board Member with the Altadena Chamber of Commerce. Our businesses directly affected by the fire have experienced property damage resulting in loss of inventory, equipment and or infrastructure.

We also have businesses not directly harmed by the fire that face disruptions due to evacuation orders, smoke damage or inability to access their facilities which resulted in loss of revenue during the disruption period.

There's also substantial economic loss from a decrease in foot traffic in the area, reduced consumer spending, and potential long term declines in business activity due to a lack of people living in the area. And this is affecting not only the businesses in Altadena, but also the businesses in the neighboring City of Pasadena.

There are job losses, temporary or permanent, as businesses close or reduce their workforce in response to the economic hardship and our concern for all businesses is navigating the complexities of insurance claims which can be time consuming and may not cover all losses leading to financial strain.

According to the LA County Fire Department, we lost 153 brick and mortar businesses. This does not include many of our home based businesses as well, of which we have at least 40 that are Members of the Chamber that are home based businesses. So the Chamber has several programs that we're doing to try to help the situation.

We are partnering with LA County Supervisor Katherine Barger, Senator Judy Chu's Road to Recovery Plan and the office of Senator Sasha Rene Perez, the State Senator, the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity and also The Coalition of 20 San Gabriel Valley Chambers under the leadership of Aziza Miri.

This collaboration ensures that businesses have access to critical resources and support to address both immediate and long term business needs. The Chamber has developed these following initiatives. We are organizing recovery focused events where we host webinars and seminars with local, state and Federal officials addressing financial business concerns and solutions for destroyed and damaged businesses.

Open public Board Meetings that are held monthly with presentations from sba, DEO and those agencies directly related to the wildfire, including the Army Corps of Engineers and and FEMA.

We have initiated a Call to Action where we encourage the community to submit their immediate needs and concerns that have affected them and to date many Chamber Members and community residents have responded with their most pressing concerns revolving around housing and workplace issues.

Individuals are being directed to an assigned Member of the Committee for Housing and Office Space Availability and we have added support of the Back to Business Pasadena Chamber Task Force that will help to reach out to all Altadena businesses.

We are also doing voice messaging where we provide a weekly voice message directing individuals to our website for daily updates from local officials and assistance from the Chamber.

We have partnered with an organization called Chamber Nation which is providing us with a new management system, excuse me, system and website that offers training by experts for businesses who are looking to transition from their in person business to temporary online services. The website offers multilingual translation and is helpful for our diverse community.

We have a Wildfire Recovery page on the website that is our Chamber's main resource referral page for all local, state and federal disaster information.

The Chamber has also partnered with the Pasadena Federal Credit Union as a distribution Center for essential needs for businesses destroyed or damaged from the wildfire and so we're distributing there N95 masks, air purifiers and portable solutions solar panel power stations as well as other needs so The Altadena Chamber of Commerce is spearheading efforts to assist our local business community during these trying times.

Our focus on collaboration, community engagement and actionable results is helping to shape a resilient and thriving local economy. It has brought interest and attention from neighboring communities and chambers outside of the State of California, supporting our efforts and building bridges. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much Ms. Rasmussen. Appreciate those comments. Next we are going to turn to Mr. Jermaine Hampton who is here with us with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.

Thank you Madam Chair and Co Chair and thank you to all of the Committee as well. I do have a slide deck that has some key points if that could be put up.

And then in addition to that, obviously there was also a Wildfire study that was shared in advance of this meeting as well for your reading when time permits. And so I'll just go ahead and get started. My name is Jermaine Hampton. I am the Vice President of Workforce Development and Strategic initiatives with the LAEDC.

The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that champions equitable economic growth across the Los Angeles region. LAEDC staff and our Members represent the diversity of Los Angeles County and act as a trusted convener, thought partners, value service providers, regional stewards and catalysts for transformational change.

Our mission is reinventing our economy to collaboratively advance growth and prosperity for all. I don't know if this click is working. Essentially our LAEDC we integrate our comprehensive strategy through engagement, research, business assistance, workforce development and approach international trade. And this approach essentially supports industry cluster development and regional growth through robust public private partnerships, fostering a more equitable and and sustainable economic landscape.

And so you can see right there in the diagram what that looks like in terms of our workforce development role in specific, which is key to this conversation today we serve as a master convener here in LA County.

Essentially through that we have programs or strategic initiatives such as the California Jobs first program where we are able to collectively bring together over 700 partners across different entity types, everyone from labor to Native American tribes, all the way to public and private entities and also obviously community based organizations.

Roughly about 100 of those partners actually serve the Altadena and or Palisades area as well. We serve as an industry engagement leader so we have the ability to bring together industry partners in your high demand or in in demand or high growth industries and connect them to education which is key so that they can have those conversations.

So education integration and then using our data to actually drive what those results look like and what those partnerships look like. In addition to that, obviously, our impact is enhanced workforce collaborations that equip residents with in demand skills and supporting economic growth through targeted workforce strategies.

So let's get into some of the data, and a lot of this information obviously will be in that study that was provided before.

So just some preliminary data and thank you to go biz. We are actually going to be tasked with providing the quarterly updates in terms of economic briefings and then also the deep dive study on the impact of the wildfires in LA over the course of the next several months and obviously through 2026 as well.

And so just looking at the preliminary impact, Property damages are anywhere from 28 billion to 53.8 billion. Business disruptions are anywhere from 4.6 billion to 8.9 billion in lost economic output. Job losses, which are key here, almost 25,000 to 50,000 job losses, tax revenues anywhere from 730 million all the way to 1.4 billion.

And again, these are preliminary numbers. These are not final numbers by any means. The most impacted industries, this is key. Retail, healthcare, construction, professional services. This is going to be a challenge, guys. And so we need your help. Challenges facing employers and small business, Small businesses in particular.

You're really looking at financial struggles from lost revenue, obviously workforce displacement and labor shortages, delays in insurance payouts and rebuilding, supply chain disruptions and obviously increased operational costs. Workforce and labor market impacts. Job losses are concentrated in different service sectors. That's very problematic when we think about L A right now.

We have major events that are going to be coming that are huge economic drivers in our region. This is a good thing and we need to actually piggyback off of that. This concept or this notion that LA is on fire that was pushed by the media. LA is not on fire anymore.

LA was on fire in certain portions of LA. LA has 88 cities and 100 plus unincorporated areas. We serve the entire county. Two of those areas were on fire and then there were other, you know, another three that were impacted, obviously. But that whole narrative has to be changed. We do not need to lose tourism.

We do not need folks not coming into our city at the top of the year for the NBA All Star Game next year, when FIFA World Cup comes, 2027, when the super bowl comes, and certainly not when the LA28 Olympics come.

We actually need to have an influx of traffic and simultaneously working together to also rebuild and recover and build stronger. But then in addition to that, put on the greatest show on Earth when it pertains to these different events because they are economic boosters, huge economic boosters. And so that's one thing I just wanted to emphasize there.

There's a disproportionate impact on low income and diverse communities. So that's a place we need to zero in on extended recovery timelines. We're looking at anywhere from 5 to 10 years. Could be more. Once we actually unpack some more of this data, potential long term worker displacement, that's a huge issue.

So how do we leverage our educational ecosystem, our American Job Centers of California, our our public private partnerships, apprenticeships on a job, training to ensure that that type of thing does not happen. And then obviously a need for workforce retraining and upskilling.

A lot of times we look at our unified school districts and we want to make sure that we're more intentional about the types of career pathways our young folks go into. But what about our older workers? What about our folks that are already employed?

With the adoption of things such as AI and automation, the whole workforce landscape has changed. Those individuals need to be upskilled and reskilled. And so when you think about just these areas that were impacted, let's just look at Altadena, for example. There's a huge proportion of individuals that work in TV, film and media behind the camera, right.

That work in different types of industries. Are they getting the upskilling and reskilling needed as they recover and actually go back on to different types of jobs and opportunities? So some equitable recovery strategies just based on preliminary data. And again, a lot of this will change.

We obviously want to learn from the past wildfire recoveries and things like the camp fire and then also the Lahaina fire as well. We want to support for displaced workers and businesses. We need to enhance public private partnerships for economic resilience. Workforce retraining and job placement programs are very critical and in targeted financial aid for small businesses.

A lot of the businesses that we've been talking to, they do not want, you know, interest based loans. Right? They actually need grants to recover. Some of them just need small grants to actually recover and come back and open their doors. We need to expand disaster relief programs for business and workers.

This is some of our policy recommendations. We need to accelerate insurance claims for permitting processes. We need to invest in workforce development and retraining. I think the gentleman actually notated the design sequence.

That's something that we want to support and actually get passed through with legislation and the support that's needed so we can move forward and expedite the rebuild, invest in workforce development, retraining. So we need to actually enhance and actually build that up even further, strengthen infrastructure resilience. So we need to build back smarter.

And then in addition to that, we need again more support for small businesses with grants. And if we are going to go the loan route, it needs to be Low interest loans. So kind of, just to kind of summarize this in conclusion, collaboration is the key. LAEDC, we serve as a master convener for LA County. We're going to continue to do that.

We're going to continue to ensure that we're working in tandem with the Governor's office, working in tandem with all of you, working in tandem with the city, with the Department of Economic Opportunity that are actually on the ground, boots on the ground doing this work in helping our businesses and our workers recover.

Businesses and workers need immediate and long term support. This is not going to be something that is short sighted. This is going to take time and we're going to have to be patient, we're going to have to be diligent with our efforts. And then the obvious other pieces, policy interventions can drive resilience and economic renewal.

So again I just want to just thank you all but the big deal here is I just want to leave with everyone is LA is open, LA is open for business and we have to continue to drive tourism, hospitality services and everything that is going to happen as a result of these major events that are really very close to us. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hampton. And to all of the presenters, I will turn to Members for questions. Assembly Member

Thank you again, Madam Chair. Thank you to all the panelists. I only see one of them in front of me. I know that the other two are listening and appreciate everything that was said and all the testimony. And I want to start with Mr. Hampton.

Just thank you for being here and everything you're doing and I know that you all are working hard and your team has been really tremendous. I want to delve into something that you highlighted. The previous panel highlighted it.

Our friends from the trades talked about it more than the others, but all the panelists talked about it and it's really trying to figure out this dichotomy of labor shortages that we're being told exist.

And also this seem which I think is true, we have a huge supply of skilled workers that are ready to jump in, ready to work, ready to help with rebuild and recovery, but want to be up trained and skilled and, and make sure that they have a career regardless of these wildfires and these disasters going forward.

And I think that's where you come in and I think that you can help us coordinate that because I think that right now we have a huge supply and demand problem. Right.

The more supply of labor we have that are ready to jump in and help with this rebuild, it helps with costs, it helps lower costs, it helps Everyone, even the homeowners, the business owners, anyone in the region who is trying to help with the rebuild.

And so I do think that there's this myth being trotted out by a lot of people that hey, prices are going to be really high and you just have to, you know, grit and bear higher prices for labor and, and, and materials.

And it's going to take longer because we just don't have, we don't have the skilled trades, as you said. I mean, the entertainment industry lives and breathes in these communities.

In, in my community in Altadena, so many of those workers have not only lost their homes, but they're losing their jobs to overseas projects and AI and all these other confluence of factors.

So how can we work with you to make sure that we can redeploy many of these workers and get them involved in the rebuild, private homes, the downtown centers, etc. And do it in a way where we can actually talk with labor, the employers, you in the middle, and have some legislation that, that backs it up?

I think the easy answer is coalitions. Coalition building is huge. And so we learned through the California Jobs first process in bringing those 700 partners together that anything can be achieved if you work in tandem and work in collaboration.

And so if we are able to bring together 700 plus partners for that initiative, which is very technical in industry and demand driven, we can certainly come together as it pertains to addressing these fires and ensuring that our workers and our businesses have the proper support. So I think it's two things. It's coalition building.

We can serve as the master convener or regional convener for an effort of that magnitude. And then in addition to that, obviously the messaging and the branding and making sure people are aware of the opportunities. I think a lot of times LA is massive in terms of its size, right?

And so a lot of times when folks are going through crisis, especially workers who are most impacted by what's happening right now with the fires, they're not necessarily thinking straight, right?

They're not necessarily in a place where they can be sound in their decision making or necessarily know who to talk to about an opportunity or where to go to tap into certain resources. So a lot of that comes down to messaging and how we're getting the word out and ensuring that individuals have access to opportunities.

So coalition building, messaging, proper communication, but those are things that we can actually support at ladc, in addition to that with our county partners. So Department of Economic Opportunity, a key partner, the City of LA, we have Carolyn hall here that's going to be testifying today with the City of LA collaboratively working together.

That's the way to move forward.

I appreciate that. I would just say for the other panelists, the small business owners, Ms. People spoke to it. Are, are you incorporating? Because we, what you just said is absolutely true. And, and our Madam Chairs have talked about it, other panelists. We need to promote skilled labor. We need skilled labor.

We need to make sure those pipelines, which are labor, our labor brothers and sisters, do it better than anyone, make sure people are being trained, set up for a career, et cetera. Sounds like we're going to work to make that happen.

But for the small business owners, Ms. Peoples who just testified, are we, are we incorporating them in this process as well? Because obviously communities rebuilding themselves, I think is, is really the key. And there's, there's workers, business owners that, that are all in, they want to do it, but I think it's a hard, a hard terrain to manage sometimes.

So do you have programs or at least a, as you would say, an intentional way of making sure that they're incorporated?

Absolutely. Oh, sorry. Good. Go for it. I don't know who's first? Am I on first?

Yep. Ms. Peoples. And then we'll, we'll come back to you.

Yes, we do have programs. We are working with local nonprofits to ensure that small business owners who are ready, who have the certifications are, are in place to have the opportunities presented to them.

The issue is we're finding that and you can just drive the neighborhood that people that are being brought in to do the work are being brought in from out of state, Arizona, Texas. You're seeing the trucks, you're talking to the people that are being brought in.

You're not seeing and hearing anyone saying that people from the local communities are being asked or even offered contracts for the work to be done.

Thank you. Mr. Hampton, you want to add to that? And then I want to come back to Ms. Peoples and her point.

Yes, I, yes, thank you. I agree with all the sentiments shared there. And so yes, we do have boots on the ground. So we have business resource centers that are in operation now via the city and Department of Economic Opportunity.

And LAEDC, in addition to that, is actually going to be operating pop up business resource centers throughout the communities that are impacted as well, so that we can actually directly support businesses and business owners directly and provide different types of resources for them to ensure their recovery process is smooth as possible.

Thank you. I just wanted to respond and I know Madam Chair you have questions and I don't know if other Members, but could you say, Ms. Peoples, I wanted to follow up on your point. What would you say is the biggest challenge to being able to access these contracts?

Is it just not being in the room with those contractors and being able to build relationships, or is it a lack of information getting to our small businesses so that they can get access to these contracts so that they can employ their employees who are from the most impacted community? Maybe you could tell us a little bit more about what the challenges are.

I will tell you that it is twofold. So it is a portion of. Let's talk about our small business owners and our minority business owners who don't quite know what to have ready to in fact participate or work within this realm of work.

Yes, they understand the labor aspect, they understand the widget piece of doing the work, but they don't know the necessary certifications or licensures that they need to have in place. So that's one component. And you'd say, well, they should be going to the APEX centers or they should be going to some of these apprenticeship programs.

The apprenticeship programs are giving them just enough information, but not providing the education connected with the actual service to then in turn get people to get over that particular hurdle. Okay, now with regards to your point of. Are we in the room? Yeah, I'm in the room. I've been in the room.

A lot of us have been in the room. But unfortunately the relationships have already been established and they're going to their go to people. So that's the challenges. It's a tale of two different cities. You've got people who are already have relationships from previous disasters who are being brought in immediately and the locals are being overlooked.

Thank you for that. Can you say, Mr. Hampton, what are the ways that we are supporting some of these employers who are find themselves in this situation and how can the state best support you in assisting and aiding in building the coalition which will include these small businesses as well as the workforce training programs and

Absolutely, you, Know, continued, you know, legislation and financial support, obviously. I mean, LAEDC is a nonprofit, 501C3. So when it comes to, you know, these types of situations that, that require massive amounts of support, resources, coalition building that has to be paid for somehow. So that's one thing.

The other piece, which I think is pretty critical to all of this as it pertains to small businesses, they need direct services. They need folks that they can talk to directly in the community that understand the community and understand their needs. I think, I believe, as Ms.

Peoples just said it very clearly, I mean, we need to ensure local hiring ordinances are in place. I mean, what she said is absolutely true. A lot of times when disasters happen, you have prime contractors that come in and they bring in their workers with them.

And these folks do not necessarily live in those communities and not the folks that are rebuilding the communities. So that's one side of it. But then the flip side of that is the displaced workers is the businesses that need the support and ensuring that it's direct support.

It can't be online, it can't be something that they're just reading and maybe they come across a pamphlet or a flyer. It's direct services, wraparound support that folks need right now. Because to miss people's point, folks have lost everything. They may not have all of the things they need to rebuild.

And some businesses, unfortunately, will not be able to recover from this. But they can pivot potentially with the right type of support. And so those are the types of things that we would need to build a coalition to bring folks together and to have key entities all at the table, all those voices at the table.

And then, most importantly, we can't just go into communities and just tell folks what they need. We need to actually listen to the community.

They will tell you what they need if you have the sessions, if you take the time to actually listen and understand what their most heavy pain points are and then address those pain points simultaneously with the support that's provided.

Appreciate that. Any other questions from the dais? Well, I want to thank you all for joining us in this discussion. And I think one of the takeaways for me is sort of these panels are building on each other.

And one is that California has to work in lockstep and in parallel with the federal agencies to ensure that our regulations, our requirements for local hire, our requirements for labor standards, our requirement for California businesses first, our requirement for most impacted communities being at the front of the line of the opportunity will require us to ensure that these things are done in lockstep.

Whether it's the Federal Government that is letting go the contract, the money is coming from the State of California. We are actually footing the initial bills. And so I think we need to, in our next conversation, sort of get some clarification on how do we ensure that that's happening.

And certainly the scale that you shared with us in terms of the need and the pivots that these businesses will need to do in order to support their employees, we're going to need to figure out how we prioritize that in the coming months and years so that we can be ready for the world to come to LA's backyard and to be able to show that this is a world class city, a world class state.

And certainly all of the state will benefit from the revenues that will come into the State of California, not just in this moment, but that is a true fact every single year as we certainly produce a lion's share of resources for the state. So thank you so much for your comments and we will move on to our next panel.

Thank you.

Okay, we are moving on to find my list here to our picking up the pieces. We want to focus a little bit more now on our worker safety and what are those steps that are being taken and how are we ensuring that our resources are not leaving workers and businesses behind.

Welcoming Colonel James Handura, who is the commander with the South Pacific division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Deborah Lee, Chief of the Division of Occupational Safety and Health. Please, you are there at the table. Thank you. And we will start with a few opening remarks before we come to the dais. So I will start with you, Colonel.

Good morning. Chairwoman Smallwood-Cuevas and Chairwoman Ortega and Members of the California Senate and Assembly, thank you for the opportunity to provide remarks to provide remarks on the U.S. army Corps of Engineers response efforts and worker safety in La. I provided more detailed written testimony to accompany my remarks this morning.

I'm Colonel Jim Hondura with the Corps of Engineers South Pacific Division, the Regional Commander. And I'm here on behalf of Major General Jason Kelly, the Corps of Engineers Deputy Commanding General for Civil Works and Emergency Operations. Major General Kelly is in LA as we speak, leading the Corps response to the devastating January 2025 wildfires.

We've established a recovery field office in Pasadena, two emergency field offices in Pasadena and Pacific Palisades. All three of those offices are led by colonels that we've sitting district commanders that we've brought from the enterprise. And we've got 44 districts in the Corps of Engineers.

We brought those colonels in to be the leaders of these elements and they are leading a staff of a mix of Department, army civilians and military personnel. At this time, We've got over 1,679 personnel total and that includes Corps of Engineer personnel and contractors actively supporting the mission.

As of Today, we've got 121 debris teams in the field. Our hearts go out to the communities impacted by these devastating wildfires. Some of our own Members of our LA district and that's one of my subordinate commands. Our LA District have been impacted. They've lost homes and they've been displaced. So this is real for us.

The safety and well being of those affected as well as the response teams is really our top priority. The Corps of Engineers has a long standing commitment to ensuring that safety, ensuring that safety is imperative. In all our operations. Safety is not just a priority because priorities can shift based on circumstances.

Instead, safety is the highest unwavering imperative. Nothing will ever be more important than the safety and well being of the workers conducting these vital missions. When disasters like these occur, the Corps of Engineer teams are mobilized from across the nation. We work under two main authorities.

The first is Public Law 8499 and that handles or that covers flood control and coastal emergencies. And the other is the Stafford Disaster and Emergency Assistance act which allows us to respond a large scale emergencies when FEMA requests our assistance.

In Los Angeles, we are part of a whole government effort working alongside FEMA, EPA, Cal, OES, Cal, EPA, CalRecycle, LA County and the City of Los Angeles to coordinate these disaster relief. The debris removal mission consists of two phases. Phase one, led by EPA addresses the household hazardous materials.

And phase two, which we're leading, which we're leading, involves private property debris removal for eligible owners in the fire impacted area. We've also received mission assignments from FEMA to remove debris from several school campuses. We started phase two on February 11th focusing on residential properties in Eaton and Palisades.

And as of now we've completed debris removal at four of five schools in Altadena and one of three in Pacific Palisades. Our teams are working with precision, ensuring that it's done safely, efficiently, efficiently and with thoughtfulness. Phase two is expected to take about a year.

To date We've received over 3,771 rights of entry and those are collected by LA County Public Works. Those are collected and then they're sent over to us and homeowners. I just want to make a reminder for homeowners. They have until the end of this month, so 31st of March to submit or to participate in this program.

So 31st is the cutoff to participate in this federally funded debris removal program. Of those 3,771 ROEs rights of entry, 3,573 of those have been submitted to our contractors who are working those in the field. And 242 parcels have been completed with a final sign off and those numbers are changing hourly.

We estimate of around 4.25 to 4.5 million tons of debris needs to be removed, which is about half the amount of waste the entire country produces in a year. That's equivalent to 110-150,000 fully loaded dump trucks. While this is a massive challenge, we are making progress every day. Safety is our highest priority.

As said earlier, we we have strict policies in place ensuring workers have the necessary tools, training and support. A dedicated safety team works on the ground daily to assess hazards, provide the necessary controls, and ensure workers have the appropriate ppe.

Safety professionals are embedded with our offices, collaborating with Cal, osha, other state and federal agencies, and contractors to continually improve safety measures. Every worker receives comprehensive safety training before beginning any work, and ongoing safety monitoring ensures that any hazards are quickly addressed.

If workers encounter hazardous materials or unsafe conditions, they have immediate access to health and safety professionals who can assist them. We also provide post incident care if necessary, including medical and psychological support. Debris removal is carefully managed to ensure environmental protection.

All fire debris, including hazardous materials like asbestos and heavy metals, is sorted on site and transported in compliance with environmental protocols. We use liners and tarps to securely transport materials and employ water misting to prevent dust and ash from becoming airborne hazards.

Our contractors follow strict procedures to mitigate risk to the community, especially for homes that have been reoccupied. Air monitoring and dust suppression are in place at all times and workers in the ash footprint where full ppe, including masks, respirators, Tyvek suits, eye protection gloves, safety helmets, to name a few of the items. In closing, the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers is committed to the safe, efficient, environmentally responsible recovery of Los Angeles County. Our work goes beyond clearing debris. We're laying the groundwork for long term rebuilding efforts that will help the community recover and thrive, allowing Angelenos to return to their livelihoods and their lives.

The true measure of success for us in our safety and occupational health efforts is that every worker goes home safe at the end of each shift. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak and provide written testimony today. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much, Colonel. And thank you for being here. Next, we'll turn to you, Ms. Lee.

Oh, is my mic not on now? It is. Sorry about that. I'll start over. I'd like to say thank you, Madam Chair and Committee, for the opportunity to be here and share with you in the mission of Cal OSHA.

And as we face this situation here today, it's not just a situation, but it's a tragedy here in Los Angeles. And so we're happy to be here. I believe they have a PowerPoint. Is that up?

Thank you. My name is Debra Lee and I serve as the Chief of Cal OSHA. I'm joined by Hassan Adan, the Regional Manager of Cal OSHA Enforcement Region 4, which covers the Eaton and Pasadena. I'm sorry, Pacific Palisades areas. Guess it's not clicking. It doesn't appear to be advancing.

I can have a move to see if he can fix it. Thank you. Mr. Adan and his team have been working around the clock since the wildfire breakout. Today we are here to talk about our efforts to ensure workers performing wildfire cleanup work are safe. Okay, thank you. I'm good. That's fine. Thank you.

Wildfires are becoming more common in California as mentioned here today by many others on the panel and unfortunately, California. I'm sorry, CAL OSHA has dealt with this before.

We continue to learn from these natural disasters and mobilize quickly to be a resource to various local, state and federal agencies with complementary responsibilities as well as to workers, employers and all Californians. While the wildfires broke out. When the wildfires broke out, the Department of Industrial Relations and Calucia moved quickly.

We issued news alert and released on workers health and safety laws regarding wildfire smoke. We began our collaboration with CAL FIRE, Cal OES and other state agencies. Additionally, we worked with various local agencies involved in response and recovery. Each one has a unique role in this disaster.

Our role is to ensure worker safety by providing outreach, education and assistance to employers and other entities involved in cleanup work, as well as to enforce the state's health and safety laws when violations occur. What is Cal OSHA doing? Cal OSHA and DIR are protecting workers on the front line of the disaster recovery.

We're educating the employer community on the risk of their workers and their duties to protect them. Informing and educating homeowners that fire cleanup work, including ash, soot and debris removal and cleaning a fire or smoke damaged structures, is not household domestic service employees performing this work are covered by the Cal OSHA health and safety standards.

Workers performing wildfire cleanup may potentially be exposed to hazards such as slips and trip hazards, heat illness related exposures and respiratory Hazards the greatest hazard comes from breathing fine particulates in the air, which can reduce lung function, worsen asthma and other existing heart and lung conditions, and cause coughing, wheezing and difficulty in breathing.

Also, some of the other hazards that workers will be experiencing out there is tree trimming, cutting trees, demolishing buildings.

Employers are required to establish an effective plan to identify hazards on the site and communicate them to workers, provide workers with proper personal protective equipment including respiratory protection, and ensure that workers have completed a 40 hour hazardous waste operation and emergency response training.

In order to eliminate and minimize these hazards, it's important that employers are following these requirements as outlined in the rules and regulations.

Our Strategic Approach we recognize the importance of having a strategic approach that incorporates outreach and publication for the public and including employers, consultation services for employers and Cal OSHA enforcement of occupational safety and health rules and regulations. This is vital.

I wanted to share here with you some of our outreach materials that we have been providing to employers and also workers. Our outreach and education campaign is one of our boldest and most creative to date. We have leveraged our working relationship with an extensive network of community based organizations in the Los Angeles areas.

These include organizations funded by the state through the California Workplace Outreach Project. In January alone we were able to disseminate over 7,000 publications. Through this network. My team visit many places where we can where we handed out such publications to people. These locations included warehouse, I'm sorry hardware and construction materials where they're sold.

Also we went to laundromats, churches and work worker centers. We have a website with extensive information about worker safety doing wildfire cleanup. We have fact sheets and all of these materials are in bilingual or bilingual languages and we continue to find ways to enhance and improve our outreach materials.

We solicit feedback from the public as well as from CBOs. Also with our Consultation Service Unit, we provide information to employers in Wildfire Smoke. We have a team of two staff present at each of the locations to disseminate information to employers.

We also provide information on workers health and safety measures to over 900 contractors at a conference held by the LA County Public Works in middle of February and we also have a call center that's operational from nine to seven to answer workers concerns and questions.

That center is manded by bilingual speaking individuals as well staff and also what's more critical, which is very critical, is our enforcement. Cal OSHA has various I'm sorry, excuse me, I need to slow down a little bit. I apologize.

Cal OSHA has various strategic strategies to enforce and to with Our process we understand the magnitude of the loss that people living and working in these areas have suffered. Our approach is to provide compliance assistance by educating homeowners and employers on the hazards of wildfire, smoke, debris and cleanup. The requirement to protect workers.

Currently, CAL OSHA Enforcement Unit has dedicated 34 staff to being on the ground and on any given day we can have 12 staff physically present at these locations. Our goal is that we want the employer to prevent or abate the hazards immediately.

In addition, we continue to respond and investigate reports of complaints, accidents and referrals of wildfire, smoke and cleanup hazards.

If employers are, excuse me, are exposing their workers to hazards and do not comply with Cal OSHA standards, Cal OSHA would take appropriate action to enforce the Title 8 rules and regulations to ensure that the employer comes into compliance.

And in closing, as a state agency, we are all working together across all of dirty with our sister agencies and with CBOs, all with the goal of ensuring worker safety by educating employers and homeowners in the aftermath of this devastating wildfire and educating workers on their rights to a safe workplace.

We recognize that this is going to be a long haul. This is not something that's going to be over in a month or two months. It's going to take years. We are committed to being at these locations and working with all agencies and CBOs to once again address and bring Los Angeles.

This is a top priority for DIR in Calosha and I'd like to thank you for this opportunity here today. And we are here to take any questions at this time.

Thank you. Ms Lee. Mr.Chair, do you want to go forward and then I'll have my questions afterwards. We have other Members. Yes, Assembly Member Kalra as well. So we'll start with you and then we'll go around.

First, I want to thank you, Colonel. I'm sorry, one thing for your service. Appreciate everything you've been doing to ensure that health and safety of our constituents and everyone who's been devastated, including as you mentioned, some of your own.

So I wanted to ask you in terms of the contractors, who are the contractors that are being used and how are these contractors recruiting workers?

Yes, ma'am. So in order to respond quickly to natural disasters, Corps of Engineers maintains an inventory of pre awarded emergency response contracting tools under what we call the Advanced Contracting initiative. And so in our case in this region we have ECC headquartered in Burlingame, California, has a regional contract for debris removal and is our prime contractor.

They are required to award 40% of their subcontracts to small small or disadvantaged businesses and are encouraged to hire from local labor pools. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, the Corps of Engineers leadership, not only General Kelly, but the colonels and others, have been working with our, you know, we want to be good partners and good neighbors.

So we've hosted local industry days. In fact, about a week ago, our LA district hosted one in coordination with the local Society of American Military Engineers post at an industry day. And I think it was a packed house just for opportunities to bring folks in.

And so we were actively engaged to get interested subcontractors to get connected with ECC, and we'll continue to do that. Additionally, we've also awarded, separate from what ECC is doing as the prime. We've awarded at this time, one small once, one contract to a small business in LA County to clear debris at the Palisades Charter Elementary School.

And so I anticipate continued opportunities both for the debris mission, but also what I would call our Blue sky mission. So once the debris mission's over, our LA district is going to be there and, you know, I will be here, SBD will be here, South Pacific Division.

And so we're always looking for folks to partner with us, to contract with us to do our Blue sky missions. And that's our civil works projects, our levies and flood control systems and so forth.

Thank you. So you have a list of contractors. Those contractors then use other contractors. Is that there's subcontractors?

Yes, ma'am. The ECC is the prime for the actual emergency response contract. And then they go in and subcontract out. And so they've got requirements to award 40% of those subcontracts to small or disadvantaged businesses. And they're also encouraged, obviously, to hire from the local communities as part of that. If that answers your question, ma'am.

Yes. So in the event, because you also mentioned rigorous compliance mechanisms in which you use to, you know, recruit or use your contractors, I'm wondering if the subcontractors are also under those same compliance and if not, who is ultimately responsible if these subcontractors are not abiding by the compliance that you have in place?

Yes. So, ma'am, just a couple points on that is ECC prime was required to submit before they got started a site safety and health plan that covers equipment training, incident response, and more. And that applies not only to the prime, but also subcontractors working under them. So they have that responsibility. They submitted that plan.

And ECC is responsible for also ensuring compliance with the Corps of Engineer Safety Manual, which is widely recognized as some of the most comprehensive safety requirements in the nation. And so that's their responsibility to do that.

And then we have Corps of Engineer employees out there, military personnel, quality assurance folks that are all having eyes on, to make sure folks are following, following those regulations. If that answers your question.

Yes. So I want to go back to an earlier panelist or testimony about PPE and not being available. So let's use that as an example. So if that is happening, I guess I'm wondering who is responsible in that case for ensuring the health and safety. Is it the contractor of the contractor?

I'm trying to figure out who's ultimately responsible for ensuring the health and safety of these workers. And then for Ms. Lee wondering if, you know, it's been a minute now since the fire and we're moving into different phases of the cleanup.

Have health and safety reports been filed and if so, how, how many and how are they being responded to?

Okay, I'll go first. So ECC is responsible for ensuring PPE and making sure they got sufficient quantities. And so that, that's a responsibility to make sure they have their. For the prime ECC as well as their subcontractor. So that, that would be ECC, ma'am.

Thank you. I'm going to let Mr. Adan give you the report on the complaints, accidents or referrals that we receive.

Yeah. Good morning Madam Chair and co chair and Members of, of this Committee. My name is Hassan Adan. I'm a regional manager in Region 4 which covers all of LA County, which both the Eaton fire as well as the Palisades fire is involved. Just before I answer your question, Madam, I live in the community.

I've lived near South Pasadena and, and I've lived in Altadena as well as Pasadena for a number of years. This significant event that happened in, in Los Angeles, you have never seen any such destruction in my life. And it's one of the worst things that ever happened in the state.

From day, from day one when the fire started and CAL FIRE was in charge, I was their President. At their cooperated meetings in Rose Bowl I used to attend meeting from Get Go. So DIR and Cal OSHA was there when I went to those cooperative meetings.

When we talked about Cal Osha, I did tell them that I'm from Cal OSHA and some of the folks of Grinch. And in these meetings we had not only CAL FIRE, but the utility company and all LA County Public health and all the other agencies that were involved. So we did inform them that we're here to support if they need any technical assistance dealing with safety and health, we're here to help.

Not just an enforcement at that stage from the get go like this Chief Lee talked about in the early stages of the fire, I think it was about the 8th, the 9th and 10th our staff with Cal Ocean through DIR. We provided these publications in all places, even landroom mats and worker centers.

I was also involved in attending these community meetings after hours in Pasadena, City College and other places just to get involved, to show that Kalosh was involved.

I can tell you one of the things that the phases that was the first phase of the fire and the second phase was about phase one, which dealing with hazardous household cleanup at these sites. And that was managed by a US EPA and their contractors.

And then phased two is the managed by US Corps of Engineers with deal with debris removal. Now when the phase one and by the way we were involved, I was there a number of times. So is Debra Lee and also the Labor Commissioner as well as the Director of Department of Industrial Relations, Katie Hagan.

We did visit these places and I know that Debra Lee as well as the Labor Commissioners have done some clips, video clips about worker safety and protection of worker safety.

One of the managers for US EPA, they're winding down their phase one and we had a discussion and they talked about that during their phase that they only had few minor injuries, which means that somebody's have a puncture wound was just like first aid, but not major illnesses or major safety issues.

And I've asked them what is the how were you successful? Can you talk us about what you guys done? And he talked about some of these contractors they have on a long term contract on several year, seven year basis. So they are familiar with each other.

Mr. Adan, I'm sorry, I just wanted to reiterate the question. And the question was how many complaints have been filed related to the initial phases of the cleanup?

Yeah, the number of. Right.

How many and the nature of those complaints?

Yes, ma'am. At the beginning of the fires, the major complaints we were getting was smoke related fires. People are talking about just the smoke from the fires. So we have a number and I can get back at you.

I'm sorry, Mr. Adan, I can give that for you. So in the beginning in January, we had about 36, sorry, 62 complaints that came in. And this will be right around the time of the fires. And again in February we had about four. And so the total complaints that we received to date is 66.

And so one of the things that we recognize is that workers are pretty much terrified in this situation, this climate. And so what we, the initiative we took was to have teams of two out and about in the communities, in both communities.

And so as I stated earlier, we had anywhere from we've dedicated 36 staff to be out and be boots on the ground. And so at any given time or any day, we're out there every day. And so we can have a total of 12 at each one of the locations. And what they're doing is patrolling the areas.

If they encounter any work being done, they would stop and interact with the employer and also interview and talk with employees and identifying any hazards and educating at that time, we are also moving toward putting up tents in the area so that workers know where we will be located.

We were also out there because we really understand that the fear in communicating to us. And so we have to be there on the ground and identify that we're there and show our presence.

So just to add to that, if you don't mind, we have the compliance assistance, which is what Just Lee talked about. But also we also have enforcement. If workers complain about unsafe situation at all these places, we are responding by enforcement.

But first we are doing compliance assistance by educating, by correcting, by talking to these contractors to resolve these issues on the spot. The teams are waiting until these contractors correct this disabatement. If they see any violations, that's the first thing.

And some of the contractors, if they are not compliant with the standards, we switch the hat and we switch in enforcement. So we have some cases that folks have filed complaints. We also have some minor accidents that occurred that we investigated. So we have enforcement cases we're investigating right now as well as the complaints coming.

So do we. Thank you for that. And I appreciate the fact that you were, you live in the community, you've been there from the beginning and all of your efforts and clearly understand that. But I want to go back to one of my original questions, which is, you know, we have all these layers of contractors.

Do we have a list of who the employers are and you know, moving forward, understanding that folks might not want to file complaints, but also understanding that they're dealing with a lot of hazardous waste that could have long term health impacts. How do we go back and look and find out, well, who's accountable? Who do we ask questions? Who is the actual employer? And I still don't quite understand. Maybe you can clarify that.

Okay, so first of all, having a full list of all of the contractors that are out there. And so I think as mentioned earlier, that some of the homeowners may decide not to take up that offer. And so, and that's why we're having boots on the ground.

And so we go out and we say, see workers, we're stopping, we're talking with them, we're asking them, who's your employer? What protection have you begun? So we're doing that interview to find that out. The other outreach that we're doing is because you can have contractors coming from out of state.

And so we're trying to get this information out there so that they are aware you're in the State of California. You need to abide by these rules and regulations. The other thing, as I mentioned earlier, we're working with CBOs to get the message to them so that they can reach out to workers.

We clearly understand the concern of the workers and not wanting to call government and being afraid. But what we're doing is getting the word out and getting the message out. And by networking with community based organizations, we're trying to go on radio wherever we can to get this message out.

We are visiting the worker centers and presenting and educating workers there as well. And so the message we're trying to get out to employers and homeowners, please reach out to Cal Osha. We're here to help. We know you want to do the right thing, and so here are the things that are to be necessary.

However, we are also going out there with our enforcement hats on. And when we encounter or hear of these things, we're rolling out and we're investigating.

Thank you. And I just want to have a clarifying question. I know Members have questions on the dais, but are we saying that nobody knows who all of the contractors are who are doing work in the impacted areas?

Because if FEMA is managing the lion's share of the contracts and you have a contract that is threatening the work that you're doing, you're saying that we have no record whether they're out of state, whether they're private that we have in the State of California, no record registry accounting of who is doing work, who are the actual employers in the region.

I just want to make sure I'm understanding that because that seems to me to be a very serious problem, not just for the workers, but for the quality of the overall project and the safety of the overall project, whether it's a Federal Government run project or a private one.

You could have someone using very dangerous equipment, equipment and materials right next to a government project that could undermine all of the work. So I just need clarification we don't have a way of knowing who is doing work in the region and a list.

Hey, ma'am, I can only speak for our prime contractor and you know what they're doing with their subcontractors. I can't speak for others outside of that scope, so I can only talk on that. And that would be eccentric. And their subs, they would have a list of all their subs. ECC would.

And so we have, we have an understanding of that. But I don't have any, I don't, I don't, I don't want to speculate on others outside of that, you know, whether it be a private homeowner that may be using their own contractor, etc. But I can only speak for the core.

And the core, we have the ECC as our prime and then within that we have the subcontractors and ECC will have track of all those folks that are working for them, if that makes sense.

Well, it makes sense that you only know who's working for you, but not who's working next to you.

Yeah, I can't answer all that, ma'am, at this point.

What about our health and safety agency? Do we know who's doing work in the communities and how those communities are safe?

So we do have a requirement as to where, when you may need a permit to do certain type of work or demolition work. So demolishing and so there they would have to notify our office to obtain a permit if they're going to do any type of reconstruction and building to do a permit. But overall, to answer your question, no.

Okay. Ms. Rodriguez, sorry, Assembly Member Rodriguez and then Assembly Member Kalra, you'll be next.

Thank you. I represent the northeast San Fernando Valley where the Hearst fire occurred and where many people live who worked in the devastated areas. I'm super grateful for today. So thank you for inviting me and for recognizing that the impact goes beyond what we see on the news.

I wanted to ask a couple follow up questions, really piggybacking off of what we were just discussing. And I wanted to start with community engagement. We're talking a lot about health and safety, but we heard from our earlier panel that a lot of information was not available in languages that were accessible to the people impacted.

So in all of the Messages, I know, Ms. Lee, you mentioned you're on the radio and you put out a lot of messaging, news releases and information. What languages are those provided in? English and Spanish. And how are you communicating with the workers on the ground?

As I said, we have our Outreach team out every day in these two locations. We're also networking with our CBOs to get the message out for us as well. And as I mentioned before, radio and social media as well. We also have a team that is going out to, as I stated before, churches.

They're also going to locations where there may be workers that may be, you know, recruited to do this work. And so they're going there and communicating with workers as well. And they're, they are bilingual.

So you have the resources and the relationships with trusted messengers to ensure everyone has the information they need. Yes. Okay, thank you. My other question is for Commander Handura. You had mentioned that community engagement is part of a lot of the work that you're doing.

Phase two, even phase one of debris removal, we've learned that there hasn't been community engagement in the places where it's being delivered to. And of course in lower income community of color like mine, who has the workers that were impacted and may not be captured by our current social safety net.

We also have landfills and we're receiving the debris from these fires. Can you talk us through the timeline of the year you mentioned this is going to take to remove the debris? Because everything sounds very rushed.

I know the LA County supervisors are meeting deadlines for expending funds to ensure that the Federal Government reimburses us for a lot of expenses. But you did mention it's going to take a year to get 100,000 to 150,000 trucks of debris into communities like mine. How long does that last? Is it the whole year? Is it just an immediate effort like we're hearing from the county? What is the timeline?

So, ma'am, thanks for that question. So the year is the total time. And so as mentioned earlier, as we complete parcels, we turn them back in to the county and they go back to the homeowner. And so that is ongoing. So it's not, I would say it's.

It's as we work through each parcel and we turn that back in is. And so that's why we've estimated a year. And as we need to, we will add more crews to do the work. And so we've got crews working simultaneously. Simultaneously, both in the Palisades fire and Eaton fire.

To move quickly, it takes approximately and it depends on the parcel. It could be two days up to five days, depending on the parcel and the complexity. And so that's a rule of thumb. That's a rough rule of thumb per parcel.

And when a parcel gets done, it goes through a process about a 10 step process or so and then once it's finally completed and turned back over to the county then the county gives that back to the homeowner and then they can move on to the next step of whatever they want to do so that I don't know if that answers your question but as we as we complete parcels we're not waiting, we're completing parcels, we're going through the steps, we're turning them in and as efficiently and quickly as we can for the debris removal piece, the phase two piece so that then the following work can be done whether that's going to be a homeowner decides to rebuild or whatever the case may be. I'm not sure if that answers your question or not, ma'am.

Well, I think it comes to what does the public communication look like for the delivery of the materials.

You're talking about for the landfills or the.

For all of the materials.

So the materials look at my notes here.

So working in partnership with the LA County Public Works, they've helped us identify landfills with in the region. And so we're using multiple landfills. It's not just one multiple landfills. My understanding that we've.

They've helped us identify disposal capabilities for ash and soil for in LA County, Lancaster, Sunshine Canyon, Calabas and Calabasas and Palmdale, and then I think it's Azusa also in the county, which is the only one permitted to handle asbestos.

So we work in partnership with the, with the county Public Works, and they help us identify locations to build, to build up, to take this debris. So we separate the materials on site, that's metal, concrete, ash and asbestos, and then we direct them to the appropriate facilities where they're certified to handle that material.

Metal and concrete are sent for recycling. Ash and asbestos are obviously directed to landfills permitted to handle that material. And given the scale of this, as I mentioned earlier and you mentioned it, is that we're going to need as many disposal and recycling options as possible to manage the debris.

How do you ensure that the material that's been identified for recycling, for example concrete and metal, do not have asbestos or other toxic materials?

I can get back to you on that answer, ma'am, to get the details. I'd be happy to get back to you on the details on that.

Okay. These are the types of questions that communities are asking. And again, these are tied. This is not separate issues. The same workers who are impacted by these safety hazards go home and are still impacted by these safety hazards, even if they're driving an hour away.

And I think it's super critical because this is already happening in multiple communities and no one is giving notification. The only reason that I know this happened was from relationships with people who had relationships with the people who own the businesses that are taking the materials.

Thankfully, there are good actors out there and businesses that are willing to pause their operations to do community engagement, which honestly, the state should have done, the county should have done, Army Corps should have done on their own.

But then they could go down the street to another operator who's not a good actor, that'll still take the debris without community engagement and won't wait for answers to questions like this. At what point during the transport of these materials, is it no longer within your jurisdiction to provide health and safety standards like monitoring air quality?

Let me get back to you on that, ma'am. I don't have that. Offhand, I can tell you we air monitor on site, obviously, as we're doing the cleanup operations. And that's continuous in terms of the ash footprint.

And as we do the monitoring or as we do the debris clearance that's on site, we're air monitoring for sure under our purview.

So in addition to those two things you're going to get back to me on, can you also provide the list of contractors that are subbed from ECC as well as the list of contractors who are taking any materials in any communities? Because we did get a list of the landfills from LA County.