The French Laundry Connection | Fire – Power - Money

i think corruption runs deep in the soul of mankind and it sure smells and walks like a duck well it doesn't seem wrong it is wrong it shouldn't be up to the victims of pg e to make sure pg e is healthy where do we get the money in order to pay you it's important for you to want pg e to do well we wanted to be disengaged as quickly as possible from contact with them and here we are this bankruptcy tethers the victims financial futures to the performance of the company do you agree with that statement yes we can't stop all fires but we can stop these to solve the crisis we have to master its three core elements fire power money a plate of dinner at this award-winning restaurant in napa county starts at 350 dollars but dining here during the pandemic cost governor gavin newsom quite a bit more than that governor gavin newsom is apologizing for not following his own protocols tonight the french laundry restaurant french laundry french laundry restaurant so i want to apologize to you because i need to preach and practice not just preach you know the french laundry because it's where the governor had dinner in a small gathering at a time when he was telling californians not to do that because of kovid but we're more interested in it because of who he was having dinner with it was a birthday dinner party for newsome's close friend jason kinney a well-known lobbyist friend that i've known for almost 20 years the two men shared more than a friendship they shared an interest in pg e in the months before the dinner party bankruptcy court documents show hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing from pg e's checkbook to axiom advisors the lobbying firm owned by jason kinney kinney's name shows up on the firm's billable hours working for some of pg e's biggest unsecured creditors under services rendered on the bill the first things you see are the passage of ab-1054 the law that created the state safety certificate for pg e and the approval by governor newsom of pg e's bankruptcy plan axiom reported working with the governor's office to see all of it through pg e's bankruptcy delivered for kinney's clients the plan paid them cash in full plus interest but not everyone pg e owed money to had a seat at this table well this is my living room and my tv and this is where i prefer prepare my food in the town of paradise lawrence graham lives in a trailer now because pg e burned his house down they're helping each other get a get ahead and stepping on us to get there the camp fire was a crime with tens of thousands of victims pg e owes them restitution all i care abouts are bottom line i mean i understand business is business but this is our lives they're messing with but almost three years after the fire lawrence doesn't have his restitution from pg e and he needs that money to rebuild if he doesn't break ground on a new house in the coming months the town of paradise threatens to evict him from his own land along with hundreds more victims i don't like living like this who still live camping where their houses once stood i'm a big guy and to live in a tiny rv it's claustrophobic david breed lost his job after the fire but he found work removing burned trees the insurance from his mobile home didn't pay enough to rebuild pg e's settlement money hasn't come either david hasn't even been told how much to expect i would have been happier with a full cash payout from pg e pg e's victims didn't get paid cash in full what they got was a retired judge who gets paid fifteen hundred dollars an hour to tell them this it's important for you to want pg e to do well that's quite a thing to say to seventy thousand people whose homes and loved ones pg e incinerated but there's a reason he said it judge trotter runs the trust fund set up for victims in pg e's bankruptcy the fire victim trust was supposed to get 13 and a half billion dollars but pg e only paid half of that as cash the second part of the payment problem is where do we get the money in order to pay you the other half of the money for pg e's victims was supposed to be paid as shares of pg e stock almost a year after pg e exited bankruptcy i looked at the price of pg e stock it was right around ten dollars we have 480 million shares of that stock if it we were able to monetize it all today we'd have 4.8 billion dollars your settlement called for you to have 6.75 billion dollars worth of stock that has not happened the victims were almost two billion dollars short and that was at the beginning of 2021 fire season before the massive dixie fire broke out in july sending pg e's stock price down even more as the company admitted its power lines might be involved the stock was never worth the amount victims were told when they voted on the bankruptcy plan from the day pg e exited bankruptcy the victims needed the stock price to go up another 56 percent to be made whole but it didn't just leave the victim short on money the plan was another reward for pg e's bad behavior it took the people who pg e hurt the most and turned them into financial allies you are 25 or 24 and a half percent owners of pg e this means that heading into another fire season a quarter of pg e's fire risk belongs to its previous wildfire victims that part of the governor's plan isn't a bug it's a feature and don't just take it from me take it from pg e's own chief financial officer this bankruptcy tethers the victims financial futures to the performance of the company do you agree with that statement yes [Music] that's a really horrible way to think of it and it's absolutely true you're absolutely right that's that's what happened and they they did that to us it's almost like you're held hostage by it it shouldn't be up to the victims of pg e to make sure pg e is healthy that's really insidious i mean if you think about this is like next level movie the bad guy in the background smoking the cigar we'll make them owners and then we'll make them pay themselves there should be some adult in the room in the government somewhere some type of leader that would say you shouldn't be making it the victim's responsibility to pay the victims so what questions do you have for the governor now simply why why would you prioritize a corporation over the victims because that's essentially what's happened we put that question from steve at the top of our list of 18 written questions to the governor newsome's office did not directly answer any of those questions and has declined every interview request we've sent for nearly three years in a written statement though the governor's office took credit for ensuring pg e emerged from bankruptcy in a position to swiftly compensate victims all the victims we met disagree they're still waiting to be paid even though pg e has been out of bankruptcy for more than a year they know they shortchanged us it's all about money and the the people are higher up and buying their way out of trouble and it sure smells and walks like a duck a further testament to corporations having power over people pg e's fire victims did get to vote but they weren't given any alternatives the only option on the ballot was to vote yes or no on pg e's bankruptcy plan it was sort of deal or no deal yes exactly because they would have to start all the way back over again if you said no fire victims like mario didn't want to start negotiations all over again they wanted to be done dealing with pg e that's what they were told a yes vote would do for them in the official voting materials approved by the bankruptcy court the court told victims a yes vote would pay them more quickly the safety certificate law passed by the legislature had a deadline for pg e to get out of bankruptcy and without this plan if they voted no payments would be delayed and could be reduced those delays could take months or years if they voted no the victims voted for the plan they voted to avoid delays but they got delays anyway the plan prioritized pg e's exit from bankruptcy over the payment of its victims and those delays don't just hurt victims life plans it just plain hurts them i signed and said yes please and that was why you know because it it was very painful to go through all this every day that goes by for muriel wisotsky every step she has to take to settle pg e's killing of her mom colleen keeps the trauma fresh in her mind i have spent a lot of the last couple of years trying not to think about how horrible it must have been every time it comes up it's picking the scab off again the plan delays the healing of whole families i try and put on the the brave front for the family of oh yeah it was quick chances are she didn't feel anything colleen's grandson steve the former firefighter i'm pretty sure she knew the house was on fire and she wasn't going to make it out and that's i don't talk about it enough um but that really keeps me up at night of you know was she expecting me you know what she expecting me to you know show up at the lab you know be able to get there at the last second while they've waited victims watched pg e reap its rewards immediately there's no compassion towards the victims it's more of the compassion for their bottom line pg e got out of the bankruptcy it declared it's still paying bonuses to its executives its shareholders didn't get wiped out they got pg e's victims to join them i think corruption runs deep in the soul of mankind and i think if any executive has a chance to line their pockets at the expense of 86 people losing their lives in paradise or the expense of the entire town bringing them do they really care i don't know i don't think they do i don't think they care if i screw up at work i lose my job if i speed on the road i get a ticket there's consequences for bad behavior pg e needs to be held accountable not just given a pass or an easy way out it's infuriating it causes you to lose faith in government it's not like they fixed pgd you know it's not like the governor signed some magical document that fixed pg e's infrastructure [Music] there are two magic documents in this story the governor's approval of pg e's bankruptcy plan and the safety certificate law that made that plan work both were considered major accomplishments by the two old friends who sat down for dinner at the french laundry

Channel: ABC10

Views: 255,197

Keywords: newsom california governor, pge, abc10 originals, california wildfire, brandon rittiman, pacific gas and electric, fire power money, abc10 sacramento, camp fire, california public utilities commission, pg and e, paradise wildfire, corporate crime, public utility, power company, california wildfires, investigation, california, fire california, butte county, california fire, california fires, california governor gavin newsom, lobbyist, pg&e fire, french laundry, newsom

Id: W44JkLoiPKs

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/TheRamJammer]

California here and I keep getting emails about keeping this guy in office, I'm voting to recall him.... like that will make any difference with who ever replaces him but he's gone nevertheless.

[u/RandomCollection]

You know, if there was more investigative journalism like this, that hit both Democrats and Republicans, more people would trust the media.

It's stuff like this that they deliberately choose not to do when politically inconvenient because the rich own the media.

I hope that the PG&E fire victims get the compensation they deserve someday. That is not happening with this governor in California though.