May 7, 2025 • 32 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 1 (05/07) - NIck Gerda from LAist comes on the show to talk about the head of LA's homeless services hiring unqualified friends for positions of power. More on the head of LAHSA's misconduct. John's cat is sick and he is home alone to deal with it.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't I Am six forty. You're listening to the John
Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. You cracked me up.
What did I do your breathless black Smoke bulletins?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, it's a big story, John. I know you don't care,
but it's a big story.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
No. Two post. You had breaking news on the Black
Smoke and then about a minute later, you know, in
case you didn't hear.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well because people tune in and out and I wanted
to make sure that nobody missed it. Okay, I'm shocked
you actually were listening that carefully.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I always listen to your newscast when I'm driving in
here not so much, but welcome. It's John Cobelt Show,
can if I Am six forty live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. We're on every day from one until four o'clock,
and then after four o'clock every day it's John Cobelt
Show on demand. It's the podcast, same as the radio show,
(00:51):
but this is where you can listen to the segments
that you unfortunately tragically missed. We are going to open
with a big story here. Somebody we have discussed a
number of times in recent months. The former head of
the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority LASA. This is an
agency that if you track this news, well known billions
(01:16):
of dollars they taken from the county and the city.
There's extra taxes that were all paying in LA city
and county to fund this thing. And the county pulled
out of it, and Valicia Adams Kellum left her position
a short time ago. It got so bad that the
board of supervisors would not give her a speaking slot
(01:40):
at one of their meetings. She had to stand with
the regular audience, and then after about ninety seconds they
cut off her microphone. They didn't want to hear it anymore.
You know, there's the federal judge ordered an audit. There's
a couple of billion dollars unaccounted for, and she had
given a two million dollar contract to her husband's homeless nonprofit.
(02:00):
So a big mess. And there's a lot more to this,
and we are going to put on Nick Gerda. Now.
Nick Gerda is a watchdog correspondent at the public radio
station last he broke this story, brought these records to light.
Let's get Nick Gerda on the line here, Nick, how
are you. I'm doing great?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
On what a great story to tell us generally what
you found here.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, so this is some records we had to really
fight for in challenging LASA. They refused to release them
and spent weeks of me going back and forth and
pointing out the law to them, and we interviewed public
records attorneys who said that what they're doing is illegal
to withhold these records. We kept pushing and pushing, and
eventually we got redactive versions. And what these are is
whistleblower claims from two former high ranking officials there at LASA.
(02:51):
This was a high ranking IT and data official and
the chief financial officer who say that they were wrongfully
fired by Alisha Adams Callum for standing up to what
they described as a serious misconduct by her. A little
bit of background on Alicia. She was she's been supported
very much by Mayor Karen Bass in LA. Mayor Bass
(03:13):
originally directed LASSA to hire Velicia as a consultant on
her way to becoming the CEO over there, and we
had we broke a story a couple of months ago
about what you just mentioned of her signing a two
million dollar contract with her husband's employer and legal experts
tell us that that appears to be appears to have
been illegal under conflict of interest laws. Now, going back
(03:36):
to these whistleblower claims, what caught our attention was that
the LOSSA paid arranged for eight hundred thousand dollars to
be paid to these whistleblowers to settle these claims before
they became public lawsuits, essentially keeping it out of you know,
the witness testimony and documents, out of the public eye.
And that amount of money, eight hundred thousand dollars, it's
(03:57):
not a small amount. That settlement amount is equivalent went
to what it caught would cost to shelter as many
as forty unhoused people for a year. And so what
the public records attorney told us is the public has
a right to see what they were claiming in those documents.
It's clear settled law. And again we've been pushed, We
had been pushing repeatedly for lasses to release it. We
got copies and we published a story yesterday evening. It's
(04:19):
got an enormous response from from the public really across
the political spectrum and what these whistleblowers were alleging a
number of things. One of the alleged that Alicia Adams
Kellum pushed out experienced staff in order to hire unqualified
friends of hers who were sort of her inner circle
of subordinates at her previous job, and that you hired
(04:42):
them into these high level, high salary roles at LASA,
you know, really important roles overseeing services for very vulnerable people.
And how hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money
are being spent each year that's supposed to go towards
homeless services. What Another allegation is that one of these
folks that Alicia brought in was using their personal cell
(05:03):
phone for official communications in violation of agency policy, and
that LASA official repeatedly withheld accurate data about Mayor Bass's
signature homelessness program inside Safe because quote in the words
of this complaint, kel Adams Kellum did not want Mayor
Bass to look bad, and allegedly this employee was retaliated
(05:25):
against for us refusing to go along with hiding the
number of clients being served by that program. In addition
that an allegation that Adams Kellum asked loss of cop
It official to violate records retention laws by deleting two
official emails that had been sent to Adams Kellum's LASA
email account in order to protect the person who had
(05:46):
emailed Adams Kellum. So a whole host of allegations. I'll say,
you know, loss of leadership has been given sort of
a blanket denial of the allegations. But they paid eight
hundred thousand dollars to prevent a lawsuit on this that
would have brought up a lot of public attention to
it and potential evidence to light. And and they, you know,
their own policy says that they need to refer for
(06:08):
investigation under Accounting Auditor investigation any allegations of misuse of resources.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
There at LASA.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
And according to LASA, there there was no investigation into
the whether these claims were accurate. And so you know,
here at LAS, we are very committed to bringing truth
to light about how you know, institutions that are spending
taxpayer dollars are going about it, and we're going to
continue to try to pursue the truth about whether there's
corroborating evidence and when what more is here potentially going
(06:37):
going on at LASA.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Right the charges you listed has to do with the
the hiring of certain people possible cover up of information
about inside safe phone, violations of phone use, violations of
record retention laws. But then you also had a couple
of instances of personal behavior on the part of add
(07:00):
which the whistleblowers had related. Can can he talk about
those two specific definitely?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, there's a couple of those. One is an allegation
that Adams Callum engaged in quote, inappropriate and unethical behavior
at a conference in Washington, d C. Back in twenty
twenty three while she was the leader of LASA, And
by the ways, she's still there right now, but she
announced she'll be retiring or resigning as of August. But anyway,
so back to this conference allegation. The allegation is that
(07:30):
this behavior was reported to human resources, but that Adams
Kalum allegedly retaliated against the employee who reported that incident.
And what's interesting too, is is LASA redacted. They blacked
out a sentence or two in the middle of this allegation,
and I think that's quite likely that was giving some
(07:51):
information about the alleged behavior and they're refusing to release
it thus far. But a public records attorney tells us
it's unlawful for them to do that the public has
a right to see what's in there. So we're going
to keep well pushing for a transparency there.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
And then especially it comes from a whistle blower who
they have paid off to shut up, so that that's
that's the key lines whatever they wedacted for that particular charge.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
What the what the public record attorney told is and
this is David Loy of the First Amendment Coalition, who
was is a very prominent public records attorney and expert
in California, and what he's saying is when when government
agency in California pays out money to settle a legal
claim before it becomes a lawsuit, the public has a
right under the law, and the courts have been clear
the public has a right to see what the allegations were,
(08:35):
the full allegations, and to be able to evaluate whether
that was appropriate to pay out that amount of money
over the allegations. And so we're continuing to push push,
you know, for transparency on that.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And you had one more about Adams Kellen wanting to
spend public money on an open bar at a holiday party.
What was that about.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, there's there's some twists here to this allegation. So
the allegation is that she wanted to spend public dollars
on an open bar at lasa's holiday party, and that
she got upset got angry when she was told that
that would be an improper use of taxpayer dollars and
create legal liability for Lassa and the city and maybe
even the county. And then and apparently after she got
(09:15):
set about that, she allegedly suggested that a vendor pay
for the alcohol, but then was told by staff that
would be a conflict of interest, and then she allegedly
got angry again.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
This was a holiday party for for everybody on the
staff who attended. Huh this was that sounds like it.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah, And in terms of conflict of interest, you know,
in California there's very pretty clear lag that people aren't
supposed to If you're a government official overseeing money going
to contractors, you're not supposed to be getting things of value,
you know, gifted to you from from the company.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
It's quite a detailed article that goes on extensively from here.
I urge everybody to read it. It's at last dot
com and Nick Gerda is the writer, and the headline
is whistleblowers say that LA's top homeless official, hired unqualified
friends and tried to destroy public records. Nick, great work here.
This is the kind of work that this city and
(10:12):
county desperately needs and is rarely done. Thank you very
much for coming on.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Thank you so much for having me on. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
All right, and I'm going to talk more obviously about
all this when we come back.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Oh. We have a lot to cover with our opening
story today, and Tim Conway alerted me to this story
early this morning. I saw this and not only is
it big on its own, this confirms everything everything we've
been telling you about this entire corrupt, criminal homeless scheme,
(10:51):
this homeless industry, which is shaking billions of dollars of
tax mony out of you. Jess, you should all be ashamed,
those of you who voted for the tax increase in November,
because the quartercent tax was going to expire soon, and
instead of having a zero percent tax for this homeless nonsense,
(11:12):
it's a half percent tax. And that may not sound
like much, a halfpenny on every dollar, it adds up
to billions, billions, and it's going to crooks. And let's
start with the top LASA official, Velicia Adams Kellum. We've
talked about her extensively. She's on our way out. She's
(11:33):
going to be done in August. The supervisors are fed
up with her. Billions of dollars have disappeared unaccounted for
after a judge, Federal Judge David Carter demanded an audit.
Nobody can explain what happened to the money. Velicia Adams
Kellum was on a trip to Boston when he demanded
that she come to the court house and explain herself.
(11:58):
Really arrogant and now and I got to give a
congratulations to Nick Gerda and again he's a watchdog correspondent
at the public radio station. Last Last La is t
who broke the story and found the records. And Vlicia
adams Kellum. This is that there are two whistleblowers and
(12:22):
they wrote letters making these claims, and LASA arranged for
eight hundred thousand dollars of our money to shut them up.
That they and they're named here, These aren't anonymous. It's
a former chief Financial and Administrative officer, Christina Dixon, a
(12:42):
former IT and data official, Emily Vaughan Henry. They are
the whistle blowers, and they took eight hundred thousand dollars
not to not to pursue it into a lawsuit. Now,
much of this was covered up and Nick and his
they worked the legal angles to get it released because
(13:03):
by law, if you're paying eight hundred thousand dollars to
settle a whistleblower case, we have the right to know
that that's our money. So so this again, this this
tax money that you voted to increase in November. Here's
here's what happens to it. Okay, you got a couple
of internal whistleblowers telling the truth, and here's eight hundred
thousand dollars to try to cover it up. And some
(13:24):
of the information is still covered up.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And here is the first thing that Adams Callum pushed
out experienced staff and a hired and hired unqualified friends
and former subordinates from her old job. Number one, What
do I have said about this? The entire homeless industry
(13:50):
is about stealing tax money, stealing donor money and then
spreading it around to friends and relatives by giving them
high paying positions. That is the primary reason these exist.
So no wonder. Two billion dollars disappears and nobody knows
where it went because they have zero interest in helping
(14:11):
the homeless, none whatsoever. They all real this was a
scam magnet, and people have come out of the woodwork.
All the cockroaches have come out of the woodwork to
get a piece of the cheese. And there's a lot
of cheese here. And Adams Kellum was handing out chunks
of cheese to all her friends and former co workers,
(14:32):
so they got all enjoy life. And that's the beginning
and end of what this homeless industry is about. And
I think Judge David Carter has sniffed this out. Everybody
in city and county government knows this. They know this,
but they don't care. They act all pompous and sanctimonious
(14:53):
and accuse you of being heartless for not caring about
the homeless, and blah blah blah blah, and a majority
of you fall for it. I don't know what to say.
I mean, you know, there's no secret as to why
there's so many con artists out there, so many Ponzi schemes.
There's no secret why so many people get ripped off
and lose their retirement savings, because it's easy to do.
(15:17):
You manipulate people with emotions. You start talking about all
these boor these fellow agelinos, your brothers and sisters in
the streets, and there's no fault of their own. They
have these terrible Yeah, it's a load of hooey and baloney,
absolutely ridiculous. That's just the first thing we come back.
I'm going to go detailed into all the other charges,
and one of them is about something I knew was true.
(15:40):
Didn't have any proof, but I knew it inside Safe
all that those numbers are phony. One of the whistleblowers
got in trouble because she wouldn't withhold, she wouldn't cover
up the real numbers. They wanted the real numbers covered
(16:00):
up because the Insight Safe is a failure. Just use
your eyes. It's a failure. It's nonsense. It's public relations bs,
that's all it is. Karen Bass is a failure. She
could not run a convenience store that she has no business,
(16:24):
And most of the people in government and most of
the city council has no business running the city. They're
completely unqualified. They're flat out stupid. And you could see
with your own eyes, but this investigation has a lot
of proof in it.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI AM.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Six forty moistline is eighty seven seven Moist staighty six
eight seven seven mois st eighty six talkback feature on
the iHeart app. All right, We've got more to This
to me is one of the best stories I've seen
this year. This is Nick Gerda from Last which is
public Radio. They also have a website, LAist dot com,
and it's an extensive story. I'm just giving you a
(17:09):
couple of the highlights here, but this is everything I
suspected was going on because you just again use your eyes.
And it's about the top Los official LA Homeless Services
Authority of Alicia Adams Kellum, and she's finally getting finally
leaving in August. She's the one who can't explain where
(17:31):
two billion dollars is gone. She's the one who gave
her husband a two million dollar contract. He's involved with
a homeless agency, one of those nonprofits. But these are
two whistleblowers who worked for Adams Kellum and lost that
(17:52):
paid eight hundred thousand dollars to try to cover up
their claims they said they were wrongfully fired for speaking
up against Adams Kellum, speaking up against wrongdoing. So they
start they start complaining about what's going on at LASA,
and Adams Callum said, fine, you guys are fired, so
(18:15):
they file a complaint to shut them up. They were
given eight hundred thousand dollars. But we have a public
right to all the records. Doesn't matter what the agreement says.
So according to one of these let's see her name
is Emily Vaughan Henry. She says ALASA official repeatedly withheld
(18:41):
accurate data about Bass's inside Safe program. How many times
have you heard about that. Adams Kellum, who runs LASA,
did not want Mayor Bass to look bad, so ALASA
was withholding the day because the data was showing that
(19:04):
inside Safe was a failure. But again, if you used
your eyes, you knew that LAist had previously reported that
officials had withheld inside Safe reports from the la City Council.
(19:24):
So they were hiding it from the public, hiding it
from the media, although hardly anybody in the media was
looking for it, and they were hiding it from the
la City Council. Von Henry claimed that Adams Callum retaliated
against her for not being willing to hide the number
of clients being served by Inside Safe. In other words,
(19:47):
the number was probably far lower than the public claims.
And here was the proof in black and white. And
Adams Callum was going nuts here because it made her
look bad, and it made Karen Bass look bad. Bass
hired adams Kellum the way Bass hired Genie, who's the
disaster at the DWP, who's whose horrible performance helped cause
(20:14):
the palisades to burn. And then they were they were
they were trying. They were deleting emails. Remember Lake Bass
can't find a whole lot of emails. Well, Adams Kellum
has emails deleted. These are bad people, Bass, adams Kellum
ke bad people, said most of the city council. They're bad.
(20:39):
The cruks. Money's disappearing by the billions of dollars. They're
covering everything up. They're destroying emails, destroying documents, trying to
hide their failures. They all need to be getting rid
of they really do, because this is dangerous now right.
(21:00):
We lost thousands of homes, we had people killed, We
stopped the vagrants dying in the streets. I mean, this
is a matter of life and death. Now. Two more, here,
Adams Callum engaged in inappropriate and unethical behavior at a
conference in Washington, and Emily Vaughan Henry reported the behavior
(21:22):
to human resources. So Adams Callum retaliated against Emily Vaughan
Henry and the misbehavior was redacted by Losses attorneys, which
apparently is unlawful. According to a public records attorney that
last contacted says, she did something outrageous, inappropriate, and unethical.
(21:50):
The hell is that? And they covered it up. It
must be bad because they covered it up, and then
they retaliated against Emily Vaughan Henry for reporting it, and
then they redacted it from the loss of the report
the attorneys did. It's like, so what did she do?
One more? She wanted to spend public money on an
(22:12):
open bar. Your tax money, my tax money on an
open bar at Losses holiday party. And somebody at Losses says, well,
you can't do that. That's the public's tax money. You
can't spend it on booze. You can't spend it to
get drunk. Apparently, you know, as for everybody at the party.
So I guess she wanted an open bar, and she
(22:34):
wanted us to pay for it. Wonder if the drinking
had anything to do with the other incident they've covered up.
So then she said, oh, and that it would create
legal liability for loss in the county, in the city. Yes,
because people got drunk with taxpayer money that the city
and county spent. Then the city and county would get
(22:55):
sued if there was an accident or some kind of
deadly event. This had Kellum's is nuts. She then said
a vendor should pay for the booze, and she was
told that would be a conflict of interest. Adams Adams
Kellum got angry all over again. Do we have it?
(23:16):
We have a clip? Do we have a clip of
her speaking at the supervisors meeting, because I want people
to hear her voice. Okay, just to We'll play it
in a second so you'll remember this clip if you
listen to the show regularly. Felicia Adams Kellum. So she's
on her way out, and this is why the supervisors
are dissolving Larsa I said at the time they announced
(23:39):
that they were withdrawing their money. Is they must have
got a bad whiff of several stories. This is her
She she had been. They wouldn't let her speak at
the County Supervisor meeting, and so she she got in
line with the rest of the audience and eventually they
cut her off. Let's just play some of it.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
I am the CEO LASA, and there's been a lot
of negative things said about LASA today. As was said
in the motion when it first released, it indicated that
much of the look back audits did not cover the
time of my leadership. But when I came on and
I met with each of you, I took on the
responsibility of the many years, twenty plus years.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Of seed at the idea. So she hired unqualified friends,
hired unqualified former subordinates withheld accurate data about Bass's inside
Safe failures. Retaliated against employees who acted as whistleblowers. She
wanted them to hide the number of inside Safe clients
engaged inappropriate unethical behavior at a conference, retaliated some more
(24:46):
against the whistleblowers and that story is still secret, And
then wanted to spend your tax money at an open
bar at lasa's holiday party. Wanted somebody to pay for
the booze, and she gave two million dollars to her
husband's nonprofit. This is the homeless industry. This is what
(25:07):
you agreed to double the homeless tax for. This is
where the billions of dollars have gone for this kind
of behavior, and two billions missing in Every criminal at
city Hall knows this is going on and doesn't care.
They don't care about the homeless, and they don't care
about your money. How long are you gonna put up
(25:30):
with it?
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
We have somebody coming on at two o'clock. No, okay, good,
all right, then I will do the Ricrusa thing coming
up after two o'clock. Rick Caruso took the gloves off
and wrote a piece at his nonprofit website, steadfast La
dot com, and he let loose his opinion what's really
going on with Karen Bass and the recovery in the
(26:00):
Palisades from the fire, because you know, he's running Steadfast LA,
trying to put together a public private partnership with lots
of major companies and major businessmen and a streamline speed
up dramatically of the process for rebuilding, and he's running into, uh,
the Bass brick wall. So we'll get to that coming up.
(26:24):
I just got a minute. I've been I've been dogged
for the last two days. Debborn knows I've got I've
got a cat. Turns out she's got a urinary tract
in things.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
And didn't I say that that's what it was yesterday?
I should have been a vet.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, well you should have been weren't here.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I don't know if your love for animals well, but
I don't like blood well, and I don't want to
see organs.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
She she my cat, athenis so a girl cat. One
of my sons left the cat behind, and I'm now
the primary caretaker. My wife's been out of town. I'm
the only one in the house this week, and the
cat picks this week to get a urinary tractor, and
uh I noticed a little blood droplets and little urine
(27:07):
urine puddles and uh I. Uh eventually got her to
the vet. Had to have somebody else take her in
because of of course, the emergency happens while I'm on
the air. Yesterday, I come home and there's there's that
pink a moxicillin medicine. Did you ever get that? Yeah?
(27:27):
And I've had to give it to dogs. Okay, I'm
supposed to. My wife has gotten the next five days.
I this is a five day prescription, isn't that perfect.
I've got to give the cat ten syringes filled with this.
This a moxicillin liquid. It's a thick milky yeah, I remember,
(27:50):
just a kid tastes terrible. How come they haven't in
all these years come up with something better, easier?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Why don't they have a pill that you can just
you know, brought in a piece of cheese or something.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Well, I remember when one of my dogs was sick
years ago. We put the pill inside some wet food.
And you know dogs, they gobble up everything in sight, right.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Well sometimes or they'll spit that out, they'll leave everything else.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
But it worked with the pill. This I have to
chase the cat. I got a presser down holding her head,
and with my left hand and there was my right hand,
I got the syringe with all the pink milky goo
in it, and I've got to try to pry her
(28:32):
mouth open. And when she finally does open, just a crack.
I shoved the syringein and squirt it all in. She
starts gagging and spitting it out, and then squeals and
takes off. So the second time I had to do it,
she saw it coming and she started running and I'm
(28:54):
chasing the cat and diving onto the ground. You know,
I'm gonna kill myself doing this, which there was videos.
I know. I was thinking that, Well, I'm not coordinated.
I can't hold a cat down and press the syringe
accurately into her mouth.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You need to have a neighbor or a friend come
over and help you. So did any of it get
inside the cat?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Most of the first time was like about one hundred percent. Okay,
second time probably more like eighty five percent. Some of
it like went on the carpet.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Some of it, Oh, did you get it out of
the carpet quickly before the wife comes off.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Look, she's leaving blood and urine all over the place.
The antibiotic is the least of it. I don't know
what to do. And then she runs off, And I
know when I tried tonight, I gotta do this every
twelve hours. I gotta wake up and do this, and
I gotta do it again right before I go to sleep.
And just assume that I was up at three in
the morning. Yeah, just briefly, And I thought, oh, man,
when I wake up. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta
(29:51):
give it the the antibiotic again. Okay, so all morning,
well I was preparing, I was reading stuff. Thing. I
gotta do the antibiotic. I gotta tackle right, and I
am not coordinated for this. I'm not. It's more likely
I'm going to drink the bios. Okright.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
So Ginny Harmon, who does our traffic, she's a cat lady.
She loves cat, she has cats. She has a suggestion
for you. She said, tell him to wrap the cat
in a towel like a burrito. Then it's easier to
get the liquid in.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
So there you go. That's a suggestion.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
You may as well try it.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Well, I've got to get to her to wrap.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
The Maybe this is what you do. You don't show
her the syringe exactly. So then you go and you
get her. You pretend that you're maybe with a treat,
and then you wrap her like a burrito in the
towel and then you use your backhand and you grab
the syringe in. You know that will work probably for
one time.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Okay, that gets me to number three tonight, right then
I have four through ten still to come. Oh, there's
got to be a better way than this. Call the
vet and say, hey, this is not.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Exactly that's what I would do.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Race has take the cat to the pound. I'm trying
to save her life. That's very nice of you, But
what do I get for it? Nothing? That is the world.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I know exactly how you feel. And I seriously, it's
very funny because I'm picturing you running around.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I look like an itch. I know.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I'm sure you do. I can picture it. Thank you,
You're welcome. But I feel for you because that's the
worst trying to give animals that that good stuff and
a syringe.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Somebody must have come up with a better invention, a
better process. Somebody. There's eight billion people in the world.
They were doing this fifty years ago. Why can't it
come in a pill I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Maybe you should have asked for one. Maybe they do
have it in a pill form. I would call on
your way home.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Seriously, I think I'm going to This is just I
can't do this eight eight more times. That cat's not
going to make it through the week. All Right, we
come back, Rick Caruso striking back and telling you, telling
everybody what's really going on with the fire recovery in
the Palisades. Debra Mark is live in the CAFI twenty
four our newsroom. Hey, you've been listening to the John
(32:06):
Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear the show live
on KFI AM six forty from one to four pm
every Monday through Friday, and of course, anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Can't I Am six forty. You're listening to the John
Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. You cracked me up.
What did I do your breathless black Smoke bulletins?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, it's a big story, John. I know you don't care,
but it's a big story.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
No. Two post. You had breaking news on the Black
Smoke and then about a minute later, you know, in
case you didn't hear.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well because people tune in and out and I wanted
to make sure that nobody missed it. Okay, I'm shocked
you actually were listening that carefully.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I always listen to your newscast when I'm driving in
here not so much, but welcome. It's John Cobelt Show,
can if I Am six forty live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. We're on every day from one until four o'clock,
and then after four o'clock every day it's John Cobelt
Show on demand. It's the podcast, same as the radio show,
(00:51):
but this is where you can listen to the segments
that you unfortunately tragically missed. We are going to open
with a big story here. Somebody we have discussed a
number of times in recent months. The former head of
the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority LASA. This is an
agency that if you track this news, well known billions
(01:16):
of dollars they taken from the county and the city.
There's extra taxes that were all paying in LA city
and county to fund this thing. And the county pulled
out of it, and Valicia Adams Kellum left her position
a short time ago. It got so bad that the
board of supervisors would not give her a speaking slot
(01:40):
at one of their meetings. She had to stand with
the regular audience, and then after about ninety seconds they
cut off her microphone. They didn't want to hear it anymore.
You know, there's the federal judge ordered an audit. There's
a couple of billion dollars unaccounted for, and she had
given a two million dollar contract to her husband's homeless nonprofit.
(02:00):
So a big mess. And there's a lot more to this,
and we are going to put on Nick Gerda. Now.
Nick Gerda is a watchdog correspondent at the public radio
station last he broke this story, brought these records to light.
Let's get Nick Gerda on the line here, Nick, how
are you. I'm doing great?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
On what a great story to tell us generally what
you found here.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, so this is some records we had to really
fight for in challenging LASA. They refused to release them
and spent weeks of me going back and forth and
pointing out the law to them, and we interviewed public
records attorneys who said that what they're doing is illegal
to withhold these records. We kept pushing and pushing, and
eventually we got redactive versions. And what these are is
whistleblower claims from two former high ranking officials there at LASA.
(02:51):
This was a high ranking IT and data official and
the chief financial officer who say that they were wrongfully
fired by Alisha Adams Callum for standing up to what
they described as a serious misconduct by her. A little
bit of background on Alicia. She was she's been supported
very much by Mayor Karen Bass in LA. Mayor Bass
(03:13):
originally directed LASSA to hire Velicia as a consultant on
her way to becoming the CEO over there, and we
had we broke a story a couple of months ago
about what you just mentioned of her signing a two
million dollar contract with her husband's employer and legal experts
tell us that that appears to be appears to have
been illegal under conflict of interest laws. Now, going back
(03:36):
to these whistleblower claims, what caught our attention was that
the LOSSA paid arranged for eight hundred thousand dollars to
be paid to these whistleblowers to settle these claims before
they became public lawsuits, essentially keeping it out of you know,
the witness testimony and documents, out of the public eye.
And that amount of money, eight hundred thousand dollars, it's
(03:57):
not a small amount. That settlement amount is equivalent went
to what it caught would cost to shelter as many
as forty unhoused people for a year. And so what
the public records attorney told us is the public has
a right to see what they were claiming in those documents.
It's clear settled law. And again we've been pushed, We
had been pushing repeatedly for lasses to release it. We
got copies and we published a story yesterday evening. It's
(04:19):
got an enormous response from from the public really across
the political spectrum and what these whistleblowers were alleging a
number of things. One of the alleged that Alicia Adams
Kellum pushed out experienced staff in order to hire unqualified
friends of hers who were sort of her inner circle
of subordinates at her previous job, and that you hired
(04:42):
them into these high level, high salary roles at LASA,
you know, really important roles overseeing services for very vulnerable people.
And how hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money
are being spent each year that's supposed to go towards
homeless services. What Another allegation is that one of these
folks that Alicia brought in was using their personal cell
(05:03):
phone for official communications in violation of agency policy, and
that LASA official repeatedly withheld accurate data about Mayor Bass's
signature homelessness program inside Safe because quote in the words
of this complaint, kel Adams Kellum did not want Mayor
Bass to look bad, and allegedly this employee was retaliated
(05:25):
against for us refusing to go along with hiding the
number of clients being served by that program. In addition
that an allegation that Adams Kellum asked loss of cop
It official to violate records retention laws by deleting two
official emails that had been sent to Adams Kellum's LASA
email account in order to protect the person who had
(05:46):
emailed Adams Kellum. So a whole host of allegations. I'll say,
you know, loss of leadership has been given sort of
a blanket denial of the allegations. But they paid eight
hundred thousand dollars to prevent a lawsuit on this that
would have brought up a lot of public attention to
it and potential evidence to light. And and they, you know,
their own policy says that they need to refer for
(06:08):
investigation under Accounting Auditor investigation any allegations of misuse of resources.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
There at LASA.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
And according to LASA, there there was no investigation into
the whether these claims were accurate. And so you know,
here at LAS, we are very committed to bringing truth
to light about how you know, institutions that are spending
taxpayer dollars are going about it, and we're going to
continue to try to pursue the truth about whether there's
corroborating evidence and when what more is here potentially going
(06:37):
going on at LASA.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Right the charges you listed has to do with the
the hiring of certain people possible cover up of information
about inside safe phone, violations of phone use, violations of
record retention laws. But then you also had a couple
of instances of personal behavior on the part of add
(07:00):
which the whistleblowers had related. Can can he talk about
those two specific definitely?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, there's a couple of those. One is an allegation
that Adams Callum engaged in quote, inappropriate and unethical behavior
at a conference in Washington, d C. Back in twenty
twenty three while she was the leader of LASA, And
by the ways, she's still there right now, but she
announced she'll be retiring or resigning as of August. But anyway,
so back to this conference allegation. The allegation is that
(07:30):
this behavior was reported to human resources, but that Adams
Kalum allegedly retaliated against the employee who reported that incident.
And what's interesting too, is is LASA redacted. They blacked
out a sentence or two in the middle of this allegation,
and I think that's quite likely that was giving some
(07:51):
information about the alleged behavior and they're refusing to release
it thus far. But a public records attorney tells us
it's unlawful for them to do that the public has
a right to see what's in there. So we're going
to keep well pushing for a transparency there.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
And then especially it comes from a whistle blower who
they have paid off to shut up, so that that's
that's the key lines whatever they wedacted for that particular charge.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
What the what the public record attorney told is and
this is David Loy of the First Amendment Coalition, who
was is a very prominent public records attorney and expert
in California, and what he's saying is when when government
agency in California pays out money to settle a legal
claim before it becomes a lawsuit, the public has a
right under the law, and the courts have been clear
the public has a right to see what the allegations were,
(08:35):
the full allegations, and to be able to evaluate whether
that was appropriate to pay out that amount of money
over the allegations. And so we're continuing to push push,
you know, for transparency on that.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And you had one more about Adams Kellen wanting to
spend public money on an open bar at a holiday party.
What was that about.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, there's there's some twists here to this allegation. So
the allegation is that she wanted to spend public dollars
on an open bar at lasa's holiday party, and that
she got upset got angry when she was told that
that would be an improper use of taxpayer dollars and
create legal liability for Lassa and the city and maybe
even the county. And then and apparently after she got
(09:15):
set about that, she allegedly suggested that a vendor pay
for the alcohol, but then was told by staff that
would be a conflict of interest, and then she allegedly
got angry again.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
This was a holiday party for for everybody on the
staff who attended. Huh this was that sounds like it.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah, And in terms of conflict of interest, you know,
in California there's very pretty clear lag that people aren't
supposed to If you're a government official overseeing money going
to contractors, you're not supposed to be getting things of value,
you know, gifted to you from from the company.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
It's quite a detailed article that goes on extensively from here.
I urge everybody to read it. It's at last dot
com and Nick Gerda is the writer, and the headline
is whistleblowers say that LA's top homeless official, hired unqualified
friends and tried to destroy public records. Nick, great work here.
This is the kind of work that this city and
(10:12):
county desperately needs and is rarely done. Thank you very
much for coming on.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Thank you so much for having me on. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
All right, and I'm going to talk more obviously about
all this when we come back.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Oh. We have a lot to cover with our opening
story today, and Tim Conway alerted me to this story
early this morning. I saw this and not only is
it big on its own, this confirms everything everything we've
been telling you about this entire corrupt, criminal homeless scheme,
(10:51):
this homeless industry, which is shaking billions of dollars of
tax mony out of you. Jess, you should all be ashamed,
those of you who voted for the tax increase in November,
because the quartercent tax was going to expire soon, and
instead of having a zero percent tax for this homeless nonsense,
(11:12):
it's a half percent tax. And that may not sound
like much, a halfpenny on every dollar, it adds up
to billions, billions, and it's going to crooks. And let's
start with the top LASA official, Velicia Adams Kellum. We've
talked about her extensively. She's on our way out. She's
(11:33):
going to be done in August. The supervisors are fed
up with her. Billions of dollars have disappeared unaccounted for
after a judge, Federal Judge David Carter demanded an audit.
Nobody can explain what happened to the money. Velicia Adams
Kellum was on a trip to Boston when he demanded
that she come to the court house and explain herself.
(11:58):
Really arrogant and now and I got to give a
congratulations to Nick Gerda and again he's a watchdog correspondent
at the public radio station. Last Last La is t
who broke the story and found the records. And Vlicia
adams Kellum. This is that there are two whistleblowers and
(12:22):
they wrote letters making these claims, and LASA arranged for
eight hundred thousand dollars of our money to shut them up.
That they and they're named here, These aren't anonymous. It's
a former chief Financial and Administrative officer, Christina Dixon, a
(12:42):
former IT and data official, Emily Vaughan Henry. They are
the whistle blowers, and they took eight hundred thousand dollars
not to not to pursue it into a lawsuit. Now,
much of this was covered up and Nick and his
they worked the legal angles to get it released because
(13:03):
by law, if you're paying eight hundred thousand dollars to
settle a whistleblower case, we have the right to know
that that's our money. So so this again, this this
tax money that you voted to increase in November. Here's
here's what happens to it. Okay, you got a couple
of internal whistleblowers telling the truth, and here's eight hundred
thousand dollars to try to cover it up. And some
(13:24):
of the information is still covered up.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And here is the first thing that Adams Callum pushed
out experienced staff and a hired and hired unqualified friends
and former subordinates from her old job. Number one, What
do I have said about this? The entire homeless industry
(13:50):
is about stealing tax money, stealing donor money and then
spreading it around to friends and relatives by giving them
high paying positions. That is the primary reason these exist.
So no wonder. Two billion dollars disappears and nobody knows
where it went because they have zero interest in helping
(14:11):
the homeless, none whatsoever. They all real this was a
scam magnet, and people have come out of the woodwork.
All the cockroaches have come out of the woodwork to
get a piece of the cheese. And there's a lot
of cheese here. And Adams Kellum was handing out chunks
of cheese to all her friends and former co workers,
(14:32):
so they got all enjoy life. And that's the beginning
and end of what this homeless industry is about. And
I think Judge David Carter has sniffed this out. Everybody
in city and county government knows this. They know this,
but they don't care. They act all pompous and sanctimonious
(14:53):
and accuse you of being heartless for not caring about
the homeless, and blah blah blah blah, and a majority
of you fall for it. I don't know what to say.
I mean, you know, there's no secret as to why
there's so many con artists out there, so many Ponzi schemes.
There's no secret why so many people get ripped off
and lose their retirement savings, because it's easy to do.
(15:17):
You manipulate people with emotions. You start talking about all
these boor these fellow agelinos, your brothers and sisters in
the streets, and there's no fault of their own. They
have these terrible Yeah, it's a load of hooey and baloney,
absolutely ridiculous. That's just the first thing we come back.
I'm going to go detailed into all the other charges,
and one of them is about something I knew was true.
(15:40):
Didn't have any proof, but I knew it inside Safe
all that those numbers are phony. One of the whistleblowers
got in trouble because she wouldn't withhold, she wouldn't cover
up the real numbers. They wanted the real numbers covered
(16:00):
up because the Insight Safe is a failure. Just use
your eyes. It's a failure. It's nonsense. It's public relations bs,
that's all it is. Karen Bass is a failure. She
could not run a convenience store that she has no business,
(16:24):
And most of the people in government and most of
the city council has no business running the city. They're
completely unqualified. They're flat out stupid. And you could see
with your own eyes, but this investigation has a lot
of proof in it.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI AM.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Six forty moistline is eighty seven seven Moist staighty six
eight seven seven mois st eighty six talkback feature on
the iHeart app. All right, We've got more to This
to me is one of the best stories I've seen
this year. This is Nick Gerda from Last which is
public Radio. They also have a website, LAist dot com,
and it's an extensive story. I'm just giving you a
(17:09):
couple of the highlights here, but this is everything I
suspected was going on because you just again use your eyes.
And it's about the top Los official LA Homeless Services
Authority of Alicia Adams Kellum, and she's finally getting finally
leaving in August. She's the one who can't explain where
(17:31):
two billion dollars is gone. She's the one who gave
her husband a two million dollar contract. He's involved with
a homeless agency, one of those nonprofits. But these are
two whistleblowers who worked for Adams Kellum and lost that
(17:52):
paid eight hundred thousand dollars to try to cover up
their claims they said they were wrongfully fired for speaking
up against Adams Kellum, speaking up against wrongdoing. So they
start they start complaining about what's going on at LASA,
and Adams Callum said, fine, you guys are fired, so
(18:15):
they file a complaint to shut them up. They were
given eight hundred thousand dollars. But we have a public
right to all the records. Doesn't matter what the agreement says.
So according to one of these let's see her name
is Emily Vaughan Henry. She says ALASA official repeatedly withheld
(18:41):
accurate data about Bass's inside Safe program. How many times
have you heard about that. Adams Kellum, who runs LASA,
did not want Mayor Bass to look bad, so ALASA
was withholding the day because the data was showing that
(19:04):
inside Safe was a failure. But again, if you used
your eyes, you knew that LAist had previously reported that
officials had withheld inside Safe reports from the la City Council.
(19:24):
So they were hiding it from the public, hiding it
from the media, although hardly anybody in the media was
looking for it, and they were hiding it from the
la City Council. Von Henry claimed that Adams Callum retaliated
against her for not being willing to hide the number
of clients being served by Inside Safe. In other words,
(19:47):
the number was probably far lower than the public claims.
And here was the proof in black and white. And
Adams Callum was going nuts here because it made her
look bad, and it made Karen Bass look bad. Bass
hired adams Kellum the way Bass hired Genie, who's the
disaster at the DWP, who's whose horrible performance helped cause
(20:14):
the palisades to burn. And then they were they were
they were trying. They were deleting emails. Remember Lake Bass
can't find a whole lot of emails. Well, Adams Kellum
has emails deleted. These are bad people, Bass, adams Kellum
ke bad people, said most of the city council. They're bad.
(20:39):
The cruks. Money's disappearing by the billions of dollars. They're
covering everything up. They're destroying emails, destroying documents, trying to
hide their failures. They all need to be getting rid
of they really do, because this is dangerous now right.
(21:00):
We lost thousands of homes, we had people killed, We
stopped the vagrants dying in the streets. I mean, this
is a matter of life and death. Now. Two more, here,
Adams Callum engaged in inappropriate and unethical behavior at a
conference in Washington, and Emily Vaughan Henry reported the behavior
(21:22):
to human resources. So Adams Callum retaliated against Emily Vaughan
Henry and the misbehavior was redacted by Losses attorneys, which
apparently is unlawful. According to a public records attorney that
last contacted says, she did something outrageous, inappropriate, and unethical.
(21:50):
The hell is that? And they covered it up. It
must be bad because they covered it up, and then
they retaliated against Emily Vaughan Henry for reporting it, and
then they redacted it from the loss of the report
the attorneys did. It's like, so what did she do?
One more? She wanted to spend public money on an
(22:12):
open bar. Your tax money, my tax money on an
open bar at Losses holiday party. And somebody at Losses says, well,
you can't do that. That's the public's tax money. You
can't spend it on booze. You can't spend it to
get drunk. Apparently, you know, as for everybody at the party.
So I guess she wanted an open bar, and she
(22:34):
wanted us to pay for it. Wonder if the drinking
had anything to do with the other incident they've covered up.
So then she said, oh, and that it would create
legal liability for loss in the county, in the city. Yes,
because people got drunk with taxpayer money that the city
and county spent. Then the city and county would get
(22:55):
sued if there was an accident or some kind of
deadly event. This had Kellum's is nuts. She then said
a vendor should pay for the booze, and she was
told that would be a conflict of interest. Adams Adams
Kellum got angry all over again. Do we have it?
(23:16):
We have a clip? Do we have a clip of
her speaking at the supervisors meeting, because I want people
to hear her voice. Okay, just to We'll play it
in a second so you'll remember this clip if you
listen to the show regularly. Felicia Adams Kellum. So she's
on her way out, and this is why the supervisors
are dissolving Larsa I said at the time they announced
(23:39):
that they were withdrawing their money. Is they must have
got a bad whiff of several stories. This is her
She she had been. They wouldn't let her speak at
the County Supervisor meeting, and so she she got in
line with the rest of the audience and eventually they
cut her off. Let's just play some of it.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
I am the CEO LASA, and there's been a lot
of negative things said about LASA today. As was said
in the motion when it first released, it indicated that
much of the look back audits did not cover the
time of my leadership. But when I came on and
I met with each of you, I took on the
responsibility of the many years, twenty plus years.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Of seed at the idea. So she hired unqualified friends,
hired unqualified former subordinates withheld accurate data about Bass's inside
Safe failures. Retaliated against employees who acted as whistleblowers. She
wanted them to hide the number of inside Safe clients
engaged inappropriate unethical behavior at a conference, retaliated some more
(24:46):
against the whistleblowers and that story is still secret, And
then wanted to spend your tax money at an open
bar at lasa's holiday party. Wanted somebody to pay for
the booze, and she gave two million dollars to her
husband's nonprofit. This is the homeless industry. This is what
(25:07):
you agreed to double the homeless tax for. This is
where the billions of dollars have gone for this kind
of behavior, and two billions missing in Every criminal at
city Hall knows this is going on and doesn't care.
They don't care about the homeless, and they don't care
about your money. How long are you gonna put up
(25:30):
with it?
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
We have somebody coming on at two o'clock. No, okay, good,
all right, then I will do the Ricrusa thing coming
up after two o'clock. Rick Caruso took the gloves off
and wrote a piece at his nonprofit website, steadfast La
dot com, and he let loose his opinion what's really
going on with Karen Bass and the recovery in the
(26:00):
Palisades from the fire, because you know, he's running Steadfast LA,
trying to put together a public private partnership with lots
of major companies and major businessmen and a streamline speed
up dramatically of the process for rebuilding, and he's running into, uh,
the Bass brick wall. So we'll get to that coming up.
(26:24):
I just got a minute. I've been I've been dogged
for the last two days. Debborn knows I've got I've
got a cat. Turns out she's got a urinary tract
in things.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
And didn't I say that that's what it was yesterday?
I should have been a vet.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, well you should have been weren't here.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I don't know if your love for animals well, but
I don't like blood well, and I don't want to
see organs.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
She she my cat, athenis so a girl cat. One
of my sons left the cat behind, and I'm now
the primary caretaker. My wife's been out of town. I'm
the only one in the house this week, and the
cat picks this week to get a urinary tractor, and
uh I noticed a little blood droplets and little urine
(27:07):
urine puddles and uh I. Uh eventually got her to
the vet. Had to have somebody else take her in
because of of course, the emergency happens while I'm on
the air. Yesterday, I come home and there's there's that
pink a moxicillin medicine. Did you ever get that? Yeah?
(27:27):
And I've had to give it to dogs. Okay, I'm
supposed to. My wife has gotten the next five days.
I this is a five day prescription, isn't that perfect.
I've got to give the cat ten syringes filled with this.
This a moxicillin liquid. It's a thick milky yeah, I remember,
(27:50):
just a kid tastes terrible. How come they haven't in
all these years come up with something better, easier?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Why don't they have a pill that you can just
you know, brought in a piece of cheese or something.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Well, I remember when one of my dogs was sick
years ago. We put the pill inside some wet food.
And you know dogs, they gobble up everything in sight, right.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Well sometimes or they'll spit that out, they'll leave everything else.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
But it worked with the pill. This I have to
chase the cat. I got a presser down holding her head,
and with my left hand and there was my right hand,
I got the syringe with all the pink milky goo
in it, and I've got to try to pry her
(28:32):
mouth open. And when she finally does open, just a crack.
I shoved the syringein and squirt it all in. She
starts gagging and spitting it out, and then squeals and
takes off. So the second time I had to do it,
she saw it coming and she started running and I'm
(28:54):
chasing the cat and diving onto the ground. You know,
I'm gonna kill myself doing this, which there was videos.
I know. I was thinking that, Well, I'm not coordinated.
I can't hold a cat down and press the syringe
accurately into her mouth.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You need to have a neighbor or a friend come
over and help you. So did any of it get
inside the cat?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Most of the first time was like about one hundred percent. Okay,
second time probably more like eighty five percent. Some of
it like went on the carpet.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Some of it, Oh, did you get it out of
the carpet quickly before the wife comes off.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Look, she's leaving blood and urine all over the place.
The antibiotic is the least of it. I don't know
what to do. And then she runs off, And I
know when I tried tonight, I gotta do this every
twelve hours. I gotta wake up and do this, and
I gotta do it again right before I go to sleep.
And just assume that I was up at three in
the morning. Yeah, just briefly, And I thought, oh, man,
when I wake up. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta
(29:51):
give it the the antibiotic again. Okay, so all morning,
well I was preparing, I was reading stuff. Thing. I
gotta do the antibiotic. I gotta tackle right, and I
am not coordinated for this. I'm not. It's more likely
I'm going to drink the bios. Okright.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
So Ginny Harmon, who does our traffic, she's a cat lady.
She loves cat, she has cats. She has a suggestion
for you. She said, tell him to wrap the cat
in a towel like a burrito. Then it's easier to
get the liquid in.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
So there you go. That's a suggestion.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
You may as well try it.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Well, I've got to get to her to wrap.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
The Maybe this is what you do. You don't show
her the syringe exactly. So then you go and you
get her. You pretend that you're maybe with a treat,
and then you wrap her like a burrito in the
towel and then you use your backhand and you grab
the syringe in. You know that will work probably for
one time.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Okay, that gets me to number three tonight, right then
I have four through ten still to come. Oh, there's
got to be a better way than this. Call the
vet and say, hey, this is not.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Exactly that's what I would do.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Race has take the cat to the pound. I'm trying
to save her life. That's very nice of you, But
what do I get for it? Nothing? That is the world.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I know exactly how you feel. And I seriously, it's
very funny because I'm picturing you running around.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I look like an itch. I know.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I'm sure you do. I can picture it. Thank you,
You're welcome. But I feel for you because that's the
worst trying to give animals that that good stuff and
a syringe.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Somebody must have come up with a better invention, a
better process. Somebody. There's eight billion people in the world.
They were doing this fifty years ago. Why can't it
come in a pill I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Maybe you should have asked for one. Maybe they do
have it in a pill form. I would call on
your way home.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Seriously, I think I'm going to This is just I
can't do this eight eight more times. That cat's not
going to make it through the week. All Right, we
come back, Rick Caruso striking back and telling you, telling
everybody what's really going on with the fire recovery in
the Palisades. Debra Mark is live in the CAFI twenty
four our newsroom. Hey, you've been listening to the John
(32:06):
Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear the show live
on KFI AM six forty from one to four pm
every Monday through Friday, and of course, anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
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