February 6, 2026 • 33 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (02/06) - Roger Behle comes on the show to talk about the state of California being sued by the city of LA over the Palisades Fire. The E-Bike program in California was a complete failure. The University of Minnesota's wind project was fined because a bald eagle was killed. LA County is cutting $200 million dollars in homeless spending.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobelt
Podcast on the iHeartRadio apps. We're on every day from
one until four, and then after four o'clock John Cobelt
Show on demand on the podcast. That's the podcast, and
you can listen to what you miss. All right, let's
get to Roger Bailey. Now, he's the attorney for the Palisades,
(00:21):
for the Palisades residents whose homes were destroyed in the fire.
They were doing depositions of state employees and firefighters, and
then Karen Bass's attorneys wanted all those depositions sealed for
at least thirty days. And now the City of Los
(00:43):
Angeles has sued the state of California over the Palisades fire.
That's right. I suspect it's when they lose these lawsuits
they want to spread out the damages. But let's talk
to the expert, Roger Bailey. He's on the front lines. Roger,
how are you.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I'm doing great? John, Pretty interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh? This is a yeah, this is fascinating. I mean there,
I guess they're going to start to devour each other
because they know what's coming.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Tell me is this the way I mean, the way
I read it. This has written at very dense legal eese,
So I'm going to defer to your interpretive skills. But
this is about trying to spread the blame and spread
the damages when that day comes.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, that's right. So the thing that struck us as
being unusual is you may be aware that we have
a hearing in front of the court on Tuesday. It
was supposed to be yesterday. They had a flood at
the courthouse, so they moved it to Tuesday. But this
cross complaint did not need to be filed. There was
no deadline that they needed to meet. But the fact
(01:44):
that they filed it in advance of this hearing to us,
signals that the city is now piling on along with
so cow Gas, who sued the state. More than seventy
insurance companies have now sued the state, So the city's
now piling going on. And in this document they're asking
the court one to find that the State of California
(02:08):
caused plaintiffs alleged injuries and damage, so that's all the
policy's fire victims. And then they go on to say, well,
if there's a finding that we the city and the
state are responsible. They were going to ask you to
kind of divide it up what they call a portion
or allocate the damages between the city and the state.
(02:29):
So this is a very interesting filing and the timing
of it is even more telling.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
What's telling about the timing, well, you don't have They
didn't have to file it.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I mean normally these complaints for indemnity that they can
be filed years after a case is over, even where
you've got the government involved. Here, they didn't have to
file this until March. By my mass, they could have
waited until March to do this, and especially if they thought,
you know, come Tuesday the judge was going to toss
(03:03):
everything out. Why waste the paper to file this thing. So,
you know, the timing of its signals that they realized,
the city realizes the case. And again it's up to
the judge. Far be it for me to predict that
the filing of this suggests that they don't think the
case is going anywhere and they wanted to get this
on file.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Did your lawsuit target the state as one of the
defendants or just the city and the DWP.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
No, No, absolutely, you know, I would say, as the
facts have evolved, the state has kind of become, along
with the DWP, become the primary defendant. All of the
testimony that I know we talked about before, where the
state park rangers or up above the palisades on right?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, yeah, right right, that's what I thought. So the
city suing the state here is just to ensure that
if there are damages, the damages are going to end
up being split somehow between the city, the DWP, and
the state. This is to make sure that they have
to pay a share.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
That's right. And they also say, you know, the city,
in its filing has incorporated all of our allegations into
their own filing. Rather than setting forth two hundred pages
of the same stuff, They've incorporated everything we said about
the state into their own filing and have asked the
(04:30):
court to find that the state caused all of the
damages to the policy's fire victims. But if the finding
is that the city's also liable, that the court should
divide it up between them in some equitable manner.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
What did you think of the Karen Bass situation? This week?
The Los Angeles Times story that she engineered the rewrites
of the after action report.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, I will tell you something, and I don't need
to be vague, but I took a deposition last Friday
of an Laft firefighter, and as with the prior firefighter depositions,
the city has preliminarily designated that entire transcript confidential for
(05:20):
the moment. But I will tell you without getting into
the particulars, what I heard last Friday was stunning, and
I think when this deposition is made public, which should
be shortly, it will be a game changer in what
you've read and heard through the la Times reports to
be corroborated. So I'll just leave you with.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
That, right. Yeah, that's why I've been curious about this,
because they're kicking so much dust in the air when
ultimately the story is going to come out through your lawsuit.
I mean, eventually those all those depositions are going to
be released, and so the city attorneys wanted a thirty
day stand down. You can't release any information about the
(06:03):
depositions for thirty days. They want to review it and
see if there's some kind of sensitive matters that should
be on seal. That thirty days is going to be
up soon, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Well, that's right, And the other thing I'll tell you
is when we objected, we see, you don't need thirty
days to look at, you know, testimony, which, per the
court's order, was just supposed to be what these firefighters
and state parks reps saw and heard when they were
up at the Lockman fire burnscar. They're out in the public.
There's nothing confidential about what they're doing up there. So
(06:40):
we've talked to the city's attorneys and they've agreed. You know,
we're going to turn these around. We're not going to
run the clock out for thirty days, and that should
mean that the public's going to get to see these
things very shortly. One thing I will say is I
anticipated these were all videotapes. I do expect that the
names of the witnesses and probably their faces will be obscured.
(07:05):
And look, we don't want to create any risks for
these folks that are testifying, but I think the substance
of what they say, everything that they say, will be
fully made public, with the exception of their names and
probably their faces on the video.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah. I mean, her denials and the interference in releasing
the transcripts has just got to be she's trying to
push this out of the way. Of her campaign right now.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
It's bizarre. I mean, you know, look, I'm no politician,
but the smartest thing to do is a step up
and accept responsibility rather than constant deflection. And I'm just
sitting here stunned. Especially for somebody who's running or you know,
going to be running, you think you'd want to do
what the public is expecting, which is accept some responsibility,
(07:53):
step up and do something other than deflect and conceal
and hide. Let the public see all of the stuff.
I mean, this is public information. Well let them see it.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
We're going to eventually, there's no putting a lid on
this story. It's too far gone. Everybody's got a pretty
good idea of what happened here.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yep, that's right. It's just a matter of time. But
it's all going to come out as it should, all right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Roger Bailey, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
You bet, John, Take care.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Roger Bailey, and he is one of the lead attorneys
for thousands of Palisades homeowners who are suing the city
and the DWP and the state, and now the city
of la is suing the state. Bottom line, they want
the state to be paying a lot of the damages
as well. It's started on state land. And as you know,
(08:41):
the State Park and Reps employees are the ones who
chased out the Los Angeles Fire Department from the Lachmann
fire site where the Palisades Fire rekindled into all that devastation.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI Am
six four.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You know what's fascinating about the California government, the Los
Angeles government, is how they can have They screw up
everything big or small, it doesn't matter the most trivial issue. Now,
this is a program, and you just think about all
the I mean, you know, they screwed up putting out
a fire, They screwed up unemployment payments. They got billions
(09:25):
and billions of dollars that disappear, and yes, I know,
I know it's a lot of theft, but even the
money that's not stolen is squandered simply because there is
something wrong with the collective intelligence and the individual intelligence
of most government employees. Clearly, really smart people don't get
(09:47):
into government work. And this is a really simple program
here in California. Now, the premise of it is a third.
The California government wanted to take more cars off the road.
That garbage again, you know their nonsense. They're hysteria about
(10:12):
climate change, right, and they keep trying to come up
with wacky ideas. And this one was to have people
drive electric bikes to incentivize them to get an e bike.
Of course, electric bikes are if you walk on any path,
(10:34):
are terrified because people go really fast and they seem
like I mean, I drove one once and I have
felt on the verge going out of control the entire time.
And I don't want to walk on paths or sidewalks
where there's stupid people and e bikes. They came up
(10:56):
with this program you get a voucher and it would
give you a big discount on an electric bike, and
they awarded twenty three hundred vouchers and it didn't work.
They thought that people buying e bikes would give them
a feasible alternative to driving to work or the grocery store,
(11:19):
or to visit relatives. This is according to the Los
Angeles Times, Karen Garcia. Would you ever take an e
bike from Woodland Hills to Burbank? Of course not, of
course not. You wouldn't consider it, even if they were
giving you a discount. Voucher to buy one. No, there
is no human being in the city of Los Angeles
(11:41):
that is going to take an e bike to work
when they have a car. That's not happening, or to
go to the grocery store.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Now, if I wanted to go to the Whole Foods
in Woodland Hills from my house, maybe I'd consider, you know,
getting on an e.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Bike downhill from that mountaintop bench. That'd be fun, you
know how.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
You never I've never been on an e bike.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
By the way, don't don't go on I mean, don't
you don't.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
Burn any calories on those things?
Speaker 4 (12:10):
No, I mean it's kind of cheating when you know, well,
I guess it isn't cheating, but it's not really.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
It's definitely not exercise.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
It's not exercise. And it's also what I didn't like
about it is like I didn't feel like I had
control over it. Right, Well, you're when you're actually pumping
the pedals, you can that. I just felt like this
thing could be Can.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
You even ride a regular bike?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Can I ride a regular bike?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yes, I can ride a regular bike. You don't fall, No,
I don't fall because I.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
Just assumed you had some balance issues.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Balance issues, and where would you Why would you think that?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Because you you you talk about how you can't even
screw in a light barb. You can't do anything. You
can't your your finger. I mean I watched you can't
even type. So I didn't think you'd be able to
ride a bike.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
No, I can ride a bike. I had more problems
with with my with hand coordination.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I could I could sit and pedal though.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
Man, well I know you can pedal. I just assumed
you'd fall.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
No, I no, I don't fall. Okay, I can ride
a bike.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
You can't dance either, you say, so, I can't know,
So I just made it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Did Sorry, I've admitted to all my flaws. Unfortunately, you've
remembered the.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Ball, you know, forget?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, No, it's it's it's uh a talent that mostly
women have. Women can remember all the faults of the
men in their lives. Uh. Now, e bikes can run
into the thousands of dollars, So there was a generous
voucher program this is your tax money, okay, which heavily
subsidized or completely offset the purchase price. So people said, oh,
(13:55):
free e bike, cheap e bike. Come in. Now they
get the cheap e bike, but it doesn't mean they're
biking to work. This is what's crazy. This is what
the dumbass bureaucrats don't understand. People like free stuff, even
if they don't need it, even if they don't want it.
They hear it's free or it's ridiculously cheap, so they'll
sign up for the program. And the writer here says,
(14:20):
with safe protected bike lanes and streets designed for humans,
not only cars, we can have a future with an
environmentally sound commuting option. This is the propaganda. Insert it
in the middle of the story safe protected bike lanes. No,
on the roads near my house where there's bike lanes,
the bike riders are moving out into the regular road lanes.
(14:44):
They're not using the bike lanes. In fact, I'm driving
down San Jacente the other day, which has bike lanes,
and I had like five middle aged women biking slowly
in front of me, really slowly, for about about a
half a mile, and I'm behind them going, please don't
tep me here, Please, you're really pushing it. Just get
out of the way, Go to a park, go to
(15:06):
the beach path. You're not in the middle of a
mazing road.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
That is maddening when that happens, and it.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
With this environmentally sound commuting option, get out of here. Yeah,
I'm gonna bike from the west side to Burbank, go
up the Sepulvita Pass and down the Subpulvita Pass. Where
would I bike on the shoulder of the four h
five or maybe I'd handle the blind curves of Sepulvita Boulevard.
(15:33):
Despite wide public interest, the program abruptly ended last year because, uh,
the website kept crashing and they ran out of money.
One woman said that she got the h she got
(15:55):
the eat bike. Uh for ninety bucks. She got so
much of a she used to take the Metro.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
There.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You see, the metro is supposed to be an acceptable
form of transportation. But when when the states started giving
out free or very cheap e bikes, it's like, Oh,
I'm gonna ditch the Metro. I won't get stabbed on
my e bike. She goes, there's this program. Just whip
out your phone. It was called the California e Bike
Incentive Project.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You got a voucher of two thousand dollars. Holy Mecca,
we got two thousand dollars off, but the money is
all gone, and the website kept getting flooded by an
overwhelming number of people, more than one hundred thousand, So
all you got were frozen web pages and error messages
(16:47):
because you were giving out free stuff. That's why. Look,
I worked at a lot of radio stations, right and
you know, you'd go to some event and they'd set
up a card table, you know, back back where they
did these things. Right now, now T shirts cost too much,
but they hand out free T shirts. Do you know
how long a line would form for a cheap free
(17:10):
or no, not a cheap T shirt, a free T
shirt with a radio logo on it.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Do you know that when I wear a KFI logo
of something, I have people asking me can I buy that?
Speaker 5 (17:19):
How can I buy that?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (17:22):
And if it's free, oh my.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
God, yeah, I know you better watch. They might just
rip it off your off your body. So anyway, they
they had to stop the whole program because they ran
out of money. Too many people were demanding free or
cheap e bikes and the website didn't work anyway, and
(17:44):
it just became another failure of the government. Nobody deserves
a free e bike. Nobody does if you feel you
are polluting the planet, then go to work, save your
money and buy your own e bike. I don't want
I want to pay for your e bike. I have
no interest in buy your e bike. There are things
(18:06):
I want to buy in my life. I don't want
to buy stuff for you, your nutty ideas.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
We are on every day from one until four o'clock. Oh,
the podcast is now up every hour. I've been telling you.
I know, yesterday didn't happen. We had some stupid glitch,
but everything's been fixed. And now at the end of
every hour you could go to the iHeartRadio app and
download the podcast for that hour and we live it
(18:40):
all over again. All right, And three twenty three fifty
we're going to do the moistline. I have a very
sad animal story. I haven't had an animal story.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
In a while, and it's been nice.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Well, let me tell you, University of Minnesota is going
to be fined perhaps over fourteen thousand dollars. They had
this green energy project going on. It was the University
of Minnesota eola's Wind Energy Research Field station, and they
(19:12):
had put up wind turbines. You know what wind turbines
can do to birds? Yes, solar panels too. Like solar
panels when they concentrate the sun's light rays and produce
all that heat, Yeah, it can burn them, incinerates them.
Just in fact, remember when when the birds fly over
(19:34):
a solar panel, if they get caught in the ray
of sunlight that's being concentrated on the panel, you hear
a sound and the whole the whole bird gets incinerated
in mid air.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
And does it feel that Because it's so quick.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
It probably happens too quick for them to actually feel it.
And and it becomes like, uh, just disconnected molecules, Like
there's no there's no carcass, there's nothing. It's just a
hissing sound. And okay, that's an actual bird.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
Eric literally had to run over there just to do that.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
We rehearse procedures in order to upset you. That's fun.
He knows the cue. Well, now this is really bad though.
Fox News got a hold of photos of the moment
that a wind turbine at the University of Minnesota. It
was spinning around and a bald eagle flew into it,
(20:35):
dismembering the bald eagle into three pieces and leaving a
bloodied carcass on the floor below.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Okay, can I ask a question, why would we need
to see that video?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Well, they actually published the photos on the website. Why well,
they show you the damage that these wind turbines does.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Can figure it out.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
It murders birds, these things. So they're going to be
fined fourteen thousand, five hundred and thirty six dollars for
illegally killing what the Department of Interior called a national treasure.
And there's a photo here of the moment of impact
in which the bald eagle collides with the turbine and
splits into three And the university knew that bird collisions
(21:19):
were danger and they were in the process of testing
its collision detector sensors. Seriously, they were in the middle
of testing the collision centers and this bald eagle, I guess,
decided it was going to be the test dummy. I
wonder if this bald eagles related to those ones up
in Big Bear. Oh yeah, they washed their eggs, didn't they.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I think I think Jackie has laid a couple more.
I think I saw that somewhere I.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Shadows really doing the job there. Huh, I saw it.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
I think on Facebook. I have to confirm that.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeh, lucky him nature that was very Jackie were going
back to the next here, so they so that I
guess the system didn't work. The lower torso and tail
were found by technicians first, and then they found the
head and the wings a month later. So I guess
the head and the wings went flying. And the US
(22:13):
Fish and Wildlife Services has told the university now that
they the turbine is dangerous to eagles and you have to,
I guess, change the policy somehow. This turbine was funded
by an eight million dollar grant from the Obama Energy
Department in twenty ten. We spent eight million dollars of
our tax money just to slice up a bald eagle.
(22:36):
I don't know how much electricity we got from this
wind turbine, but it's not worth the life of a
bald eagle.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
No, it's not. And I misspoke. We don't have new eggs.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Or we don't have anyone.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
No, we don't.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I thought we it would have been a bigger story.
I thought I saw something.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, itepeful.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
That's why I was, I mean, because I was very
sad when the ravens ate the tack the eggs.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Two bald eagles were killed by wind turbines and the
Nebraska in Illinois November, and a company, a renewable energy company,
is being fined thirty two thousand dollars for that. Another
bald eagle was killed by a turbine in Nebraska back
in March of twenty twenty four. So these are deadly things. Now.
(23:22):
I encountered, my wife and I encountered a dead animal
on our little hike through the palisades. What animal, Well,
it was a dead skunk and it had been mauled
by some predator. There's a lot of coyotes there, and
I can't imagine what that was like for the coyote
(23:43):
because it was only partly eaten. And I have a feeling.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
Even a coyote has its limitations.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
In the middle of the attack, the skunk bag burst,
and that coyote is going to have that stink on
him for the rest of his life. Probably that's never
going away.
Speaker 5 (24:01):
Well, then maybe that coyote will never attack any.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Dogs and he's not gonna his friends and family are
gonna want nothing to do with them. Yeah, because it's
not like humans. You know, they have ways where you
could scrub off the stink. Oh yeah, but I think
you're supposed to take a bath and tomato soup or something.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Fortunately, my dogs have never been sprayed by a skunk,
and I haven't either, But that is that that's been
a fear in the past.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I have a picture of the dead skunk if you
want to see it.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
I don't like to see anything.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
The first one I thought of, it's like, oh, it's
a dead skunk. Debora would love to see you.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
I hate, I hate, I hate.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Do you remember you remember that song dead Skunk in
the middle of the Road, No, Loud and Wane right
the third. No, it was a country song. It's a
big hit.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
I guess I missed it.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Oh and I remember it and uh. I used to
play it a lot for my sons in the car. Yes,
I had a CD player that in the car, and
I would collect some of my favorite songs from my childhood.
Are your kids, Oh, they're perfectly damaged. I didn't want
to be dude, but they remembered it. Because when we
(25:03):
finally got an Alexa, you know, where you could request anything.
One of my sons goes Alexa played dead skunk in
the middle of the road. Was right there? Was was
right there?
Speaker 5 (25:12):
Well, I would have never played that for my kid.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
This well, obviously you're a better parent than I am.
Thank you, and just about anybody is right when we
come back. Believe it or not, you know they have
absconded with extra tax money here here in La County
in order to steal it on homeless programs. Well, they
(25:36):
have stolen so much money they now have to cut
homeless programs for two hundred million dollars. I don't know
exactly how we're paying more money in homeless taxes, but
they're going to be cutting homeless spending. Sort that out.
Coming up next.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Am six on every day from one until four o'clock.
You can follow us at John Cobelt Radio, on social
media at John Cobelt Radio, or you can and you
can subscribe on YouTube. Go to YouTube dot com slash
at John Cobelt Show. YouTube dot com slash at John
Cobelt Show and you'll get a notification. We put up
(26:18):
YouTube segments several times a week and you could be
the first to watch them. You pay attention. Well, this
is crazy. You know, they have repeatedly increased taxes for
homeless programs in the county and the city, and they
(26:40):
the county and the city has then allowed nonprofit groups
to steal money, to allow these agencies to steal money.
And now despite all the tax revenue they're getting in
the La, County of La is cutting two hundred million
dollars in homeless services. Now, in twenty twenty four, people
(27:04):
voted for a sales tax, so it wasn't that long
ago that people voted for the increase. Now the money
is not going to be spent the way it was.
Two hundred million dollar cut. For example, the Pathway Home
(27:24):
program is getting ninety two million dollars in cuts, So
you're going to close thirteen sites. Pathway Home is a
county program that cleans up encampments and moves people into
motels and shelters. Well, they're cutting ninety two million. What
does that mean? Fewer encampments are going to be cleared,
Fewer people are going to be put away in motels
and shelters. In fact, Rachel Cassenbrock, a spokeshole for the county,
(27:51):
said the number of new encampment cleanups in which people
are moving into motels will drop from thirty to ten
next year. That's what you get for the extra two
hundred million dollars of your tax money. They're gonna they're
gonna cut the encampment cleanup by two thirds, and then
(28:13):
the Department's gonna close thirteen Pathway Home motel sites, So
the encampments, the encampment clearances will be way down and
the number of motel sites way down because they have
a deficit. And uh, twenty seven million will be cut
(28:37):
from outreach outreach navigation programs, so those aren't worth anything. Uh,
they're supposed to help homeless people get into housing. I I.
This doesn't make any sense, though, are they are? They
just gonna steal the money right up front and not
bother to pretend that they spend it on encampments and
motels and outreach. It's like, just take it off the top.
(28:57):
Let's let's save time here, all right, Let's let's not
bother with the paperwork anymore and the niceties and the
false nonprofit store fronts and all that. The cost to
run the entire system is rising, and some state and
federal funds that used to pay for the programs are
going away. Well, the state funds are going away because
(29:19):
the Newsom's crowd wants to steal the money right there
in Sacramento and not pass it down. The federal money, Well,
there's no way the feds should should be funding any
of this nonsense. Sean Morris, he's vice president of the
Union Station Homeless Services, says he understands the county's difficult
budget situation. Well maybe if they weren't blowing billions of
(29:43):
dollars on sex abuse claims. Because they are, and not
all of those abuse claims might be real. So he says,
that's going to result in more people experiencing homelessness for
longer periods of time. It's not experiencing homelessness, okay, it's
(30:05):
going to be more people with mental illness and addictions,
drug addictions, that's what it is. They're not experiencing homelessness,
they're experiencing drug addictions and mental illness. They will never
say that. God, yeah, I don't have time for it.
But the clip came out this week of some kind
(30:28):
of council meeting. I forget where we've got the clip.
I just don't have time to play it now, and
and and and and somebody on the on a council
or mayor or somebody like that, freaking out because a
person at the meeting UH used the term homeless instead
of unhoused. That's what was fascinating about this. Instead of vagrant, bum,
(30:51):
drug addict, mental patient homeless, So homeless is now UH
can considered a pejorative. It's unhoused. And the public official,
I think she was a mayor, starts scolding, start scolding people.
(31:12):
She's really worked up that the word homeless was used
instead of on house. What is with them in language?
This crowd constantly changing the language. Well, we don't want
the stigma a school board official. You can go find
that clip. We can play that later. Yeah, play it
in the next hour, school board official. What throng with people?
(31:39):
This is what they're They don't They don't get the
people off the street. They don't get the people mental
health treatment, they don't get them a drug treatment. They
sit in the meeting and argue about what to call them,
or you did goes or on Mandami's way and just
let them freeze to death, right then don't have to
(32:01):
worry about their mental illness or drug addiction. You don't
have to worry about funding cuts, you don't have to
worry about calling him homeless or in house. Just let
him freeze to death. That's what they've happened. That's what's
happened in New York City over the past week or two.
All right, we come back. We're gonna talk to Richie Greenberg.
Oh my god, yeah, speaking of the homeless San Francisco.
(32:21):
Richie Greenberg is a writer and commentator in Sacramento, and
there's a couple of couple of items we're going to
discuss with him. For one thing, they are suddenly making
San Francisco squeaky clean in certain neighborhoods because of the
Super Bowl, and San Francisco is sue getting sued over
(32:42):
a reparations plan for black residents. There was news that
San Francisco had passed a plan or the mayor signed
a plan. But I guess not good enough. Talk about
all that with Richie Greenberg. Next, Stebra Mark Live in
the KFI twenty four our newsroom. Hey, you've been listening
to the John Cobalt Show podcast. Always hear the show
live on KFI AM six forty from one to four pm.
(33:04):
Every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobelt
Podcast on the iHeartRadio apps. We're on every day from
one until four, and then after four o'clock John Cobelt
Show on demand on the podcast. That's the podcast, and
you can listen to what you miss. All right, let's
get to Roger Bailey. Now, he's the attorney for the Palisades,
(00:21):
for the Palisades residents whose homes were destroyed in the fire.
They were doing depositions of state employees and firefighters, and
then Karen Bass's attorneys wanted all those depositions sealed for
at least thirty days. And now the City of Los
(00:43):
Angeles has sued the state of California over the Palisades fire.
That's right. I suspect it's when they lose these lawsuits
they want to spread out the damages. But let's talk
to the expert, Roger Bailey. He's on the front lines. Roger,
how are you.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I'm doing great? John, Pretty interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh? This is a yeah, this is fascinating. I mean there,
I guess they're going to start to devour each other
because they know what's coming.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Tell me is this the way I mean, the way
I read it. This has written at very dense legal eese,
So I'm going to defer to your interpretive skills. But
this is about trying to spread the blame and spread
the damages when that day comes.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, that's right. So the thing that struck us as
being unusual is you may be aware that we have
a hearing in front of the court on Tuesday. It
was supposed to be yesterday. They had a flood at
the courthouse, so they moved it to Tuesday. But this
cross complaint did not need to be filed. There was
no deadline that they needed to meet. But the fact
(01:44):
that they filed it in advance of this hearing to us,
signals that the city is now piling on along with
so cow Gas, who sued the state. More than seventy
insurance companies have now sued the state, So the city's
now piling going on. And in this document they're asking
the court one to find that the State of California
(02:08):
caused plaintiffs alleged injuries and damage, so that's all the
policy's fire victims. And then they go on to say, well,
if there's a finding that we the city and the
state are responsible. They were going to ask you to
kind of divide it up what they call a portion
or allocate the damages between the city and the state.
(02:29):
So this is a very interesting filing and the timing
of it is even more telling.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
What's telling about the timing, well, you don't have They
didn't have to file it.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I mean normally these complaints for indemnity that they can
be filed years after a case is over, even where
you've got the government involved. Here, they didn't have to
file this until March. By my mass, they could have
waited until March to do this, and especially if they thought,
you know, come Tuesday the judge was going to toss
(03:03):
everything out. Why waste the paper to file this thing. So,
you know, the timing of its signals that they realized,
the city realizes the case. And again it's up to
the judge. Far be it for me to predict that
the filing of this suggests that they don't think the
case is going anywhere and they wanted to get this
on file.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Did your lawsuit target the state as one of the
defendants or just the city and the DWP.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
No, No, absolutely, you know, I would say, as the
facts have evolved, the state has kind of become, along
with the DWP, become the primary defendant. All of the
testimony that I know we talked about before, where the
state park rangers or up above the palisades on right?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, yeah, right right, that's what I thought. So the
city suing the state here is just to ensure that
if there are damages, the damages are going to end
up being split somehow between the city, the DWP, and
the state. This is to make sure that they have
to pay a share.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
That's right. And they also say, you know, the city,
in its filing has incorporated all of our allegations into
their own filing. Rather than setting forth two hundred pages
of the same stuff, They've incorporated everything we said about
the state into their own filing and have asked the
(04:30):
court to find that the state caused all of the
damages to the policy's fire victims. But if the finding
is that the city's also liable, that the court should
divide it up between them in some equitable manner.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
What did you think of the Karen Bass situation? This week?
The Los Angeles Times story that she engineered the rewrites
of the after action report.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, I will tell you something, and I don't need
to be vague, but I took a deposition last Friday
of an Laft firefighter, and as with the prior firefighter depositions,
the city has preliminarily designated that entire transcript confidential for
(05:20):
the moment. But I will tell you without getting into
the particulars, what I heard last Friday was stunning, and
I think when this deposition is made public, which should
be shortly, it will be a game changer in what
you've read and heard through the la Times reports to
be corroborated. So I'll just leave you with.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
That, right. Yeah, that's why I've been curious about this,
because they're kicking so much dust in the air when
ultimately the story is going to come out through your lawsuit.
I mean, eventually those all those depositions are going to
be released, and so the city attorneys wanted a thirty
day stand down. You can't release any information about the
(06:03):
depositions for thirty days. They want to review it and
see if there's some kind of sensitive matters that should
be on seal. That thirty days is going to be
up soon, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Well, that's right, And the other thing I'll tell you
is when we objected, we see, you don't need thirty
days to look at, you know, testimony, which, per the
court's order, was just supposed to be what these firefighters
and state parks reps saw and heard when they were
up at the Lockman fire burnscar. They're out in the public.
There's nothing confidential about what they're doing up there. So
(06:40):
we've talked to the city's attorneys and they've agreed. You know,
we're going to turn these around. We're not going to
run the clock out for thirty days, and that should
mean that the public's going to get to see these
things very shortly. One thing I will say is I
anticipated these were all videotapes. I do expect that the
names of the witnesses and probably their faces will be obscured.
(07:05):
And look, we don't want to create any risks for
these folks that are testifying, but I think the substance
of what they say, everything that they say, will be
fully made public, with the exception of their names and
probably their faces on the video.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah. I mean, her denials and the interference in releasing
the transcripts has just got to be she's trying to
push this out of the way. Of her campaign right now.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
It's bizarre. I mean, you know, look, I'm no politician,
but the smartest thing to do is a step up
and accept responsibility rather than constant deflection. And I'm just
sitting here stunned. Especially for somebody who's running or you know,
going to be running, you think you'd want to do
what the public is expecting, which is accept some responsibility,
(07:53):
step up and do something other than deflect and conceal
and hide. Let the public see all of the stuff.
I mean, this is public information. Well let them see it.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
We're going to eventually, there's no putting a lid on
this story. It's too far gone. Everybody's got a pretty
good idea of what happened here.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yep, that's right. It's just a matter of time. But
it's all going to come out as it should, all right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Roger Bailey, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
You bet, John, Take care.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Roger Bailey, and he is one of the lead attorneys
for thousands of Palisades homeowners who are suing the city
and the DWP and the state, and now the city
of la is suing the state. Bottom line, they want
the state to be paying a lot of the damages
as well. It's started on state land. And as you know,
(08:41):
the State Park and Reps employees are the ones who
chased out the Los Angeles Fire Department from the Lachmann
fire site where the Palisades Fire rekindled into all that devastation.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI Am
six four.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You know what's fascinating about the California government, the Los
Angeles government, is how they can have They screw up
everything big or small, it doesn't matter the most trivial issue. Now,
this is a program, and you just think about all
the I mean, you know, they screwed up putting out
a fire, They screwed up unemployment payments. They got billions
(09:25):
and billions of dollars that disappear, and yes, I know,
I know it's a lot of theft, but even the
money that's not stolen is squandered simply because there is
something wrong with the collective intelligence and the individual intelligence
of most government employees. Clearly, really smart people don't get
(09:47):
into government work. And this is a really simple program
here in California. Now, the premise of it is a third.
The California government wanted to take more cars off the road.
That garbage again, you know their nonsense. They're hysteria about
(10:12):
climate change, right, and they keep trying to come up
with wacky ideas. And this one was to have people
drive electric bikes to incentivize them to get an e bike.
Of course, electric bikes are if you walk on any path,
(10:34):
are terrified because people go really fast and they seem
like I mean, I drove one once and I have
felt on the verge going out of control the entire time.
And I don't want to walk on paths or sidewalks
where there's stupid people and e bikes. They came up
(10:56):
with this program you get a voucher and it would
give you a big discount on an electric bike, and
they awarded twenty three hundred vouchers and it didn't work.
They thought that people buying e bikes would give them
a feasible alternative to driving to work or the grocery store,
(11:19):
or to visit relatives. This is according to the Los
Angeles Times, Karen Garcia. Would you ever take an e
bike from Woodland Hills to Burbank? Of course not, of
course not. You wouldn't consider it, even if they were
giving you a discount. Voucher to buy one. No, there
is no human being in the city of Los Angeles
(11:41):
that is going to take an e bike to work
when they have a car. That's not happening, or to
go to the grocery store.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Now, if I wanted to go to the Whole Foods
in Woodland Hills from my house, maybe I'd consider, you know,
getting on an e.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Bike downhill from that mountaintop bench. That'd be fun, you
know how.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
You never I've never been on an e bike.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
By the way, don't don't go on I mean, don't
you don't.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
Burn any calories on those things?
Speaker 4 (12:10):
No, I mean it's kind of cheating when you know, well,
I guess it isn't cheating, but it's not really.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
It's definitely not exercise.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
It's not exercise. And it's also what I didn't like
about it is like I didn't feel like I had
control over it. Right, Well, you're when you're actually pumping
the pedals, you can that. I just felt like this
thing could be Can.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
You even ride a regular bike?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Can I ride a regular bike?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yes, I can ride a regular bike. You don't fall, No,
I don't fall because I.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
Just assumed you had some balance issues.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Balance issues, and where would you Why would you think that?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Because you you you talk about how you can't even
screw in a light barb. You can't do anything. You
can't your your finger. I mean I watched you can't
even type. So I didn't think you'd be able to
ride a bike.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
No, I can ride a bike. I had more problems
with with my with hand coordination.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I could I could sit and pedal though.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
Man, well I know you can pedal. I just assumed
you'd fall.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
No, I no, I don't fall. Okay, I can ride
a bike.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
You can't dance either, you say, so, I can't know,
So I just made it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Did Sorry, I've admitted to all my flaws. Unfortunately, you've
remembered the.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Ball, you know, forget?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, No, it's it's it's uh a talent that mostly
women have. Women can remember all the faults of the
men in their lives. Uh. Now, e bikes can run
into the thousands of dollars, So there was a generous
voucher program this is your tax money, okay, which heavily
subsidized or completely offset the purchase price. So people said, oh,
(13:55):
free e bike, cheap e bike. Come in. Now they
get the cheap e bike, but it doesn't mean they're
biking to work. This is what's crazy. This is what
the dumbass bureaucrats don't understand. People like free stuff, even
if they don't need it, even if they don't want it.
They hear it's free or it's ridiculously cheap, so they'll
sign up for the program. And the writer here says,
(14:20):
with safe protected bike lanes and streets designed for humans,
not only cars, we can have a future with an
environmentally sound commuting option. This is the propaganda. Insert it
in the middle of the story safe protected bike lanes. No,
on the roads near my house where there's bike lanes,
the bike riders are moving out into the regular road lanes.
(14:44):
They're not using the bike lanes. In fact, I'm driving
down San Jacente the other day, which has bike lanes,
and I had like five middle aged women biking slowly
in front of me, really slowly, for about about a
half a mile, and I'm behind them going, please don't
tep me here, Please, you're really pushing it. Just get
out of the way, Go to a park, go to
(15:06):
the beach path. You're not in the middle of a
mazing road.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
That is maddening when that happens, and it.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
With this environmentally sound commuting option, get out of here. Yeah,
I'm gonna bike from the west side to Burbank, go
up the Sepulvita Pass and down the Subpulvita Pass. Where
would I bike on the shoulder of the four h
five or maybe I'd handle the blind curves of Sepulvita Boulevard.
(15:33):
Despite wide public interest, the program abruptly ended last year because, uh,
the website kept crashing and they ran out of money.
One woman said that she got the h she got
(15:55):
the eat bike. Uh for ninety bucks. She got so
much of a she used to take the Metro.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
There.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You see, the metro is supposed to be an acceptable
form of transportation. But when when the states started giving
out free or very cheap e bikes, it's like, Oh,
I'm gonna ditch the Metro. I won't get stabbed on
my e bike. She goes, there's this program. Just whip
out your phone. It was called the California e Bike
Incentive Project.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You got a voucher of two thousand dollars. Holy Mecca,
we got two thousand dollars off, but the money is
all gone, and the website kept getting flooded by an
overwhelming number of people, more than one hundred thousand, So
all you got were frozen web pages and error messages
(16:47):
because you were giving out free stuff. That's why. Look,
I worked at a lot of radio stations, right and
you know, you'd go to some event and they'd set
up a card table, you know, back back where they
did these things. Right now, now T shirts cost too much,
but they hand out free T shirts. Do you know
how long a line would form for a cheap free
(17:10):
or no, not a cheap T shirt, a free T
shirt with a radio logo on it.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Do you know that when I wear a KFI logo
of something, I have people asking me can I buy that?
Speaker 5 (17:19):
How can I buy that?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (17:22):
And if it's free, oh my.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
God, yeah, I know you better watch. They might just
rip it off your off your body. So anyway, they
they had to stop the whole program because they ran
out of money. Too many people were demanding free or
cheap e bikes and the website didn't work anyway, and
(17:44):
it just became another failure of the government. Nobody deserves
a free e bike. Nobody does if you feel you
are polluting the planet, then go to work, save your
money and buy your own e bike. I don't want
I want to pay for your e bike. I have
no interest in buy your e bike. There are things
(18:06):
I want to buy in my life. I don't want
to buy stuff for you, your nutty ideas.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
We are on every day from one until four o'clock. Oh,
the podcast is now up every hour. I've been telling you.
I know, yesterday didn't happen. We had some stupid glitch,
but everything's been fixed. And now at the end of
every hour you could go to the iHeartRadio app and
download the podcast for that hour and we live it
(18:40):
all over again. All right, And three twenty three fifty
we're going to do the moistline. I have a very
sad animal story. I haven't had an animal story.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
In a while, and it's been nice.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Well, let me tell you, University of Minnesota is going
to be fined perhaps over fourteen thousand dollars. They had
this green energy project going on. It was the University
of Minnesota eola's Wind Energy Research Field station, and they
(19:12):
had put up wind turbines. You know what wind turbines
can do to birds? Yes, solar panels too. Like solar
panels when they concentrate the sun's light rays and produce
all that heat, Yeah, it can burn them, incinerates them.
Just in fact, remember when when the birds fly over
(19:34):
a solar panel, if they get caught in the ray
of sunlight that's being concentrated on the panel, you hear
a sound and the whole the whole bird gets incinerated
in mid air.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
And does it feel that Because it's so quick.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
It probably happens too quick for them to actually feel it.
And and it becomes like, uh, just disconnected molecules, Like
there's no there's no carcass, there's nothing. It's just a
hissing sound. And okay, that's an actual bird.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
Eric literally had to run over there just to do that.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
We rehearse procedures in order to upset you. That's fun.
He knows the cue. Well, now this is really bad though.
Fox News got a hold of photos of the moment
that a wind turbine at the University of Minnesota. It
was spinning around and a bald eagle flew into it,
(20:35):
dismembering the bald eagle into three pieces and leaving a
bloodied carcass on the floor below.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Okay, can I ask a question, why would we need
to see that video?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Well, they actually published the photos on the website. Why well,
they show you the damage that these wind turbines does.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Can figure it out.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
It murders birds, these things. So they're going to be
fined fourteen thousand, five hundred and thirty six dollars for
illegally killing what the Department of Interior called a national treasure.
And there's a photo here of the moment of impact
in which the bald eagle collides with the turbine and
splits into three And the university knew that bird collisions
(21:19):
were danger and they were in the process of testing
its collision detector sensors. Seriously, they were in the middle
of testing the collision centers and this bald eagle, I guess,
decided it was going to be the test dummy. I
wonder if this bald eagles related to those ones up
in Big Bear. Oh yeah, they washed their eggs, didn't they.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I think I think Jackie has laid a couple more.
I think I saw that somewhere I.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Shadows really doing the job there. Huh, I saw it.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
I think on Facebook. I have to confirm that.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeh, lucky him nature that was very Jackie were going
back to the next here, so they so that I
guess the system didn't work. The lower torso and tail
were found by technicians first, and then they found the
head and the wings a month later. So I guess
the head and the wings went flying. And the US
(22:13):
Fish and Wildlife Services has told the university now that
they the turbine is dangerous to eagles and you have to,
I guess, change the policy somehow. This turbine was funded
by an eight million dollar grant from the Obama Energy
Department in twenty ten. We spent eight million dollars of
our tax money just to slice up a bald eagle.
(22:36):
I don't know how much electricity we got from this
wind turbine, but it's not worth the life of a
bald eagle.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
No, it's not. And I misspoke. We don't have new eggs.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Or we don't have anyone.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
No, we don't.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I thought we it would have been a bigger story.
I thought I saw something.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, itepeful.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
That's why I was, I mean, because I was very
sad when the ravens ate the tack the eggs.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Two bald eagles were killed by wind turbines and the
Nebraska in Illinois November, and a company, a renewable energy company,
is being fined thirty two thousand dollars for that. Another
bald eagle was killed by a turbine in Nebraska back
in March of twenty twenty four. So these are deadly things. Now.
(23:22):
I encountered, my wife and I encountered a dead animal
on our little hike through the palisades. What animal, Well,
it was a dead skunk and it had been mauled
by some predator. There's a lot of coyotes there, and
I can't imagine what that was like for the coyote
(23:43):
because it was only partly eaten. And I have a feeling.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
Even a coyote has its limitations.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
In the middle of the attack, the skunk bag burst,
and that coyote is going to have that stink on
him for the rest of his life. Probably that's never
going away.
Speaker 5 (24:01):
Well, then maybe that coyote will never attack any.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Dogs and he's not gonna his friends and family are
gonna want nothing to do with them. Yeah, because it's
not like humans. You know, they have ways where you
could scrub off the stink. Oh yeah, but I think
you're supposed to take a bath and tomato soup or something.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Fortunately, my dogs have never been sprayed by a skunk,
and I haven't either, But that is that that's been
a fear in the past.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I have a picture of the dead skunk if you
want to see it.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
I don't like to see anything.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
The first one I thought of, it's like, oh, it's
a dead skunk. Debora would love to see you.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
I hate, I hate, I hate.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Do you remember you remember that song dead Skunk in
the middle of the Road, No, Loud and Wane right
the third. No, it was a country song. It's a
big hit.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
I guess I missed it.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Oh and I remember it and uh. I used to
play it a lot for my sons in the car. Yes,
I had a CD player that in the car, and
I would collect some of my favorite songs from my childhood.
Are your kids, Oh, they're perfectly damaged. I didn't want
to be dude, but they remembered it. Because when we
(25:03):
finally got an Alexa, you know, where you could request anything.
One of my sons goes Alexa played dead skunk in
the middle of the road. Was right there? Was was
right there?
Speaker 5 (25:12):
Well, I would have never played that for my kid.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
This well, obviously you're a better parent than I am.
Thank you, and just about anybody is right when we
come back. Believe it or not, you know they have
absconded with extra tax money here here in La County
in order to steal it on homeless programs. Well, they
(25:36):
have stolen so much money they now have to cut
homeless programs for two hundred million dollars. I don't know
exactly how we're paying more money in homeless taxes, but
they're going to be cutting homeless spending. Sort that out.
Coming up next.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Am six on every day from one until four o'clock.
You can follow us at John Cobelt Radio, on social
media at John Cobelt Radio, or you can and you
can subscribe on YouTube. Go to YouTube dot com slash
at John Cobelt Show. YouTube dot com slash at John
Cobelt Show and you'll get a notification. We put up
(26:18):
YouTube segments several times a week and you could be
the first to watch them. You pay attention. Well, this
is crazy. You know, they have repeatedly increased taxes for
homeless programs in the county and the city, and they
(26:40):
the county and the city has then allowed nonprofit groups
to steal money, to allow these agencies to steal money.
And now despite all the tax revenue they're getting in
the La, County of La is cutting two hundred million
dollars in homeless services. Now, in twenty twenty four, people
(27:04):
voted for a sales tax, so it wasn't that long
ago that people voted for the increase. Now the money
is not going to be spent the way it was.
Two hundred million dollar cut. For example, the Pathway Home
(27:24):
program is getting ninety two million dollars in cuts, So
you're going to close thirteen sites. Pathway Home is a
county program that cleans up encampments and moves people into
motels and shelters. Well, they're cutting ninety two million. What
does that mean? Fewer encampments are going to be cleared,
Fewer people are going to be put away in motels
and shelters. In fact, Rachel Cassenbrock, a spokeshole for the county,
(27:51):
said the number of new encampment cleanups in which people
are moving into motels will drop from thirty to ten
next year. That's what you get for the extra two
hundred million dollars of your tax money. They're gonna they're
gonna cut the encampment cleanup by two thirds, and then
(28:13):
the Department's gonna close thirteen Pathway Home motel sites, So
the encampments, the encampment clearances will be way down and
the number of motel sites way down because they have
a deficit. And uh, twenty seven million will be cut
(28:37):
from outreach outreach navigation programs, so those aren't worth anything. Uh,
they're supposed to help homeless people get into housing. I I.
This doesn't make any sense, though, are they are? They
just gonna steal the money right up front and not
bother to pretend that they spend it on encampments and
motels and outreach. It's like, just take it off the top.
(28:57):
Let's let's save time here, all right, Let's let's not
bother with the paperwork anymore and the niceties and the
false nonprofit store fronts and all that. The cost to
run the entire system is rising, and some state and
federal funds that used to pay for the programs are
going away. Well, the state funds are going away because
(29:19):
the Newsom's crowd wants to steal the money right there
in Sacramento and not pass it down. The federal money, Well,
there's no way the feds should should be funding any
of this nonsense. Sean Morris, he's vice president of the
Union Station Homeless Services, says he understands the county's difficult
budget situation. Well maybe if they weren't blowing billions of
(29:43):
dollars on sex abuse claims. Because they are, and not
all of those abuse claims might be real. So he says,
that's going to result in more people experiencing homelessness for
longer periods of time. It's not experiencing homelessness, okay, it's
(30:05):
going to be more people with mental illness and addictions,
drug addictions, that's what it is. They're not experiencing homelessness,
they're experiencing drug addictions and mental illness. They will never
say that. God, yeah, I don't have time for it.
But the clip came out this week of some kind
(30:28):
of council meeting. I forget where we've got the clip.
I just don't have time to play it now, and
and and and and somebody on the on a council
or mayor or somebody like that, freaking out because a
person at the meeting UH used the term homeless instead
of unhoused. That's what was fascinating about this. Instead of vagrant, bum,
(30:51):
drug addict, mental patient homeless, So homeless is now UH
can considered a pejorative. It's unhoused. And the public official,
I think she was a mayor, starts scolding, start scolding people.
(31:12):
She's really worked up that the word homeless was used
instead of on house. What is with them in language?
This crowd constantly changing the language. Well, we don't want
the stigma a school board official. You can go find
that clip. We can play that later. Yeah, play it
in the next hour, school board official. What throng with people?
(31:39):
This is what they're They don't They don't get the
people off the street. They don't get the people mental
health treatment, they don't get them a drug treatment. They
sit in the meeting and argue about what to call them,
or you did goes or on Mandami's way and just
let them freeze to death, right then don't have to
(32:01):
worry about their mental illness or drug addiction. You don't
have to worry about funding cuts, you don't have to
worry about calling him homeless or in house. Just let
him freeze to death. That's what they've happened. That's what's
happened in New York City over the past week or two.
All right, we come back. We're gonna talk to Richie Greenberg.
Oh my god, yeah, speaking of the homeless San Francisco.
(32:21):
Richie Greenberg is a writer and commentator in Sacramento, and
there's a couple of couple of items we're going to
discuss with him. For one thing, they are suddenly making
San Francisco squeaky clean in certain neighborhoods because of the
Super Bowl, and San Francisco is sue getting sued over
(32:42):
a reparations plan for black residents. There was news that
San Francisco had passed a plan or the mayor signed
a plan. But I guess not good enough. Talk about
all that with Richie Greenberg. Next, Stebra Mark Live in
the KFI twenty four our newsroom. Hey, you've been listening
to the John Cobalt Show podcast. Always hear the show
live on KFI AM six forty from one to four pm.
(33:04):
Every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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