September 24, 2025 • 30 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 3 (09/24) - Mayor Lana Negrete from Santa Monica spends 3 segments with John so she can respond to John's criticisms of the city of Santa Monica and how it has steeply declined.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can if I am six forty, you're listening to the
John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app. You can hear
us every day between one and four o'clock and then
after four o'clock John Cobelt's show on demand on the
iHeart app. It's same as the radio show. You listen
to what you missed. Yesterday, we became aware of a
(00:22):
post by the mayor of Santa Monica, Lena de Grete.
I have talked a lot about Santa Monica over time.
It's been a barometer of how life in the Los
Angeles area has just gotten almost intolerable, especially in the
last five years, but I would go back about ten
years where we started noticing the signs of the decay,
(00:45):
and it's powered more than anything else by the incredible
number of homeless people, just the frightening, scary drug addicts
and mental patients running around. The crime. Now we know
how much a crime there is with all the NAHB apps,
so we don't have to rely on the police, you know,
every six months to give us their phony numbers. Everybody
(01:09):
and they're scared. Everybody I know is constantly talking about
the crime. And I live very close to Santa Monica,
and every fun thing we used to do was in
Santa Monica, and the Palisades Palasades has been allowed to burn.
Santa Monica is in a state of decay, and the mayor,
Lenna ne Grete, took over in December, posted we're playing
(01:32):
going to play a short clip of what she posted,
and when she talks about a certain host, my picture
pops up on the video.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Someone just recently said it at dinner the other night
that we live in this massive echo chamber online if
we disagree with someone, we just click away to people
who think exactly like us. But in real life, disagreement
requires patients, politeness, and care. We can't just exit the
room and go to another room where everybody agrees with us.
This matters and politics. Just this morning, I saw KFI
(02:02):
radio host who has a large audience tens of thousands
of listeners, blamed ten years of what's been happening in
Santa Monica on myself as the mayor and city council,
everything from homelessness to storefront closures in Santa Monica, public safety,
and this shows no understanding of how a charter city works,
how the rotation of a mayor works. I mean, I've
only served as mayor since December. This type of misrepresentation
(02:24):
misleads thousands of listeners and it poisons public trust.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
All right, let's get Lenna Degreda on the mayor Santa Monica. Welcome.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
How are you great? How are you? Thank you for
having me on?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
All right? Well, tell me what are you upset? Why
are you upset with me? What am I saying? What
am I saying? That is wrong?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So I'm not upset with you personally. I was one
example of many where often people don't understand the lay
of the land in terms of charter city, part time
council members versus full time acted mayors versus appointed mayors,
and broad straightments like you know, the last ten years
(03:06):
of what's been happening in Santa Monica is the fault
of the mayor and the city council can mislead people
into thinking at the next election that the people, all
of them, myself included, aren't electable the next year, right,
And instead, I think it's important at least for me
as mayor to demystify how government works, where the responsibility lies,
(03:29):
what solutions are actually possible, and who can make those happen.
But when people with big microphones like this station, you
have a lot of amazing listeners. Many of our police
officers and city staff also listen to you share information.
I think we all have a responsibility just to make
sure that it's accurate and it's not just like you know,
clickbait or you know, fueling the topic of negativity that
(03:52):
everybody wants. And I, for one, I'm somebody if you
follow the votes or follow the conversation, it's often six one.
I'm not a seasoned politician. I'm a small business owner.
I lived in rent Control, born and raised in the
city of my whole life. One of the reasons I
ran was because people were doing meth and defecating in
front of our family owned music store. So when I
(04:14):
hear stuff like that, it's unfortunate because I only heard
about it because people were tagging me saying, why haven't
you solved all this? And in the past ten years.
On my past ten years, I haven't even been on
council for four.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Years, let alone four years is a decent amount of time.
I mean that's an entire presidential term. Well, let me
ask you this, if if you're the one vote, that's
voting for the same policy. What's wrong with everyone else?
Because you just said you got into politics because of
what was happening people, you know, defecating right in front
(04:47):
of your home or your business. Why has this been
allowed for the last ten years? What is going on
with the other six people on the council.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So the folks that have been elected in, there was
two that were already on council, right, and then there
was a few new people who got elected in in December.
So but to go back ten years, I'll say this one.
Our city charter is such that you elected part time
city council, right, they get about eighteen thousand dollars a year.
(05:19):
We get no staff support. And so these people have
other full time jobs. And I say that just to
point out that people have other full time jobs. And
it ebbs and flows. What type of folks you get.
You either get folks that are politically motivated and maybe
moving on to something else. So this is their opportunity
to make a showing of themselves and push forward policy
that's going to get them to the next thing, whether
(05:41):
that be Assembly, Congress, Senate, or you have someone who's retired.
Maybe it's to stay relevant. Maybe it's for attention, I
don't know, or you get you know, someone who wants
to do it because this is their community and they
want to serve. But you have to really want to
do it because you're giving your time for so to
that point, the folks that have been here before, over time,
(06:02):
I think we have had progressive policies that just don't
make sense. We're supposed to be nonpartisan. It's not supposed
to be rudder blue. I tried running independently. Everyone said,
oh no, that won't work. You have to run. You know,
I was always a registered Democrat. Final I'll run as
a Democrat. But the problem is we've had progressive policies
put in place, sure in our city, and that has
(06:23):
been the air. But what has happened with Santa Monica
with homelessness is not just that there's layers right, there's
the county. There's state policies that tie the hands of
our police department. So we have a train you just.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
For a second, Yeah, because we can't go to Santa
Monica anymore. We go to Manhattan Beach. They don't have
that problem there. Good. I I well, I'll get to
that in a second. I work in Burbank. We don't
have that problem here in Burbank, part of La County.
(07:02):
Manhattan Beach is beach town. They simply don't put up
with it. I know. I've talked to the people who
run that town, and I see what they do. Here
in Burbank. We had one guy camp outside the station.
We saw him from a window and the Burbank police
had him gone in like half an hour. And that's
been it that I've seen for like, let's say, the
last five years. So it can be done. And I
(07:25):
appreciate you trying to explain the process to me, but
you're explaining process. All I know is my wife and
I count.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It's important.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Well, the process is important, but what's the outcome? Why
is the outcome of.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
This process is important? Because you have to understand that
a city manager runs the city. We hire the city manager,
the city attorney, and the clerk, but the city manager
hires the chief of police, the fire chief. We have
a new city manager and we're already seeing changes and
you're going to see a different Santa Monica very soon.
But to your point about Manhattan Beach and Burbank, I
(07:58):
know all those council members and I lived adjacent to
Manhattan Beach before, and I visited on a weekly basis
to visit family members. The difference you cannot compare us
to Manhattan Beach. Santa Monica has also had a homeless problem. Well,
let me tell you, they don't have a train that
dumps people off at the end of the night. At midnight,
people ride the train from LA and to go back
(08:19):
to your point. When I was just as a business
owner with my father, we didn't want that train in
because we saw what would happen. Sure, the idea of
you know, having better transportation is nice, but we knew
what was going to happen. So you're bringing people in
from skid row from downtown LA who are riding the
train to seek shelter, and then it stops running and
at the end of the night they have nowhere to go.
(08:39):
The other issue is we have the majority eighty percent
of the services in the spa of LA. So Manhattan
Beach doesn't have the people concerned and the homeless shelter
and all the things that we have. So if you
have services, I've said this before, if you build it,
they will come. So when people get out of county jail.
They're given a list of places they can go to
get showers, to get a phone service, to have a locker,
(09:02):
to get connected to services. A majority of them are
in Santa Monica and in Venice, so that's where they come.
We have the beaches. But to your other point about
the police addressing someone within thirty minutes right away, the
community has set the tone for what they wanted, or
so they have set, but that has since shifted very recently,
(09:23):
even more so.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I mean the community set the tone. What what what? What?
What is it they asked for? They asked for people
to walk around and now to run around screaming.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But they elect people that say, for example, when I
was saying during COVID, when we took out you know,
the ability from Grant's pass, you had to allow people
to have a bedroll to sleep, right when we had
the option to put that back in that you that
was going to be included in our list of things
you cannot have because then it's considered an encampment. And
(09:57):
we have strong encampment laws in Santa Monica, which is
what you we don't see the encampments you see in Venice,
or if you know you're driving down Sentinela and you
would see on one side there's encampments, on the other
side there's not. Because we have those strong laws of
what you can't have as an encampment. My colleagues wanted to,
you know, put that back in there so that people
can have it. And in the past people have thought
(10:17):
it was an inhumane you.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Know they but excuse me, I honestly, I mean this sincerely.
I don't understand because my wife actually terrified to walk
through Palisades Park, which overlooks the cliff and the beach,
right it's on the cliff overlooking the beach. Terrified to
sit on the beach in a beach chair because of
all the crazy people things we used to do all
(10:42):
the time we can't do. Terrified of walking down.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
The promenade, I mean the promenade, terrified. Listen. I get
what you're going and where you're saying. And I know,
you know, we have John Ally who has a business
there that uses his girlfriend to put you know, banners
and political things, and I get that, but does that
make people want to come there instead of just leasing
out your building? What I will.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Hold on? Can I have to take a break I'm
way behind, so stay on for another segment because we've
only scratched the surface here. Uh. We have Lennin de
Grette on the Mayor of Santa Monica.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI A
M six forty.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
We're going to continue here with the Mayor, Lenin the
Grete of Santa Monica. Uh. You mentioned in the last
segment that changes are coming to Santa Monic. Describe these changes.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
So we have a new city manager. We've done some
internal reorganization because that's important to make sure that we're
operating efficiently. People are in the right jobs. So that's
that has happened already. Our police department has set four
priorities that they're focusing on. One is proactive policing and visibility,
(11:59):
so being out there and seeing them. We've already seen
an increase an arrest just with that, addressing you know,
home ticketing. Of course, you know they're going to do
traffic safety stuff. They're still going to do community engagement
and the homelessness. But the proactive policing, in my mind,
is something that's been needed for a long time. We
need to have people on our beaches we need to
(12:20):
have people in the downtown area, and we need to
be able to see them on foot. I used to
run a store, you know, the Lucky Brand store in
the promenade in the nineties, and we had more foot
patrol with our public safety officers who weren't sworn. So
we're bringing that back. We're hoping that sooner than later,
we're going to have a substation at the mall. You know,
(12:41):
those are the things that we help people will feel
safe seeing police physically. That are health sport things. But
I wanted to say that we have a system systemic barriers.
We have judges releasing people because jails are overcrowded. We
have service providers barely nibbling around the edges around this
issue of you know, people looking like they're outside and
in the sane asylum on the streets, and the medical
(13:02):
infrastructure to achieve these people just doesn't exist. So this
statewide reform, like the governor's proposal on redefining gravely disabled matters.
But even that won't work unless the county and the
state really put real money into facilities where people can
be treated and stabilized detoc centers, medical detos, and hospitalization.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So Penamonica, the public gave them billions of dollars to
do exactly that. So where did the money go?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Well, I don't you're asking me. I mean, I'm not
the I don't run the county. I don't work for
the state. That's my point. We you know, civic engagement
is a shared responsibility, like people need to demand more
of every level.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Let me let me ask you this. Do you earn
of your colleagues? Do you ever contact Karen Bass and
say I do I had there's two billion dollars missing?
Where did it go? Karen?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to answer the questions. And actually,
because I know how you feel, but I will say
I supported Nathan Hofkman, who's our new DA. I speak
to Karen Bath about how I feel when during the
fire as we worked. I just had dinner with Lindsay Horvav.
You know we're friendly, but we disagree on things like
needles in the park and harm reduction. And I bring up,
(14:14):
just like I did at the Hollywood Chamber Forum, publicly,
I ask one, will the county reinvest Fellers instead of
in harm reduction and handing out smoke hits and needles,
but rather putting people in substance use to sort of
programs that get them sober and clean and detik.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Okay, and I understand you're on the correct side of
the issue, but you're dealing with a county supervisor who
actually wants needles handed out the drug addicts in public parks.
Insane doesn't even begin to describe that idea.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
But I would save that for her. Right like, we're
on the phone, me and you, so I hear your point,
and pretty soon, I think because of the funding cuts
to the Department of Health, we will probably see that
program go away because of that. But they believe in
it because they believe it's a touch point to get
pe to talk to them. Now, I have personal experience
with people in my family that will tell you themselves
who are in sobriety that that doesn't work. I think
(15:07):
it's ridiculous, it's nonsensical, and we need common sense solutions.
You don't hand out drug paraphernalia to people suffering from
drug abuse in a park. That more obvious.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
It'd be one thing if they handed out the needles
and conducted their experiments, you know, somewhere in an enclosed area,
far away from families. And children. But why do they
do it in a public park?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Is the reasoning?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Well why they're.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, they say they need to meet people where they're at.
And I always say, listen, do we meet the person
who's working two jobs that can't take off a day
work to renew their driver's license at the DMV? Do
we knock on their door and meet them where they're at?
So that idea and philosophy and these ideals are where
we've gotten away from ourselves. So as it pertains to
Santa Monica, I think the changes we'll see is that, look,
(15:55):
a city manager runs the city. The city council hires
these three important people, the city attorney, the city clerk,
and the city manager. But essentially the city manager runs
the city and well police department. The hands have been tied,
but I'm I'd love.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
To talk about that. Can you hang on another segment? Yeah,
all right, hold on, Lenna Negrette, she's the mayor of
Santa Monica. We'll talk further about this because I just
had that incident the other day trying to call the police.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
You're listening to John Cobels on Demand from KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
With the Mayor of Santa Monica, Lena Negrete. Let's you
mentioned put the police in the last segment. Here's my
quickly police story. Every morning I do go to Santa
Monica because there's a bagel shop I really.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Love and did it you got to give them pop.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
It is It's New York bagel. Oh yeah, DELI okay,
all right. I'm mill sure in twenty third And to
get there from where I live, I got to make
a left turn on twenty sixth Street and I'm coming
out of a side street and I look up that
one day and in front of me is a beautiful house,
stone house, and sitting on the stone wall is a
(17:13):
really crazy homeless guy with tons of possessions, and he's
agitated and he's getting up and he's waving his arms,
you know, the whole dance. And I know there's a
lot of kids that walk along that stretch, and there's
people just walking every morning doing their exercise and whatnot.
(17:33):
And you're not going to see him. You're going to
be walking and he'll just suddenly jump out of the bushes.
And he looked he looked dangerous to me, and I
called nine one one and I got interrogated like I
was the problem. Well what's he doing? I said, Well,
he's jumping up and down. It's like, well, are you
more upset about that? Or are you're more upset than
he's on private property? I go, he's looking menacing on
(17:56):
private property. Both of them like, what's wrong with you? Well,
do you want to you want somebody to come out? Well, yes,
I want somebody to come out. I wantn't to call
you to tell a story to a friend. I mean,
I got hassled for like a couple of minutes by
the nine to one O operator or a woman, and
she had a really snarky uh tone to her voice,
(18:16):
like I was making trouble. And by the way, nobody
showed up for like two hours, and then they sent
me a message. And honest to god, he looked really
dangerous and scary and I'm not going to be able
to wrestle him to the ground. I don't. I don't
understand that response. I don't understand why a cop car
(18:37):
isn't there in a minute and he's thrown in the
back and taken somewhere else. I don't get that. Nobody
I know gets that.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I get and I feel totally fill your frustration I've
actually been in similar circumstances. One thing that's happening is
nine one one dispatch is going to be moved under
the police department now, and that's a big deal because
that's that aids when they show up to calls, but
also how they respond to people calling in. So that's
one thing that is changing. Another thing in terms of
(19:05):
when they show up. It has to do with triaging calls, right,
So it may not seem like this and it's frustrating,
but when they're not staffed properly and we have you know,
a call with a person with a weapon and a
robbery that's an action or whatever the case may be,
that call that has someone on there, although very important,
like you say, gets triage and is down the line.
(19:26):
So that's part of it. Is called prioritization. I get that.
You know, oftentimes residents will say, well they don't respond,
not making excuses, but that's the reality to it, right,
So it's not neglect.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
It's just you she's doing twenty questions, well what is
he doing? Well? Is hess saying? Is he threatening? It's like, oh,
come on, you think I'm doing this for I just
want to go get a bagel. And this is the
welcome to Santa Monica ambassador. As soon as I crossed
the line, well, we don't want that.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
We're going to make it more talloweeny and less scary.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Let me, let me, let me tell you what my
wife and I've gone through over the last few years.
So you understand because we love I've heard you.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I've heard I listened to your show. I've heard it.
Your wife used to come to the promenade every week
and I and then I get that.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And in the Santa Monica Place which is now three
quarters empty and that's gone, and and uh and main
Street it is scary, and the beach is scary, and
every everything is scary.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
You have heard this, and I know now I'm on here,
and I would love to keep listening to your commercials
as we go to commercial. But I'm happy to address
it because I think everyone knows how you feel. Right,
they listened to your show, and I agree, and I
have the same sentiment.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Well, tell me, when's it going to be fixed? The
Supreme Court says they have no right to be sleeping
in public areas. So if the Supreme Court said so,
there's nothing to hide behind. Just get them out. Why
why won't they do that?
Speaker 3 (20:48):
So the Supreme Court can say sleeping in public areas,
but that doesn't mean that you can't arrest someone for
just being homeless, right, So that's the biggest problem. So
even when police do respond to things, state and county
policies of limit what they can do and limit what happens.
Next officers arrest the one, but without jail capacity or
mental health beds, or not being able to hold a
(21:09):
person who's on parole, the person's often back on the
street the same day, which is a cycle that's frustrating
for officers and residents. But what I will say is
this Top thirty six Nathan Hogman, the new DA. There's
now you know, two offenses in the past with having
drugs on a person narcotics. We now have the ability
to go a step further on that third arrest where
(21:30):
they will serve a longer jail time sentence. But we
have to reassess some of the programs that we have,
like care Court. I don't know how effective that is
when you only have half a dozen people graduating here
and there out of the program. In terms of.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, I've read that it's only helped like a couple
one hundred across the state over several years. Now it's
been next to nothing.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
It may I think we have to reassess the programs
we have. But as it pertends to Santa Monica, we
do have this sale bridge program now where instead of
like walking away from an individual you know you can't,
you can't. Just unfortunate the laws don't allow them to
arrest them just for being homeless. But what I would
like to get to a point is like, how do
we say, hey, we've offered you services, it's not safe
for you to be on the street.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
It's not coming. Well, let me put it this way.
The thing is, we're not going there anymore. My wife
won't go there. Okay, so we're not going to the beach,
we're not going to the park, we're not going to restaurants,
we're not going to the shopping center. We're not We
just can't go. And you can tell me that all
the reasons. But there are other places that don't seem
to have this problem. So I mean, if you guys,
(22:35):
and I understand where you are, you're not with the
other council people. But at some point we just give
up and say, hey, I guess they just don't want
normal people come coming and spending hundreds of dollars on
dinner or shopping spree or enjoying the beach. I guess
you don't want us because nothing has changed now for
(22:57):
years and years, and I'm just trying to understand why
they don't want us anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Well, I want to answer your question before we have
to keep going to commercial. But I get it, and
I and I know that you know, the way things
get reported can make Santa Monica sound like a war zone.
That's simply not the case. We're three of ninety thousand
people with millions of visitors every year, right, the vast
majority of people who enjoy the promenade, the pier, the parks,
they go home stafe. But I hear you. We have
(23:23):
challenges with homelessness, we always have, but now it's sentinel
and that it looks even different with mental health and
nowhere for them to go with people suffering from you know,
mental illness and addiction on our streets. It's real. I
don't downplay it, but to say Santa Monica is so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Also, come on, come on, no, no, no, hold.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
On how the progress that we're making too. I hear you.
It's seventy percent empty in the mall. There's a new
person that's taken over it a new entity. We've got
things coming. We hope that helps.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
We have friends help business. We had friends whose relatives
came from out of town. They remembered the promenade. It
just happened. Two weeks go. They go to the promenade.
They are horrified. They ran away.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
And do you go to Westwood, you go anywhere else.
A lot of the closures of stores is not just
one thing, it's a multitude of things. That's also the
fact that the lease options there. I tried moving my
small business to the promenade, but the days of shopping
at a thirty thousand square foot gap are gone, and
landlords have to give different creative leases to people. You
can't get twenty one bucks a square foot. You got
(24:24):
to look at a five dollars a square foot lease.
That's more than a five year lease option. It's just
the reality of Also, it's not just here, but yes,
the scary element. I hear you, So what you're going
to see now is north again.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I go to Manhattan Beach.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
It's the same county it's the same state, it's the
same laws, and somehow their shops are thriving, the restaurants
are thriving, the beaches are clean, their strand where you
can walk.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Is that The only thing that's silly about that is
to not notape the fact that they don't have a
homeless shelter, they don't have a train, they don't have
that system that is leaving people in their city. I mean,
come on, that's a common sense thing.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And the politicians in Santa Monica haven't gone to Metro
and tried to negotiate some kind of different system so
they at the end of the night they don't drop
hundreds of homeless people.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yes, yes, it's called tap and tap out. They have
to now check whether or not people have paid. Is
it effective? No, But last night at dinner talking to
the county supervisor, they have a new deputy chief coming
in and a police department. We have an MO you know,
or our police can get on the platform. So to
your point, hold on, you're asking questions. I hear you
want to keep repeating the experiences you had, and I
(25:37):
don't doubt those I'm not discounting them. But what I'm
saying is you're asking the question right. That's why you
have me on and I'm telling you those are the
changes that we're trying to make at our capacity. But residents, voters,
people like yourself also need to understand it's not a
pointing finger game. It is also about other levels of
government that need to get involved. So we are working
with Metro. Our police will be on the platform. They're
(25:59):
going to have a deputy chief now our deputy officer
who will be running the police department on the Metro.
We're helping with the tap out that they're not just
waiting until they get to Santa Monica, but making sure
if they didn't pay, that they get off at another stop.
That's not just in Santa Monica, but outside of that.
One thing I have said, if you and I opened
up a Hamburger shop and we had one hundred Hamburger patties,
(26:21):
we would know that we could serve one hundred Hamburgers
that day, and that's it. We have never asked ourselves
as a city, how many homeless people can we actually
serve and get into services. So until we figure that out,
this will be a constant problem because we need to
figure out what number can we actually serve. We're sitting
around eight hundred and fifty homeless people at these point
(26:41):
in time counts, but we have loads of people coming
in during the day on the train and using all
the services. Are we cannot be the person the city
that has all the services for the entire region. It
needs to be regional support. But we need detoxpeds more
than we need these shelf insert day programs where people
can come and take a shower. Yeah, that's great to
(27:04):
get connected to some service provider who talks to them,
who maybe has a meeting with said we need people
in medicalized care.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Lanta. I really appreciate you coming on and I'd love
to talk with you again sometime on the air.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
I love the conversation.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
All right, running out of time, gotta do the news.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
We just had Lenna Nigrette on for the whole hour
of the Mayor of Santa Monica. If you just tuning
in you missed it, you should listen to this on
the podcast. We'll post it in a little bit on
the iHeart app. Moistline is eight seven seven Moist eighty six,
eight seven seven Moist eighty six. That's a good place
to react to our parents appearance. I really appreciate her
coming on and I think she got a lot in
(27:52):
but I don't see. I don't see what's the person,
what's the entity? Well, who's gonna take response ability for
ending this era? This era is terrible. We didn't used
to have it, and now it's overwhelmed a lot of
neighborhoods and cities and it's got to end. And I
don't hear anybody trying to end it. You know, I
(28:17):
really don't understand. I don't understand why people vote for
progressive government when the end result is the destruction of
your city, when the end result is all these illegal aliens,
these mental patients, these drug addicts, these criminals running around
frightening the hell out of everybody. And you know, people say, oh,
(28:38):
don't go there. That's the last thing I was trying
to say to the mayorage, like, we just don't go
there anymore. I mean, you know, if the other council
people are cool with that, all right. I mean there's
I know, there's a lot of reasons stories are going
out of business, but one of the big reasons in
Santa Monica is the drug addicts and the mental patients
(28:58):
running around like crazy and the crime they commit. I'm
sorry that is I know. The LA Times refused to
mention it in their story twice. They've done two stories
now in a week, and twice they refuse to mention it.
Trust me, here in the real world, it is overwhelmingly
the reason. Nothing else is close, nothing else matters. But
(29:21):
this is the progressive movement, and those progressives at the
LA Times will not acknowledge the destruction that the progressives
in the Santa Monica government have wrought. Well, it's your city,
not mine. I just used to visit there a lot,
and now I don't as much. And the other day
there was a crazy person in front of the bagel shop.
(29:41):
That's the last thing I do in Santa Monica is
by a bagel there. And there was a crazy guy
talking to himself. And if I got to see that
guy every day, Well, there's other bagel shops, you know.
Eventually you find other restaurants, you find other shopping districts
to walk in, you find other beaches. That's what you want.
(30:03):
You got it. See you later. Michael Kurser is the
News Conway's next, live in the KFI twenty four hour Newsroom. Hey,
you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You
can always hear the show live on KFI Am six
forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can if I am six forty, you're listening to the
John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app. You can hear
us every day between one and four o'clock and then
after four o'clock John Cobelt's show on demand on the
iHeart app. It's same as the radio show. You listen
to what you missed. Yesterday, we became aware of a
(00:22):
post by the mayor of Santa Monica, Lena de Grete.
I have talked a lot about Santa Monica over time.
It's been a barometer of how life in the Los
Angeles area has just gotten almost intolerable, especially in the
last five years, but I would go back about ten
years where we started noticing the signs of the decay,
(00:45):
and it's powered more than anything else by the incredible
number of homeless people, just the frightening, scary drug addicts
and mental patients running around. The crime. Now we know
how much a crime there is with all the NAHB apps,
so we don't have to rely on the police, you know,
every six months to give us their phony numbers. Everybody
(01:09):
and they're scared. Everybody I know is constantly talking about
the crime. And I live very close to Santa Monica,
and every fun thing we used to do was in
Santa Monica, and the Palisades Palasades has been allowed to burn.
Santa Monica is in a state of decay, and the mayor,
Lenna ne Grete, took over in December, posted we're playing
(01:32):
going to play a short clip of what she posted,
and when she talks about a certain host, my picture
pops up on the video.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Someone just recently said it at dinner the other night
that we live in this massive echo chamber online if
we disagree with someone, we just click away to people
who think exactly like us. But in real life, disagreement
requires patients, politeness, and care. We can't just exit the
room and go to another room where everybody agrees with us.
This matters and politics. Just this morning, I saw KFI
(02:02):
radio host who has a large audience tens of thousands
of listeners, blamed ten years of what's been happening in
Santa Monica on myself as the mayor and city council,
everything from homelessness to storefront closures in Santa Monica, public safety,
and this shows no understanding of how a charter city works,
how the rotation of a mayor works. I mean, I've
only served as mayor since December. This type of misrepresentation
(02:24):
misleads thousands of listeners and it poisons public trust.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
All right, let's get Lenna Degreda on the mayor Santa Monica. Welcome.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
How are you great? How are you? Thank you for
having me on?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
All right? Well, tell me what are you upset? Why
are you upset with me? What am I saying? What
am I saying? That is wrong?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So I'm not upset with you personally. I was one
example of many where often people don't understand the lay
of the land in terms of charter city, part time
council members versus full time acted mayors versus appointed mayors,
and broad straightments like you know, the last ten years
(03:06):
of what's been happening in Santa Monica is the fault
of the mayor and the city council can mislead people
into thinking at the next election that the people, all
of them, myself included, aren't electable the next year, right,
And instead, I think it's important at least for me
as mayor to demystify how government works, where the responsibility lies,
(03:29):
what solutions are actually possible, and who can make those happen.
But when people with big microphones like this station, you
have a lot of amazing listeners. Many of our police
officers and city staff also listen to you share information.
I think we all have a responsibility just to make
sure that it's accurate and it's not just like you know,
clickbait or you know, fueling the topic of negativity that
(03:52):
everybody wants. And I, for one, I'm somebody if you
follow the votes or follow the conversation, it's often six one.
I'm not a seasoned politician. I'm a small business owner.
I lived in rent Control, born and raised in the
city of my whole life. One of the reasons I
ran was because people were doing meth and defecating in
front of our family owned music store. So when I
(04:14):
hear stuff like that, it's unfortunate because I only heard
about it because people were tagging me saying, why haven't
you solved all this? And in the past ten years.
On my past ten years, I haven't even been on
council for four.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Years, let alone four years is a decent amount of time.
I mean that's an entire presidential term. Well, let me
ask you this, if if you're the one vote, that's
voting for the same policy. What's wrong with everyone else?
Because you just said you got into politics because of
what was happening people, you know, defecating right in front
(04:47):
of your home or your business. Why has this been
allowed for the last ten years? What is going on
with the other six people on the council.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So the folks that have been elected in, there was
two that were already on council, right, and then there
was a few new people who got elected in in December.
So but to go back ten years, I'll say this one.
Our city charter is such that you elected part time
city council, right, they get about eighteen thousand dollars a year.
(05:19):
We get no staff support. And so these people have
other full time jobs. And I say that just to
point out that people have other full time jobs. And
it ebbs and flows. What type of folks you get.
You either get folks that are politically motivated and maybe
moving on to something else. So this is their opportunity
to make a showing of themselves and push forward policy
that's going to get them to the next thing, whether
(05:41):
that be Assembly, Congress, Senate, or you have someone who's retired.
Maybe it's to stay relevant. Maybe it's for attention, I
don't know, or you get you know, someone who wants
to do it because this is their community and they
want to serve. But you have to really want to
do it because you're giving your time for so to
that point, the folks that have been here before, over time,
(06:02):
I think we have had progressive policies that just don't
make sense. We're supposed to be nonpartisan. It's not supposed
to be rudder blue. I tried running independently. Everyone said,
oh no, that won't work. You have to run. You know,
I was always a registered Democrat. Final I'll run as
a Democrat. But the problem is we've had progressive policies
put in place, sure in our city, and that has
(06:23):
been the air. But what has happened with Santa Monica
with homelessness is not just that there's layers right, there's
the county. There's state policies that tie the hands of
our police department. So we have a train you just.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
For a second, Yeah, because we can't go to Santa
Monica anymore. We go to Manhattan Beach. They don't have
that problem there. Good. I I well, I'll get to
that in a second. I work in Burbank. We don't
have that problem here in Burbank, part of La County.
(07:02):
Manhattan Beach is beach town. They simply don't put up
with it. I know. I've talked to the people who
run that town, and I see what they do. Here
in Burbank. We had one guy camp outside the station.
We saw him from a window and the Burbank police
had him gone in like half an hour. And that's
been it that I've seen for like, let's say, the
last five years. So it can be done. And I
(07:25):
appreciate you trying to explain the process to me, but
you're explaining process. All I know is my wife and
I count.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It's important.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Well, the process is important, but what's the outcome? Why
is the outcome of.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
This process is important? Because you have to understand that
a city manager runs the city. We hire the city manager,
the city attorney, and the clerk, but the city manager
hires the chief of police, the fire chief. We have
a new city manager and we're already seeing changes and
you're going to see a different Santa Monica very soon.
But to your point about Manhattan Beach and Burbank, I
(07:58):
know all those council members and I lived adjacent to
Manhattan Beach before, and I visited on a weekly basis
to visit family members. The difference you cannot compare us
to Manhattan Beach. Santa Monica has also had a homeless problem. Well,
let me tell you, they don't have a train that
dumps people off at the end of the night. At midnight,
people ride the train from LA and to go back
(08:19):
to your point. When I was just as a business
owner with my father, we didn't want that train in
because we saw what would happen. Sure, the idea of
you know, having better transportation is nice, but we knew
what was going to happen. So you're bringing people in
from skid row from downtown LA who are riding the
train to seek shelter, and then it stops running and
at the end of the night they have nowhere to go.
(08:39):
The other issue is we have the majority eighty percent
of the services in the spa of LA. So Manhattan
Beach doesn't have the people concerned and the homeless shelter
and all the things that we have. So if you
have services, I've said this before, if you build it,
they will come. So when people get out of county jail.
They're given a list of places they can go to
get showers, to get a phone service, to have a locker,
(09:02):
to get connected to services. A majority of them are
in Santa Monica and in Venice, so that's where they come.
We have the beaches. But to your other point about
the police addressing someone within thirty minutes right away, the
community has set the tone for what they wanted, or
so they have set, but that has since shifted very recently,
(09:23):
even more so.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I mean the community set the tone. What what what? What?
What is it they asked for? They asked for people
to walk around and now to run around screaming.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But they elect people that say, for example, when I
was saying during COVID, when we took out you know,
the ability from Grant's pass, you had to allow people
to have a bedroll to sleep, right when we had
the option to put that back in that you that
was going to be included in our list of things
you cannot have because then it's considered an encampment. And
(09:57):
we have strong encampment laws in Santa Monica, which is
what you we don't see the encampments you see in Venice,
or if you know you're driving down Sentinela and you
would see on one side there's encampments, on the other
side there's not. Because we have those strong laws of
what you can't have as an encampment. My colleagues wanted to,
you know, put that back in there so that people
can have it. And in the past people have thought
(10:17):
it was an inhumane you.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Know they but excuse me, I honestly, I mean this sincerely.
I don't understand because my wife actually terrified to walk
through Palisades Park, which overlooks the cliff and the beach,
right it's on the cliff overlooking the beach. Terrified to
sit on the beach in a beach chair because of
all the crazy people things we used to do all
(10:42):
the time we can't do. Terrified of walking down.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
The promenade, I mean the promenade, terrified. Listen. I get
what you're going and where you're saying. And I know,
you know, we have John Ally who has a business
there that uses his girlfriend to put you know, banners
and political things, and I get that, but does that
make people want to come there instead of just leasing
out your building? What I will.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Hold on? Can I have to take a break I'm
way behind, so stay on for another segment because we've
only scratched the surface here. Uh. We have Lennin de
Grette on the Mayor of Santa Monica.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI A
M six forty.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
We're going to continue here with the Mayor, Lenin the
Grete of Santa Monica. Uh. You mentioned in the last
segment that changes are coming to Santa Monic. Describe these changes.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
So we have a new city manager. We've done some
internal reorganization because that's important to make sure that we're
operating efficiently. People are in the right jobs. So that's
that has happened already. Our police department has set four
priorities that they're focusing on. One is proactive policing and visibility,
(11:59):
so being out there and seeing them. We've already seen
an increase an arrest just with that, addressing you know,
home ticketing. Of course, you know they're going to do
traffic safety stuff. They're still going to do community engagement
and the homelessness. But the proactive policing, in my mind,
is something that's been needed for a long time. We
need to have people on our beaches we need to
(12:20):
have people in the downtown area, and we need to
be able to see them on foot. I used to
run a store, you know, the Lucky Brand store in
the promenade in the nineties, and we had more foot
patrol with our public safety officers who weren't sworn. So
we're bringing that back. We're hoping that sooner than later,
we're going to have a substation at the mall. You know,
(12:41):
those are the things that we help people will feel
safe seeing police physically. That are health sport things. But
I wanted to say that we have a system systemic barriers.
We have judges releasing people because jails are overcrowded. We
have service providers barely nibbling around the edges around this
issue of you know, people looking like they're outside and
in the sane asylum on the streets, and the medical
(13:02):
infrastructure to achieve these people just doesn't exist. So this
statewide reform, like the governor's proposal on redefining gravely disabled matters.
But even that won't work unless the county and the
state really put real money into facilities where people can
be treated and stabilized detoc centers, medical detos, and hospitalization.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So Penamonica, the public gave them billions of dollars to
do exactly that. So where did the money go?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Well, I don't you're asking me. I mean, I'm not
the I don't run the county. I don't work for
the state. That's my point. We you know, civic engagement
is a shared responsibility, like people need to demand more
of every level.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Let me let me ask you this. Do you earn
of your colleagues? Do you ever contact Karen Bass and
say I do I had there's two billion dollars missing?
Where did it go? Karen?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to answer the questions. And actually,
because I know how you feel, but I will say
I supported Nathan Hofkman, who's our new DA. I speak
to Karen Bath about how I feel when during the
fire as we worked. I just had dinner with Lindsay Horvav.
You know we're friendly, but we disagree on things like
needles in the park and harm reduction. And I bring up,
(14:14):
just like I did at the Hollywood Chamber Forum, publicly,
I ask one, will the county reinvest Fellers instead of
in harm reduction and handing out smoke hits and needles,
but rather putting people in substance use to sort of
programs that get them sober and clean and detik.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Okay, and I understand you're on the correct side of
the issue, but you're dealing with a county supervisor who
actually wants needles handed out the drug addicts in public parks.
Insane doesn't even begin to describe that idea.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
But I would save that for her. Right like, we're
on the phone, me and you, so I hear your point,
and pretty soon, I think because of the funding cuts
to the Department of Health, we will probably see that
program go away because of that. But they believe in
it because they believe it's a touch point to get
pe to talk to them. Now, I have personal experience
with people in my family that will tell you themselves
who are in sobriety that that doesn't work. I think
(15:07):
it's ridiculous, it's nonsensical, and we need common sense solutions.
You don't hand out drug paraphernalia to people suffering from
drug abuse in a park. That more obvious.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
It'd be one thing if they handed out the needles
and conducted their experiments, you know, somewhere in an enclosed area,
far away from families. And children. But why do they
do it in a public park?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Is the reasoning?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Well why they're.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, they say they need to meet people where they're at.
And I always say, listen, do we meet the person
who's working two jobs that can't take off a day
work to renew their driver's license at the DMV? Do
we knock on their door and meet them where they're at?
So that idea and philosophy and these ideals are where
we've gotten away from ourselves. So as it pertains to
Santa Monica, I think the changes we'll see is that, look,
(15:55):
a city manager runs the city. The city council hires
these three important people, the city attorney, the city clerk,
and the city manager. But essentially the city manager runs
the city and well police department. The hands have been tied,
but I'm I'd love.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
To talk about that. Can you hang on another segment? Yeah,
all right, hold on, Lenna Negrette, she's the mayor of
Santa Monica. We'll talk further about this because I just
had that incident the other day trying to call the police.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
You're listening to John Cobels on Demand from KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
With the Mayor of Santa Monica, Lena Negrete. Let's you
mentioned put the police in the last segment. Here's my
quickly police story. Every morning I do go to Santa
Monica because there's a bagel shop I really.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Love and did it you got to give them pop.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
It is It's New York bagel. Oh yeah, DELI okay,
all right. I'm mill sure in twenty third And to
get there from where I live, I got to make
a left turn on twenty sixth Street and I'm coming
out of a side street and I look up that
one day and in front of me is a beautiful house,
stone house, and sitting on the stone wall is a
(17:13):
really crazy homeless guy with tons of possessions, and he's
agitated and he's getting up and he's waving his arms,
you know, the whole dance. And I know there's a
lot of kids that walk along that stretch, and there's
people just walking every morning doing their exercise and whatnot.
(17:33):
And you're not going to see him. You're going to
be walking and he'll just suddenly jump out of the bushes.
And he looked he looked dangerous to me, and I
called nine one one and I got interrogated like I
was the problem. Well what's he doing? I said, Well,
he's jumping up and down. It's like, well, are you
more upset about that? Or are you're more upset than
he's on private property? I go, he's looking menacing on
(17:56):
private property. Both of them like, what's wrong with you? Well,
do you want to you want somebody to come out? Well, yes,
I want somebody to come out. I wantn't to call
you to tell a story to a friend. I mean,
I got hassled for like a couple of minutes by
the nine to one O operator or a woman, and
she had a really snarky uh tone to her voice,
(18:16):
like I was making trouble. And by the way, nobody
showed up for like two hours, and then they sent
me a message. And honest to god, he looked really
dangerous and scary and I'm not going to be able
to wrestle him to the ground. I don't. I don't
understand that response. I don't understand why a cop car
(18:37):
isn't there in a minute and he's thrown in the
back and taken somewhere else. I don't get that. Nobody
I know gets that.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I get and I feel totally fill your frustration I've
actually been in similar circumstances. One thing that's happening is
nine one one dispatch is going to be moved under
the police department now, and that's a big deal because
that's that aids when they show up to calls, but
also how they respond to people calling in. So that's
one thing that is changing. Another thing in terms of
(19:05):
when they show up. It has to do with triaging calls, right,
So it may not seem like this and it's frustrating,
but when they're not staffed properly and we have you know,
a call with a person with a weapon and a
robbery that's an action or whatever the case may be,
that call that has someone on there, although very important,
like you say, gets triage and is down the line.
(19:26):
So that's part of it. Is called prioritization. I get that.
You know, oftentimes residents will say, well they don't respond,
not making excuses, but that's the reality to it, right,
So it's not neglect.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
It's just you she's doing twenty questions, well what is
he doing? Well? Is hess saying? Is he threatening? It's like, oh,
come on, you think I'm doing this for I just
want to go get a bagel. And this is the
welcome to Santa Monica ambassador. As soon as I crossed
the line, well, we don't want that.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
We're going to make it more talloweeny and less scary.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Let me, let me, let me tell you what my
wife and I've gone through over the last few years.
So you understand because we love I've heard you.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I've heard I listened to your show. I've heard it.
Your wife used to come to the promenade every week
and I and then I get that.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And in the Santa Monica Place which is now three
quarters empty and that's gone, and and uh and main
Street it is scary, and the beach is scary, and
every everything is scary.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
You have heard this, and I know now I'm on here,
and I would love to keep listening to your commercials
as we go to commercial. But I'm happy to address
it because I think everyone knows how you feel. Right,
they listened to your show, and I agree, and I
have the same sentiment.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Well, tell me, when's it going to be fixed? The
Supreme Court says they have no right to be sleeping
in public areas. So if the Supreme Court said so,
there's nothing to hide behind. Just get them out. Why
why won't they do that?
Speaker 3 (20:48):
So the Supreme Court can say sleeping in public areas,
but that doesn't mean that you can't arrest someone for
just being homeless, right, So that's the biggest problem. So
even when police do respond to things, state and county
policies of limit what they can do and limit what happens.
Next officers arrest the one, but without jail capacity or
mental health beds, or not being able to hold a
(21:09):
person who's on parole, the person's often back on the
street the same day, which is a cycle that's frustrating
for officers and residents. But what I will say is
this Top thirty six Nathan Hogman, the new DA. There's
now you know, two offenses in the past with having
drugs on a person narcotics. We now have the ability
to go a step further on that third arrest where
(21:30):
they will serve a longer jail time sentence. But we
have to reassess some of the programs that we have,
like care Court. I don't know how effective that is
when you only have half a dozen people graduating here
and there out of the program. In terms of.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, I've read that it's only helped like a couple
one hundred across the state over several years. Now it's
been next to nothing.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
It may I think we have to reassess the programs
we have. But as it pertends to Santa Monica, we
do have this sale bridge program now where instead of
like walking away from an individual you know you can't,
you can't. Just unfortunate the laws don't allow them to
arrest them just for being homeless. But what I would
like to get to a point is like, how do
we say, hey, we've offered you services, it's not safe
for you to be on the street.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
It's not coming. Well, let me put it this way.
The thing is, we're not going there anymore. My wife
won't go there. Okay, so we're not going to the beach,
we're not going to the park, we're not going to restaurants,
we're not going to the shopping center. We're not We
just can't go. And you can tell me that all
the reasons. But there are other places that don't seem
to have this problem. So I mean, if you guys,
(22:35):
and I understand where you are, you're not with the
other council people. But at some point we just give
up and say, hey, I guess they just don't want
normal people come coming and spending hundreds of dollars on
dinner or shopping spree or enjoying the beach. I guess
you don't want us because nothing has changed now for
(22:57):
years and years, and I'm just trying to understand why
they don't want us anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Well, I want to answer your question before we have
to keep going to commercial. But I get it, and
I and I know that you know, the way things
get reported can make Santa Monica sound like a war zone.
That's simply not the case. We're three of ninety thousand
people with millions of visitors every year, right, the vast
majority of people who enjoy the promenade, the pier, the parks,
they go home stafe. But I hear you. We have
(23:23):
challenges with homelessness, we always have, but now it's sentinel
and that it looks even different with mental health and
nowhere for them to go with people suffering from you know,
mental illness and addiction on our streets. It's real. I
don't downplay it, but to say Santa Monica is so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Also, come on, come on, no, no, no, hold.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
On how the progress that we're making too. I hear you.
It's seventy percent empty in the mall. There's a new
person that's taken over it a new entity. We've got
things coming. We hope that helps.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
We have friends help business. We had friends whose relatives
came from out of town. They remembered the promenade. It
just happened. Two weeks go. They go to the promenade.
They are horrified. They ran away.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
And do you go to Westwood, you go anywhere else.
A lot of the closures of stores is not just
one thing, it's a multitude of things. That's also the
fact that the lease options there. I tried moving my
small business to the promenade, but the days of shopping
at a thirty thousand square foot gap are gone, and
landlords have to give different creative leases to people. You
can't get twenty one bucks a square foot. You got
(24:24):
to look at a five dollars a square foot lease.
That's more than a five year lease option. It's just
the reality of Also, it's not just here, but yes,
the scary element. I hear you, So what you're going
to see now is north again.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I go to Manhattan Beach.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
It's the same county it's the same state, it's the
same laws, and somehow their shops are thriving, the restaurants
are thriving, the beaches are clean, their strand where you
can walk.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Is that The only thing that's silly about that is
to not notape the fact that they don't have a
homeless shelter, they don't have a train, they don't have
that system that is leaving people in their city. I mean,
come on, that's a common sense thing.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And the politicians in Santa Monica haven't gone to Metro
and tried to negotiate some kind of different system so
they at the end of the night they don't drop
hundreds of homeless people.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yes, yes, it's called tap and tap out. They have
to now check whether or not people have paid. Is
it effective? No, But last night at dinner talking to
the county supervisor, they have a new deputy chief coming
in and a police department. We have an MO you know,
or our police can get on the platform. So to
your point, hold on, you're asking questions. I hear you
want to keep repeating the experiences you had, and I
(25:37):
don't doubt those I'm not discounting them. But what I'm
saying is you're asking the question right. That's why you
have me on and I'm telling you those are the
changes that we're trying to make at our capacity. But residents, voters,
people like yourself also need to understand it's not a
pointing finger game. It is also about other levels of
government that need to get involved. So we are working
with Metro. Our police will be on the platform. They're
(25:59):
going to have a deputy chief now our deputy officer
who will be running the police department on the Metro.
We're helping with the tap out that they're not just
waiting until they get to Santa Monica, but making sure
if they didn't pay, that they get off at another stop.
That's not just in Santa Monica, but outside of that.
One thing I have said, if you and I opened
up a Hamburger shop and we had one hundred Hamburger patties,
(26:21):
we would know that we could serve one hundred Hamburgers
that day, and that's it. We have never asked ourselves
as a city, how many homeless people can we actually
serve and get into services. So until we figure that out,
this will be a constant problem because we need to
figure out what number can we actually serve. We're sitting
around eight hundred and fifty homeless people at these point
(26:41):
in time counts, but we have loads of people coming
in during the day on the train and using all
the services. Are we cannot be the person the city
that has all the services for the entire region. It
needs to be regional support. But we need detoxpeds more
than we need these shelf insert day programs where people
can come and take a shower. Yeah, that's great to
(27:04):
get connected to some service provider who talks to them,
who maybe has a meeting with said we need people
in medicalized care.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Lanta. I really appreciate you coming on and I'd love
to talk with you again sometime on the air.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
I love the conversation.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
All right, running out of time, gotta do the news.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
We just had Lenna Nigrette on for the whole hour
of the Mayor of Santa Monica. If you just tuning
in you missed it, you should listen to this on
the podcast. We'll post it in a little bit on
the iHeart app. Moistline is eight seven seven Moist eighty six,
eight seven seven Moist eighty six. That's a good place
to react to our parents appearance. I really appreciate her
coming on and I think she got a lot in
(27:52):
but I don't see. I don't see what's the person,
what's the entity? Well, who's gonna take response ability for
ending this era? This era is terrible. We didn't used
to have it, and now it's overwhelmed a lot of
neighborhoods and cities and it's got to end. And I
don't hear anybody trying to end it. You know, I
(28:17):
really don't understand. I don't understand why people vote for
progressive government when the end result is the destruction of
your city, when the end result is all these illegal aliens,
these mental patients, these drug addicts, these criminals running around
frightening the hell out of everybody. And you know, people say, oh,
(28:38):
don't go there. That's the last thing I was trying
to say to the mayorage, like, we just don't go
there anymore. I mean, you know, if the other council
people are cool with that, all right. I mean there's
I know, there's a lot of reasons stories are going
out of business, but one of the big reasons in
Santa Monica is the drug addicts and the mental patients
(28:58):
running around like crazy and the crime they commit. I'm
sorry that is I know. The LA Times refused to
mention it in their story twice. They've done two stories
now in a week, and twice they refuse to mention it.
Trust me, here in the real world, it is overwhelmingly
the reason. Nothing else is close, nothing else matters. But
(29:21):
this is the progressive movement, and those progressives at the
LA Times will not acknowledge the destruction that the progressives
in the Santa Monica government have wrought. Well, it's your city,
not mine. I just used to visit there a lot,
and now I don't as much. And the other day
there was a crazy person in front of the bagel shop.
(29:41):
That's the last thing I do in Santa Monica is
by a bagel there. And there was a crazy guy
talking to himself. And if I got to see that
guy every day, Well, there's other bagel shops, you know.
Eventually you find other restaurants, you find other shopping districts
to walk in, you find other beaches. That's what you want.
(30:03):
You got it. See you later. Michael Kurser is the
News Conway's next, live in the KFI twenty four hour Newsroom. Hey,
you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You
can always hear the show live on KFI Am six
forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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John Kobylt
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