May 14, 2024 • 29 mins
Chris LeGras comes on the show to talk about how there are 1200 vacant units that were purchased with taxpayer money as part of Project Room Key. Washing dishes and clothes in hot water is destroying the planet according to some people. What is California's unemployment rate?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio
app every day one to four after four o'clock. Whatever
you miss John Cobelt Show on demand the podcast Mooistline
eight seven seven Moist staighty six eight seven seven Moist
staighty six. We're going to play him back on Friday
social media at John Cobelt Radio. All right, we covered
it all there. Uh, all right, sit down, I want
(00:23):
you to spend some time with us here. We're going
to talk to Chris Leagratt. He and another writer, Jamie Page,
wrote a piece for The West Side Currents, which is
an online news site that obviously covers much of the
West Side of LA. But this is quite an investigation
city wide into how a huge amount of homeless money
(00:46):
was spent buying up old buildings and hotels and motels
to create homeless housing units. And the headline says it
all here. More than twelve hundred city own owned homeless
housing unit units remained vacant two years after an eight
hundred million dollar buying spree. Eight hundred million dollars two
(01:10):
years later, twelve hundred units vacant. What a massive waste
of money. Remember last hour you heard Newsom gibbering and drooling,
unable to explain how they blew twenty four billion without
any record of what happened to the money. Well, what
do we got here in La? Talk to Chris Leagras
(01:33):
and find out Chris, how.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Are you hey?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
John? Doing well? Good to talk to you again.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
This his story was hard to read, not that it
wasn't very well written, but it made me so angry
reading it, you know, I had to I had to
stop and put it down and go back to it.
It's like, this is just awful here.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
What well?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I mean, do the overview and then I want to
focus on the lead in your story about the fifty
million dollar south Light building that they bought in the
Rundown neighborhood. But the overview is eight hundred million dollars,
I mean, what went on here?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So we have to go back to the fete days
of the pandemic, when the federal government allocated the Cares Act,
which was two point three I believe trillion dollars, which
was the COVID relief package, and within that there was
a bunch of money for housing and emergency housing and
(02:31):
homeless housing in particular. And you may recall we had
Project Room Key and then we had Project Home Key.
So the eight hundred million, it's actually closer to eight
hundred and ten million dollars spend was Project Home Key
and Project Home Key's purpose was to create at least
twenty five hundred units of permanent supportive housing. There's that
(02:53):
term that we all know so well. Yeah, permanent supportive
housing on an emergency expedited basis, using the pandemic as
the justification. And I think what this story shows John
once and for all is that when it comes to homelessness,
the only thing LA and California do expeditiously is spend
(03:13):
our money. Because they had no problem identifying and buying
these buildings. And there are a bunch of requirements in
terms of what you know constitutes permanent supportive housing, and
there's regulations and requirements, and then that's actually a whole
other story we'll get into in a minute. But the
upshot was TACKLA, the Housing Authority of the City of
(03:35):
Los Angeles, which is our public housing agency, was suddenly
flooded with hundreds of millions of dollars in federal cash,
and they were obligated to spend it on this permanent
supportive housing. So there were three rounds. In the first round,
we bought twenty motels and hotels, ranging from you know,
(03:57):
nice extended state type places that had kitchenettes and facilities
and all that, all the way down to hotel motels
down by the airport that if they hadn't been sold
the Hacklo would be built charging by the hour. Those
were initially used for interim housing they call it, but
again because home key is a permanent support of housing funds,
(04:19):
the city eventually had to convert and is in the
process of converting those buildings motels and hotels into essentially
many apartments. So in a sense, those buildings were buying
them twice, right, because we're buying wants to buy them,
and then we're buying them once to turn them into
something they were never intended to be.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Round two, which was twenty twenty two, is when they
started buying brand new buildings, and again the rationale was
the pandemic was upending the real estate market. A lot
of these buildings that otherwise would not have been available
were available, and in that round the city bought Hackla,
bought eighteen properties, eight of which were these brand new buildsuildings,
(05:00):
and ten of which were again hotels and motels that
they have to convert. And that's where we get to
just sort of the the microcosm of this whole process
is that building down on Florence sixteen to fifty four
West Florence, for which the city paid a cool fifty million.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Dollars fifty five oh million.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Fifty five Oh, well, technically forty nine point eight.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Okay, well we'll call it fifty million dollars for a
five story apartment building on West Florence, which was a
really run down neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Well, and that's that's another issue, and we're going to
have to probably do you know, talk about this again
because there's so many moving parts here. But a lot
of these buildings are in the middle of nowhere. I mean,
imagine you take a homeless person, you stick them in
this building on West Florence. There's no parking so that
they can't have a car. There's you know, as I
said in the story, the only real businesses are liquor
stores and pot shops. And then okay, go rebuild your
(05:56):
life in that situation. Best of luck. So Not only
are we spending these exorbitant sums for buildings, we're doing
it in places where there's there's nothing to help these
people get back on their feet, even assuming we were
ever able to get the bureaucracy.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
To do that.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So the prices are exorbitant, and again one year, two years,
in some cases three plus years later, they're empty. And
actually we may have underestimated the vacancies. We're still teasing
that out a little bit, but we've since gotten some
additional information.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
This is what this was a whole rush job because
of the pandemic. They sent us hundreds of millions of
dollars and two years later, no one's living in these buildings.
I don't understand this was a rush job. How come
they skipped over the part where the homeless are supposed
to live in a home.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Well, because you know, they got done spending our money.
I mean, the urgency is suddenly gone.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So they just sit there empty.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Well this is they sit there empty. One thing that
has to happen, and this is the ultimate you know.
Another irony is that most of these buildings, including the
brand new ones, they need to spend additional money after
these exorbitant sales, they have to spend even more millions
doing things like converting several So they'll buy a building,
(07:18):
and the first thing they'll do, if it's one hundred
unit building, they're going to take five to ten of
those units to create a manager's residence, a manager's office,
a function room, a service room. So they're buying buildings
that aren't even adequately design resource designs for the purpose
that they're being put to. So we buy these expensive buildings,
(07:39):
then we spend millions more and several years bringing them
up to the permanent supportive housing requirements. And same thing
with the with the motels and hotels. They have to Again,
we're kicking people out of interim housing. So imagine you
take somebody who's been homeless, put them in interim supportive
housing in one of these motels, and then six months later, oh, sorry,
(08:02):
you're you don't have housing anymore.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So they didn't they didn't put it, so they didn't
put homeless in these units.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
They actually kicked out homeless.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
In the hotels and motels that were being used for
interim housing. They're in the process of kicking them all out. Yes,
and I've spoken with several of the homeless. Hakla is
going to be spending another ten million dollars on relocation.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
The eight hundred million dollars produced more homeless because of
these evictions. All right, hang on, I got to take
a break. Can you do another segment?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, of course, because we.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Can't end there. Chris lagrash He and Jamie Page have
written a piece in the West Side Current about eight
hundred million dollars a buying spree that the city spent
buying up old buildings and hotels and motels and created
twelve hundred homeless housing units, but they remained vacant.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
There's emergency spending.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
They got money from the federal government, and not only
did no homeless get housed, but as you just heard,
they kicked out homeless because some of these motels were
being used as interim housing. So the homelessness increased. In
case you wonder, why would they do their studies every
year the homeless increases even though we spent billions.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Here's an example.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
We continue with Chris legras He's written piece for the
West Side Current along with Jamie Page, and it's about
how the city of Los Angeles got eight hundred million
dollars of federal money during the pandemic and they were
supposed to house the homeless with with it, and they
bought dozens of buildings and including motels and hotels, but
(09:52):
after two years, twelve hundred units are still vacant. So
as an emergency they spent the money real fing they
bought up all these buildings, but they never put any
homeless in there. In fact, where we left off, they
kicked out some homeless who had an interim arrangement in
some of the motels. And as Chris said, they've ended
(10:13):
up really paying for the buildings twice, once to buy
it and then once to do massive renovations because these
buildings are not designed to house homeless people and all
the supportive services. Chris, one theme in your story is
the tremendous amount of money they paid for each individual building,
way way over market price.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
What's that about, Well, two things, the hotels and the motels.
You know, you compare assessments, and you compare what they
had sold for in the past to what Pakua paid,
and in many many cases they overpaid. I'll give you
an example. There's a motel down on Western Avenue and
Exposition Park called the EC Motel, and it is as
(10:57):
run down to prepit the building as can imagine, covered
in graffiti. It was assessed in twenty nineteen for three
point six million, which I think was too much even
even at that, and HACKLA paid five point five million
for it. Now the punchline to that is that we
went down there a couple of weekends ago. The entire
(11:18):
building is sealed up in plastic. There microbial hazard signs everywhere,
do not enter danger. And this is this is this
is one of the buildings that HACKLA spent our money on.
And there's a number of other buildings. So at one
end of the spectrum you have these luxury buildings in
neighborhoods that really they're what they are is the beginning
(11:40):
of gentrification. They just happened to hit the pandemic, so
now they're going to be homeless housing. But these are
developers who are going into lower income communities and starting
to build out around transit stops, which we call the
Scott Wiener Special.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Yeah, they're building luxury buildings in Rundown neighborhoods.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, And but those buildings weren't meant for homeless people,
were they?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Not a single building that hack La bought was ever
intended as homeless house, not one of them. There are
thirty eight total buildings, and there are three more were
in the final round of home key, which is just
sort of the drigs and dreds of funding that's left.
But in the two major rounds between twenty twenty and
twenty twenty three, they bought thirty eight buildings, not a
(12:23):
single one of which was designed or intended for homeless house.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
But why did they have to spend so much money
on these buildings?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
I I that's the literally the fifty million dollar question
is a why do they chose these types of buildings
that they did. Why the strictures of home key are
so inflexible. Again, some of these extended staytel hotels, there's
four of them that they bought. There's almost five hundred rooms.
They already have kitchen nets, they already have resources, they
(12:54):
have business centers. You know, they're designed for traveling business
people who are going to be there for a while.
They're perfectly well appointed. But because these home key requirements
are so inflexible, we have to go in and again
after we've bought the buildings once we have to go
in and spend millions more to meet these requirements. And
(13:15):
I don't know why there's no pushback on those requirements.
I don't know why there's no flexibility in what constitutes housing.
It just seems like the bureaucracy is doing its thing
and moving forward relentlessly in slow motion.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
With all your interviews, did you run anybody on the
inside involved in these programs who said this is nuts?
Or do they all just go along with it because
just another day at work. Yes, we're wasting enormous amounts
of money, that's what we do.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
No one spokesperson thanked us for bringing up this very
important issue. But no, there's no sense of urgency. There's
no sense of accountability, and accountability as always with this system,
with this homeless system we've built, is a game of
hot potato every agency. Eventually, when you start getting a
(14:04):
little bit too hot, they end up preferring you to
another agency, and that's the way they just kind of
keep the shell game moving. Now, they will say that
all of these buildings will finally be occupied by the
first quarter of next year, although that date has slipped
several times already. But the question remains, how did we
spend all of this money in a flash? How do
(14:26):
we buy so many buildings that are just flatly unsuited
for the purpose that they're going to be intended? And
why are we spending tens of millions more to bring
them up to snuff. And I don't know if you
heard this at the end of the last segment, but
one of the other cost centers, as we kick people
out of interim housing, HAKLA is going to spend ten
point two million dollars on relocation consultants.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Relocation consultants these for the homeless people that they kicked down.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yes, apparently, Apparently relocation consultants is a job.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Ten dollars, Yes, to move people from one motel to another.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And many of the home the folks we talk to
who are being moved out have not been contacted by
any resources. I talked to a woman I probably shouldn't
identify the place for her sake, but she was one
of ten people left of one hundred and twenty plus
unit extended stay And I'm sitting there in the driveway
and I said, well, well, have you you know, been contacted?
(15:28):
Do you know where you're going to go, she said no.
Have you gotten any support? She said no. And as
we're talking, the security guard is like Carl Lewis sprinting
at us, and he demands that I get off the
private property and she goes back inside. So there, yeah,
a threat anything else. When you really get into the
nitty gritty. Sure, the spokespeople will talk to you. M'll
be nice answering your questions. But boy, when you start
(15:50):
getting close to home, they circle the wagons very quickly.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Oh my god, I can't imagine the corruption going on here.
That's probably for another day. Thank you very much for
coming on, Chris, and everybody should read this. At westside
current dot com. The headline is more than twelve hundred
city owned homeless housing units remained vacant two years after
an eight hundred million dollar buying spree.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Chris Legras, L E. G R. A. S.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
And Jamie Page read it vote differently when we come back.
The Washington Post was lecturing its readers we should stop
washing our dishes with hot water, and we should stop
washing our clothes in hot water because we're destroying the planet.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That what.
Speaker 6 (16:41):
Certain items need to be washed?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Nope, see you want to you want to harm the planet?
Speaker 6 (16:46):
Well, I want clean underwear.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
M six forty.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
We're on from one to four and then after four
o'clock John Cobelt Show on Demand. That's the podcast version,
and we had a lot of good stuff today. You
should go listen to the podcast if you've missed it.
I tell you what we did already, but.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I don't have time.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
We're already running late.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Cottaway coming up after four o'clock. Okay, you know, I
get a little teas about this story before the news,
and there's even more to it. The Washington Post has
a story lecturing its readers that you should no longer
use hot water to wash your dishes, no longer use
(17:34):
hot water for your laundry, and no longer use hot
water for your shower because the energy that you're using
heating all this water is harming the planet. Hot water
is a great way to get grease off your dishes
(17:58):
and to get stains out of your clothing or sweat
dirt off your body.
Speaker 7 (18:03):
That's right, But the U and who takes a cold
showerh me just weirdes I need it hot, you're hot
and wet.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Oh god, because you're not wearing any clothes in the
shower either, so you're trying to get across. The post
says if we washed four out of five loads of
laundry and cold water, we would cut eight hundred and
sixty four pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,
(18:37):
the equivalent to planting a third of an acre of forest.
Speaker 7 (18:40):
Oh well, I'm not stopping any of those three. I'm
just saying.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
I mean, I'm one.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Person, like this is what the climate fanatics think about.
It's like, you use hot water to wash your dishes.
Why that's a third of an acre of forest you
could be planting.
Speaker 7 (18:57):
I'll tell you what those people can do the cold water, right,
there's enough people that are worried about that, so they
can do the cold water and we can do the
hot water.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, I mean, you know there's germs and clothes, that's right.
The hot water helps kill the germs. Then it's got
all your body oils. Yes, go in there. Yes, a shower.
Half of a home's hot water is used for bathing.
You should rethink washing your hands with hot or warm
(19:29):
water for the same reason. Now we just did a
story about hepatitis being passed because the homeless had poop
on their hands.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
You have to wash your hands in hot water soap.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
You're ruining the planet. Just just take the take the hepatitis.
Do it for the planet. And they say you should
not pre ridch your dishes in hot water. That's a waste.
Just put them in the dish washing.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Okay, that's fine. I can live with that one.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
See.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
The thing is a lot of people find the dishwashers
don't get I mean my I gave up on my
dishwasher because it just never got the food off the
dish unless I yes, I personally, I do most of
the dishes in the house.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
Wow, well there's only two of you usually.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I'm just letting you know.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Okay, all right, if you stack up all my dishes
against anybody else who's in the house, I mine goes
up as high as the Empire State building. Wow. Yeah,
I'm a real man. And he use hot water for
I mean, I'm fouling the planet. They don't want to see,
but they they want us to live like we're in
(20:42):
the eighteen hundreds. Like if you were in the eighteen hundreds,
you know what, you would do what you would be
taking your dirty clothes out to the river, and you'd
be washing them in the river the cold, right and
then and then squeezing out the water and laying them
out on the fields to dry. You would be swimming
(21:03):
in the river washing yourself. You'd be dragging stacks of
plates out there. He's be spending a couple hours out
in the river.
Speaker 6 (21:11):
But it's twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I mean, you really were not designed to leave.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
No, one hundred percent.
Speaker 7 (21:20):
I need my my hair dryer and my flat iron,
and my heat and my lights and my phone.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
And no, I'm trying to imagine your housewife in eighteen twenties.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
God.
Speaker 7 (21:32):
No, And I had never called myself a housewife either,
even though some people may be okay with that term.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
But go ahead, you go, just dig yourself a nice
big hole here, jump in. No, it's just just people
like you didn't exist in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
Probably not No.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Me, tro I know, just let her keep talking. Like
if somebody were to say, how should I work with Debra?
I said, just let her talk?
Speaker 6 (22:07):
Okay, is that time for me to do the news?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
No, just keep talking. Now you've insulted all the housewives listening.
Speaker 7 (22:15):
Okay, I don't like to be called a housewife because
I never I.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
Never was one.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Nobody called you a housewife. I just said in the
eighteen twenties, right, I.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
Would have you said, I would never have been a housewife.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
Right, Okay, let's just delete, delete, delete that all right?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Coming up?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Do you know the unemployment rate in California is probably
double what they say it is.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
I'll explain.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
sixty Conway.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Coming up in a few minutes. The California unemployment rate,
which gets no coverage because nobody in the news media
and the state cares.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
But it's the highest in the country. It's highest in
the nation.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And the thing is, I've always said unemployment rates are
fake numbers because it doesn't count a lot of people
who are not working but would like to work or
work more than they are. We'll give you an example.
Jonathan Lanzer and the Orange County Register says, is California's
(23:22):
unemployment rate really nine and a half percent? I think
it's around five for five point two on the bucks,
but he says it's almost double the official rate, and
it's the highest in the nation. Nevada would be at
eight point nine at last at eight point six, Washington
(23:42):
eighty six, New Jersey eight three. But you're asking, well,
where do you get nine and a half, Well, if
you add up the official unemployed, along with the discouraged workers,
the ones who can't find a job for what ever reason,
those who are underemployed, they're working part time, they want
(24:05):
full time. It also counts people with no jobs because
they haven't recently looked for work. There's a lot of
people in this gray area who would work if there
was the right opportunity or if the economy was producing
the kinds of jobs. I guess they're qualified for that
(24:26):
they want to do. And when you look at that
nine and a half percent of Californians are unemployed, high
interest rates have really messed with like real estate related industries,
manufacturing struggling because the dollar is strong, and you know,
(24:52):
there's a lot of companies that have laid off a
lot of office workers. I think we found out after
the pandemic that a lot of people really aren't needed
anymore and they're unemployed, maybe officially, maybe unofficially. I also
suspect there's I really do suspect that a lot of
(25:14):
employed people really aren't working that much if they're working
at a home. That's just my anecdotal observations. In any event,
the US jobless rate is seven point seven percent, but
in California it's nine point five. So we have the
highest regular unemployment rate. We have the highest real unemployment
(25:36):
rate that I was just describing here. We have an
inflation rate that is being fed not only by Newsom's twenty.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Dollars minimum wage.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
You realize that's caused obviously a lot of restaurant food
to get jacked up, right, So that's added to the
inflation rate. And then we told you earlier in the
show about the extra dollar in gas taxes that are
coming over the next two years. Well that's going to
further add to the inflation rate. Diesel prices are going
to go up well more than a dollar. That's going
(26:10):
to add more inflation because of because all deliveries, all
deliveries of all truck good truck delivered goods are going
to go up as well, So everything, everything's going to
go up. The inflation here is going to be worse,
and it's directly due to the policies that Newsom has
laid down and the Democratic legislature.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Tivity doo givity too, and it hurt.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
You know, we got twenty five percent of the state
in poverty. The middle class is shrinking, but you know
it's still there. They're the ones we're getting hurt by
all this. Oh yeah, this, we got Conway. Hey, no,
and Thompson.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I couldn't think of his name, Mark Thompson.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Mark Thompson's all that loyal listening I did yesterday. I
heard you going off about gascon I thought you were
really good.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
I'm with you at the gas it's fifty cents here there.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
We're with you or with you all the time. Then
you can't remember my name.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
But look, I think you're onto something there.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
You know.
Speaker 8 (27:09):
If they want us to all get out of our cars,
which you know I understand, that's their you know, I
disagree with that, but that's their that's their goal. Yeah,
then make the public transportation safe. Don't kill us.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, we had two stabbings yesterday, that's right.
Speaker 8 (27:23):
Yeah, Yeah, it's horrible. We have a story coming out
of San Francisco. They have a new policy where they're
going to give homeless people free shots of vodka.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Do you see that?
Speaker 4 (27:32):
I did not see.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I did see the shots of vodka. Yeah, choice, Yes,
you can get a twelve inn s can of beer.
I'm not making this up. A two ounce shot of
vodka or five ounce class of wine.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
And what is the thinking behind it?
Speaker 8 (27:47):
Well, it's it's sort of like a new prison up there.
You know, the streets are so filthy, it's gonna be
three shots and a con up there.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
They have they send nurses over. But doesn't that have
to be.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
A you know, a non compete bid and has to
be one of their friends that is capitalizing on this thing. Yeah, yeah,
Well something's going on up there. I don't know what's
going on, but we're here. Also, Disney is the news
with streaming and Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
The w NBA is taken off. Whether you like that
or not, it's becoming huge.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
SpaceX launches the fiftieth Falcon nine rocket.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
That's good, that's a cool deal.
Speaker 8 (28:22):
And UCLA may be forced to pay millions of dollars
to leave the Pac twelve.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
You know, they're moving on. They're going to uh where,
They're going to.
Speaker 8 (28:29):
The Big Gate down to the Pack two Big ten
or whatever it is or what it is.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I can't believe they destroyed that league.
Speaker 8 (28:36):
Yeah, but you know what, but look when UCLA and
USC we're gonna get Michigan, Michigan out here. We're going
to get Ohio State every year or or there. You know,
UCLA will go to play you know, Ohio State.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
There could be some big games then, you know, forget this.
Speaker 8 (28:50):
Uh you know what is it like Nevada State, you know,
or New Mexico University?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Who cares? I think state?
Speaker 8 (28:58):
We want to play the big colleges, big colleges, and
they're all coming out here.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Tim is geographically challenged, right He's.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Making them up.
Speaker 8 (29:05):
There's a lot more we cant Fresno State, we can
make up a whole three hours.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Doesn't UCLA play Fresno State? I don't know?
Speaker 8 (29:12):
And USC they play Fresno State. Right now, it's gonna
be Ohio State, Michigan, you know, big colleges, Notre Dame, LSU, Alabama,
you know, Georgia. There's some big names coming away to
stop him.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
He's making a point, John stand clear.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Those are good, those those are great points. Conway's next.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Thompson's got the news Nomsons with Conyways as the news
whatever cares uh 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 kf I Am
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio
app every day one to four after four o'clock. Whatever
you miss John Cobelt Show on demand the podcast Mooistline
eight seven seven Moist staighty six eight seven seven Moist
staighty six. We're going to play him back on Friday
social media at John Cobelt Radio. All right, we covered
it all there. Uh, all right, sit down, I want
(00:23):
you to spend some time with us here. We're going
to talk to Chris Leagratt. He and another writer, Jamie Page,
wrote a piece for The West Side Currents, which is
an online news site that obviously covers much of the
West Side of LA. But this is quite an investigation
city wide into how a huge amount of homeless money
(00:46):
was spent buying up old buildings and hotels and motels
to create homeless housing units. And the headline says it
all here. More than twelve hundred city own owned homeless
housing unit units remained vacant two years after an eight
hundred million dollar buying spree. Eight hundred million dollars two
(01:10):
years later, twelve hundred units vacant. What a massive waste
of money. Remember last hour you heard Newsom gibbering and drooling,
unable to explain how they blew twenty four billion without
any record of what happened to the money. Well, what
do we got here in La? Talk to Chris Leagras
(01:33):
and find out Chris, how.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Are you hey?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
John? Doing well? Good to talk to you again.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
This his story was hard to read, not that it
wasn't very well written, but it made me so angry
reading it, you know, I had to I had to
stop and put it down and go back to it.
It's like, this is just awful here.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
What well?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I mean, do the overview and then I want to
focus on the lead in your story about the fifty
million dollar south Light building that they bought in the
Rundown neighborhood. But the overview is eight hundred million dollars,
I mean, what went on here?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So we have to go back to the fete days
of the pandemic, when the federal government allocated the Cares Act,
which was two point three I believe trillion dollars, which
was the COVID relief package, and within that there was
a bunch of money for housing and emergency housing and
(02:31):
homeless housing in particular. And you may recall we had
Project Room Key and then we had Project Home Key.
So the eight hundred million, it's actually closer to eight
hundred and ten million dollars spend was Project Home Key
and Project Home Key's purpose was to create at least
twenty five hundred units of permanent supportive housing. There's that
(02:53):
term that we all know so well. Yeah, permanent supportive
housing on an emergency expedited basis, using the pandemic as
the justification. And I think what this story shows John
once and for all is that when it comes to homelessness,
the only thing LA and California do expeditiously is spend
(03:13):
our money. Because they had no problem identifying and buying
these buildings. And there are a bunch of requirements in
terms of what you know constitutes permanent supportive housing, and
there's regulations and requirements, and then that's actually a whole
other story we'll get into in a minute. But the
upshot was TACKLA, the Housing Authority of the City of
(03:35):
Los Angeles, which is our public housing agency, was suddenly
flooded with hundreds of millions of dollars in federal cash,
and they were obligated to spend it on this permanent
supportive housing. So there were three rounds. In the first round,
we bought twenty motels and hotels, ranging from you know,
(03:57):
nice extended state type places that had kitchenettes and facilities
and all that, all the way down to hotel motels
down by the airport that if they hadn't been sold
the Hacklo would be built charging by the hour. Those
were initially used for interim housing they call it, but
again because home key is a permanent support of housing funds,
(04:19):
the city eventually had to convert and is in the
process of converting those buildings motels and hotels into essentially
many apartments. So in a sense, those buildings were buying
them twice, right, because we're buying wants to buy them,
and then we're buying them once to turn them into
something they were never intended to be.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Round two, which was twenty twenty two, is when they
started buying brand new buildings, and again the rationale was
the pandemic was upending the real estate market. A lot
of these buildings that otherwise would not have been available
were available, and in that round the city bought Hackla,
bought eighteen properties, eight of which were these brand new buildsuildings,
(05:00):
and ten of which were again hotels and motels that
they have to convert. And that's where we get to
just sort of the the microcosm of this whole process
is that building down on Florence sixteen to fifty four
West Florence, for which the city paid a cool fifty million.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Dollars fifty five oh million.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Fifty five Oh, well, technically forty nine point eight.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Okay, well we'll call it fifty million dollars for a
five story apartment building on West Florence, which was a
really run down neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Well, and that's that's another issue, and we're going to
have to probably do you know, talk about this again
because there's so many moving parts here. But a lot
of these buildings are in the middle of nowhere. I mean,
imagine you take a homeless person, you stick them in
this building on West Florence. There's no parking so that
they can't have a car. There's you know, as I
said in the story, the only real businesses are liquor
stores and pot shops. And then okay, go rebuild your
(05:56):
life in that situation. Best of luck. So Not only
are we spending these exorbitant sums for buildings, we're doing
it in places where there's there's nothing to help these
people get back on their feet, even assuming we were
ever able to get the bureaucracy.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
To do that.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So the prices are exorbitant, and again one year, two years,
in some cases three plus years later, they're empty. And
actually we may have underestimated the vacancies. We're still teasing
that out a little bit, but we've since gotten some
additional information.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
This is what this was a whole rush job because
of the pandemic. They sent us hundreds of millions of
dollars and two years later, no one's living in these buildings.
I don't understand this was a rush job. How come
they skipped over the part where the homeless are supposed
to live in a home.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Well, because you know, they got done spending our money.
I mean, the urgency is suddenly gone.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So they just sit there empty.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Well this is they sit there empty. One thing that
has to happen, and this is the ultimate you know.
Another irony is that most of these buildings, including the
brand new ones, they need to spend additional money after
these exorbitant sales, they have to spend even more millions
doing things like converting several So they'll buy a building,
(07:18):
and the first thing they'll do, if it's one hundred
unit building, they're going to take five to ten of
those units to create a manager's residence, a manager's office,
a function room, a service room. So they're buying buildings
that aren't even adequately design resource designs for the purpose
that they're being put to. So we buy these expensive buildings,
(07:39):
then we spend millions more and several years bringing them
up to the permanent supportive housing requirements. And same thing
with the with the motels and hotels. They have to Again,
we're kicking people out of interim housing. So imagine you
take somebody who's been homeless, put them in interim supportive
housing in one of these motels, and then six months later, oh, sorry,
(08:02):
you're you don't have housing anymore.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So they didn't they didn't put it, so they didn't
put homeless in these units.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
They actually kicked out homeless.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
In the hotels and motels that were being used for
interim housing. They're in the process of kicking them all out. Yes,
and I've spoken with several of the homeless. Hakla is
going to be spending another ten million dollars on relocation.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
The eight hundred million dollars produced more homeless because of
these evictions. All right, hang on, I got to take
a break. Can you do another segment?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, of course, because we.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Can't end there. Chris lagrash He and Jamie Page have
written a piece in the West Side Current about eight
hundred million dollars a buying spree that the city spent
buying up old buildings and hotels and motels and created
twelve hundred homeless housing units, but they remained vacant.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
There's emergency spending.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
They got money from the federal government, and not only
did no homeless get housed, but as you just heard,
they kicked out homeless because some of these motels were
being used as interim housing. So the homelessness increased. In
case you wonder, why would they do their studies every
year the homeless increases even though we spent billions.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Here's an example.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
We continue with Chris legras He's written piece for the
West Side Current along with Jamie Page, and it's about
how the city of Los Angeles got eight hundred million
dollars of federal money during the pandemic and they were
supposed to house the homeless with with it, and they
bought dozens of buildings and including motels and hotels, but
(09:52):
after two years, twelve hundred units are still vacant. So
as an emergency they spent the money real fing they
bought up all these buildings, but they never put any
homeless in there. In fact, where we left off, they
kicked out some homeless who had an interim arrangement in
some of the motels. And as Chris said, they've ended
(10:13):
up really paying for the buildings twice, once to buy
it and then once to do massive renovations because these
buildings are not designed to house homeless people and all
the supportive services. Chris, one theme in your story is
the tremendous amount of money they paid for each individual building,
way way over market price.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
What's that about, Well, two things, the hotels and the motels.
You know, you compare assessments, and you compare what they
had sold for in the past to what Pakua paid,
and in many many cases they overpaid. I'll give you
an example. There's a motel down on Western Avenue and
Exposition Park called the EC Motel, and it is as
(10:57):
run down to prepit the building as can imagine, covered
in graffiti. It was assessed in twenty nineteen for three
point six million, which I think was too much even
even at that, and HACKLA paid five point five million
for it. Now the punchline to that is that we
went down there a couple of weekends ago. The entire
(11:18):
building is sealed up in plastic. There microbial hazard signs everywhere,
do not enter danger. And this is this is this
is one of the buildings that HACKLA spent our money on.
And there's a number of other buildings. So at one
end of the spectrum you have these luxury buildings in
neighborhoods that really they're what they are is the beginning
(11:40):
of gentrification. They just happened to hit the pandemic, so
now they're going to be homeless housing. But these are
developers who are going into lower income communities and starting
to build out around transit stops, which we call the
Scott Wiener Special.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Yeah, they're building luxury buildings in Rundown neighborhoods.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, And but those buildings weren't meant for homeless people,
were they?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Not a single building that hack La bought was ever
intended as homeless house, not one of them. There are
thirty eight total buildings, and there are three more were
in the final round of home key, which is just
sort of the drigs and dreds of funding that's left.
But in the two major rounds between twenty twenty and
twenty twenty three, they bought thirty eight buildings, not a
(12:23):
single one of which was designed or intended for homeless house.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
But why did they have to spend so much money
on these buildings?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
I I that's the literally the fifty million dollar question
is a why do they chose these types of buildings
that they did. Why the strictures of home key are
so inflexible. Again, some of these extended staytel hotels, there's
four of them that they bought. There's almost five hundred rooms.
They already have kitchen nets, they already have resources, they
(12:54):
have business centers. You know, they're designed for traveling business
people who are going to be there for a while.
They're perfectly well appointed. But because these home key requirements
are so inflexible, we have to go in and again
after we've bought the buildings once we have to go
in and spend millions more to meet these requirements. And
(13:15):
I don't know why there's no pushback on those requirements.
I don't know why there's no flexibility in what constitutes housing.
It just seems like the bureaucracy is doing its thing
and moving forward relentlessly in slow motion.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
With all your interviews, did you run anybody on the
inside involved in these programs who said this is nuts?
Or do they all just go along with it because
just another day at work. Yes, we're wasting enormous amounts
of money, that's what we do.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
No one spokesperson thanked us for bringing up this very
important issue. But no, there's no sense of urgency. There's
no sense of accountability, and accountability as always with this system,
with this homeless system we've built, is a game of
hot potato every agency. Eventually, when you start getting a
(14:04):
little bit too hot, they end up preferring you to
another agency, and that's the way they just kind of
keep the shell game moving. Now, they will say that
all of these buildings will finally be occupied by the
first quarter of next year, although that date has slipped
several times already. But the question remains, how did we
spend all of this money in a flash? How do
(14:26):
we buy so many buildings that are just flatly unsuited
for the purpose that they're going to be intended? And
why are we spending tens of millions more to bring
them up to snuff. And I don't know if you
heard this at the end of the last segment, but
one of the other cost centers, as we kick people
out of interim housing, HAKLA is going to spend ten
point two million dollars on relocation consultants.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Relocation consultants these for the homeless people that they kicked down.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yes, apparently, Apparently relocation consultants is a job.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Ten dollars, Yes, to move people from one motel to another.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And many of the home the folks we talk to
who are being moved out have not been contacted by
any resources. I talked to a woman I probably shouldn't
identify the place for her sake, but she was one
of ten people left of one hundred and twenty plus
unit extended stay And I'm sitting there in the driveway
and I said, well, well, have you you know, been contacted?
(15:28):
Do you know where you're going to go, she said no.
Have you gotten any support? She said no. And as
we're talking, the security guard is like Carl Lewis sprinting
at us, and he demands that I get off the
private property and she goes back inside. So there, yeah,
a threat anything else. When you really get into the
nitty gritty. Sure, the spokespeople will talk to you. M'll
be nice answering your questions. But boy, when you start
(15:50):
getting close to home, they circle the wagons very quickly.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Oh my god, I can't imagine the corruption going on here.
That's probably for another day. Thank you very much for
coming on, Chris, and everybody should read this. At westside
current dot com. The headline is more than twelve hundred
city owned homeless housing units remained vacant two years after
an eight hundred million dollar buying spree.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Chris Legras, L E. G R. A. S.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
And Jamie Page read it vote differently when we come back.
The Washington Post was lecturing its readers we should stop
washing our dishes with hot water, and we should stop
washing our clothes in hot water because we're destroying the planet.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That what.
Speaker 6 (16:41):
Certain items need to be washed?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Nope, see you want to you want to harm the planet?
Speaker 6 (16:46):
Well, I want clean underwear.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
M six forty.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
We're on from one to four and then after four
o'clock John Cobelt Show on Demand. That's the podcast version,
and we had a lot of good stuff today. You
should go listen to the podcast if you've missed it.
I tell you what we did already, but.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I don't have time.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
We're already running late.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Cottaway coming up after four o'clock. Okay, you know, I
get a little teas about this story before the news,
and there's even more to it. The Washington Post has
a story lecturing its readers that you should no longer
use hot water to wash your dishes, no longer use
(17:34):
hot water for your laundry, and no longer use hot
water for your shower because the energy that you're using
heating all this water is harming the planet. Hot water
is a great way to get grease off your dishes
(17:58):
and to get stains out of your clothing or sweat
dirt off your body.
Speaker 7 (18:03):
That's right, But the U and who takes a cold
showerh me just weirdes I need it hot, you're hot
and wet.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Oh god, because you're not wearing any clothes in the
shower either, so you're trying to get across. The post
says if we washed four out of five loads of
laundry and cold water, we would cut eight hundred and
sixty four pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,
(18:37):
the equivalent to planting a third of an acre of forest.
Speaker 7 (18:40):
Oh well, I'm not stopping any of those three. I'm
just saying.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
I mean, I'm one.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Person, like this is what the climate fanatics think about.
It's like, you use hot water to wash your dishes.
Why that's a third of an acre of forest you
could be planting.
Speaker 7 (18:57):
I'll tell you what those people can do the cold water, right,
there's enough people that are worried about that, so they
can do the cold water and we can do the
hot water.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, I mean, you know there's germs and clothes, that's right.
The hot water helps kill the germs. Then it's got
all your body oils. Yes, go in there. Yes, a shower.
Half of a home's hot water is used for bathing.
You should rethink washing your hands with hot or warm
(19:29):
water for the same reason. Now we just did a
story about hepatitis being passed because the homeless had poop
on their hands.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
You have to wash your hands in hot water soap.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
You're ruining the planet. Just just take the take the hepatitis.
Do it for the planet. And they say you should
not pre ridch your dishes in hot water. That's a waste.
Just put them in the dish washing.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Okay, that's fine. I can live with that one.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
See.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
The thing is a lot of people find the dishwashers
don't get I mean my I gave up on my
dishwasher because it just never got the food off the
dish unless I yes, I personally, I do most of
the dishes in the house.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
Wow, well there's only two of you usually.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I'm just letting you know.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Okay, all right, if you stack up all my dishes
against anybody else who's in the house, I mine goes
up as high as the Empire State building. Wow. Yeah,
I'm a real man. And he use hot water for
I mean, I'm fouling the planet. They don't want to see,
but they they want us to live like we're in
(20:42):
the eighteen hundreds. Like if you were in the eighteen hundreds,
you know what, you would do what you would be
taking your dirty clothes out to the river, and you'd
be washing them in the river the cold, right and
then and then squeezing out the water and laying them
out on the fields to dry. You would be swimming
(21:03):
in the river washing yourself. You'd be dragging stacks of
plates out there. He's be spending a couple hours out
in the river.
Speaker 6 (21:11):
But it's twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I mean, you really were not designed to leave.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
No, one hundred percent.
Speaker 7 (21:20):
I need my my hair dryer and my flat iron,
and my heat and my lights and my phone.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
And no, I'm trying to imagine your housewife in eighteen twenties.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
God.
Speaker 7 (21:32):
No, And I had never called myself a housewife either,
even though some people may be okay with that term.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
But go ahead, you go, just dig yourself a nice
big hole here, jump in. No, it's just just people
like you didn't exist in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
Probably not No.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Me, tro I know, just let her keep talking. Like
if somebody were to say, how should I work with Debra?
I said, just let her talk?
Speaker 6 (22:07):
Okay, is that time for me to do the news?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
No, just keep talking. Now you've insulted all the housewives listening.
Speaker 7 (22:15):
Okay, I don't like to be called a housewife because
I never I.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
Never was one.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Nobody called you a housewife. I just said in the
eighteen twenties, right, I.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
Would have you said, I would never have been a housewife.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
Right, Okay, let's just delete, delete, delete that all right?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Coming up?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Do you know the unemployment rate in California is probably
double what they say it is.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
I'll explain.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
sixty Conway.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Coming up in a few minutes. The California unemployment rate,
which gets no coverage because nobody in the news media
and the state cares.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
But it's the highest in the country. It's highest in
the nation.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And the thing is, I've always said unemployment rates are
fake numbers because it doesn't count a lot of people
who are not working but would like to work or
work more than they are. We'll give you an example.
Jonathan Lanzer and the Orange County Register says, is California's
(23:22):
unemployment rate really nine and a half percent? I think
it's around five for five point two on the bucks,
but he says it's almost double the official rate, and
it's the highest in the nation. Nevada would be at
eight point nine at last at eight point six, Washington
(23:42):
eighty six, New Jersey eight three. But you're asking, well,
where do you get nine and a half, Well, if
you add up the official unemployed, along with the discouraged workers,
the ones who can't find a job for what ever reason,
those who are underemployed, they're working part time, they want
(24:05):
full time. It also counts people with no jobs because
they haven't recently looked for work. There's a lot of
people in this gray area who would work if there
was the right opportunity or if the economy was producing
the kinds of jobs. I guess they're qualified for that
(24:26):
they want to do. And when you look at that
nine and a half percent of Californians are unemployed, high
interest rates have really messed with like real estate related industries,
manufacturing struggling because the dollar is strong, and you know,
(24:52):
there's a lot of companies that have laid off a
lot of office workers. I think we found out after
the pandemic that a lot of people really aren't needed
anymore and they're unemployed, maybe officially, maybe unofficially. I also
suspect there's I really do suspect that a lot of
(25:14):
employed people really aren't working that much if they're working
at a home. That's just my anecdotal observations. In any event,
the US jobless rate is seven point seven percent, but
in California it's nine point five. So we have the
highest regular unemployment rate. We have the highest real unemployment
(25:36):
rate that I was just describing here. We have an
inflation rate that is being fed not only by Newsom's twenty.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Dollars minimum wage.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
You realize that's caused obviously a lot of restaurant food
to get jacked up, right, So that's added to the
inflation rate. And then we told you earlier in the
show about the extra dollar in gas taxes that are
coming over the next two years. Well that's going to
further add to the inflation rate. Diesel prices are going
to go up well more than a dollar. That's going
(26:10):
to add more inflation because of because all deliveries, all
deliveries of all truck good truck delivered goods are going
to go up as well, So everything, everything's going to
go up. The inflation here is going to be worse,
and it's directly due to the policies that Newsom has
laid down and the Democratic legislature.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Tivity doo givity too, and it hurt.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
You know, we got twenty five percent of the state
in poverty. The middle class is shrinking, but you know
it's still there. They're the ones we're getting hurt by
all this. Oh yeah, this, we got Conway. Hey, no,
and Thompson.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I couldn't think of his name, Mark Thompson.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Mark Thompson's all that loyal listening I did yesterday. I
heard you going off about gascon I thought you were
really good.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
I'm with you at the gas it's fifty cents here there.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
We're with you or with you all the time. Then
you can't remember my name.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
But look, I think you're onto something there.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
You know.
Speaker 8 (27:09):
If they want us to all get out of our cars,
which you know I understand, that's their you know, I
disagree with that, but that's their that's their goal. Yeah,
then make the public transportation safe. Don't kill us.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, we had two stabbings yesterday, that's right.
Speaker 8 (27:23):
Yeah, Yeah, it's horrible. We have a story coming out
of San Francisco. They have a new policy where they're
going to give homeless people free shots of vodka.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Do you see that?
Speaker 4 (27:32):
I did not see.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I did see the shots of vodka. Yeah, choice, Yes,
you can get a twelve inn s can of beer.
I'm not making this up. A two ounce shot of
vodka or five ounce class of wine.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
And what is the thinking behind it?
Speaker 8 (27:47):
Well, it's it's sort of like a new prison up there.
You know, the streets are so filthy, it's gonna be
three shots and a con up there.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
They have they send nurses over. But doesn't that have
to be.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
A you know, a non compete bid and has to
be one of their friends that is capitalizing on this thing. Yeah, yeah,
Well something's going on up there. I don't know what's
going on, but we're here. Also, Disney is the news
with streaming and Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
The w NBA is taken off. Whether you like that
or not, it's becoming huge.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
SpaceX launches the fiftieth Falcon nine rocket.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
That's good, that's a cool deal.
Speaker 8 (28:22):
And UCLA may be forced to pay millions of dollars
to leave the Pac twelve.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
You know, they're moving on. They're going to uh where,
They're going to.
Speaker 8 (28:29):
The Big Gate down to the Pack two Big ten
or whatever it is or what it is.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I can't believe they destroyed that league.
Speaker 8 (28:36):
Yeah, but you know what, but look when UCLA and
USC we're gonna get Michigan, Michigan out here. We're going
to get Ohio State every year or or there. You know,
UCLA will go to play you know, Ohio State.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
There could be some big games then, you know, forget this.
Speaker 8 (28:50):
Uh you know what is it like Nevada State, you know,
or New Mexico University?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Who cares? I think state?
Speaker 8 (28:58):
We want to play the big colleges, big colleges, and
they're all coming out here.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Tim is geographically challenged, right He's.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Making them up.
Speaker 8 (29:05):
There's a lot more we cant Fresno State, we can
make up a whole three hours.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Doesn't UCLA play Fresno State? I don't know?
Speaker 8 (29:12):
And USC they play Fresno State. Right now, it's gonna
be Ohio State, Michigan, you know, big colleges, Notre Dame, LSU, Alabama,
you know, Georgia. There's some big names coming away to
stop him.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
He's making a point, John stand clear.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Those are good, those those are great points. Conway's next.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Thompson's got the news Nomsons with Conyways as the news
whatever cares uh 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 kf I Am
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
The John Kobylt Show News
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.