June 30, 2020 • 49 mins
Robert, Katy, and Cody are joined by Ricci Sergienko to discuss the People's City Council, corrupt politicians, defunding the police, Covid-19 and more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of My Heart
Radio together everything so don't don't why hello and welcome
(00:22):
back to the Worst Year Ever. Goodbye names. Wait ship,
we're doing things a little different. Which is the one
that tells you that's the greeting? This? This is the
one that's the greeting. Is that the but which is
the word? How do you greet people? Welcome? Oh, welcome, welcome, Welcome,
(00:46):
this is worst year ever? Robert, Katie Cody. That's it.
Those are our names. I've done my work for today, guys.
Today we are very excited joined by Richie Serjenko from
the People's City Council. Uh. You guys might be familiar
with the people City Council here in Los Angeles. They've
(01:08):
been making a lot of waves on the internet, uh,
fighting Eric Garcetti, fighting the police, l ap D, working
with Black Lives Matter, fundraising, all of it. So we
really excited to sit down and chat about the work
that they're doing and the ways that we can support them. Here.
That is today, we are very excited to be joined
(01:32):
by Richie Serjenko. I pronounced that right, you announced that
right from the People's City Council. Hi Richie, How are
you doing today? I am doing well. I'm really tired,
but I'm doing well. How are you pretty okay? I
was just chatting yesterday with somebody about how I'm doing okay?
(01:55):
Is the new pretty good? It's like, I honestly like
my immediate needs are taken care of for the for
today and and that's that's a positive. Um. But we
are really grateful that you are taking the time to
speak with us today, UM, because a lot's happening and
(02:16):
I from what I understand, the l A City Council
will be voting on their budget this week today apparently. UM, yes, yeah, yeah,
different different portions of the budget. I mean they didn't
so they didn't vote on the budget by June one.
And you know, I'm not as legislatively savvy as some
(02:37):
of you know, our coalition members, but I can only
speak to what I know. But if they didn't vote
by June one, Um, the budget was set to go
an effect on July one, regardless if there was a
vote held on it or not. But you know they're voting,
you know, they yesterday in the Budget Finance Committee they
voted to send a motion the west in Harris Stocks
(03:01):
in motion for um getting rid of the calls for
l apd uh non violent, non criminal uh calls, have
them go, have that go to professionals and not police officers.
That motion was sent from committee to City Council today. Uh,
you know which they're gonna I'm pretty sure they're either
(03:22):
voting right now or they voted to pass um. But
I think it did pass earlier. But that's exciting, it's not. Yeah,
it's exciting, but it's a it's a small bit. It's
a it's a good first step. Um, No, for sure,
it is. It is exciting. I don't want to like
completely downplay it, but it's important to be honest. It's
(03:43):
important to be like, yes, Uh, there are some minor
gains that have been made also with the you know
Eric Garciti talking about the you know, hundred and fifty
million from the police budget to be diverted into programs
for you know, community programs. Great, it's a sliver, it's
(04:04):
a sliver chip of the off the iceberg. But I
want to back up and start by talking about the
people City council. How you got started, Um, from from
what I understand, you guys formed as a response to
the COVID crisis to fight for no rent, no evictions,
no vacancies. UM. And the work you guys have been
(04:24):
doing in a very short amount of time is pretty incredible.
So can you can you walk us through the beginnings
of this coalition and yeah, some of the stuff that
you guys have been doing, we say, uh, you know
that we are on an organizing project. Uh, you know,
we're not a coalition, we're organizing project. We're we're assembled
by organizers that belonged to different groups like Sunrise Movement,
(04:48):
l A Tenants Union, K Town for All Ground Game,
no Olympics, so all amazing, you know, l A grassroot
orgs that have been here for a long time. And
you know, we a bunch of us just came together
and the Nicole who started it started the first car
protest at Mayor Garcetti's house UM in March. So and
(05:11):
like March was like the first car protest at Garcetis.
I attended UM and then you know, they had another
one and I showed up and then I you know,
it's so funny what has happened in l A over
the past few months. Uh, with the use of social
media in a wide bit of you know, you know,
(05:32):
in a wide range of how we are all impacting
our communities. Like we came to get people City Council
came together through Twitter just like hey, like I saw
that you were there, or hey, I saw that you
are the you know, you're organizing this, like what's going on?
And then a bunch of us just got connected. And
a bunch of us got connected by calling in the
city council meetings and say like, hey, like these are
(05:54):
our points, Like let's hit these points and like let
them know. And uh, people city Councils, you know, before
we start recording, I mentioned is like a fun group.
We do fun and cool stuff. Uh all. Pretty much
every single member of People City Council will likes to
talk shipped to elected officials and will will confront them
directly on it. And you know that is the main
(06:17):
pillar of our success talking ship to politicians. That is
he I mean being willing to Yeah, yeah, I mean
that's that's literally the essence of democracy. Or I mean
I actually completely agree. Maybe maybe throwing milkshakes at them occasionally,
but you know that's a that's a personal you know,
I I don't think I would personally, but I don't
(06:39):
judge if anyone can do that. Yeah, part of part
of democracy is having the freedom to throw whatever beverage
you want at your elected I would probably drink half
of the milkshake and then throw the part that's a
little too melted. See, this is democracy right here. This
this is what democracy looks like anyway, Richie. Yes, so
(07:00):
we yeah, we came together. And you know, my one
of my main pillars of my organizing is actually directly
confronting politicians and elected officials. I've done it, um at
like a national scale. And when this started, I was
just laughing how inept these elect local elected officials are
with hair social media's and so we can we like
(07:24):
all of this discussion will tie into how we use
social media and how it's been so powerful for us.
But yeah, so so people city council started uh in
like early April, and we and we started doing car
protests at Garsetti's house. But also, um, not even my
fear of the city attorney. We went to uh some
(07:44):
David Michaelson his who works in the city Attorney's office,
who write wrote a bullshit brief that wasn't based on
legal precedent. We went to his house and called him out.
We went to a bunch of other council members houses.
We've leaked their addresses on Twitter, put it, put their
phone home phone numbers on Twitter. Mitchell Ferrell's partner called Jacob,
(08:06):
an organizer with People City Council. His partner called Jacob's
dad after we protested it in front of his house,
and so, uh, you know, we had an obligation to
leak Mitch's partners number on Twitter as well. And so
that's that's the main main tenant. But we also have
organized really awesome actions like our may Day action at
(08:29):
Eric Garcetti's and we have like hundreds of cars like
do a car protest, like honking in front of our
setis and then we had you know, thirty fifty people
on foot, you know, with their megaphones making noise and
just disrupted the entire neighborhood. Um. And as as Robert
was saying, you know, we that that there's all of
what I'm saying is a basic tenant of democracy, UM,
(08:54):
dissenting and holding politicians accountable. That that I'm mean, we've
gone so far away from that at so many different levels.
But that is truly like the essence of democracy. Some
of the best things that have happened during this whole
uprising has been the cases where you've had in like Minneapolis,
in Portland, and I think a couple of other cities,
like the mayors of cities just have to stand in
(09:17):
the middle of a crowd of their citizens and get
would never no, no, no, but that would be awesome.
Famously absent from his home when everybody showed up to
protest there. I'm not sure if on the car protest
that you're mentioning, but certainly during the George Floyd protests,
(09:38):
he was there. He uh, who knows, he really lives
in the guetting. But but we had and then you know,
to go back to the the history of PCC, we
we actually PCC is Pupilsity Council. We held a die
in in front of Garsetti's house like where the tree
(10:00):
line is, and we had you know, probably like thirty
people lay there for um like I think it was
like eighty three eight under thirty three seconds or so
for the amount of on house people that die in
l A every every year at a UM and so.
And then the next day they put up a barricade
(10:22):
in the spot that we did the die in at
and to tie to tie Twitter back into it, we
trolled them so hard, Like initially when they were asked
about it, they gave no comment and they were trolled
so hard on Twitter that they had eventually had to
give a comment and say that it was to protect
the plants. But that's like a mossy area that like
(10:45):
there's no plants there. Um. So yeah, these these elected
officials in LA are so shitty and they've never been
held to account and it's pretty Yeah, I would agree
with that. I mean, we're sitting here in a situation
today and the day that we're recording this, uh l
A is seeing I believe our our worst number of
(11:10):
cases ever. We are in a situation. No, I mean
we processed this pain however we can. Yes, you laugh
in l A County like what some like upsetting lee
high percentage of the globe one, yes, but we're currently
looking at the statistics of of one in every one
(11:33):
in every people did um. And testing is harder to get.
You can't get a testing appointment. Facilities are like nonexistent anymore.
And yeah, it takes many days to get an appointment,
in many days to find out your results seems really, really,
really safe in my opinion, Just so you got to
(11:53):
get those fucking bars back open. And there's no other
way to get the bars back open. But just everyone
in southern California, you get sick, and then we can
open the bars again for the survivors. We've got unemployment
benefits are set to expire at the end of July.
Congress gets to work now. But this is so bad
(12:16):
for my mental health to go through the list of
the ship. You don't have to do that. Why August
is like people thought fucking May end of May and
early June or like an uprising, August is going to be.
August is going to be the motherfucker of the year.
I guess. Yeah, yeah, August is going to be when everything,
(12:37):
like things come to a fucking boil in a way that, yeah,
it's gonna be cool and good. I think. Even seeing
people so angry that the beaches are closed for fourth
of July, it's like, um, are you feeling patriotic right now?
Because I don't. I don't care about those people boiling um,
but I do said that. I say this to say
(12:58):
even though I think in the last month or so, UM,
we're gonna talk about Black Lives Matter in a moment.
You know, we've been focused on these other movements and
other things that are happening, and I think a lot
of people in l A at least a month and
a half ago, we're starting to feel like, Okay, we've
done a good job, but then we rushed to reopen
and here we are. But I say this to to
(13:19):
bring it back to the work that you guys are
doing and again focusing on the no rent, no evictions,
no vacancies, because we are going to be seeing that
hit in August and less drastic things happen. Don't worry,
they won't be. So I would love to hear some
about what what you guys are working on specifically with that,
(13:40):
then then get into some of the Black Lives Matter
stuff as well. These elected, local elected officials have passed
the buck to the federal government. Yeah, and that's local
and statewide like Newsom has done it too, or like
newsong uh, they have handled you know, every single elected
official in California to me from the Governor's office and
(14:03):
then in Los Angeles has failed everyone that fucking lives
in the city. And I'll just say I mean, I agree,
I I sorry interrupted. It blows my mind how much
um good press they got, especially at the beginning of
people saying yeah, yeah, that's the cuomo sexual stuff, right,
(14:26):
it's the it's the being able to give the air
of an ounce of competence um, which we're not used
to these days. And also l A p D doesn't
wear masks either, so unbelievable. You know, the only time
the police have been wearing masks the protests I've seen
us when they've been tear gassing us. So I guess
(14:49):
they used the safer we all are from coronavirus. That's
the lesson. Yeah, it sends you home. It's for it's
forcing you to quarantine. Way to flattening the Yeah, up
your lungs a little bit beforehand, you get everything down.
(15:14):
I got arrested on May third years. I don't know
if you have seen the video, but I was directly
targeted by l A p D. And I was the
first arrest that they made on Third and Fairfax, and
uh yeah, I got ta yeah, I got tackled by
two l A p D officers. I got tragged by
(15:35):
them on the ground, and then uh, you know, I
think I got punched or hit hit with a stick. Uh.
And then you know they started hitting my buddy that
tried to grab me. Uh. And yeah, I know that.
I'm so sorry that you experienced that. Oh no, thank you,
I appreciate that. And it's like LA Times has fucking
(15:56):
used that picture twice already without mentioning my name under
the head final course, of course, where you wearing that
shirt right now? No, I wish, I wish. Uh. It's
a it's a triggering picture and they don't fucking credit
they don't credit me at all. And also the l
A Times has used also to other pictures of me
(16:17):
getting arrested, and somehow they're using me as the face
of police brutality against black and brown people. And that's
not why, That's not why I'm out in the streets.
I'm out in the streets because I stand in solidarity
with blackgrown and indigenous people who have been harassed for
centuries by police departments. And l A Time, the corporate
media is fucking failing uh people in Los Angeles anyway, Yeah, yeah, no,
(16:41):
thank you. I mean it's a pretty good transition because
people City Council, even outside of the original stuff that
the stuff that we've already discussed, at least according to
your website, and what I've seen online is about creating
a Los Angeles that is racially, economically, environmentally just. And
I really liked how on the website your message includes
(17:01):
evolving to meet the needs of our comrades. Uh and
as you are talking about, I mean, you guys have
done that by joining forces with the Black Lives Matter
Movement UM, which is obviously incredibly important because we can't
talk about creating a just Los Angeles or about the
economic effects of COVID without talking about racial justice, because
they are inextricably linked. UM. So I'd love to to
(17:24):
hear some of the stuff that you're doing in conjunction
with Black Lives Matter UM and and get into the
People's Budget and the Freedom Fund and all of that. Yeah,
for sure. Uh So it was funny how we got
connected with BLM and BA. I just wanted to, you know,
Black Lives Matter l A has been like putting in
so much work in Los Angeles for like seven ten years.
(17:45):
How and then how are long? Um? But you know,
I think they're you know, BLM is like the gold
standard of organizers in Los Angeles. And uh, you know,
I think all of us look up to them a lot,
and it's been like you know, and then they saw us,
you know obviously, you know, trying to live up to
that hype and and living up to UM just the
(18:07):
standard that they set as far as direct actions go
as well. So speaking for about People's City Council, you know,
BLM saw what we had done at the Mayor's house
and set like, invite us next time, and and that's
how we got connected. And then you know, a few
weeks later the budget was brought up. UM. But the
People's Budget Coalition is made up of an amazing set
(18:31):
of groups, Like it's led by Black Lives Matter l
A and Dr Nadoula and Baba Achilley. But uh, you
know K Town for All in Students Deserve and Ground
Game l A CANS Street Watch, Like this coalition is
made up of a bunch of amazing organizations in Los
Angeles and like a multi racial, multi generational group of
(18:56):
organizers that have come together to take on the city
about the budget. UM, and we've made like significant improvements UM.
And and yeah, no, it's it's important to acknowledge the
groundwork that BLM has has laid for this battle, on
this fight for years and years of taking on elected
(19:18):
officials and in Los Angeles, um, and so it George
Floyd's death sparked something around this country, right, and we
just so happened in BLM just so happened to have
the infrastructure for years. And then also the People's budget
battle had been going on for like three weeks before
(19:38):
George Flood's death, and so then everyone was like, oh, Ship,
maybe we shouldn't give three point one billion dollars to
l A p D of the understritted general funds to
LAP d Uh, that does not make sense. And so yeah,
that's how we came together be with BLM and working
(19:59):
on the was budget. And that's uh, yeah, can you
tell us a bit about the people's budget for sure?
So uh, like before George George, like a week before
George Floyd's death, we put out a survey. And the
survey I don't know if any of you took it.
It's like incredibly well done. Um David Turner who's getting
(20:21):
his PhD in North cal right now, set up really
dope survey and you know, could pinpoint which district you
lived in, and um, you know, it was just it
was just one that cost a lot of money for
people to do, right. But we fortunately had the resources
to to get the survey out. And before George Floyd's death,
(20:44):
I think we had like two thousand people still up
fill out the survey and the results came back and
showed that people wanted to give like five point six
percent of the budget to law enforcement. Um. And then
after George Floyd's death and right before LM gave the
presentation in front of city council, the results were that
(21:05):
the people only wanted to spend one percent of the
budget on law enforcement, like one point six. Again, opinion
moves fast these days, for sure. Yeah. I mean yeah,
black and brown people have been oppressed and um brutalized
by police for a long time, and uh a lot
(21:28):
of people are now waking up to it. Um and
that's why people are like, Okay, this ship really needs
to change. Um. And yeah, so the people's budget is
you know, about reimagining public safety. And like one one
thing to think about is people that live in Beverly Hills, uh,
Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, how many police do they see roaming
(21:52):
around their neighborhood? And and I bet it's not many,
and I bet they still feel safe there. And the
reality of the situation is that and I've heard it
for so long that black and brown indigenous folks when
they have police in their community, they don't feel safe.
And so like, why do we like, it's just ridiculous
that it's been ignored for so long. But you know,
(22:14):
if one or if a group of people are saying
that the police in our communities don't make us feel safe,
and we know from elsewhere that just not having the
police around, things are still uh, you know, kept safe. Right.
So it's just the realization that cops in America do
not protect and serve. They do not serve the needs
(22:37):
of the people. They are here to brutalize and terrorize
communities and specifically communities of color. Um. So yeah, people,
people don't want that anymore. Yeah, that makes me think
of I mean about the conversation of gentrification, of white
people moving into black and brown communities, changing the demographics,
(22:59):
bringing police because they don't feel safe for X y Z,
and targeting the people that have lived there for a
long time. And we see that happening in Los Angeles.
Um all over all over the country, but especially Yeah,
don't call them. Don't call the cops on black people.
It's like a good, good general rule of thumb. I
also love all the things that people share about for
(23:22):
their neighborhoods. In my neighborhood, I'm in Mount Washington actually
and uh glass Ll Park, and people have started putting
up you know, list of places that you can call
other than nine one for different types of situations. Obviously
there's a bit of a judgment call on some things,
(23:42):
you know, like thinking about which is the right resource
to to reach out to. But you know, until we
get to a place where we do have an emergency
line that connects you to the proper department, you know,
the proper people equipped to handle a certain situation, we
have to take that action too in our own hands. Yeah,
for sure, Like, yeah, violent people with guns shouldn't be
(24:06):
showing up to situations where people are you know, may
need some mental health support. And also yeah, no violent
people with guns showing up anywhere doesn't make anyone safe.
The cops are trained in a certain way to escalate
and be aggressive, um, and so it's like impossible for
(24:29):
them to act with you know, proper decre social decorum
when they're trained in a certain way and they're armed
and they show up on a call. Yeah, as we
mentioned up top, UM, I mean I am blown away
by how how quickly all of this came together. And
(24:50):
I'm grateful for the work you guys have been doing. Um,
And we have seen some beginnings of changes happening. The
shaving off the top of the police budget. Sure, the
fact that, um, you know they are attempting to replace
lap D with community based, unarmed emergency responders. That's great.
(25:10):
That's that's some significant steps. Can you talk to us
about what is happening this week and what your next
steps are, some of the plans that you guys have
in place, and what you want to be focusing on. Yeah,
for sure. So uh yeah, Tomorrow Every Wednesday is the
Jackie Lacey Must Go protests downtown led by Black Lives
(25:33):
Matter l A. But July first marks the budget passing,
and so we're ready, like a lot of people are upset,
and and it was mentioned before that you know August
is going to bring a tidal wave of kissed off people,
but July is July is going to as well. And
I just think it's laughable that these elected officials think
(25:57):
that they're going to live in peace while they go
on reset, while people are waiting, uh for shipped to
change in the city. And so it's fine that they
want to go on recess like that, you know, I mean,
it's really not fine. But we're in an unprecedented crisis
on many fronts that's happening right now. There are so
(26:20):
many fires that need to be put out, and we
have a dearth of leadership. But anyway, yeah, I was saying,
I was saying, it's fine because now it gives us
an opportunity instead of yelling at them on city council meetings,
he gives us an opportunity to show up and from
their homes. He called called their home numbers and call
their partner numbers and not let let them live in
(26:41):
one second of peace. And we are so well organized
right now that I can assure all the city council
members that they will not have a second of peace.
And if they because because like MLK said, like the
budget is uh you know, sign of your morality is
(27:01):
a document of more morality and or your values. I
forget what the exact quote was, but the they're gonna
they're gonna let the let this budget go through in July.
And um, that in itself, uh, you know, perpetuates violence, right,
Like giving lap D that much money actually is violent
(27:24):
to people. It hurts people, kills people, it gets on
people unnecessarily thrown in jail. And so that is their action, right,
like that they are intentionally allowing this to happen. They're
intentionally giving LAPD that much money. And so I said,
it's fine because they are going to see exactly like
what we We have thousand people in Los Angeles fill
(27:47):
out a survey, right, we have all those email addresses. Right,
we have so many eyes on us right now that
they are not going to be prepared for the way
the people that are into other stuff together. Everything about
(28:10):
the Freedom Fund, I mean, I know you guys have
praised a lot of money, so I'd love to hear
about that and also a freedom fund all of it. Yeah.
We so we raised two point five million dollars. We
just shut the shut the fund down and started a
general fund um the freedom So so just to give
some backgrounds in context, we started We've had like a
(28:33):
goad fund meet going for a long time or not
a long time, since we started. Um, it feels like years.
But yeah, yeah right, it doesn't be like years. It's
only been months. But we we started the uh you
know what is now known as the Freedom fun as
a fund for people to donate to because people were
getting citations at the car protest for honking, they were
(28:54):
getting citations for amplified noise. Yeah, yeah, they were. Yeah,
it's bullshit. It's such bullshit. So great use of tax
dollars and time and Jesus. Yeah, and so we used
we used the fund to fundraise for people that were
that were getting these citations, and then we also used
(29:17):
it to to raise money for a mariachi dand which
we hired on the the Mayday protests to have in
front of Garsetti's house. And so we've had this fund
for you know, a little bit of time, and we've
raised money for like local things. And then, you know,
as people were getting arrested and as people were getting injured,
(29:37):
and as you know, we were about to start, you know,
preparing ourselves to get out in the streets, like knowing
that we would need supplies and we would need a
certain amount of things to keep you know, this pressure
and this movement, this energy up. Um. You know, we
figured that we needed to have a because there was
no fund like in l A for like protesters. Um,
(30:01):
so we were like, okay, like, we have this fundraiser
that's already live and active and so you know, if
people want to donate for supplies or for legal support,
which what I'll talk about in a second, and anything
in regard to the direct actions in Los Angeles. We
wanted to just offer our fund as like a spot
(30:22):
for where people can donate money because we already had
it up and running and uh, you know, we're at
least uh somewhat of a reliable source, right, and so
we're like, hey, you know, because who knows what go
fund meets can be created like during the time, So
we just put it out there and you know it
(30:43):
kind of we barely even publicized it, but it got
picked up. Like we we barely publicized it because, um,
like people, city Council does not have like any infrastructure itself, right,
we aren't like we weren't like an organization. We're not
like a group, so we weren't fundraising or anything that
like we could do for like us structurally. We were
(31:04):
fundraising too, like help with bail or help with like
medical bills, or help with like supplies for protesters. So
we kept raising a lot of money and there was
no need to promote it because we are trying to
figure out, you know, how to doll out two point
five million dollars, but so far we've approved like one
(31:25):
point to five million, and um I think three hundred
thousand of it is going to the National Lawyers Guild.
National Lawyers Guild also took on a class action suit
on behalf of Black Lives Matter l A for the
for the brutality and mistreatment of protesters that happened over
(31:46):
the first few weeks or the end of May and
first few weeks of June. So there's a class action
being brought by blm UH and NLGY against l A
p D and the group. Best part about it is
that we raise so much money that we're now giving
three thousand dollars to the National Lawyer's Guild and three
dollars to Black Lives Matter l A to use however
(32:09):
they want. But n LG is now fighting the class
action suit against l A p D. And so these
assholes have really created a vicious uh. These assholes that
l APD have created a vicious cycle for themselves where
we're just pounding them on all fronts and they have
just created um, this kind of this kind of violence
(32:33):
and trauma for people in Los Angeles for a long time,
and it's you know, it's it's time to get rid
of them. And so that's that's the basis of the
Freedom Fund, that people are just really upset about what's
going on in l A. We've donated to other groups
like Harrison who does like immigration legal services. We've donated
to a mental health professional group that that offers mental
(32:58):
health support to to actively. We've donated to a group
called l A Can, which you know does a lot
of work with on house folks in l A. So
we we have we then ground game as well. They
run the mutual aid set up in Los Angeles. So
we're just trying to get you know, this money in
the hands of people in Los Angeles that are on
(33:19):
the ground doing the work and figure out how we
can best support them. Ah. Yeah, that's awesome. I I know,
I can't think of a specific organization off the top
of my head, but I know that's been it unexpected
for some outcome from from the past month is that
a lot of organizations ended up raising far more money
(33:41):
than they know what to do with, and then they're
faced in a situation where it's like, I've got to
use this money otherwise I lied. I guess not really.
I know the group in Minnesota raised dolls and honestly
I could not, like I cannot, I'm good conscious say
(34:02):
that we would have any idea of what to do
with thirty million dollars uh an obscure amount. And because
personally PCC doesn't have that infrastructure, right, We're not like
we're just a group of activists that come together and
do car protests or or whatever we do. Um. So yeah,
(34:24):
like we we weren't taking in two point two point
five million dollars to run like our own organization. And
so that that's why we shut down the Freedom Fund
and started the General Fund, because if people still want
to donate to us, they can, but the General Fund
will be for like people's city council's stuff like that.
One of the main things that we've done with the
(34:44):
Freedom Fund is that like, we're not going to keep
this money for ourselves, Like we didn't raise the money
for ourselves. That's not why we put like the fundraiser
out there. Um, we did it to support people on
the ground in l A. So we're gonna make sure
that you know that's that's where the money goes. So
how can we help you? How can our listeners uh
support you guys? Um, we talked before we started recording
(35:08):
briefly about calls to action. I know City Council's voting now, um,
but there are next steps I'm sure, uh, and things
that you need support wise, how do we keep the
attention on this and and on the work that you
guys are doing for sure, and like the next call
to actions will all can all be found at some
(35:29):
point over the next week or so on you know,
either Black Lives Matter l AH. You know they're the
leaders of the People's Budget Coalition. But also you can
follow us People City Council uh full words People City
Council on Instagram or PPLs City Council on Twitter. Uh.
And you know, we do a pretty good job of
(35:51):
releasing like our daily our daily called Actions or weekly
call to Actions and people can just get tapped in
like that. And um, I would say that there's going
to be something coming up, and sometimes we can't always
disclose what it is until day of or even when
it's happening. Um. But yeah, paying attention to our to
(36:12):
our feeds will give people a lot of insight on
what they can do and what they can do to
tappen with local politics. Yeah. And you mentioned earlier the
the Jackie Lacy, the weekly Jackie Lacy protests. If if
if you are a listener in l A, that's definitely
wanted to check out because Jackie Lacey has gotta go.
(36:35):
Yeah Jackie, Yeah, Jackie Lacey Musco. That's uh yeah. Yeah.
For the past so one week we had pro or
we built Black Lives Matter, had like, um, like ten
thousand people out there. Um. But the past few weeks
we've had like two thousand or so, so it's still
still pretty good impressive. I was wondering, Yeah, I went
(36:56):
the first couple of weeks, um, and and I haven't
been able to lately, but I'm thrilled to hear that
they're still huge turnouts. It's still good turn out. And
I think that people, you know, we have so many
eyes on us right now and people looking for like
the next steps, and people, you know, if we really
(37:17):
put out a large call to action, and say, you know,
if you're really down with this movement, then people will
show up on this day or time whenever we need them.
And so I think that's what people can expect for
what's what's to come for next steps, you know, Jack
Lacy on Wednesday, But then there will be things for
(37:38):
us to do soon. There's so much power in that.
And and circling back to how we started this and
talking about how you guys have leveraged social media. I mean,
it's all it's all that, It's that's how you you've
done that. That's how we will continue to do this
is Yeah, pay attention, follow them, follow their work, and
and listen to when people say today is the day
(38:00):
we need you to show up. Yeah, people have been
doing a pretty good job about it, right, Like, um,
we we whenever we put out a call for the
digital called actions and like the social media, Um, you know,
we trended number one nationwide with the hashtag on on Twitter,
like for like hours, people's budget l A trended across
(38:23):
the country. Um. And so we've just been like able
to really tap into people because people are upset right
Like people there's like so much bad ship going on
at so many levels. But people, you know, you can
have a firsthand experience with your local government not not
(38:43):
acting in the best interests of the people that they represent. Right,
So like, yeah, Joe Biden or Donald Trump or or whatever, like,
but there are things that you can do locally with
your local politics to actually effectuate change. And so like,
Eric Carcetti is just as shitty as Donald Trump. I like,
(39:07):
Donald Trump is a fascist, and like we'll lead us
into a really crazy state. But Eric Carcetti upholds liberal
white supremacy as well. Like Eric Carsetti was going to
give three point one five billion dollars to l A
p D. Eric Carsetti hasn't stepped up and filled all
of the wounds that were promised under Project Room Key.
(39:29):
He's they filled up like of of the rooms that
they were supposed to. So like, I don't see any
difference in liberal white supremacy from Eric Garcetti and what
like Donald Trump's outright fascism, Like it's it's it's because
that the it's negligent and at the end of the day,
it's upholding the same systems that we are here talking
(39:51):
about dismantling. And he's more attractive on paper and in person. Sure,
but but staff a that but um, but it's the
same disease. Yeah. Yeah, So we're we're going to continue
the fight. And I don't think elected officials in Los
(40:13):
Angeles have really dealt with this kind of pressure before.
And it's gonna be really funny to embarrass them all. Yeah,
definitely not. They don't know what it's like to actually
be called on anything or have people engage with politics, um,
on the local level. What I like, I mean, I
like about all of this. I mean, I'm very inspired
(40:36):
by the work you're doing, by the work your whole
the whole group everybody's doing. Um. But what you were
just talking about, it's so important. This is almost this
demystifying of the process and and showing people that we
have the power to make change. You have the power
(40:56):
to step up and and and communicate face to face
with masks on with our our local leaders to start
making changes here now too. It is possible to get
everybody's attention, It is possible, uh to create momentum. Uh,
and we got to maintain it. Yeah. Um. And if
(41:18):
there's a positive in all of this, I mean, there
are positives in all of this, but that's one of
them for me, and I want all of us to
continue to have that same kind of a mindset throughout
our lives when we get through this specific crisis. Yeah,
it's it's crazy, right that this all is happening. Were
in how we're in the middle of a global pandemic
(41:40):
and nationwide recession. Uh. People, millions of people are out
of work. They're likely not going to be going to
back to work anytime soon. People are going to be
getting evicted from their homes. The federal government hasn't sent
any support black and brown people, and generous folks have
been impressed by racist systems for send trees. And it's
(42:01):
all happening right now. It's just happening. But I think
that you know, revolution isn't like necessarily what is going
to happen. I think that's a you know, a very
broad term. But what we're seeing now is that things
are going to change. Uh. And but only if we
if we continue like you said, look, only if we
(42:22):
continue at it, only if we keep this pressure up.
But you know, I think, you know, you can only
push people so far until an uprising begins. And like
an uprising continues, people have to remember like the Civil
Rights ERAB, like ROSA Parks and this the signing of
(42:42):
the Civil Rights Act by l b J. We're so
far apart and it didn't happen overnight like this. These
changes didn't happen right away, So it's gonna be a
long drawn out battle. And if people need to stay
in tune. But like BLM leading this movement and the
coolest Mahan them people City Council included, like, we're not
(43:05):
gonna stop anytime soon. I hate all these elected officials.
It's my life goal to hold them accountable, and like
bring down the l A p D. They are just off,
They're just all bad people. Like if and if the
general public starts accepting that the police department is not
just a few bad apples, they're all shitty people operating
(43:28):
in a shitty system, and elected officials uphold that shitty system.
Once that's normalized, then then we're gonna win. I love that.
That seems like a pretty good place to end, Unless
you guys have any more questions. No, um, you want
to you want to plug the socials and the websites
(43:48):
and all that good stuff. Yeah, one more time for
our listeners. Yeah, people, City Council Full full full words
People City Council on Instagram, on Twitter, it's PPLs City Council. Um,
you can check out our website. We're selling out of
shirts right now, so I don't know if we I mean,
we just launched it on over the weekend and yeah,
(44:10):
we've sold how to of like hundreds of shirts so far,
but I'll plug it. It's it's just our People City
Council dash l a dot com and you can find
our shop there. But um, we'll probably do another round
of shirts. You can get a funk our Study shirt.
You can get defund the Police in two logos. You
can get a Dodger's Defund the Police or Lakers on
(44:31):
the Police, or a color My favorite shirt is the
colorful I Yield my Time shirt. So that's so good.
That's so good. I want that. Yeah you should, Yes,
you order it. We're and so and also for people
that want to like that, are thinking about allow us.
We do fund ship all the time. We want to
like that. One of the reasons that we've been successful.
(44:52):
We can wrap right after this. But one thing that
we've been super successful at is like making and engaging
or just engaging people with local politics can be easy
if you just present things to them where it just
makes sense, like get all, like, don't the process is
meant to be of tuse and like keep people away
(45:12):
from a civic participant participation just participation participate Yeah whatever,
uh and so people city council just makes makes it
fun and easy. And we shoot on politicians and we
troll them on Twitter. L A p p L um
(45:33):
the police union has me blocked on Twitter. Uh Steve
Silver off the Yeah, uh well Steve, oh, this would
be good for your for to run this part though.
Steve McBride, the head of the l A p p L,
has shot six people. His daughter Tony McBride l A
p D officer has shot shot and killed Daniel Hernandez.
(45:55):
Steve Gordon, a director of l A p p L,
has shot two people. Is on his own own and
that and that is the special interest group that represents
l A p D. And so that's who city council
members let at their table, Like violent and dangerous people
are giving opinions to our local politics and that ship
means to stop. Yeah, that's grotesque. I didn't know that. Yep.
(46:19):
Jamie McBride is a shitty person, and he was talking
about Black Lives Matter and saying they're like a hate group.
Jamie McBride, wait until we embarrass your whole fucking family.
You heard it here first, guys, Jamie McBride is a
fucking violent, dangerous person and his daughters a murderer. Yeah,
that's one of the things the police really hate the most.
That's what they've been doing at a Columbus, Ohio at
(46:40):
protests is putting up shields with like the names of
specific officers who are at the police in the demonstrations
and have also carried out acts of violence. Um. I noted,
like I started when I was at protests reading out
the names of officers before they tear gassed us, and
they started covering up their names after that. Um, Like,
they don't. They don't like that. So, as a general rule,
(47:02):
if you're really looking to piss off the cops in
a productive way rather than just you know, chanting mean
things at them, um, making it very clear which individuals
with names have been doing violence to the community is
about the best thing you can do. It's so important. Yeah,
because we didn't people don't know. It gets buried. I'll
(47:23):
drop this thread in uh in the chap right here.
But if people will follow me at my at my
name on Twitter, you can see this video from the
day that I got arrested. I was calling out an
officer's name that was intentionally hitting people and pushing people
with a stick. And I was saying, officer Ramiras, stop
(47:44):
stop doing that, Officer ramira As, you are starting a fight.
And because it was, he was doing it to peaceful protesters.
And then and then they just take a bunch of
them take off. I was live streaming on Instagram when
I got tackled by the police, so and in my
live stream you can hear me say to my friend, Hey,
let's get everyone out of here. It's not safe anymore.
Let's go, Let's get the funk out. And I go
(48:06):
to my megaphone, I say, all right, let's leave, let's dip,
let's fucking go. As I'm saying that, I'm tackled by
two police officers. Why why did they Why did they
target me as uh as I was getting people to leave.
It's because they wanted war. They didn't want things to
die down. They wanted to bring violence on people. Absolutely Otherwise,
(48:27):
why would you stop people from leaving exactly, how else
are they gonna have a police riot? Yeah, so fuck
l ap D and fuck the l A p p
O and Eric CARSETI is a spineless coward. And I
hope you can run all of that. We can run whatever.
We can run all of that, all right, Thank you
so much, Richie. We're going to be following all of
this closely, and that does it for us today. You
(48:51):
can check us out online at Worst Year Pod, on
Twitter and on Instagram. You can follow us individually, but
most importantly follow people City Council stay engaged, and you
can find explicit calls to violence in our telegram channel
slash burned the Mayor's House Down, where we talk about
(49:14):
burning the Mayor's house down. Isn't that right? Do we
have a telegram channel the first time caring about it? Well,
we're terrorists now, so out for that. Out for that
US and Antifa, but not the KKK ever. So everything
(49:40):
I tried, Worst Year Ever is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of My Heart
Radio together everything so don't don't why hello and welcome
(00:22):
back to the Worst Year Ever. Goodbye names. Wait ship,
we're doing things a little different. Which is the one
that tells you that's the greeting? This? This is the
one that's the greeting. Is that the but which is
the word? How do you greet people? Welcome? Oh, welcome, welcome, Welcome,
(00:46):
this is worst year ever? Robert, Katie Cody. That's it.
Those are our names. I've done my work for today, guys.
Today we are very excited joined by Richie Serjenko from
the People's City Council. Uh. You guys might be familiar
with the people City Council here in Los Angeles. They've
(01:08):
been making a lot of waves on the internet, uh,
fighting Eric Garcetti, fighting the police, l ap D, working
with Black Lives Matter, fundraising, all of it. So we
really excited to sit down and chat about the work
that they're doing and the ways that we can support them. Here.
That is today, we are very excited to be joined
(01:32):
by Richie Serjenko. I pronounced that right, you announced that
right from the People's City Council. Hi Richie, How are
you doing today? I am doing well. I'm really tired,
but I'm doing well. How are you pretty okay? I
was just chatting yesterday with somebody about how I'm doing okay?
(01:55):
Is the new pretty good? It's like, I honestly like
my immediate needs are taken care of for the for
today and and that's that's a positive. Um. But we
are really grateful that you are taking the time to
speak with us today, UM, because a lot's happening and
(02:16):
I from what I understand, the l A City Council
will be voting on their budget this week today apparently. UM, yes, yeah, yeah,
different different portions of the budget. I mean they didn't
so they didn't vote on the budget by June one.
And you know, I'm not as legislatively savvy as some
(02:37):
of you know, our coalition members, but I can only
speak to what I know. But if they didn't vote
by June one, Um, the budget was set to go
an effect on July one, regardless if there was a
vote held on it or not. But you know they're voting,
you know, they yesterday in the Budget Finance Committee they
voted to send a motion the west in Harris Stocks
(03:01):
in motion for um getting rid of the calls for
l apd uh non violent, non criminal uh calls, have
them go, have that go to professionals and not police officers.
That motion was sent from committee to City Council today. Uh,
you know which they're gonna I'm pretty sure they're either
(03:22):
voting right now or they voted to pass um. But
I think it did pass earlier. But that's exciting, it's not. Yeah,
it's exciting, but it's a it's a small bit. It's
a it's a good first step. Um, No, for sure,
it is. It is exciting. I don't want to like
completely downplay it, but it's important to be honest. It's
(03:43):
important to be like, yes, Uh, there are some minor
gains that have been made also with the you know
Eric Garciti talking about the you know, hundred and fifty
million from the police budget to be diverted into programs
for you know, community programs. Great, it's a sliver, it's
(04:04):
a sliver chip of the off the iceberg. But I
want to back up and start by talking about the
people City council. How you got started, Um, from from
what I understand, you guys formed as a response to
the COVID crisis to fight for no rent, no evictions,
no vacancies. UM. And the work you guys have been
(04:24):
doing in a very short amount of time is pretty incredible.
So can you can you walk us through the beginnings
of this coalition and yeah, some of the stuff that
you guys have been doing, we say, uh, you know
that we are on an organizing project. Uh, you know,
we're not a coalition, we're organizing project. We're we're assembled
by organizers that belonged to different groups like Sunrise Movement,
(04:48):
l A Tenants Union, K Town for All Ground Game,
no Olympics, so all amazing, you know, l A grassroot
orgs that have been here for a long time. And
you know, we a bunch of us just came together
and the Nicole who started it started the first car
protest at Mayor Garcetti's house UM in March. So and
(05:11):
like March was like the first car protest at Garcetis.
I attended UM and then you know, they had another
one and I showed up and then I you know,
it's so funny what has happened in l A over
the past few months. Uh, with the use of social
media in a wide bit of you know, you know,
(05:32):
in a wide range of how we are all impacting
our communities. Like we came to get people City Council
came together through Twitter just like hey, like I saw
that you were there, or hey, I saw that you
are the you know, you're organizing this, like what's going on?
And then a bunch of us just got connected. And
a bunch of us got connected by calling in the
city council meetings and say like, hey, like these are
(05:54):
our points, Like let's hit these points and like let
them know. And uh, people city Councils, you know, before
we start recording, I mentioned is like a fun group.
We do fun and cool stuff. Uh all. Pretty much
every single member of People City Council will likes to
talk shipped to elected officials and will will confront them
directly on it. And you know that is the main
(06:17):
pillar of our success talking ship to politicians. That is
he I mean being willing to Yeah, yeah, I mean
that's that's literally the essence of democracy. Or I mean
I actually completely agree. Maybe maybe throwing milkshakes at them occasionally,
but you know that's a that's a personal you know,
I I don't think I would personally, but I don't
(06:39):
judge if anyone can do that. Yeah, part of part
of democracy is having the freedom to throw whatever beverage
you want at your elected I would probably drink half
of the milkshake and then throw the part that's a
little too melted. See, this is democracy right here. This
this is what democracy looks like anyway, Richie. Yes, so
(07:00):
we yeah, we came together. And you know, my one
of my main pillars of my organizing is actually directly
confronting politicians and elected officials. I've done it, um at
like a national scale. And when this started, I was
just laughing how inept these elect local elected officials are
with hair social media's and so we can we like
(07:24):
all of this discussion will tie into how we use
social media and how it's been so powerful for us.
But yeah, so so people city council started uh in
like early April, and we and we started doing car
protests at Garsetti's house. But also, um, not even my
fear of the city attorney. We went to uh some
(07:44):
David Michaelson his who works in the city Attorney's office,
who write wrote a bullshit brief that wasn't based on
legal precedent. We went to his house and called him out.
We went to a bunch of other council members houses.
We've leaked their addresses on Twitter, put it, put their
phone home phone numbers on Twitter. Mitchell Ferrell's partner called Jacob,
(08:06):
an organizer with People City Council. His partner called Jacob's
dad after we protested it in front of his house,
and so, uh, you know, we had an obligation to
leak Mitch's partners number on Twitter as well. And so
that's that's the main main tenant. But we also have
organized really awesome actions like our may Day action at
(08:29):
Eric Garcetti's and we have like hundreds of cars like
do a car protest, like honking in front of our
setis and then we had you know, thirty fifty people
on foot, you know, with their megaphones making noise and
just disrupted the entire neighborhood. Um. And as as Robert
was saying, you know, we that that there's all of
what I'm saying is a basic tenant of democracy, UM,
(08:54):
dissenting and holding politicians accountable. That that I'm mean, we've
gone so far away from that at so many different levels.
But that is truly like the essence of democracy. Some
of the best things that have happened during this whole
uprising has been the cases where you've had in like Minneapolis,
in Portland, and I think a couple of other cities,
like the mayors of cities just have to stand in
(09:17):
the middle of a crowd of their citizens and get
would never no, no, no, but that would be awesome.
Famously absent from his home when everybody showed up to
protest there. I'm not sure if on the car protest
that you're mentioning, but certainly during the George Floyd protests,
(09:38):
he was there. He uh, who knows, he really lives
in the guetting. But but we had and then you know,
to go back to the the history of PCC, we
we actually PCC is Pupilsity Council. We held a die
in in front of Garsetti's house like where the tree
(10:00):
line is, and we had you know, probably like thirty
people lay there for um like I think it was
like eighty three eight under thirty three seconds or so
for the amount of on house people that die in
l A every every year at a UM and so.
And then the next day they put up a barricade
(10:22):
in the spot that we did the die in at
and to tie to tie Twitter back into it, we
trolled them so hard, Like initially when they were asked
about it, they gave no comment and they were trolled
so hard on Twitter that they had eventually had to
give a comment and say that it was to protect
the plants. But that's like a mossy area that like
(10:45):
there's no plants there. Um. So yeah, these these elected
officials in LA are so shitty and they've never been
held to account and it's pretty Yeah, I would agree
with that. I mean, we're sitting here in a situation
today and the day that we're recording this, uh l
A is seeing I believe our our worst number of
(11:10):
cases ever. We are in a situation. No, I mean
we processed this pain however we can. Yes, you laugh
in l A County like what some like upsetting lee
high percentage of the globe one, yes, but we're currently
looking at the statistics of of one in every one
(11:33):
in every people did um. And testing is harder to get.
You can't get a testing appointment. Facilities are like nonexistent anymore.
And yeah, it takes many days to get an appointment,
in many days to find out your results seems really, really,
really safe in my opinion, Just so you got to
(11:53):
get those fucking bars back open. And there's no other
way to get the bars back open. But just everyone
in southern California, you get sick, and then we can
open the bars again for the survivors. We've got unemployment
benefits are set to expire at the end of July.
Congress gets to work now. But this is so bad
(12:16):
for my mental health to go through the list of
the ship. You don't have to do that. Why August
is like people thought fucking May end of May and
early June or like an uprising, August is going to be.
August is going to be the motherfucker of the year.
I guess. Yeah, yeah, August is going to be when everything,
(12:37):
like things come to a fucking boil in a way that, yeah,
it's gonna be cool and good. I think. Even seeing
people so angry that the beaches are closed for fourth
of July, it's like, um, are you feeling patriotic right now?
Because I don't. I don't care about those people boiling um,
but I do said that. I say this to say
(12:58):
even though I think in the last month or so, UM,
we're gonna talk about Black Lives Matter in a moment.
You know, we've been focused on these other movements and
other things that are happening, and I think a lot
of people in l A at least a month and
a half ago, we're starting to feel like, Okay, we've
done a good job, but then we rushed to reopen
and here we are. But I say this to to
(13:19):
bring it back to the work that you guys are
doing and again focusing on the no rent, no evictions,
no vacancies, because we are going to be seeing that
hit in August and less drastic things happen. Don't worry,
they won't be. So I would love to hear some
about what what you guys are working on specifically with that,
(13:40):
then then get into some of the Black Lives Matter
stuff as well. These elected, local elected officials have passed
the buck to the federal government. Yeah, and that's local
and statewide like Newsom has done it too, or like
newsong uh, they have handled you know, every single elected
official in California to me from the Governor's office and
(14:03):
then in Los Angeles has failed everyone that fucking lives
in the city. And I'll just say I mean, I agree,
I I sorry interrupted. It blows my mind how much
um good press they got, especially at the beginning of
people saying yeah, yeah, that's the cuomo sexual stuff, right,
(14:26):
it's the it's the being able to give the air
of an ounce of competence um, which we're not used
to these days. And also l A p D doesn't
wear masks either, so unbelievable. You know, the only time
the police have been wearing masks the protests I've seen
us when they've been tear gassing us. So I guess
(14:49):
they used the safer we all are from coronavirus. That's
the lesson. Yeah, it sends you home. It's for it's
forcing you to quarantine. Way to flattening the Yeah, up
your lungs a little bit beforehand, you get everything down.
(15:14):
I got arrested on May third years. I don't know
if you have seen the video, but I was directly
targeted by l A p D. And I was the
first arrest that they made on Third and Fairfax, and
uh yeah, I got ta yeah, I got tackled by
two l A p D officers. I got tragged by
(15:35):
them on the ground, and then uh, you know, I
think I got punched or hit hit with a stick. Uh.
And then you know they started hitting my buddy that
tried to grab me. Uh. And yeah, I know that.
I'm so sorry that you experienced that. Oh no, thank you,
I appreciate that. And it's like LA Times has fucking
(15:56):
used that picture twice already without mentioning my name under
the head final course, of course, where you wearing that
shirt right now? No, I wish, I wish. Uh. It's
a it's a triggering picture and they don't fucking credit
they don't credit me at all. And also the l
A Times has used also to other pictures of me
(16:17):
getting arrested, and somehow they're using me as the face
of police brutality against black and brown people. And that's
not why, That's not why I'm out in the streets.
I'm out in the streets because I stand in solidarity
with blackgrown and indigenous people who have been harassed for
centuries by police departments. And l A Time, the corporate
media is fucking failing uh people in Los Angeles anyway, Yeah, yeah, no,
(16:41):
thank you. I mean it's a pretty good transition because
people City Council, even outside of the original stuff that
the stuff that we've already discussed, at least according to
your website, and what I've seen online is about creating
a Los Angeles that is racially, economically, environmentally just. And
I really liked how on the website your message includes
(17:01):
evolving to meet the needs of our comrades. Uh and
as you are talking about, I mean, you guys have
done that by joining forces with the Black Lives Matter
Movement UM, which is obviously incredibly important because we can't
talk about creating a just Los Angeles or about the
economic effects of COVID without talking about racial justice, because
they are inextricably linked. UM. So I'd love to to
(17:24):
hear some of the stuff that you're doing in conjunction
with Black Lives Matter UM and and get into the
People's Budget and the Freedom Fund and all of that. Yeah,
for sure. Uh So it was funny how we got
connected with BLM and BA. I just wanted to, you know,
Black Lives Matter l A has been like putting in
so much work in Los Angeles for like seven ten years.
(17:45):
How and then how are long? Um? But you know,
I think they're you know, BLM is like the gold
standard of organizers in Los Angeles. And uh, you know,
I think all of us look up to them a lot,
and it's been like you know, and then they saw us,
you know obviously, you know, trying to live up to
that hype and and living up to UM just the
(18:07):
standard that they set as far as direct actions go
as well. So speaking for about People's City Council, you know,
BLM saw what we had done at the Mayor's house
and set like, invite us next time, and and that's
how we got connected. And then you know, a few
weeks later the budget was brought up. UM. But the
People's Budget Coalition is made up of an amazing set
(18:31):
of groups, Like it's led by Black Lives Matter l
A and Dr Nadoula and Baba Achilley. But uh, you
know K Town for All in Students Deserve and Ground
Game l A CANS Street Watch, Like this coalition is
made up of a bunch of amazing organizations in Los
Angeles and like a multi racial, multi generational group of
(18:56):
organizers that have come together to take on the city
about the budget. UM, and we've made like significant improvements UM.
And and yeah, no, it's it's important to acknowledge the
groundwork that BLM has has laid for this battle, on
this fight for years and years of taking on elected
(19:18):
officials and in Los Angeles, um, and so it George
Floyd's death sparked something around this country, right, and we
just so happened in BLM just so happened to have
the infrastructure for years. And then also the People's budget
battle had been going on for like three weeks before
(19:38):
George Flood's death, and so then everyone was like, oh, Ship,
maybe we shouldn't give three point one billion dollars to
l A p D of the understritted general funds to
LAP d Uh, that does not make sense. And so yeah,
that's how we came together be with BLM and working
(19:59):
on the was budget. And that's uh, yeah, can you
tell us a bit about the people's budget for sure?
So uh, like before George George, like a week before
George Floyd's death, we put out a survey. And the
survey I don't know if any of you took it.
It's like incredibly well done. Um David Turner who's getting
(20:21):
his PhD in North cal right now, set up really
dope survey and you know, could pinpoint which district you
lived in, and um, you know, it was just it
was just one that cost a lot of money for
people to do, right. But we fortunately had the resources
to to get the survey out. And before George Floyd's death,
(20:44):
I think we had like two thousand people still up
fill out the survey and the results came back and
showed that people wanted to give like five point six
percent of the budget to law enforcement. Um. And then
after George Floyd's death and right before LM gave the
presentation in front of city council, the results were that
(21:05):
the people only wanted to spend one percent of the
budget on law enforcement, like one point six. Again, opinion
moves fast these days, for sure. Yeah. I mean yeah,
black and brown people have been oppressed and um brutalized
by police for a long time, and uh a lot
(21:28):
of people are now waking up to it. Um and
that's why people are like, Okay, this ship really needs
to change. Um. And yeah, so the people's budget is
you know, about reimagining public safety. And like one one
thing to think about is people that live in Beverly Hills, uh,
Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, how many police do they see roaming
(21:52):
around their neighborhood? And and I bet it's not many,
and I bet they still feel safe there. And the
reality of the situation is that and I've heard it
for so long that black and brown indigenous folks when
they have police in their community, they don't feel safe.
And so like, why do we like, it's just ridiculous
that it's been ignored for so long. But you know,
(22:14):
if one or if a group of people are saying
that the police in our communities don't make us feel safe,
and we know from elsewhere that just not having the
police around, things are still uh, you know, kept safe. Right.
So it's just the realization that cops in America do
not protect and serve. They do not serve the needs
(22:37):
of the people. They are here to brutalize and terrorize
communities and specifically communities of color. Um. So yeah, people,
people don't want that anymore. Yeah, that makes me think
of I mean about the conversation of gentrification, of white
people moving into black and brown communities, changing the demographics,
(22:59):
bringing police because they don't feel safe for X y Z,
and targeting the people that have lived there for a
long time. And we see that happening in Los Angeles.
Um all over all over the country, but especially Yeah,
don't call them. Don't call the cops on black people.
It's like a good, good general rule of thumb. I
also love all the things that people share about for
(23:22):
their neighborhoods. In my neighborhood, I'm in Mount Washington actually
and uh glass Ll Park, and people have started putting
up you know, list of places that you can call
other than nine one for different types of situations. Obviously
there's a bit of a judgment call on some things,
(23:42):
you know, like thinking about which is the right resource
to to reach out to. But you know, until we
get to a place where we do have an emergency
line that connects you to the proper department, you know,
the proper people equipped to handle a certain situation, we
have to take that action too in our own hands. Yeah,
for sure, Like, yeah, violent people with guns shouldn't be
(24:06):
showing up to situations where people are you know, may
need some mental health support. And also yeah, no violent
people with guns showing up anywhere doesn't make anyone safe.
The cops are trained in a certain way to escalate
and be aggressive, um, and so it's like impossible for
(24:29):
them to act with you know, proper decre social decorum
when they're trained in a certain way and they're armed
and they show up on a call. Yeah, as we
mentioned up top, UM, I mean I am blown away
by how how quickly all of this came together. And
(24:50):
I'm grateful for the work you guys have been doing. Um,
And we have seen some beginnings of changes happening. The
shaving off the top of the police budget. Sure, the
fact that, um, you know they are attempting to replace
lap D with community based, unarmed emergency responders. That's great.
(25:10):
That's that's some significant steps. Can you talk to us
about what is happening this week and what your next
steps are, some of the plans that you guys have
in place, and what you want to be focusing on. Yeah,
for sure. So uh yeah, Tomorrow Every Wednesday is the
Jackie Lacey Must Go protests downtown led by Black Lives
(25:33):
Matter l A. But July first marks the budget passing,
and so we're ready, like a lot of people are upset,
and and it was mentioned before that you know August
is going to bring a tidal wave of kissed off people,
but July is July is going to as well. And
I just think it's laughable that these elected officials think
(25:57):
that they're going to live in peace while they go
on reset, while people are waiting, uh for shipped to
change in the city. And so it's fine that they
want to go on recess like that, you know, I mean,
it's really not fine. But we're in an unprecedented crisis
on many fronts that's happening right now. There are so
(26:20):
many fires that need to be put out, and we
have a dearth of leadership. But anyway, yeah, I was saying,
I was saying, it's fine because now it gives us
an opportunity instead of yelling at them on city council meetings,
he gives us an opportunity to show up and from
their homes. He called called their home numbers and call
their partner numbers and not let let them live in
(26:41):
one second of peace. And we are so well organized
right now that I can assure all the city council
members that they will not have a second of peace.
And if they because because like MLK said, like the
budget is uh you know, sign of your morality is
(27:01):
a document of more morality and or your values. I
forget what the exact quote was, but the they're gonna
they're gonna let the let this budget go through in July.
And um, that in itself, uh, you know, perpetuates violence, right,
Like giving lap D that much money actually is violent
(27:24):
to people. It hurts people, kills people, it gets on
people unnecessarily thrown in jail. And so that is their action, right,
like that they are intentionally allowing this to happen. They're
intentionally giving LAPD that much money. And so I said,
it's fine because they are going to see exactly like
what we We have thousand people in Los Angeles fill
(27:47):
out a survey, right, we have all those email addresses. Right,
we have so many eyes on us right now that
they are not going to be prepared for the way
the people that are into other stuff together. Everything about
(28:10):
the Freedom Fund, I mean, I know you guys have
praised a lot of money, so I'd love to hear
about that and also a freedom fund all of it. Yeah.
We so we raised two point five million dollars. We
just shut the shut the fund down and started a
general fund um the freedom So so just to give
some backgrounds in context, we started We've had like a
(28:33):
goad fund meet going for a long time or not
a long time, since we started. Um, it feels like years.
But yeah, yeah right, it doesn't be like years. It's
only been months. But we we started the uh you
know what is now known as the Freedom fun as
a fund for people to donate to because people were
getting citations at the car protest for honking, they were
(28:54):
getting citations for amplified noise. Yeah, yeah, they were. Yeah,
it's bullshit. It's such bullshit. So great use of tax
dollars and time and Jesus. Yeah, and so we used
we used the fund to fundraise for people that were
that were getting these citations, and then we also used
(29:17):
it to to raise money for a mariachi dand which
we hired on the the Mayday protests to have in
front of Garsetti's house. And so we've had this fund
for you know, a little bit of time, and we've
raised money for like local things. And then, you know,
as people were getting arrested and as people were getting injured,
(29:37):
and as you know, we were about to start, you know,
preparing ourselves to get out in the streets, like knowing
that we would need supplies and we would need a
certain amount of things to keep you know, this pressure
and this movement, this energy up. Um. You know, we
figured that we needed to have a because there was
no fund like in l A for like protesters. Um,
(30:01):
so we were like, okay, like, we have this fundraiser
that's already live and active and so you know, if
people want to donate for supplies or for legal support,
which what I'll talk about in a second, and anything
in regard to the direct actions in Los Angeles. We
wanted to just offer our fund as like a spot
(30:22):
for where people can donate money because we already had
it up and running and uh, you know, we're at
least uh somewhat of a reliable source, right, and so
we're like, hey, you know, because who knows what go
fund meets can be created like during the time, So
we just put it out there and you know it
(30:43):
kind of we barely even publicized it, but it got
picked up. Like we we barely publicized it because, um,
like people, city Council does not have like any infrastructure itself, right,
we aren't like we weren't like an organization. We're not
like a group, so we weren't fundraising or anything that
like we could do for like us structurally. We were
(31:04):
fundraising too, like help with bail or help with like
medical bills, or help with like supplies for protesters. So
we kept raising a lot of money and there was
no need to promote it because we are trying to
figure out, you know, how to doll out two point
five million dollars, but so far we've approved like one
(31:25):
point to five million, and um I think three hundred
thousand of it is going to the National Lawyers Guild.
National Lawyers Guild also took on a class action suit
on behalf of Black Lives Matter l A for the
for the brutality and mistreatment of protesters that happened over
(31:46):
the first few weeks or the end of May and
first few weeks of June. So there's a class action
being brought by blm UH and NLGY against l A
p D and the group. Best part about it is
that we raise so much money that we're now giving
three thousand dollars to the National Lawyer's Guild and three
dollars to Black Lives Matter l A to use however
(32:09):
they want. But n LG is now fighting the class
action suit against l A p D. And so these
assholes have really created a vicious uh. These assholes that
l APD have created a vicious cycle for themselves where
we're just pounding them on all fronts and they have
just created um, this kind of this kind of violence
(32:33):
and trauma for people in Los Angeles for a long time,
and it's you know, it's it's time to get rid
of them. And so that's that's the basis of the
Freedom Fund, that people are just really upset about what's
going on in l A. We've donated to other groups
like Harrison who does like immigration legal services. We've donated
to a mental health professional group that that offers mental
(32:58):
health support to to actively. We've donated to a group
called l A Can, which you know does a lot
of work with on house folks in l A. So
we we have we then ground game as well. They
run the mutual aid set up in Los Angeles. So
we're just trying to get you know, this money in
the hands of people in Los Angeles that are on
(33:19):
the ground doing the work and figure out how we
can best support them. Ah. Yeah, that's awesome. I I know,
I can't think of a specific organization off the top
of my head, but I know that's been it unexpected
for some outcome from from the past month is that
a lot of organizations ended up raising far more money
(33:41):
than they know what to do with, and then they're
faced in a situation where it's like, I've got to
use this money otherwise I lied. I guess not really.
I know the group in Minnesota raised dolls and honestly
I could not, like I cannot, I'm good conscious say
(34:02):
that we would have any idea of what to do
with thirty million dollars uh an obscure amount. And because
personally PCC doesn't have that infrastructure, right, We're not like
we're just a group of activists that come together and
do car protests or or whatever we do. Um. So yeah,
(34:24):
like we we weren't taking in two point two point
five million dollars to run like our own organization. And
so that that's why we shut down the Freedom Fund
and started the General Fund, because if people still want
to donate to us, they can, but the General Fund
will be for like people's city council's stuff like that.
One of the main things that we've done with the
(34:44):
Freedom Fund is that like, we're not going to keep
this money for ourselves, Like we didn't raise the money
for ourselves. That's not why we put like the fundraiser
out there. Um, we did it to support people on
the ground in l A. So we're gonna make sure
that you know that's that's where the money goes. So
how can we help you? How can our listeners uh
support you guys? Um, we talked before we started recording
(35:08):
briefly about calls to action. I know City Council's voting now, um,
but there are next steps I'm sure, uh, and things
that you need support wise, how do we keep the
attention on this and and on the work that you
guys are doing for sure, and like the next call
to actions will all can all be found at some
(35:29):
point over the next week or so on you know,
either Black Lives Matter l AH. You know they're the
leaders of the People's Budget Coalition. But also you can
follow us People City Council uh full words People City
Council on Instagram or PPLs City Council on Twitter. Uh.
And you know, we do a pretty good job of
(35:51):
releasing like our daily our daily called Actions or weekly
call to Actions and people can just get tapped in
like that. And um, I would say that there's going
to be something coming up, and sometimes we can't always
disclose what it is until day of or even when
it's happening. Um. But yeah, paying attention to our to
(36:12):
our feeds will give people a lot of insight on
what they can do and what they can do to
tappen with local politics. Yeah. And you mentioned earlier the
the Jackie Lacy, the weekly Jackie Lacy protests. If if
if you are a listener in l A, that's definitely
wanted to check out because Jackie Lacey has gotta go.
(36:35):
Yeah Jackie, Yeah, Jackie Lacey Musco. That's uh yeah. Yeah.
For the past so one week we had pro or
we built Black Lives Matter, had like, um, like ten
thousand people out there. Um. But the past few weeks
we've had like two thousand or so, so it's still
still pretty good impressive. I was wondering, Yeah, I went
(36:56):
the first couple of weeks, um, and and I haven't
been able to lately, but I'm thrilled to hear that
they're still huge turnouts. It's still good turn out. And
I think that people, you know, we have so many
eyes on us right now and people looking for like
the next steps, and people, you know, if we really
(37:17):
put out a large call to action, and say, you know,
if you're really down with this movement, then people will
show up on this day or time whenever we need them.
And so I think that's what people can expect for
what's what's to come for next steps, you know, Jack
Lacy on Wednesday, But then there will be things for
(37:38):
us to do soon. There's so much power in that.
And and circling back to how we started this and
talking about how you guys have leveraged social media. I mean,
it's all it's all that, It's that's how you you've
done that. That's how we will continue to do this
is Yeah, pay attention, follow them, follow their work, and
and listen to when people say today is the day
(38:00):
we need you to show up. Yeah, people have been
doing a pretty good job about it, right, Like, um,
we we whenever we put out a call for the
digital called actions and like the social media, Um, you know,
we trended number one nationwide with the hashtag on on Twitter,
like for like hours, people's budget l A trended across
(38:23):
the country. Um. And so we've just been like able
to really tap into people because people are upset right
Like people there's like so much bad ship going on
at so many levels. But people, you know, you can
have a firsthand experience with your local government not not
(38:43):
acting in the best interests of the people that they represent. Right,
So like, yeah, Joe Biden or Donald Trump or or whatever, like,
but there are things that you can do locally with
your local politics to actually effectuate change. And so like,
Eric Carcetti is just as shitty as Donald Trump. I like,
(39:07):
Donald Trump is a fascist, and like we'll lead us
into a really crazy state. But Eric Carcetti upholds liberal
white supremacy as well. Like Eric Carsetti was going to
give three point one five billion dollars to l A
p D. Eric Carsetti hasn't stepped up and filled all
of the wounds that were promised under Project Room Key.
(39:29):
He's they filled up like of of the rooms that
they were supposed to. So like, I don't see any
difference in liberal white supremacy from Eric Garcetti and what
like Donald Trump's outright fascism, Like it's it's it's because
that the it's negligent and at the end of the day,
it's upholding the same systems that we are here talking
(39:51):
about dismantling. And he's more attractive on paper and in person. Sure,
but but staff a that but um, but it's the
same disease. Yeah. Yeah, So we're we're going to continue
the fight. And I don't think elected officials in Los
(40:13):
Angeles have really dealt with this kind of pressure before.
And it's gonna be really funny to embarrass them all. Yeah,
definitely not. They don't know what it's like to actually
be called on anything or have people engage with politics, um,
on the local level. What I like, I mean, I
like about all of this. I mean, I'm very inspired
(40:36):
by the work you're doing, by the work your whole
the whole group everybody's doing. Um. But what you were
just talking about, it's so important. This is almost this
demystifying of the process and and showing people that we
have the power to make change. You have the power
(40:56):
to step up and and and communicate face to face
with masks on with our our local leaders to start
making changes here now too. It is possible to get
everybody's attention, It is possible, uh to create momentum. Uh,
and we got to maintain it. Yeah. Um. And if
(41:18):
there's a positive in all of this, I mean, there
are positives in all of this, but that's one of
them for me, and I want all of us to
continue to have that same kind of a mindset throughout
our lives when we get through this specific crisis. Yeah,
it's it's crazy, right that this all is happening. Were
in how we're in the middle of a global pandemic
(41:40):
and nationwide recession. Uh. People, millions of people are out
of work. They're likely not going to be going to
back to work anytime soon. People are going to be
getting evicted from their homes. The federal government hasn't sent
any support black and brown people, and generous folks have
been impressed by racist systems for send trees. And it's
(42:01):
all happening right now. It's just happening. But I think
that you know, revolution isn't like necessarily what is going
to happen. I think that's a you know, a very
broad term. But what we're seeing now is that things
are going to change. Uh. And but only if we
if we continue like you said, look, only if we
(42:22):
continue at it, only if we keep this pressure up.
But you know, I think, you know, you can only
push people so far until an uprising begins. And like
an uprising continues, people have to remember like the Civil
Rights ERAB, like ROSA Parks and this the signing of
(42:42):
the Civil Rights Act by l b J. We're so
far apart and it didn't happen overnight like this. These
changes didn't happen right away, So it's gonna be a
long drawn out battle. And if people need to stay
in tune. But like BLM leading this movement and the
coolest Mahan them people City Council included, like, we're not
(43:05):
gonna stop anytime soon. I hate all these elected officials.
It's my life goal to hold them accountable, and like
bring down the l A p D. They are just off,
They're just all bad people. Like if and if the
general public starts accepting that the police department is not
just a few bad apples, they're all shitty people operating
(43:28):
in a shitty system, and elected officials uphold that shitty system.
Once that's normalized, then then we're gonna win. I love that.
That seems like a pretty good place to end, Unless
you guys have any more questions. No, um, you want
to you want to plug the socials and the websites
(43:48):
and all that good stuff. Yeah, one more time for
our listeners. Yeah, people, City Council Full full full words
People City Council on Instagram, on Twitter, it's PPLs City Council. Um,
you can check out our website. We're selling out of
shirts right now, so I don't know if we I mean,
we just launched it on over the weekend and yeah,
(44:10):
we've sold how to of like hundreds of shirts so far,
but I'll plug it. It's it's just our People City
Council dash l a dot com and you can find
our shop there. But um, we'll probably do another round
of shirts. You can get a funk our Study shirt.
You can get defund the Police in two logos. You
can get a Dodger's Defund the Police or Lakers on
(44:31):
the Police, or a color My favorite shirt is the
colorful I Yield my Time shirt. So that's so good.
That's so good. I want that. Yeah you should, Yes,
you order it. We're and so and also for people
that want to like that, are thinking about allow us.
We do fund ship all the time. We want to
like that. One of the reasons that we've been successful.
(44:52):
We can wrap right after this. But one thing that
we've been super successful at is like making and engaging
or just engaging people with local politics can be easy
if you just present things to them where it just
makes sense, like get all, like, don't the process is
meant to be of tuse and like keep people away
(45:12):
from a civic participant participation just participation participate Yeah whatever,
uh and so people city council just makes makes it
fun and easy. And we shoot on politicians and we
troll them on Twitter. L A p p L um
(45:33):
the police union has me blocked on Twitter. Uh Steve
Silver off the Yeah, uh well Steve, oh, this would
be good for your for to run this part though.
Steve McBride, the head of the l A p p L,
has shot six people. His daughter Tony McBride l A
p D officer has shot shot and killed Daniel Hernandez.
(45:55):
Steve Gordon, a director of l A p p L,
has shot two people. Is on his own own and
that and that is the special interest group that represents
l A p D. And so that's who city council
members let at their table, Like violent and dangerous people
are giving opinions to our local politics and that ship
means to stop. Yeah, that's grotesque. I didn't know that. Yep.
(46:19):
Jamie McBride is a shitty person, and he was talking
about Black Lives Matter and saying they're like a hate group.
Jamie McBride, wait until we embarrass your whole fucking family.
You heard it here first, guys, Jamie McBride is a
fucking violent, dangerous person and his daughters a murderer. Yeah,
that's one of the things the police really hate the most.
That's what they've been doing at a Columbus, Ohio at
(46:40):
protests is putting up shields with like the names of
specific officers who are at the police in the demonstrations
and have also carried out acts of violence. Um. I noted,
like I started when I was at protests reading out
the names of officers before they tear gassed us, and
they started covering up their names after that. Um, Like,
they don't. They don't like that. So, as a general rule,
(47:02):
if you're really looking to piss off the cops in
a productive way rather than just you know, chanting mean
things at them, um, making it very clear which individuals
with names have been doing violence to the community is
about the best thing you can do. It's so important. Yeah,
because we didn't people don't know. It gets buried. I'll
(47:23):
drop this thread in uh in the chap right here.
But if people will follow me at my at my
name on Twitter, you can see this video from the
day that I got arrested. I was calling out an
officer's name that was intentionally hitting people and pushing people
with a stick. And I was saying, officer Ramiras, stop
(47:44):
stop doing that, Officer ramira As, you are starting a fight.
And because it was, he was doing it to peaceful protesters.
And then and then they just take a bunch of
them take off. I was live streaming on Instagram when
I got tackled by the police, so and in my
live stream you can hear me say to my friend, Hey,
let's get everyone out of here. It's not safe anymore.
Let's go, Let's get the funk out. And I go
(48:06):
to my megaphone, I say, all right, let's leave, let's dip,
let's fucking go. As I'm saying that, I'm tackled by
two police officers. Why why did they Why did they
target me as uh as I was getting people to leave.
It's because they wanted war. They didn't want things to
die down. They wanted to bring violence on people. Absolutely Otherwise,
(48:27):
why would you stop people from leaving exactly, how else
are they gonna have a police riot? Yeah, so fuck
l ap D and fuck the l A p p
O and Eric CARSETI is a spineless coward. And I
hope you can run all of that. We can run whatever.
We can run all of that, all right, Thank you
so much, Richie. We're going to be following all of
this closely, and that does it for us today. You
(48:51):
can check us out online at Worst Year Pod, on
Twitter and on Instagram. You can follow us individually, but
most importantly follow people City Council stay engaged, and you
can find explicit calls to violence in our telegram channel
slash burned the Mayor's House Down, where we talk about
(49:14):
burning the Mayor's house down. Isn't that right? Do we
have a telegram channel the first time caring about it? Well,
we're terrorists now, so out for that. Out for that
US and Antifa, but not the KKK ever. So everything
(49:40):
I tried, Worst Year Ever is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
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