August 5, 2026 • 33 mins
Hour 2 - Orange County faces a potential legal reckoning as two dozen parents may be criminally charged after children rode e-bikes and e-motorcycles illegally, while L.A. City Council members push new restrictions on e-bikes citywide. The show also breaks down the LA Council’s approval of funding to hire a consultant for a revamped homelessness plan and explores LA Metro’s report that homelessness on public transit has dropped 57% since 2024—what’s driving that decline and what it means for broader policy.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Monks and Meryl, hosted by Michael Monks and
Chris Merrill. This is Monks and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Merrill, Monks and Merril. K if I am six to
forty more stimulating talk. I'm Chris Merrill. I love Steppingwolf.
He's Michael Munks, he loves musicals. Subscribe to the podcast.
iHeartRadio app and follow us on the social media's at
Monks and Merrill at Monks and Merrill.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Which, by the way, what's the musical? Is that right now?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hadestowns pantages?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
No, all, that's Beauty and the Beast. I think is
that pantagous in the movies?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, oh that's why I'm seeing it. I think it
did pretty well at the box office, didn't it. It
was a Broadway hit. Oh okay, I haven't seen anything
about it. Thought The Outsiders was at pantageous.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I don't have any idea, and then don't ask me
to keep up with things.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Fantom the opera it is, I think, so I great show. Okay,
I take that back. He's Michael Monks, he loves Steppenwolf.
I'm Chris Merril.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I love musicals.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I do love musical so I don't know what you're
trying to say because I'm actually not a huge fan,
is that right? I mean I like him, I don't
I don't really know any new ones you want to
talk about. Buy by Berdie. I can sing a couple
of songs, rag Time, like everything, all the stuff that
every high school did, the musicals from the nineteen forties,
that every high school covered in the last eighty years. Yeah,
you guys want to do five hundred and twenty five thousand,
(01:21):
six hundred minutes. You're gonna whip that one out. I
could get Heather back here. Guys, just cool? Are you
an alto? Where are my altos?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I'm gonna need the altos over here? There? It is,
take it away.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Stuff turned off before we get canceled. Horrible. If you
were a parent, would you buy your kid in e
bike if all their friends haid e bikes, would you
buy your kid in the bike?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, I gotta tell you, I think I might consider
it too. I mean, I want my kid to be
on a regular bike because when I was your age,
we didn't have e bikes can petals. But I don't
want my kid to be a loser. Right, all the
other kids are doing it. You gotta make sure yours
gets in there, and I hope that I would. You know,
I probably delude myself into believing, well, my kid will
obey the rules.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
My kid won't. Won't.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's not gonna monitor it, right, Yeah, it's not gonna
kill anyone. It's gonna wear his helmet, and he's not
gonna go anywhere I told him not to, like the
old watering hole where Lassie was barking. How did Timmy
fallen that, Well, he knows he's not supposed to go there.
This isn't off the rail segment already.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
You see San Diego analysis finding the California's reported e
byte collisions increasing from two in twenty eighteen to over
fifteen hundred last as twenty twenty four, they examined four
thousand e bye collisions found that riders suffered moderate to
sear injuries more frequently than traditional bicyclist. The most interesting
part of this is that kids under the age are
fourteen accounted for nearly sixteen percent of injured e bike riders.
(03:04):
And in many cases we're talking about emotives, they're supposed
to be riding them at that age. Yeah, I don't
know that what's the big issue at my child who
is younger than that one of these and it might
be a milestone. Welcome to teenage years. Here's your bike.
Otherwise you're on the power wheels. National pediatric study finding
the speed related e bike crashes produce more head, neck,
(03:26):
or facial injuries, more internal injuries, and more hospital admissions
than ever before. Orange County doctors reporting treating shattered neecaps,
skull fractures, and multiple organ injuries resembling those caused by
motor vehicle crashes. We've had ton spits around before the
DA in Orange County and he said, you know, we're
going to start going after parents on this stuff, and
I think, I don't know how else you do it.
(03:47):
When when you've got kids that are not supposed to
be operating the e motorcycles at all, forget about the
e bikes. They're they're either modifying them or parents are
buying them full on e motorcycles. Anything that goes over
twenty eight miles an hours considered an emailtorcycle, right, So
they're buying them these things they're not supposed to be.
Forget about being Oh I can, I've got a registration.
(04:10):
I've got this I'm wearing my helmet doesn't matter. You're
not old enough to be operating that. And then when
you've got so many of these injuries are happen to
kids that shouldn't even be operating them in the first place,
what else can you do. If we had a problem
with a bunch of thirteen year olds stealing cars, stealing
their parents Mercedes Benz, and we all knew that all
the all it was a Mercedes Benz epidemic, we'd say, look,
(04:33):
if you're a parent and your kid is thirteen and
they go out and they crash in Mercedes Bens, we're
gonna hold you liable for not keeping the keys away
from the kids.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
That's kind of where we're at right now.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
We had that tragedy where a teenager in Orange County
on an ee bike ran over and killed an old man,
and yes, we talked to DA non veteran, Yes exactly,
we talked to DA Spitzer about that because I believe
the mother in that case ended up facing charges as well.
She's being charged, and they said flat out we're going
after parents.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
It's with it.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
We can crack down on this because it continues to
happen either injuries to the kids themselves or injuries to others,
damage to infrastructure, dangerous chases involving police. So now local
prosecutors in oc they say they're looking at more than
two dozen open investigations into parents of just suspected of
illegally riding e bikes or em So he's not messing
(05:20):
around at all. It's not it's not just if you
kill a Vietnam that we're gonna come after the parents.
This is just we're going after anybody that's got their
kids on one of these things. Yeah, he created a
special unit in the DA's office to weigh potential charges
against both young people and their adults related to under
a juice of e bikes and e motorcycles. So there's
twenty six open investigations and to parents that could potentially
(05:43):
result in criminal cases. Part of the reason I think
we're having issues here is I think parents still don't
know the difference between an e bike and an e motorcycle,
and they go it just sounds like just and I
think they're thinking of it like dirt bikes from when
we were kids, and they're not. The acceleration is much faster,
they're a lot cheaper to get your hands on.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
They don't run out of gas. You don't have kids
that are at least learning some mechanic skills along the way.
There's other that that's it.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
That's it seems like it's relatively easy to modify, particularly
compared to seventies, eighties, nineties kids who maybe souped up
a Mustang, which took some work. Well, if you're souping
up a Mustang, you're over sixteen, right, I mean, this
would be like the dirt bike stuff, and you had
to I mean I knew kids that would create like
little go karts or whatever. They an old lawnmower engine
(06:30):
that they were mounting on a frame that they built.
Put what what that it's I'm going to wax about
it poetically here for a moment or fondly, and that
is that was actually bonding time where your dad might
not have been paying attention to you at your t
ball games or whatever, but you're able to get together
dad in the garage and you would work with him
and they'd tear lawnmower apart, and it was just time
(06:51):
that you spent with your parent. In the nineteen sixties,
seventies eighties, that kind of thing. They're not the case
with the e bikes. It's just not happening anymore. So
I know I'm kind of romanticizing that that. Look back,
let's get mister Merril on the phone and see about
the time that you all see it was that mechanically inclined. No,
he was not mechanically inclined. He would have helped me
(07:12):
modify the e bike. He's an electrician, so anything to
get you faster and farther away from the house and
more potentially, he wouldn't have to feed my mouth any
longer either, go run this into something.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
It's exactly what he would have done.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, it's not just oh see, no, trying to crack
down on these e bikes. They're going after parents. The
city of Los Angeles. Can you believe the city of
La where chaos reigns, they're doing something. Laws are merely suggestions.
They are going to try to crack down on e bikes.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I'll believe.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I see in the big city.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
What are they going to do?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
We'll talk about it next.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
You're listening to Monks and Merrill on demand from kf
I AM sixty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
What day is Wednesday?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
The LA City council wants new restrictions targeting legally powerful
e bikes, E motorcycles, and the modifications that turn legal
bicycles into unlicensed motorcycles. This is a proposal that they
say could block some dangerous machines and educate younger riders.
But right now, as usual, it's just a request for
(08:17):
information from city staff. There's no enforcement plan, there's no penalties,
and there's no funding attached.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Now the LA City Council is shifting into high gear
to confront the growing public safety hazard. The Council's Rules
Committee passed emotion Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Very newsy, isn't it. They're very TV newspeople here.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
That directs the Department of Transportation to design ways to
regulate the vehicles, including potential bans on modifications that would
make them faster, and requiring riders under eighteen to take
training courses. E bikes are classified into three categories based
on speed and function.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Do they teach that pattern a TV J school? If
you're a non English speaker, all you hear is.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Ba boh ba bow b bo bo bo bo bow
ba bop ba bow b bo ba boh ba bow.
You are taught in broadcasting how to speak and to
you know, try to lose any accents, the non regional
American dialect and those sorts of things. I think those
of us in broadcasting tend to learn from what we've
listened to, though, and that has just become oh my god,
(09:24):
and I'm like, if you my first job, I was
pulling that crap and the boss pulled me in ut.
Yeah for showing me we had a good knock that off.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And we've had good bosses here who want us to
sound conversational in our newscasts and in our writing style
and try to avoid cliches and those sorts of things.
But have you ever met a news reporter at a
bar who said something like, Oh, I'm so glad you
could be here with us today. I'll have a whiskey,
he'll have a doctor pepper so bad.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Class one provides pedal assist up to twenty miles per hour.
Class two includes a throttle up to twenty miles per hour,
and Class three is a pedal assisted motor that travels
up to new nearly thirty miles per hour. Requires riders
to be at least sixteen years old, and cannot typically
be used on bike paths.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Okay, So the LA City Council is putting together this
committee in order to help them understand what he just said.
There are three classifications, and the LA City Council goes,
we're going to.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Need you to develop the classifications. The state already did.
What are they? Dude? I need to go back and
play them all again. I was discussed.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
No, I was only gonna get you to say them,
because that is something you learn in broadcasting school, is
how to read three things back to back.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Would you like to.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Learn No, go ahead, You're supposed to change the cadence
a bit on three things in a row. Gepper probably
knows that she does voiceover as well. There's three things
in a row. You try to say it a little
different differently, put a little bit of a different emphasis.
So it's twenty places, nineteen things and eighteen people. You know,
you don't want to say twenty people, nineteen things, eleven
(10:57):
places you know, all the same. You want to you
want to give it.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I'm this close to jumping across the table and stringing.
That's why you've been fired in every market you mitt.
That's exactly it.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Because you don't know how to say three things in
a row.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Anyway, the La City Council says, yeah, well, let's do
a committee.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
In other words, they're watching what's going on in Orange County,
where you've got the DA that says we're gonna get
a We're gonna get ahead of this. We are gonna
we're gonna make sure that parents who are letting their kids,
as you heard from KTLA's report, you've got parents that
are not allowing their excuse me, parents are allowing their
kids to ride bikes that they shouldn't be riding these
class threes and above, they shouldn't be doing it. Spitzer says,
(11:36):
we're not standing for that here. La says, wow, this
looks like it could be a problem. Let's do a committee.
You know what the problem is, Why do we have
to have a committee? I understand what's happening with the
politicians that they so desperately want to make sure they
can find somebody else to blame when they make a decision.
They never want to make a decision and then stand
by the decision. They want to say, well, I only
(11:58):
made the decision because of the information I got from
this committee.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Stop that.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Well, we want leadership, No, we want lasting community power.
We want environmental justice. Well, you mentioned justice, and believe
that's correct. I'm not saying I agree with this, but
when you listen to city council talk about semi related issues,
think about street takeovers. I mean, I've absolutely heard some
of these buffoons stand up and talk about giving these
(12:22):
folks a place to engage in that behavior. Don't want
to police it, don't want to do any preventive measures,
and don't really want to penalize any of the people
that participate in it. See, I'm okay with having a
designated area, and the same way that once people said, wow,
skateboards are fine if we build skate parks, so we
get them off the streets and stop you jumping all
over the city property still happens, but we saw skate
(12:45):
parks did work, right, I'm okay with things like that.
The problem is they don't have the execution with skate parks,
go this is going to be the designated area, and
if you're not doing it in this area, then you're
breaking the law and we're going to enforce it. What
you're talking about is they go, oh, let's create a
do it instead of street takeovers. Let's let's build a
track for them. There won't be any rules around that,
and if you do something in the street, there's still
(13:05):
not going to be any penalties. So why would anybody
go to the track. Well, they did actually look at
potential tracks, and none of them wanted anything to do
with it because of insurance liabilities of course. Yeah yeah, so,
I mean, but that's just where we are, and so
nothing happens, and street takeovers still happen in La specifically,
what you see are huge takeovers. Now I'm not talking
(13:25):
about the cars anymore. I mean these e bikes. Oh yes,
Parades of young people at least one hundred deep, sometimes
coming through the city streets and it's dangerous for them.
It's dangerous for people who are in traffic. I'm not
calling them hoodlums. They're out having a good time, but
it is a bit scary. Well, they're doing some stunts
(13:46):
and that can be you know, if we're a parent,
I would be terrified to see a child in the
middle of traffic popping wheelies or standing on their seat
and those sorts of things. I mean, take that talent
and practice it safely and execute it safely. But that
is how people end up getting hurt and killed. I agree,
and I never see any police interference with it. Well
(14:07):
that's because they haven't gotten their report from the committee yet. See,
this is why we have to have a committee. There
are a couple of members of city council and one
of them actually surprises me. Who want to ban I
want to consider banning I should say, the sale of
e bikes, e motorcycles and electric mopeds that don't meet
the California standards. That's Heather Hut that's the one who
surprised me. She represents parts of South l A. She
(14:30):
usually doesn't have much of interest to say. The councilman
John Lee, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley,
he's very law in order oriented.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, and I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
He doesn't usually find a lot of support, not with
this council. Yeah, because there's only a few others on there.
This just how but if we don't allow tents in
front of businesses and they're like, oh, make him feel
sad about themselves.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
He is also the only one who stood up and
spoke out against the land acknowledgment.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Oh is he proposal?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
So he won a place in my heart that day,
even though he's had some let's say, ethical constraints that
were investigated and he's been severely fined for them. But uh,
you know who else is who else is concerned about
this what the committee might find bike LA. Bike LA
is warning that legal e bikes are frequently confused with
the electric motives and the motorcycles, and so bike LA says,
(15:19):
we need to make sure that the committee comes up
with an accurate description of the class one, Class two,
Class three, and E motorcycles because basically they're worried about
actual bicycle riders being labeled as hooligans. Yeah, but that
would require there to be some sort of enforcement.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Bike LA.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
There's not going to be any enforcement. I mean, that
really is the problem, is it not?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Is there?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
You're not supposed to do to matter what the laws are,
if you're not going to enforce them. You're not supposed
to set fires in the gutters. You're not supposed to
smoke drugs in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. Somebody
feel disenfranchised exactly. Maybe that's what the e bike riders
need to do. You're not supposed to walk without pants on,
You're not supposed to poop in the park.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Did you know that? Did you know you're not supposed
to poop in the park? I thought this was a America.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
No, it's Los Angeles, So I can't.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
You can. That's my freedom.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
You're not supposed to, but you can.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
While LA is now playing ketchup to Orange County and
the e bikes, they are also writing a how not
too Manual for dealing with homelessness. If your city is
struggling with feral humans clogging your sidewalks, the biggest city
in the state is showing once again what you should
not do.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
This time.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
The boneheaded move will only cost half a million dollars,
and that's on top of the other half a billion
that they're already spending. Why they say this time is different?
Next months and Merril k I AM six forty we're
live everywhere on the iHeart RADIOB.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You're listening to Monks and Merrill on demand from KFI
AM six.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Chris Merrill, He's Michael Monks. He loves the Doors? Is
that the Doors? I love?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Another tape that you're found on your dasso, I Love
the Doors. Listen while you were working on that Mustang
back in seventy six.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That I do love the Door Something.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Subscribe to the podcast we Haven't Done Yet on the
iHeartRadio app, and follow us on the socials at Monks
and Merrill at Monks and Merrill. Quick follow up here
on a story we touched on yesterday. Linda Blair has
now been sighted. I remember they were doing a raid
on her place. The accents from the exercise. Yes, they
said she was the one who I turned around and
puked on everybody. Yeah, turned her head around. They said
(17:21):
she had too many dogs. She had been licensed as
an animal facility with permission to house up to one
hundred dogs. The license expired in twenty three. It was
not renewed. No animals were removed. During this inspection, officials
ordered the organization to obtain veterinary examinations for three dogs,
correct deficiencies involving sanitation and animal housing. Sounds like, sounds
like she didn't update her license, she had too many dogs.
(17:42):
And when they came in they went, okay, well this
is get the paperwork straightened up. They didn't say why
the three dogs required veterinary attention, but it they said
seventy law enforcement personnel participated in the inspection.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, so they brought like everybody out there, so she
got sighted for it, but she didn't get arrested or
anything else like that. So it doesn't sound like there
was animal abuse or anything like that going on. So
it's gonna have some acreage or something to have that
many dogs. Yeah, sure, look good for her because you
don't hear a lot about her work or you know,
there wasn't a lot of a lot of projects for her.
(18:14):
She must have made enough money. I don't Oh, good
for her, I don't know. Yeah, I hope she gets
it straightened out. Yeah, well, it doesn't sound like it
was nearly as bad as what I was afraid it
was going to turn into. You know, you get like
you'll get like a raid and riverside or something, and
it's like, oh my gosh, you find out that these
dogs have been poorly treated for years and you know,
malnourish that kind. It doesn't sound like that was the
case here, So I'm kind of relieved to hear that.
(18:36):
Listen to this go ahead, Okay, do you think we
need to spend more money on homeless stuff?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yes, we don't spend nearly enough.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Here's the LA City counts.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
What are we have what's the budget coming up between
the county and the city.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I don't know, like forty two trillion, yeap, yeah, somewhere
around there. It's ridiculous because the homelessness, the population, it
only went up, it only went up. Good job, But
keep in mind the LA Homeless Services Authority, terrible organization.
The county's out of it, leaving just a city. So
the city doesn't know what it's going to do. What
is it supposed to do with this vestige of an organization?
(19:10):
What are we gonna do with our own homeless priorities?
Knowing that we're throwing hundreds of millions of dollars without
fixing sidewalks, without fixing street lines, without repairing copper, without
fixing parks, without ending homelessness exactly, I mean really yeah, Well,
they they need to move their programs out of lawsuit.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
So how to do that?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Do they have anybody smart on the city council or
anybody already at city Hall who can direct this project?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Have they thought about having a homeless committee? Oh? They
have one.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Nithia Ramin's the chair of it, and she's running a
victory lap right now.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Well, they ought to be able to handle it.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Then right now, No, I've got bad news for you, pal.
The city council can't do it on their own. So
they voted unanimously yesterday to spend four hundred and fifty
thousand dollars on a consultant to help move the city
funded homelessness programs away from the LA Homeless Serve Authority. Okay,
(20:02):
so there you go, another big project that I'm sure
is going to a worthy recipient.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Okay, who will figure it all out for them? They might?
They might could.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I know, I know there's some incredulity there, but they might.
There might be a consultant that actually can help them
figure this out. Here's where I'm going to run into
some issues with this. The city already has a city
administrative officer, they've got a legislative assistant or a legislative analyst.
They've got a housing department, they've got a Homelessness Bureau,
they've got city attorneys, they've got a mayoral homelessness team,
they've got a homelessness committee. But now they have to
(20:34):
hire somebody to figure out how to deal with this stuff.
There's always money at the banana stand. This is where
I'm so that's good reference I'm so frustrated by this,
because why do we have all of these other departments
and committees and bureaus in the teams and everything else.
If you have to hire an outside firm anyway, if
you're going to spend four hundred and fifty thousand dollars
(20:55):
to hire a consultant, get rid of all these other
departments that you're that you're paying for. That's redundancy and
it's a waste of my money. When you hear me,
it's a waste of your money. Because I don't live
in the city, I know, But when you hear me
kind of talk badly about just regular city employees, this
is kind of what I mean, because I see the
incompetence up close of just the guy in the uniform
(21:15):
that's supposed to be doing a regular competent or is
it they're just no expecting it's all of it. There's
no expectations. Management is bad. Uh, there's just no expectation
for anything in LA. Where are the competent people? Are
they working in the price? This is what I mean,
of course, yes, And so when the city actually has
to accomplish something, they do have to spend money to
bring a smart person in to take care of it,
or a friend that they just want to enrich.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, wish to capitalism.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah, well then capitalism it's it's public money. What I
said just cronyism. I said crony capitalism. Would I think
capitalism or your partner, this is just this is right.
If you pretty tough, I'm gonna go get a master degree,
then you'll listen to me. Uh. My frustrate continues to
(22:00):
be why are we paying for departments if we have
to hire.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Somebody else to do the job.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Pair question, when can we get elected officials that go Look,
we have to think. This whole waste, fraud and abuse
thing became a left versus right issue, but it.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Doesn't need to be.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
We genuinely need to look at places where we can
we can trim the fat. We don't need to pay
a consultant. If we have the department, we don't need
the department. If we're planning on paying a consultant, it
needs to be one or the other. Well, I think
that's the ideological divide even at the local level, when
you look at it through a national lens, whether it's
doze or coming in here and figuring out where we
can save some money. What do you cut? Well, no,
(22:38):
you can't cut that because that program is important to me,
but it's not important to me, and we could we
could take something from from this other program.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Well, I can cut the mayoral Homelessness team. I would.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I'm going to cut the homelessness Bureau, right, yeah, I'm
going to say what city attorneys are focusing on homelessness?
And do we need those cities attorney city attorneys to
focus on something else? And if we don't need them
to focus on something else, then we don't need those
city attorne. If there are other things that they can
be doing, then we need to reassign them.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
But we don't need to.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Keep spending money on homelessness on top of other money
we're spending on homelessness on top of other committees to
study it. It's ridiculous. You're learning your sunny disposition. You're
going to go away too.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
This is what happens. The more you read, the more
you pay attention, you think, oh my god, we're not redoomed, bro,
We're doomed. We're doomed. I think if if we were serious,
we would go into Los Angeles City Hall and say, look, technically,
homelessness is a function of the county government. Mental health
is a function of the county government, the hospitals, county government.
(23:34):
And now the voters have now multiple times decided to
give the county government a billion dollars a year because
of a sales tax to fund this new homeless stuff
and the mental health stuff. I'm locking it down at
city Hall and I'm saying this money that we have
been allocating for a failure of a homeless initiative, that's
(23:55):
going towards stuff that people will enjoy. Their lights back
on their roads, and there's so I'd walks fixed, they're
parks safer. The various departments that have been understaff that
are necessary. I would close the departments too, by the way,
but the ones that we need clean some graffiti up,
calling up the space. It is the county's responsibility, and
if they are so smart, they're going to stand up
(24:15):
their own department. And the voters of La agree with
them because we're throwing billions at them. Let them handle it.
And to be clear, the county's budget for the homelessness
now that they've pulled out of LASA, is nearly what
the entire budget for LASA was when both the city
and the county were contributing to it, and now they're
spending nearly a billion dollars on the county level, and
the city is still planning us spending about four hundred
(24:37):
million right now. I would end inside safe immediately. I
would in all of the city homeless initiatives, keep maybe
one or two staffers in the city Hall to monitor
how the county is executing stuff inside the city limits,
because we have skid row here in the bulk of
the homeless people in the county are in Los Angeles.
But it is the county's responsibility, it is not ours.
We have other problems to deal with. Let's let Lindsay
Horvath clean up this mess.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
You tired, I've had it coffee.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
We spend spending a lot of time fixing the city
and nobody's listening to It's got to be exhausting. Well,
it's tough being right all the time. I can tell
you that I hear you see more tents on the street.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
We know that we spend all this money and there's
still more tents and homeless people outside. Metro However, says
homelessness on its system has been cut by more than half.
Where they are passengers disappearing on Metro. Next is the
Metro like the new Bermuda Triangle. Is that what's happening?
Find out home listeners get on and they never leave.
(25:30):
Monks and Merril continues.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
You're listening to Monks and Meryl onto the air from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Available anywhere on the Iart Radio app. Monks and Merrill
on this Wednesday afternoon. So glad to have you with us.
Be fun to have you with us one day on
the old Metro trains that Chris is still they drive.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Why we talked about it this morning.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I'm trying to assign a project to you that you
do without me, and I just want you to go
out with a microphone just right the system.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Just so people know.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Michael wants me to go ride the transit system, record
a news story for it, and then he wants to
put his name on the news story and submit it
for an award. I would not put my name on it.
Producing produced by you, produced executive produced by Yeah, my
executive producer fine a Michael Monks production.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Give me an assignment so you can win an award.
I want you to win an award. Finally get so
many awards, I don't keep track of them all. Let's
stop moving them around. Every time I got fired, I
kept having to move all those boxes of awards. Certain
tho's through them out.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Meanwhile, Metro says that there are more seats available for
people who want to pay to be on the system
because homelessness at the transit facilities is down fifty seven
percent since twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I kind of don't either. I'm glad to see the
stat but to know that homelessness has gone up across
the region the way that it has. Metro is a
big driver, a literal driver of homeless people, because you
can hop on and ride it all day if you like,
and you can go from one place to the next.
(27:09):
You can go to MacArthur Park and hang out for
a while. You can go down to skid Row and
hang out for a while. You can go down to
Santa Monica if you want some beach time where you
can just sleep on the train. But apparently the system
says that data from that same homeless count from the
(27:30):
LA Homeless Services Authority that indicated the homeless population in
Los Angeles had risen three and a half percent. Last
year showed a thirty one percent decrease in homelessness on
the transit system the year before.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
And when compared when adding in the decrease from twenty
twenty four, it's a fifty seven percent drop. Fifty seven
percent over the last two years. I think we were
to ask people that are riding the transit systems, or
if you live near, say a metro stop, like I do.
I'm telling you, every morning I wake up to somebody
who's screaming at the clouds that just got off that train.
(28:04):
So if that's somehow way better than it was in
twenty twenty four, I don't see it. Twenty twenty four
was rough. It was absolutely rough. And that was also
the year that it took a violent murder of an
older woman on our way home from work on the
Bee Line for the transit agency and local officials to
get serious about policing that system. Oh so they've got
(28:27):
a metro police force. Not yet, they're still contracting with
the three agencies. OK, but I have a relatively frequent rider.
Never do I see police, No, very very rarely have
I ever over the past three years. Seen a cop
on the transit system.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh hey, here's something this is interesting. Here's an interesting
stat from the story. Metro says that outreach team, whether
there's Metro homeless outreach teams, Oh yeah, we're paying for
that too.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
There's a KFI homeless outreach team. We're all in on
this grift Devor Mark's chairperson. I wish we would get
some money going out later down that's sa Metro's got
a billion dollar budget and part of that is to
handle homelessness because we're not paying enough for that to
the county and the city and everywhere else, because everybody
has to talk about how we will. We're not just
kicking them off the system. We're connecting them with services,
(29:16):
wrap around services, interim housing, shelters and all of that
just get them off of the train. Metro says that
they have connected three hundred and fifty four people to
permanent housing during the last fiscal year. Okay, that's great,
I need more data on that. How many are still
in permanent housing? Isn't permanent a word? Doesn't that mean something.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Connected to permanent housing?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Is all?
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It says?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, yeah, which means we dropped them off at the
agency inside safe and then they walked back out and
got on a bus.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, yeah, because there aren't any drugs at the agency.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
No. By the way, I did see some homeless people
this morning near the station, and I thought that breaks
the mold of some of the stereotype.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
That I think of.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
It was an older woman. She was probably in her
six although feral humans age faster. She's probably twenty three. Yeah,
but I was thinking, you know, that's the kind of
person that as we talk about the homeless services not working,
that's the kind of person I wanted to work for.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, because the person who.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Gets off that train and is coming down from whatever
the high was that they were on and they start
having a fight with the lamp post right which every
morning I have this.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I had it again this morning too.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Woman just came off started screaming god knows what and
walking down the road.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I thought, those are the people that just irritate the
dickens out of me. But little old.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Matilda there, I thought, that's the kind of person I
feel like these services should be helping. That's where I
feel bad, Like, that's where I feel like the actual
services we're paying for are letting the people who need
those services down to chase after the people that don't
want the services. I don't know. I don't know. I
wonder that's what I thought. Yeah, no, no, no, I
think it's a fair thought. I wonder if let's say
(30:56):
you are at retirement age and you were facing what
they call housing and security. You're running out of money
the rents do and there are supposed to be some
backstops there. God knows we funded enough backstops. If you
called while you were still in your house, how would
that process work? Would there be some funding, Would there
be some help for you? I don't know. Would they
tell you, sorry, we're in skid row, we're busy helping
(31:19):
somebody doesn't want help exactly?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Because do you have to get to the point where
you are out of your house before they help you.
I know they keep saying that that they don't want
to do that, what they want to help you before
you And that's true. And that's what I mean is
that I think there must be some success with those programs.
Otherwise it does feed their lie. They often talk about
the homeless population is it's because of the housing, the
expensive housing here and I think that's not it. That's
(31:44):
that these again, these people didn't meet last These people
did not miss last month's rent. Yeah, well, I think
the lyddy I saw I did, although I don't know.
Maybe Ethel's a crack addict.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I've seen there are old people on scare.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
The drugs will get to them before age. Does you know.
I don't see nearly as many old people.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I see some pretty I see a pretty good amount
of senior citizens. That's interesting, and they look just as
crazy as everybody else. Well, okay, I spit on them
just the same as I do the other one. Good
for you, Yeah, as I walked past, and there's a
small opportunity people have always thought that about you. I
wish them don't discriminate, but they are.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
I mean I see it.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Usually it's the older ones that are in the middle
of traffic causing the best scenes because they're the most
experienced performers. They've been at this a long time.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Or are they having like dementia issues.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
No, their brains are fried because of all the drugs
they did.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Doesn't sound very sympathetic.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
By the way, This count that maryld is heralding excuse me,
Metro is harolding. It's that same count that LASSA does
when they're accounting people in the tents, which isn't very scientific.
It's it's a it's an este. They didn't get on
all the buses, they didn't get on all the trains.
They were basically looking around the stations. So if all
the people bull.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
The seats, because I think that'll probably give you a
good read.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, that's how we would know if you've written two
of these seats smell like 'ur in homelessness is crack?
Is there were smelled crack on the subway. I've not
you know why. That's why I don't read the subway.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, got a good contact buzz.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So everybody knew that there were restrictions around fireworks. There
were no questions about that around fourth of July, right none.
Everybody was well behaved. You told everybody there were all
up bears. There were restrictions. That was everywhere in southern
California during the fourth of July. But what we saw
then was Michael's being phastious. We did see the pirates
that were letting up the sky. So one Orange County
city is not letting us know exactly how many fines
(33:31):
they planned to collect. It's enough to pay for a
professional show. That city's new cash cow is next. Monks
and Merril k I AM six forty were live everywhere
in the iHeartRadio app KFI on demand you've been listening
to Monks and Merrill here. The show live weekdays from
noon to three on KFI AM six forty and anytime
(33:52):
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
This is Monks and Meryl, hosted by Michael Monks and
Chris Merrill. This is Monks and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Merrill, Monks and Merril. K if I am six to
forty more stimulating talk. I'm Chris Merrill. I love Steppingwolf.
He's Michael Munks, he loves musicals. Subscribe to the podcast.
iHeartRadio app and follow us on the social media's at
Monks and Merrill at Monks and Merrill.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Which, by the way, what's the musical? Is that right now?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hadestowns pantages?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
No, all, that's Beauty and the Beast. I think is
that pantagous in the movies?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, oh that's why I'm seeing it. I think it
did pretty well at the box office, didn't it. It
was a Broadway hit. Oh okay, I haven't seen anything
about it. Thought The Outsiders was at pantageous.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I don't have any idea, and then don't ask me
to keep up with things.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Fantom the opera it is, I think, so I great show. Okay,
I take that back. He's Michael Monks, he loves Steppenwolf.
I'm Chris Merril.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I love musicals.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I do love musical so I don't know what you're
trying to say because I'm actually not a huge fan,
is that right? I mean I like him, I don't
I don't really know any new ones you want to
talk about. Buy by Berdie. I can sing a couple
of songs, rag Time, like everything, all the stuff that
every high school did, the musicals from the nineteen forties,
that every high school covered in the last eighty years. Yeah,
you guys want to do five hundred and twenty five thousand,
(01:21):
six hundred minutes. You're gonna whip that one out. I
could get Heather back here. Guys, just cool? Are you
an alto? Where are my altos?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I'm gonna need the altos over here? There? It is,
take it away.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Stuff turned off before we get canceled. Horrible. If you
were a parent, would you buy your kid in e
bike if all their friends haid e bikes, would you
buy your kid in the bike?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, I gotta tell you, I think I might consider
it too. I mean, I want my kid to be
on a regular bike because when I was your age,
we didn't have e bikes can petals. But I don't
want my kid to be a loser. Right, all the
other kids are doing it. You gotta make sure yours
gets in there, and I hope that I would. You know,
I probably delude myself into believing, well, my kid will
obey the rules.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
My kid won't. Won't.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's not gonna monitor it, right, Yeah, it's not gonna
kill anyone. It's gonna wear his helmet, and he's not
gonna go anywhere I told him not to, like the
old watering hole where Lassie was barking. How did Timmy
fallen that, Well, he knows he's not supposed to go there.
This isn't off the rail segment already.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
You see San Diego analysis finding the California's reported e
byte collisions increasing from two in twenty eighteen to over
fifteen hundred last as twenty twenty four, they examined four
thousand e bye collisions found that riders suffered moderate to
sear injuries more frequently than traditional bicyclist. The most interesting
part of this is that kids under the age are
fourteen accounted for nearly sixteen percent of injured e bike riders.
(03:04):
And in many cases we're talking about emotives, they're supposed
to be riding them at that age. Yeah, I don't
know that what's the big issue at my child who
is younger than that one of these and it might
be a milestone. Welcome to teenage years. Here's your bike.
Otherwise you're on the power wheels. National pediatric study finding
the speed related e bike crashes produce more head, neck,
(03:26):
or facial injuries, more internal injuries, and more hospital admissions
than ever before. Orange County doctors reporting treating shattered neecaps,
skull fractures, and multiple organ injuries resembling those caused by
motor vehicle crashes. We've had ton spits around before the
DA in Orange County and he said, you know, we're
going to start going after parents on this stuff, and
I think, I don't know how else you do it.
(03:47):
When when you've got kids that are not supposed to
be operating the e motorcycles at all, forget about the
e bikes. They're they're either modifying them or parents are
buying them full on e motorcycles. Anything that goes over
twenty eight miles an hours considered an emailtorcycle, right, So
they're buying them these things they're not supposed to be.
Forget about being Oh I can, I've got a registration.
(04:10):
I've got this I'm wearing my helmet doesn't matter. You're
not old enough to be operating that. And then when
you've got so many of these injuries are happen to
kids that shouldn't even be operating them in the first place,
what else can you do. If we had a problem
with a bunch of thirteen year olds stealing cars, stealing
their parents Mercedes Benz, and we all knew that all
the all it was a Mercedes Benz epidemic, we'd say, look,
(04:33):
if you're a parent and your kid is thirteen and
they go out and they crash in Mercedes Bens, we're
gonna hold you liable for not keeping the keys away
from the kids.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
That's kind of where we're at right now.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
We had that tragedy where a teenager in Orange County
on an ee bike ran over and killed an old man,
and yes, we talked to DA non veteran, Yes exactly,
we talked to DA Spitzer about that because I believe
the mother in that case ended up facing charges as well.
She's being charged, and they said flat out we're going
after parents.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
It's with it.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
We can crack down on this because it continues to
happen either injuries to the kids themselves or injuries to others,
damage to infrastructure, dangerous chases involving police. So now local
prosecutors in oc they say they're looking at more than
two dozen open investigations into parents of just suspected of
illegally riding e bikes or em So he's not messing
(05:20):
around at all. It's not it's not just if you
kill a Vietnam that we're gonna come after the parents.
This is just we're going after anybody that's got their
kids on one of these things. Yeah, he created a
special unit in the DA's office to weigh potential charges
against both young people and their adults related to under
a juice of e bikes and e motorcycles. So there's
twenty six open investigations and to parents that could potentially
(05:43):
result in criminal cases. Part of the reason I think
we're having issues here is I think parents still don't
know the difference between an e bike and an e motorcycle,
and they go it just sounds like just and I
think they're thinking of it like dirt bikes from when
we were kids, and they're not. The acceleration is much faster,
they're a lot cheaper to get your hands on.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
They don't run out of gas. You don't have kids
that are at least learning some mechanic skills along the way.
There's other that that's it.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
That's it seems like it's relatively easy to modify, particularly
compared to seventies, eighties, nineties kids who maybe souped up
a Mustang, which took some work. Well, if you're souping
up a Mustang, you're over sixteen, right, I mean, this
would be like the dirt bike stuff, and you had
to I mean I knew kids that would create like
little go karts or whatever. They an old lawnmower engine
(06:30):
that they were mounting on a frame that they built.
Put what what that it's I'm going to wax about
it poetically here for a moment or fondly, and that
is that was actually bonding time where your dad might
not have been paying attention to you at your t
ball games or whatever, but you're able to get together
dad in the garage and you would work with him
and they'd tear lawnmower apart, and it was just time
(06:51):
that you spent with your parent. In the nineteen sixties,
seventies eighties, that kind of thing. They're not the case
with the e bikes. It's just not happening anymore. So
I know I'm kind of romanticizing that that. Look back,
let's get mister Merril on the phone and see about
the time that you all see it was that mechanically inclined. No,
he was not mechanically inclined. He would have helped me
(07:12):
modify the e bike. He's an electrician, so anything to
get you faster and farther away from the house and
more potentially, he wouldn't have to feed my mouth any
longer either, go run this into something.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
It's exactly what he would have done.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, it's not just oh see, no, trying to crack
down on these e bikes. They're going after parents. The
city of Los Angeles. Can you believe the city of
La where chaos reigns, they're doing something. Laws are merely suggestions.
They are going to try to crack down on e bikes.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I'll believe.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I see in the big city.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
What are they going to do?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
We'll talk about it next.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
You're listening to Monks and Merrill on demand from kf
I AM sixty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
What day is Wednesday?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
The LA City council wants new restrictions targeting legally powerful
e bikes, E motorcycles, and the modifications that turn legal
bicycles into unlicensed motorcycles. This is a proposal that they
say could block some dangerous machines and educate younger riders.
But right now, as usual, it's just a request for
(08:17):
information from city staff. There's no enforcement plan, there's no penalties,
and there's no funding attached.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Now the LA City Council is shifting into high gear
to confront the growing public safety hazard. The Council's Rules
Committee passed emotion Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Very newsy, isn't it. They're very TV newspeople here.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
That directs the Department of Transportation to design ways to
regulate the vehicles, including potential bans on modifications that would
make them faster, and requiring riders under eighteen to take
training courses. E bikes are classified into three categories based
on speed and function.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Do they teach that pattern a TV J school? If
you're a non English speaker, all you hear is.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Ba boh ba bow b bo bo bo bo bow
ba bop ba bow b bo ba boh ba bow.
You are taught in broadcasting how to speak and to
you know, try to lose any accents, the non regional
American dialect and those sorts of things. I think those
of us in broadcasting tend to learn from what we've
listened to, though, and that has just become oh my god,
(09:24):
and I'm like, if you my first job, I was
pulling that crap and the boss pulled me in ut.
Yeah for showing me we had a good knock that off.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And we've had good bosses here who want us to
sound conversational in our newscasts and in our writing style
and try to avoid cliches and those sorts of things.
But have you ever met a news reporter at a
bar who said something like, Oh, I'm so glad you
could be here with us today. I'll have a whiskey,
he'll have a doctor pepper so bad.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Class one provides pedal assist up to twenty miles per hour.
Class two includes a throttle up to twenty miles per hour,
and Class three is a pedal assisted motor that travels
up to new nearly thirty miles per hour. Requires riders
to be at least sixteen years old, and cannot typically
be used on bike paths.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Okay, So the LA City Council is putting together this
committee in order to help them understand what he just said.
There are three classifications, and the LA City Council goes,
we're going to.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Need you to develop the classifications. The state already did.
What are they? Dude? I need to go back and
play them all again. I was discussed.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
No, I was only gonna get you to say them,
because that is something you learn in broadcasting school, is
how to read three things back to back.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Would you like to.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Learn No, go ahead, You're supposed to change the cadence
a bit on three things in a row. Gepper probably
knows that she does voiceover as well. There's three things
in a row. You try to say it a little
different differently, put a little bit of a different emphasis.
So it's twenty places, nineteen things and eighteen people. You know,
you don't want to say twenty people, nineteen things, eleven
(10:57):
places you know, all the same. You want to you
want to give it.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I'm this close to jumping across the table and stringing.
That's why you've been fired in every market you mitt.
That's exactly it.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Because you don't know how to say three things in
a row.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Anyway, the La City Council says, yeah, well, let's do
a committee.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
In other words, they're watching what's going on in Orange County,
where you've got the DA that says we're gonna get
a We're gonna get ahead of this. We are gonna
we're gonna make sure that parents who are letting their kids,
as you heard from KTLA's report, you've got parents that
are not allowing their excuse me, parents are allowing their
kids to ride bikes that they shouldn't be riding these
class threes and above, they shouldn't be doing it. Spitzer says,
(11:36):
we're not standing for that here. La says, wow, this
looks like it could be a problem. Let's do a committee.
You know what the problem is, Why do we have
to have a committee? I understand what's happening with the
politicians that they so desperately want to make sure they
can find somebody else to blame when they make a decision.
They never want to make a decision and then stand
by the decision. They want to say, well, I only
(11:58):
made the decision because of the information I got from
this committee.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Stop that.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Well, we want leadership, No, we want lasting community power.
We want environmental justice. Well, you mentioned justice, and believe
that's correct. I'm not saying I agree with this, but
when you listen to city council talk about semi related issues,
think about street takeovers. I mean, I've absolutely heard some
of these buffoons stand up and talk about giving these
(12:22):
folks a place to engage in that behavior. Don't want
to police it, don't want to do any preventive measures,
and don't really want to penalize any of the people
that participate in it. See, I'm okay with having a
designated area, and the same way that once people said, wow,
skateboards are fine if we build skate parks, so we
get them off the streets and stop you jumping all
over the city property still happens, but we saw skate
(12:45):
parks did work, right, I'm okay with things like that.
The problem is they don't have the execution with skate parks,
go this is going to be the designated area, and
if you're not doing it in this area, then you're
breaking the law and we're going to enforce it. What
you're talking about is they go, oh, let's create a
do it instead of street takeovers. Let's let's build a
track for them. There won't be any rules around that,
and if you do something in the street, there's still
(13:05):
not going to be any penalties. So why would anybody
go to the track. Well, they did actually look at
potential tracks, and none of them wanted anything to do
with it because of insurance liabilities of course. Yeah yeah, so,
I mean, but that's just where we are, and so
nothing happens, and street takeovers still happen in La specifically,
what you see are huge takeovers. Now I'm not talking
(13:25):
about the cars anymore. I mean these e bikes. Oh yes,
Parades of young people at least one hundred deep, sometimes
coming through the city streets and it's dangerous for them.
It's dangerous for people who are in traffic. I'm not
calling them hoodlums. They're out having a good time, but
it is a bit scary. Well, they're doing some stunts
(13:46):
and that can be you know, if we're a parent,
I would be terrified to see a child in the
middle of traffic popping wheelies or standing on their seat
and those sorts of things. I mean, take that talent
and practice it safely and execute it safely. But that
is how people end up getting hurt and killed. I agree,
and I never see any police interference with it. Well
(14:07):
that's because they haven't gotten their report from the committee yet. See,
this is why we have to have a committee. There
are a couple of members of city council and one
of them actually surprises me. Who want to ban I
want to consider banning I should say, the sale of
e bikes, e motorcycles and electric mopeds that don't meet
the California standards. That's Heather Hut that's the one who
surprised me. She represents parts of South l A. She
(14:30):
usually doesn't have much of interest to say. The councilman
John Lee, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley,
he's very law in order oriented.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, and I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
He doesn't usually find a lot of support, not with
this council. Yeah, because there's only a few others on there.
This just how but if we don't allow tents in
front of businesses and they're like, oh, make him feel
sad about themselves.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
He is also the only one who stood up and
spoke out against the land acknowledgment.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Oh is he proposal?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
So he won a place in my heart that day,
even though he's had some let's say, ethical constraints that
were investigated and he's been severely fined for them. But uh,
you know who else is who else is concerned about
this what the committee might find bike LA. Bike LA
is warning that legal e bikes are frequently confused with
the electric motives and the motorcycles, and so bike LA says,
(15:19):
we need to make sure that the committee comes up
with an accurate description of the class one, Class two,
Class three, and E motorcycles because basically they're worried about
actual bicycle riders being labeled as hooligans. Yeah, but that
would require there to be some sort of enforcement.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Bike LA.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
There's not going to be any enforcement. I mean, that
really is the problem, is it not?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Is there?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
You're not supposed to do to matter what the laws are,
if you're not going to enforce them. You're not supposed
to set fires in the gutters. You're not supposed to
smoke drugs in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. Somebody
feel disenfranchised exactly. Maybe that's what the e bike riders
need to do. You're not supposed to walk without pants on,
You're not supposed to poop in the park.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Did you know that? Did you know you're not supposed
to poop in the park? I thought this was a America.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
No, it's Los Angeles, So I can't.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
You can. That's my freedom.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
You're not supposed to, but you can.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
While LA is now playing ketchup to Orange County and
the e bikes, they are also writing a how not
too Manual for dealing with homelessness. If your city is
struggling with feral humans clogging your sidewalks, the biggest city
in the state is showing once again what you should
not do.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
This time.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
The boneheaded move will only cost half a million dollars,
and that's on top of the other half a billion
that they're already spending. Why they say this time is different?
Next months and Merril k I AM six forty we're
live everywhere on the iHeart RADIOB.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You're listening to Monks and Merrill on demand from KFI
AM six.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Chris Merrill, He's Michael Monks. He loves the Doors? Is
that the Doors? I love?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Another tape that you're found on your dasso, I Love
the Doors. Listen while you were working on that Mustang
back in seventy six.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That I do love the Door Something.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Subscribe to the podcast we Haven't Done Yet on the
iHeartRadio app, and follow us on the socials at Monks
and Merrill at Monks and Merrill. Quick follow up here
on a story we touched on yesterday. Linda Blair has
now been sighted. I remember they were doing a raid
on her place. The accents from the exercise. Yes, they
said she was the one who I turned around and
puked on everybody. Yeah, turned her head around. They said
(17:21):
she had too many dogs. She had been licensed as
an animal facility with permission to house up to one
hundred dogs. The license expired in twenty three. It was
not renewed. No animals were removed. During this inspection, officials
ordered the organization to obtain veterinary examinations for three dogs,
correct deficiencies involving sanitation and animal housing. Sounds like, sounds
like she didn't update her license, she had too many dogs.
(17:42):
And when they came in they went, okay, well this
is get the paperwork straightened up. They didn't say why
the three dogs required veterinary attention, but it they said
seventy law enforcement personnel participated in the inspection.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, so they brought like everybody out there, so she
got sighted for it, but she didn't get arrested or
anything else like that. So it doesn't sound like there
was animal abuse or anything like that going on. So
it's gonna have some acreage or something to have that
many dogs. Yeah, sure, look good for her because you
don't hear a lot about her work or you know,
there wasn't a lot of a lot of projects for her.
(18:14):
She must have made enough money. I don't Oh, good
for her, I don't know. Yeah, I hope she gets
it straightened out. Yeah, well, it doesn't sound like it
was nearly as bad as what I was afraid it
was going to turn into. You know, you get like
you'll get like a raid and riverside or something, and
it's like, oh my gosh, you find out that these
dogs have been poorly treated for years and you know,
malnourish that kind. It doesn't sound like that was the
case here, So I'm kind of relieved to hear that.
(18:36):
Listen to this go ahead, Okay, do you think we
need to spend more money on homeless stuff?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yes, we don't spend nearly enough.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Here's the LA City counts.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
What are we have what's the budget coming up between
the county and the city.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I don't know, like forty two trillion, yeap, yeah, somewhere
around there. It's ridiculous because the homelessness, the population, it
only went up, it only went up. Good job, But
keep in mind the LA Homeless Services Authority, terrible organization.
The county's out of it, leaving just a city. So
the city doesn't know what it's going to do. What
is it supposed to do with this vestige of an organization?
(19:10):
What are we gonna do with our own homeless priorities?
Knowing that we're throwing hundreds of millions of dollars without
fixing sidewalks, without fixing street lines, without repairing copper, without
fixing parks, without ending homelessness exactly, I mean really yeah, Well,
they they need to move their programs out of lawsuit.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
So how to do that?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Do they have anybody smart on the city council or
anybody already at city Hall who can direct this project?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Have they thought about having a homeless committee? Oh? They
have one.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Nithia Ramin's the chair of it, and she's running a
victory lap right now.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Well, they ought to be able to handle it.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Then right now, No, I've got bad news for you, pal.
The city council can't do it on their own. So
they voted unanimously yesterday to spend four hundred and fifty
thousand dollars on a consultant to help move the city
funded homelessness programs away from the LA Homeless Serve Authority. Okay,
(20:02):
so there you go, another big project that I'm sure
is going to a worthy recipient.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Okay, who will figure it all out for them? They might?
They might could.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I know, I know there's some incredulity there, but they might.
There might be a consultant that actually can help them
figure this out. Here's where I'm going to run into
some issues with this. The city already has a city
administrative officer, they've got a legislative assistant or a legislative analyst.
They've got a housing department, they've got a Homelessness Bureau,
they've got city attorneys, they've got a mayoral homelessness team,
they've got a homelessness committee. But now they have to
(20:34):
hire somebody to figure out how to deal with this stuff.
There's always money at the banana stand. This is where
I'm so that's good reference I'm so frustrated by this,
because why do we have all of these other departments
and committees and bureaus in the teams and everything else.
If you have to hire an outside firm anyway, if
you're going to spend four hundred and fifty thousand dollars
(20:55):
to hire a consultant, get rid of all these other
departments that you're that you're paying for. That's redundancy and
it's a waste of my money. When you hear me,
it's a waste of your money. Because I don't live
in the city, I know, But when you hear me
kind of talk badly about just regular city employees, this
is kind of what I mean, because I see the
incompetence up close of just the guy in the uniform
(21:15):
that's supposed to be doing a regular competent or is
it they're just no expecting it's all of it. There's
no expectations. Management is bad. Uh, there's just no expectation
for anything in LA. Where are the competent people? Are
they working in the price? This is what I mean,
of course, yes, And so when the city actually has
to accomplish something, they do have to spend money to
bring a smart person in to take care of it,
or a friend that they just want to enrich.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, wish to capitalism.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah, well then capitalism it's it's public money. What I
said just cronyism. I said crony capitalism. Would I think
capitalism or your partner, this is just this is right.
If you pretty tough, I'm gonna go get a master degree,
then you'll listen to me. Uh. My frustrate continues to
(22:00):
be why are we paying for departments if we have
to hire.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Somebody else to do the job.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Pair question, when can we get elected officials that go Look,
we have to think. This whole waste, fraud and abuse
thing became a left versus right issue, but it.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Doesn't need to be.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
We genuinely need to look at places where we can
we can trim the fat. We don't need to pay
a consultant. If we have the department, we don't need
the department. If we're planning on paying a consultant, it
needs to be one or the other. Well, I think
that's the ideological divide even at the local level, when
you look at it through a national lens, whether it's
doze or coming in here and figuring out where we
can save some money. What do you cut? Well, no,
(22:38):
you can't cut that because that program is important to me,
but it's not important to me, and we could we
could take something from from this other program.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Well, I can cut the mayoral Homelessness team. I would.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I'm going to cut the homelessness Bureau, right, yeah, I'm
going to say what city attorneys are focusing on homelessness?
And do we need those cities attorney city attorneys to
focus on something else? And if we don't need them
to focus on something else, then we don't need those
city attorne. If there are other things that they can
be doing, then we need to reassign them.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
But we don't need to.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Keep spending money on homelessness on top of other money
we're spending on homelessness on top of other committees to
study it. It's ridiculous. You're learning your sunny disposition. You're
going to go away too.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
This is what happens. The more you read, the more
you pay attention, you think, oh my god, we're not redoomed, bro,
We're doomed. We're doomed. I think if if we were serious,
we would go into Los Angeles City Hall and say, look, technically,
homelessness is a function of the county government. Mental health
is a function of the county government, the hospitals, county government.
(23:34):
And now the voters have now multiple times decided to
give the county government a billion dollars a year because
of a sales tax to fund this new homeless stuff
and the mental health stuff. I'm locking it down at
city Hall and I'm saying this money that we have
been allocating for a failure of a homeless initiative, that's
(23:55):
going towards stuff that people will enjoy. Their lights back
on their roads, and there's so I'd walks fixed, they're
parks safer. The various departments that have been understaff that
are necessary. I would close the departments too, by the way,
but the ones that we need clean some graffiti up,
calling up the space. It is the county's responsibility, and
if they are so smart, they're going to stand up
(24:15):
their own department. And the voters of La agree with
them because we're throwing billions at them. Let them handle it.
And to be clear, the county's budget for the homelessness
now that they've pulled out of LASA, is nearly what
the entire budget for LASA was when both the city
and the county were contributing to it, and now they're
spending nearly a billion dollars on the county level, and
the city is still planning us spending about four hundred
(24:37):
million right now. I would end inside safe immediately. I
would in all of the city homeless initiatives, keep maybe
one or two staffers in the city Hall to monitor
how the county is executing stuff inside the city limits,
because we have skid row here in the bulk of
the homeless people in the county are in Los Angeles.
But it is the county's responsibility, it is not ours.
We have other problems to deal with. Let's let Lindsay
Horvath clean up this mess.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
You tired, I've had it coffee.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
We spend spending a lot of time fixing the city
and nobody's listening to It's got to be exhausting. Well,
it's tough being right all the time. I can tell
you that I hear you see more tents on the street.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
We know that we spend all this money and there's
still more tents and homeless people outside. Metro However, says
homelessness on its system has been cut by more than half.
Where they are passengers disappearing on Metro. Next is the
Metro like the new Bermuda Triangle. Is that what's happening?
Find out home listeners get on and they never leave.
(25:30):
Monks and Merril continues.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
You're listening to Monks and Meryl onto the air from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Available anywhere on the Iart Radio app. Monks and Merrill
on this Wednesday afternoon. So glad to have you with us.
Be fun to have you with us one day on
the old Metro trains that Chris is still they drive.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Why we talked about it this morning.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I'm trying to assign a project to you that you
do without me, and I just want you to go
out with a microphone just right the system.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Just so people know.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Michael wants me to go ride the transit system, record
a news story for it, and then he wants to
put his name on the news story and submit it
for an award. I would not put my name on it.
Producing produced by you, produced executive produced by Yeah, my
executive producer fine a Michael Monks production.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Give me an assignment so you can win an award.
I want you to win an award. Finally get so
many awards, I don't keep track of them all. Let's
stop moving them around. Every time I got fired, I
kept having to move all those boxes of awards. Certain
tho's through them out.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Meanwhile, Metro says that there are more seats available for
people who want to pay to be on the system
because homelessness at the transit facilities is down fifty seven
percent since twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I kind of don't either. I'm glad to see the
stat but to know that homelessness has gone up across
the region the way that it has. Metro is a
big driver, a literal driver of homeless people, because you
can hop on and ride it all day if you like,
and you can go from one place to the next.
(27:09):
You can go to MacArthur Park and hang out for
a while. You can go down to skid Row and
hang out for a while. You can go down to
Santa Monica if you want some beach time where you
can just sleep on the train. But apparently the system
says that data from that same homeless count from the
(27:30):
LA Homeless Services Authority that indicated the homeless population in
Los Angeles had risen three and a half percent. Last
year showed a thirty one percent decrease in homelessness on
the transit system the year before.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
And when compared when adding in the decrease from twenty
twenty four, it's a fifty seven percent drop. Fifty seven
percent over the last two years. I think we were
to ask people that are riding the transit systems, or
if you live near, say a metro stop, like I do.
I'm telling you, every morning I wake up to somebody
who's screaming at the clouds that just got off that train.
(28:04):
So if that's somehow way better than it was in
twenty twenty four, I don't see it. Twenty twenty four
was rough. It was absolutely rough. And that was also
the year that it took a violent murder of an
older woman on our way home from work on the
Bee Line for the transit agency and local officials to
get serious about policing that system. Oh so they've got
(28:27):
a metro police force. Not yet, they're still contracting with
the three agencies. OK, but I have a relatively frequent rider.
Never do I see police, No, very very rarely have
I ever over the past three years. Seen a cop
on the transit system.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh hey, here's something this is interesting. Here's an interesting
stat from the story. Metro says that outreach team, whether
there's Metro homeless outreach teams, Oh yeah, we're paying for
that too.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
There's a KFI homeless outreach team. We're all in on
this grift Devor Mark's chairperson. I wish we would get
some money going out later down that's sa Metro's got
a billion dollar budget and part of that is to
handle homelessness because we're not paying enough for that to
the county and the city and everywhere else, because everybody
has to talk about how we will. We're not just
kicking them off the system. We're connecting them with services,
(29:16):
wrap around services, interim housing, shelters and all of that
just get them off of the train. Metro says that
they have connected three hundred and fifty four people to
permanent housing during the last fiscal year. Okay, that's great,
I need more data on that. How many are still
in permanent housing? Isn't permanent a word? Doesn't that mean something.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Connected to permanent housing?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Is all?
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It says?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, yeah, which means we dropped them off at the
agency inside safe and then they walked back out and
got on a bus.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, yeah, because there aren't any drugs at the agency.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
No. By the way, I did see some homeless people
this morning near the station, and I thought that breaks
the mold of some of the stereotype.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
That I think of.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
It was an older woman. She was probably in her
six although feral humans age faster. She's probably twenty three. Yeah,
but I was thinking, you know, that's the kind of
person that as we talk about the homeless services not working,
that's the kind of person I wanted to work for.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, because the person who.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Gets off that train and is coming down from whatever
the high was that they were on and they start
having a fight with the lamp post right which every
morning I have this.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I had it again this morning too.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Woman just came off started screaming god knows what and
walking down the road.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I thought, those are the people that just irritate the
dickens out of me. But little old.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Matilda there, I thought, that's the kind of person I
feel like these services should be helping. That's where I
feel bad, Like, that's where I feel like the actual
services we're paying for are letting the people who need
those services down to chase after the people that don't
want the services. I don't know. I don't know. I
wonder that's what I thought. Yeah, no, no, no, I
think it's a fair thought. I wonder if let's say
(30:56):
you are at retirement age and you were facing what
they call housing and security. You're running out of money
the rents do and there are supposed to be some
backstops there. God knows we funded enough backstops. If you
called while you were still in your house, how would
that process work? Would there be some funding, Would there
be some help for you? I don't know. Would they
tell you, sorry, we're in skid row, we're busy helping
(31:19):
somebody doesn't want help exactly?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Because do you have to get to the point where
you are out of your house before they help you.
I know they keep saying that that they don't want
to do that, what they want to help you before
you And that's true. And that's what I mean is
that I think there must be some success with those programs.
Otherwise it does feed their lie. They often talk about
the homeless population is it's because of the housing, the
expensive housing here and I think that's not it. That's
(31:44):
that these again, these people didn't meet last These people
did not miss last month's rent. Yeah, well, I think
the lyddy I saw I did, although I don't know.
Maybe Ethel's a crack addict.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I've seen there are old people on scare.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
The drugs will get to them before age. Does you know.
I don't see nearly as many old people.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I see some pretty I see a pretty good amount
of senior citizens. That's interesting, and they look just as
crazy as everybody else. Well, okay, I spit on them
just the same as I do the other one. Good
for you, Yeah, as I walked past, and there's a
small opportunity people have always thought that about you. I
wish them don't discriminate, but they are.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
I mean I see it.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Usually it's the older ones that are in the middle
of traffic causing the best scenes because they're the most
experienced performers. They've been at this a long time.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Or are they having like dementia issues.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
No, their brains are fried because of all the drugs
they did.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Doesn't sound very sympathetic.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
By the way, This count that maryld is heralding excuse me,
Metro is harolding. It's that same count that LASSA does
when they're accounting people in the tents, which isn't very scientific.
It's it's a it's an este. They didn't get on
all the buses, they didn't get on all the trains.
They were basically looking around the stations. So if all
the people bull.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
The seats, because I think that'll probably give you a
good read.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, that's how we would know if you've written two
of these seats smell like 'ur in homelessness is crack?
Is there were smelled crack on the subway. I've not
you know why. That's why I don't read the subway.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, got a good contact buzz.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So everybody knew that there were restrictions around fireworks. There
were no questions about that around fourth of July, right none.
Everybody was well behaved. You told everybody there were all
up bears. There were restrictions. That was everywhere in southern
California during the fourth of July. But what we saw
then was Michael's being phastious. We did see the pirates
that were letting up the sky. So one Orange County
city is not letting us know exactly how many fines
(33:31):
they planned to collect. It's enough to pay for a
professional show. That city's new cash cow is next. Monks
and Merril k I AM six forty were live everywhere
in the iHeartRadio app KFI on demand you've been listening
to Monks and Merrill here. The show live weekdays from
noon to three on KFI AM six forty and anytime
(33:52):
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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