Speaker 1: It's Randy Wang here on the John Phillips Show. Johnny's
Speaker 1: back on Monday. Eight hundred two two two five two
Speaker 1: two two is the telephone number. You can email me
Speaker 1: at Johnny Don't Like show at gmail dot com or
Speaker 1: Randywang Radio at gmail dot com. Subscribe to my substack
Speaker 1: for the rundown of everything that's going on in the
Speaker 1: state of California, all the stories that we don't have
Speaker 1: time to get to at Randywangradio dot substack dot com.
Speaker 1: Like Gavin Newsome proposing a new wildfire relief fund, even
Speaker 1: though the last one he proposed none of the fire
Speaker 1: victims actually got. Check that out at Randywangradio dot substack
Speaker 1: dot com and search for the John Phillipshow wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Our next guest is running for California
Speaker 1: State Controller. His website is Herbmorgan dot com. Herb Morgan.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the John Phillips Show. Herb Morgan. Hello, going
Speaker 1: one there he is? Maybe Herb? Are you there?
Speaker 2: Herb is here and it's good to be with you.
Speaker 1: Were you on mute?
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: All good, Herb. Let's go ahead and start off with
Speaker 1: a little education for people that don't know what is
Speaker 1: the job of California State Controller and how is it
Speaker 1: different from the state Treasurer.
Speaker 3: Two two main functions of the state Controller. I can
Speaker 3: distill them down.
Speaker 2: Put out the.
Speaker 3: Annual financial report of the state, the audited annual financial
Speaker 3: Report by March thirtieth.
Speaker 2: She's missed the deadline.
Speaker 3: Every single year since she's been in office. I'm speaking
Speaker 3: of the incumbent. Job number two and probably a higher
Speaker 3: priority is financial controls for the prevention of fraud. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna ask you now how she's doing and how it's
Speaker 3: different from the state treasurer. The state treasurer is responsible
Speaker 3: for handling the banking relationships and the cash management. It's
Speaker 3: sort of an administrative role, but the Controller is the
Speaker 3: one that approves the payments before the Treasurer sends them out,
Speaker 3: pre audits, post audits all spending, and has plenary authority
Speaker 3: to audit any agency touching our state money. That includes
Speaker 3: the subsidiaries fifty eight counties, four hundred and eighty two cities, their.
Speaker 2: Subsidies, the NGOs, the high speed rail.
Speaker 3: Authorities, all of them are subject to the reporting and
Speaker 3: auditing of the State Controller.
Speaker 1: Well with that, herb introduce yourself to anyone that doesn't
Speaker 1: know you. Who are you and why do you want
Speaker 1: this job?
Speaker 3: I feel like Admiral Stockdale in the ninety two presidential debate.
Speaker 2: Who am I? Why am I here?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: I am Herb Morgan.
Speaker 3: I am a Californian almost lifelong. I had my first
Speaker 3: first birthday here on Route sixty six in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 3: Grew up in southern California. I spent thirty nine years
Speaker 3: in finance. I don't know if you all think that's
Speaker 3: a good requirement that you have a background in finance
Speaker 3: to be the state controller. Your other choice is somebody
Speaker 3: who was an administrative assistant to Mayor Gavin Newsom in
Speaker 3: San Francisco. Spent thirty nine years in finance, married for
Speaker 3: thirty four years, two brown kids. Finished up my career
Speaker 3: in March sixteenth of this year, I retired as a
Speaker 3: senior managing Director and chief Investment Officer for Canter Fitzgerald,
Speaker 3: and I am now ready to go to phase two,
Speaker 3: which is to serve the state of California, because I
Speaker 3: believe it has become a criminal enterprise from top to bottom.
Speaker 2: The source for that is our immense wealth.
Speaker 3: They take it, they attack it and the programs with
Speaker 3: compassion that we wish to fund as Californians are being
Speaker 3: systematically looted by bad actors.
Speaker 1: Well, and one of the most prominent examples of that
Speaker 1: happened during COVID, where we still don't know the true number,
Speaker 1: but estimate show that the state of California doled out
Speaker 1: more than thirty billion dollars in fraudulent unemployment fraud.
Speaker 3: What went wrong there, Well, I have to update your
Speaker 3: number because we now have a self admitted number by
Speaker 3: the Employment Development Department itself eed D fifty five billion.
Speaker 3: And what went wrong was we shut down our economy.
Speaker 3: That was misguided. You can thank Governor Newsom for that
Speaker 3: and his executive actions. When you shut down the economy,
Speaker 3: people lose their job. When people lose their job all
Speaker 3: at once, they apply for unemployment all at once. And
Speaker 3: the Employment Development Department said, what do we do? We
Speaker 3: have limited systems. We have to make sure they're eligible.
Speaker 3: So they decided to suspend the eligibility verification.
Speaker 2: And they gave unemployment benefits to.
Speaker 3: Prisoners, to gang bangers all up and down our beautiful
Speaker 3: Golden state. They ran our trust fund to zero. They
Speaker 3: borrowed an additional twenty billion dollars from the federal government
Speaker 3: Trust Fund. Nineteen other states did the same thing. Nineteen
Speaker 3: other states repaid the loan, one state and one state
Speaker 3: only defaulted on its twenty billion dollar borrowing from the
Speaker 3: federal government. That's California. We never budgeted to repay the loan.
Speaker 3: The California the United States of America, has a way
Speaker 3: to get that back, So they raised our federal unemployment
Speaker 3: tax on every employer in the state effective January first
Speaker 3: of this year. Every employer is paying a higher tax
Speaker 3: because Gavin Newsom couldn't find a way over seven years
Speaker 3: to repay a twenty billion dollar loan out of a
Speaker 3: three hundred and twenty billion dollar budget.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right. We're the only state that
Speaker 1: hasn't paid back that money. And Gavin was asked about
Speaker 1: this at his big May revised presser and he claimed, well,
Speaker 1: I've always wanted us to do it, but the legislature
Speaker 1: just won't let me.
Speaker 3: Well, he that is a classic Newsom lie, because Gavin
Speaker 3: Newsom could have proposed it in the budget. The budget
Speaker 3: he put out posed budget in January. That's at his hand.
Speaker 3: The May revision is at his hand. The legislature has
Speaker 3: not weighed in yet. The legislature will have final approval,
Speaker 3: and I guarantee you they will take he asked for
Speaker 3: three hundred and fifty billion yesterday. They're going to take
Speaker 3: him to three hundred and seventy billion, which, by the way,
Speaker 3: is a doubling from the one.
Speaker 2: Hundred and eighty five billion a year pre COVID. We
Speaker 2: have doubled state spending.
Speaker 3: I ask you this question, is there a product, service,
Speaker 3: output metric of state government that is better having doubled
Speaker 3: the budget?
Speaker 2: The answer, of course is no.
Speaker 3: Is there an output metric measurable of any kind of
Speaker 3: state government that is equal to what it was seven
Speaker 3: years ago before.
Speaker 2: We double the budget?
Speaker 3: The answer again is no, which leads you to conclude
Speaker 3: that our state government is in fact a criminal operation.
Speaker 1: Well, and I'd love to get into that deeper, because
Speaker 1: we have heard this for quite a while. Steve Hilton's
Speaker 1: been talking about this, that the state budget was in
Speaker 1: the one hundred and ninety to two hundred billion dollar
Speaker 1: range seven years ago. Now we're at three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty plus. What exactly are we spending all of that
Speaker 1: money on a How did the state budget get that
Speaker 1: much bigger in such a short amount of time. Where
Speaker 1: is that money going?
Speaker 3: Well, Health and Human services is a big one, and
Speaker 3: all the different subsidiaries there. We have Prop ninety eight,
Speaker 3: which ensures a forty percent of our general fund revenue
Speaker 3: goes to education. This year's education budget is one hundred
Speaker 3: and forty billion. When you combine the state funds with
Speaker 3: the federal funds, we're at twenty seven thousand, seven hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy six dollars per kid. Yet the metric the scorecard,
Speaker 3: we are forty six in the nation in education in
Speaker 3: terms of reading and mathematical comprehension at the fourth grade level.
Speaker 2: We have over one.
Speaker 3: Third of all people in californi ornie I didn't even
Speaker 3: qualify that as legal people in California. Over one third
Speaker 3: received medical benefits. We have massive CalFresh, we have massive.
Speaker 2: Spending through nngos, massive capital projects.
Speaker 3: Think high speed rail nine to one system that costs
Speaker 3: five hundred million dollars and was abandoned. We've we got
Speaker 3: the phizzcal system. This is the best one. Randy Fizcal
Speaker 3: billion dollars twenty years to create a searchable database of
Speaker 3: financial transactions for the public to view. It is a
Speaker 3: complete failure. It doesn't work. Two weeks ago, I set
Speaker 3: out to build a system to do what fiscal was
Speaker 3: supposed to do. We got a volunteer, We spent fifty hours,
Speaker 3: fifteen hundred dollars, and I have built what the state
Speaker 3: could not build for one billion dollars over twenty years.
Speaker 2: I launched it.
Speaker 3: This week on a new website, California Radical Transparency dot com.
Speaker 3: You can search two hundred million state transactions that I
Speaker 3: was able to scrape of various public databases, compile in
Speaker 3: one place for the citizens to view the state spending.
Speaker 3: This is the prototype for what I'll do when I'm
Speaker 3: elected state Controller and I take office in January.
Speaker 1: I just pulled up the website. Look at that. I'll
Speaker 1: be digging through that during the commercial breaks. California Radical
Speaker 1: Transparency dot Com. You know that leads to a whole
Speaker 1: other question. You know, we are the technology capital of
Speaker 1: the world. Silicon Valley is here. But when it comes
Speaker 1: to anything when you're talking about improving technology in the
Speaker 1: state of California, whether it's something as simple as building
Speaker 1: a website, building a database like you mentioned, updating nine
Speaker 1: to one one. How is it that we are never
Speaker 1: relying on the tech world that is here, and instead
Speaker 1: we're doing the traditional bidding process to whoever's the most
Speaker 1: politically connected, whether they have any idea what they're doing
Speaker 1: or not. It sure seems that the big tech companies
Speaker 1: that are based here could help us modernize our government
Speaker 1: pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: Well, they could, and many things could be outsourced. I
Speaker 3: mean a couple of examples. Right now, we're operating on
Speaker 3: a payroll system that we built ourselves from the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3: Now the state controller is responsible for state payroll. The
Speaker 3: first thing I'm going to do when I get in
Speaker 3: office is I'm going to call the three leading payroll
Speaker 3: companies in America and say, this is what I spend
Speaker 3: processing payroll on a self built system and maintaining and
Speaker 3: servicing a system. If you can do it for half
Speaker 3: that cost, guess what, you're going to get a contract
Speaker 3: from the State of California. You're going to be very
Speaker 3: happy because we're very big, and your stock price is
Speaker 3: probably going to go up.
Speaker 2: That's an easy solution.
Speaker 3: But they don't do that. It's this cultural ineptitude. It's
Speaker 3: not my job. I don't want to deliver results. And
Speaker 3: another great example is this diaper program the governor, and
Speaker 3: he's so.
Speaker 2: Brazen about it.
Speaker 3: I don't know if he's just unintelligent, which he claims
Speaker 3: he's une intelligent, he admits that publicly, or if he's
Speaker 3: just such a brazen criminal. He says, we're going to
Speaker 3: spend twenty million dollars and we're going to purchase forty
Speaker 3: million disposable diapers. Well, you don't have to be a
Speaker 3: genius to calculate that at fifty cents. Go over to
Speaker 3: Target and you can buy both diapers for your newborn
Speaker 3: baby at sixteen cents a diaper. But he's going to
Speaker 3: buy them through an NGO, a nonprofit run by a
Speaker 3: friend of his wife's is also on her nonprofit board.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure that they have to price.
Speaker 3: In that NGOs nonprofit CEO salary.
Speaker 2: And what in the heck business does the state of.
Speaker 3: California have buying diapers to begin with, let alone paying
Speaker 3: triple to the market price.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a wild one. Nobody expected Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: to come out in a diaper press conference last week,
Speaker 1: but he did. But it is true with so many
Speaker 1: different things, the contracts that we're dolling out for all
Speaker 1: kinds of services. We are paying way more than the
Speaker 1: market rate for so many different things. I mean, we
Speaker 1: have so many instances of that. When it comes to
Speaker 1: you know, like the City of Los Angeles buying a
Speaker 1: building and turning it over to a nonprofit for housing
Speaker 1: where they're profiting like crazy. It sure seems that we
Speaker 1: need to help a lot more oversight on every single
Speaker 1: contract and there should be no conflicts of interest whatsoever.
Speaker 2: You are exactly correct.
Speaker 3: And the beautiful thing about the state Controller's office, this office,
Speaker 3: you know, let's see your listeners are probably I had
Speaker 3: no idea any of this existed in our state. I
Speaker 3: had no idea we had a constitucial office's job it
Speaker 3: is to prevent fraud. But the controller is plenary authority
Speaker 3: to mandate the method of financial reporting not only by
Speaker 3: state agencies, but by all fifty eight counties, four hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty two cities, all of their subsidiaries, school districts, nonprofits,
Speaker 3: high speed and the method of financial reporting hasn't been
Speaker 3: really updated or modernized since eighteen seventy nine constitution was written.
Speaker 3: The what we're going to do day one is we're
Speaker 3: going to build a large public database. Then I'm going
Speaker 3: to require every recipient of state money to adhere to
Speaker 3: my method of reporting, which is a secure electronic connection
Speaker 3: between their bank accounts at the High Speed Rail or
Speaker 3: the Fullerton School District or whatever it is, and my database.
Speaker 3: So every time they write a check, or swipe a
Speaker 3: credit card or send a wire, an electronic record will
Speaker 3: be transmitted to this open source public database, which mirrors
Speaker 3: what I've already built for fifteen hundred dollars on California
Speaker 3: Radical Transparency dot Com. We will then build a transparency
Speaker 3: war room think NASA Mission Control meets Wall Street training desk.
Speaker 3: We will monitor this twenty four to seven. We will
Speaker 3: flag suspicious patterns for human investigation, and this will stop.
Speaker 3: So it's one thing we got to go out and
Speaker 3: prosecute the fraud and get the bad guys, but we
Speaker 3: also want to stop it going forward. California Radical Transparency
Speaker 3: dot Com lays out the plan to do that.
Speaker 2: We can do it quickly, we can do it.
Speaker 3: Inexpensively, and like any good business person, I'm thinking, how
Speaker 3: do I produce more output for my constituents the state
Speaker 3: of California at an actually lower cost but culturally in
Speaker 3: California government, you tell them, hey, I want you to
Speaker 3: do something, they said, well, we're gonna have to have
Speaker 3: a scoping meeting, a marketing meeting, a DEI meeting, a
Speaker 3: meet and confer with the union meeting, and seven years
Speaker 3: later they can't agree on anything.
Speaker 2: That's the problem.
Speaker 1: The website is Herbmrgan dot com for his campaign and
Speaker 1: if you want to check out his new website, the
Speaker 1: California Radical Transparency Financial Review, just go to California Radical
Speaker 1: Transparency dot com to learn more about Herb Morgan. Herb
Speaker 1: Morgan running for California State Controller. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the invitation. I'll be back anytime you'll
Speaker 2: have me.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people want to talk about this.
Speaker 1: If you are an avid radio listener, which every single
Speaker 1: person is, then you have definitely heard of a certain
Speaker 1: commercial that was just marked as illegal in the state
Speaker 1: of California. For more here CBSLA ah, And apparently that's
Speaker 1: not why it's illegal.
Speaker 4: Chances are you've heard this jingle, but you may not
Speaker 4: hear it anymore.
Speaker 1: Go back to Mike Rogers.
Speaker 5: Mike a judge has ruled cars for kids can't keep
Speaker 5: using their ads.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, not in California. We've got the judges ruling
Speaker 6: right here. And it all stems from what they're doing
Speaker 6: with the money after you donate a car to them.
Speaker 1: Now, this all stems from all the Cars Are for Kids.
Speaker 6: This all stands from a case where a man in
Speaker 6: Orange County donated a two thousand and one Volvo to
Speaker 6: the organization. He got two hundred and fifty bucks for it,
Speaker 6: and he said, according to the judge, he thought that
Speaker 6: money was going to go to underprivileged kids here in California.
Speaker 6: He says, he thought that because of the AD's.
Speaker 3: Creak easy you'll get a vacation.
Speaker 1: Oh do we have to play the ad? I skipped ahead.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because kids are our future is what the text
Speaker 6: on the bottom of the ad says. But he was
Speaker 6: shocked to find out that the money doesn't go to
Speaker 6: kids in California at all, instead goes to Cars for
Speaker 6: Kids Sister Foundation Ourrah, which is a Jewish organization based
Speaker 6: in New Jersey that actually benefits teenagers. Now, this case
Speaker 6: went to court in Orange County. The judge ruled that
Speaker 6: ultimately Cars for Kids is using misleading practices and advertising
Speaker 6: here in the state of California, which.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the kids in those ads are like six years old,
Speaker 1: violates state law.
Speaker 6: I want to show you some of the testimony that
Speaker 6: was given in court, and this was in the judge's ruling.
Speaker 6: The COO testified that the organization's primary purpose is not
Speaker 6: to help economically disadvantaged children. The COEO in court went
Speaker 6: on to say programs include matchmaking for young adults and
Speaker 6: gap year trips to Israel for seventeen and eighteen year olds.
Speaker 1: That's where that's a little different than Cars for Kids.
Speaker 6: That's where the majority of the funding is going.
Speaker 1: And then also it's going for birthright trips.
Speaker 6: And then also admitted that Cars for Kids operates no
Speaker 6: functional programs in California except for a backpack giveaway that
Speaker 6: they admitted it is also for marketing.
Speaker 1: Purposes and branding purposes.
Speaker 6: I want to show you the response from Cars for Kids.
Speaker 6: Cars for Kids says, we believe the decision is deeply flawed,
Speaker 6: ignores the facts, and misapplies the law. It's well known
Speaker 6: that we are a Jewish organization, and our website makes
Speaker 6: it abundantly clear. Take a look and judge for yourself.
Speaker 6: Then they gave us the link to their website. Their
Speaker 6: statement goes on to say, we believe this case was
Speaker 6: nothing more than a lawyer driven attempt to siphon off
Speaker 6: charitable funds for their own gain.
Speaker 1: We expect to win on.
Speaker 6: Appeal because the law and the facts are clearly on
Speaker 6: our side. I want to point something out about their
Speaker 6: first part of the statement that the judged directly addresses.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 6: You saw in their statement look for yourself go to
Speaker 6: Carsfrokids dot org. But the judge says, people that hear
Speaker 6: this ad on the radio or.
Speaker 1: TV, and they've heard it a jillion times.
Speaker 6: Shouldn't have to go to the website to understand exactly
Speaker 6: where the funds are going.
Speaker 1: The judge says, the ads do not, especially when the
Speaker 1: whole thing is they want you to call them.
Speaker 6: The judge says, the ads do not make it clear
Speaker 6: that this is an organization benefiting Jewish children in New Jersey,
Speaker 6: and in fact, none of the funds are a very
Speaker 6: small amount of the funds are actually benefiting kids here
Speaker 6: in California. Now, as you heard from Cars for Kids,
Speaker 6: they plan to appeal, but this is a long standing issue.
Speaker 6: In fact, this issue has already been taken up in
Speaker 6: other states as well, and judges in other states.
Speaker 1: How many other states have had lawsuits against this organization.
Speaker 6: Have ruled in similar manners. So we'll see how they
Speaker 6: do on appeal. But for now, for kids commercials that
Speaker 6: we've all known for decades, the longer allowed to be
Speaker 6: played in California.
Speaker 1: Very eye opening for sure, right, so your ears are
Speaker 1: going to be very happy. That's the moral of that story.
Speaker 1: The phone number to join us is eight hundred two
Speaker 1: two two five two two two one eight hundred two
Speaker 1: two two five two two two. You can email us.
Speaker 1: We try to read and respond to as many emails
Speaker 1: as we can at Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. I also have my personal email address, Randy
Speaker 1: Wang Radio at gmail dot com. Search for the John
Speaker 1: Phillips Show wherever you get your podcast. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna tell you right now, if you downloaded
Speaker 1: the twelve o'clock hour of today's show and it sounded
Speaker 1: like the two o'clock hour of yesterday's show, I fixed it.
Speaker 1: So download it again and make sure to check out
Speaker 1: my five o'clock show. It's called The News Blitz with
Speaker 1: Randy Wang. You can search for the KABC News Blitz
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, or if you want to
Speaker 1: listen live, we're on live at five after Frank Motech
Speaker 1: on seven ninety KABC in Southern California. But if you're
Speaker 1: in the Bay or listening online already, just stream it
Speaker 1: at KABC dot com. And I gotta keep pitching this
Speaker 1: because I'm so proud of it. I about four months
Speaker 1: ago decided to redo the way that I do show
Speaker 1: prep for this show and my other show as well,
Speaker 1: and that was to organize it in a way where
Speaker 1: I have every single day's show prep memorialized. I put
Speaker 1: it on my blog, the California Report, which is the
Speaker 1: name that I said I would call this thing till
Speaker 1: I came up with a better name, and I haven't
Speaker 1: come up with a better game yet. So it's the
Speaker 1: California Report, and it is my rundown. I have I
Speaker 1: think sixteen stories today of all the things that are
Speaker 1: going on in the state of California. We don't have
Speaker 1: time to get to all of them. I really wish
Speaker 1: we did, and we're working on ways to give you
Speaker 1: even more of the content that we already did prep for,
Speaker 1: so stay tuned for that. But like, for instance, I
Speaker 1: put together sixteen different cuts. Today we've gotten to one, two, three, four,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of stuff on there that we
Speaker 1: haven't had a chance to get to. I'll get to
Speaker 1: a little bit of it at the five o'clock hour.
Speaker 1: That is when I do my daily recap, my rundown.
Speaker 1: Even though I don't have time to play you every
Speaker 1: single story, I'm gonna give you a little recap of
Speaker 1: every single thing that's going on. So check that out
Speaker 1: at randywangradio dot substack dot com. Here is an issue
Speaker 1: near and dear to my heart. It is the fight
Speaker 1: going on right now in Sacramento between Gavin Newsom and
Speaker 1: the unions representing state workers. Why is Gavin getting into
Speaker 1: a tiff with the union because Gavin Newsom for the
Speaker 1: last three years has been trying to get state workers
Speaker 1: to go back into the office in Sacramento four days
Speaker 1: a week. Most of the staffers currently go in two
Speaker 1: days a week, but that's not good enough for Gavin.
Speaker 1: For more on this, here's KCRA three in Sacramento.
Speaker 3: The state workers have to go back to the office
Speaker 3: to work in person this summer.
Speaker 1: Maybe because that's what Gavin said last year and the
Speaker 1: union got it delayed, and I got to imagine the
Speaker 1: union has some more chips to play because maybe, just
Speaker 1: maybe they'll support the next governor, and the next governor
Speaker 1: will say, now you can stay remote. This has been
Speaker 1: a great question to ask the candidates at the debate,
Speaker 1: but of course we're not going.
Speaker 7: To do that person this summer.
Speaker 8: The governor's office told cabinet secretaries they need workers in
Speaker 8: the office starting July first. In case here every threees
Speaker 8: on Heja Jafari shares how workers and their union are
Speaker 8: fighting against this mandate.
Speaker 5: It's taken months for a timeline to be agreed upon,
Speaker 5: but starting July first, state workers will no longer be
Speaker 5: working from home.
Speaker 7: Well, the email came out of left field.
Speaker 9: We were kind of anticipating it to come, but we
Speaker 9: just weren't sure when.
Speaker 1: They were sure. Gavin would back down because he's supposed
Speaker 1: to be completely checked out. But I'm guessing this is
Speaker 1: something he has to tick off the bar to say
Speaker 1: that he's willing to stand up to the unions when
Speaker 1: he goes and runs for president. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that'll work.
Speaker 9: It was very straightforward, basically saying July first year, coming
Speaker 9: back to the office four days a week with no
Speaker 9: type of explanation behind it.
Speaker 6: You're just doing that.
Speaker 5: According to Governor Newsom's office, hybrid schedules involving telework cannot
Speaker 5: be more than one day each week.
Speaker 3: Change is hard.
Speaker 10: I'm empathetic.
Speaker 7: Everybody is unique.
Speaker 1: Whose voice is more grating to you, Tom Steyer or
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom. Let's not do four more years of great please.
Speaker 10: Change is hard. I'm empathetic. Everybody is unique, criteria circumstances.
Speaker 10: By the way, we try to accommodate for that four
Speaker 10: days a week. Nice to see you again, I mean
Speaker 10: be nice to see you again. Nice to see you again,
Speaker 10: nice to run into you in the hall.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let me get this straight. We need to
Speaker 1: send all this eight workers back to the office, even
Speaker 1: though they've been doing these jobs remotely for the past
Speaker 1: six years, so they can stand around the water cooler
Speaker 1: and talk about who's getting dumped on Love Island tonight. Look,
Speaker 1: there is definitely reasons to have in person meetings. I'd
Speaker 1: say once a week would be great. Everyone get together,
Speaker 1: Everyone collaborate. There are certain benefits that you get from
Speaker 1: face to face collaboration. I should know, you know I'm
Speaker 1: one of the few people at this radio station that
Speaker 1: has to go in every single day, and I complain
Speaker 1: about it every single day. But you know, our sales staff,
Speaker 1: some of our other production staff, they go in a
Speaker 1: little more hybrid, so they're here like three days a week,
Speaker 1: and it is good to have that face to face communication.
Speaker 1: It helps me brainstorm some great ideas with our sales department.
Speaker 1: But I know how office is work, and I know
Speaker 1: how much idle chit chat goes on because people are
Speaker 1: all just hanging out together, where if you're at home,
Speaker 1: maybe you just have your head down and you're just
Speaker 1: getting your work done because people aren't bothering you with
Speaker 1: every little thing. So there are some benefits to being
Speaker 1: in person, But I would argue as long as you're
Speaker 1: someone who's actually doing your work, there are some benefits
Speaker 1: to working from home.
Speaker 7: Nice to develop a relationship. Nice and I feel so alone.
Speaker 5: Cali Jar renegotiated the agreements with unions to delay this
Speaker 5: until the summer, but SEIU Local one thousand continues.
Speaker 7: It's push for telework.
Speaker 1: We want the state and this union is not going
Speaker 1: to go quietly back into the office.
Speaker 4: We want the state to bargain in good faith, and
Speaker 4: unfortunately they have not done so, and so the next
Speaker 4: step for us was to fire file an unfair labor
Speaker 4: practice charge.
Speaker 11: Man.
Speaker 1: By the way, there is a legitimate concern of you know,
Speaker 1: because this has been going on for so long, some
Speaker 1: of the people that have worked at some of these
Speaker 1: state departments now what these jobs actually are. Who knows,
Speaker 1: And maybe we have too many of them. But that's
Speaker 1: a different conversation for a different day. But some of
Speaker 1: these state workers are only working for the state because
Speaker 1: it's a remote job. You might see a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people that say, screw it, I'll go work somewhere else.
Speaker 7: One state worker says, as a miss the.
Speaker 1: People who like their work from home. They really like
Speaker 1: their work from home. And I know there's lots of
Speaker 1: categories where this doesn't make sense, but there's plenty of
Speaker 1: categories of work where it does. And look, as somebody
Speaker 1: who was an essential worker all throughout COVID, I had
Speaker 1: to drive in every day when everyone had to stay home,
Speaker 1: and there were really bad things about that, but there
Speaker 1: were also no traffic coming to Culver City and I
Speaker 1: do miss those days. And I'm not saying we have
Speaker 1: to go back to that that's not what we're doing.
Speaker 1: But there are certain categories, including government workers, where do
Speaker 1: you really need to be there in person to begin with,
Speaker 1: I think we shut down La City Hall. Everyone works
Speaker 1: remote and they turn that billy into a homeless shelter.
Speaker 1: Let's do it what it already smells like.
Speaker 5: One one state worker says, as a manager, he's concerned
Speaker 5: this will have a negative impact on the work life
Speaker 5: balance of his staff.
Speaker 1: You also got to think about the additional cost of living,
Speaker 1: because now you're taking state workers who were accustomed to
Speaker 1: only having to go in two days a week, doubling
Speaker 1: how much commuting they're doing when gas prices are hitting
Speaker 1: seven dollars a gallon. Also, in places like Sacramento, you're
Speaker 1: going to have to pay for parking.
Speaker 9: Everyone has different things going on outside of work, childcare, school,
Speaker 9: taking care of elderly parents, and things like that where
Speaker 9: they use that telework as a resource to kind of
Speaker 9: help with that.
Speaker 12: They're going to have to go back to driving to
Speaker 12: work and finding day care.
Speaker 1: And that means more cars on the road, which means
Speaker 1: more emission in the sky. Wait a second, I thought,
Speaker 1: and it always is funny to me it's like we're
Speaker 1: always trying to rethink the wheel with how we're going
Speaker 1: to relieve the congestion that's on the freeways, the awful
Speaker 1: traffic that we experience in our cities every single day.
Speaker 1: So we've got to build a subway that takes thirty
Speaker 1: years in Los Angeles, we got to build a high
Speaker 1: speed rail that will never be completed. We have to
Speaker 1: plan for this idea we talked about yesterday of high
Speaker 1: speed buses along the freeway in their own dedicated lane.
Speaker 1: But really, if you just incentivized twenty percent of the
Speaker 1: population to work on an organized remote work schedule on
Speaker 1: rotating one day a week, wouldn't that take a big
Speaker 1: portion of the cars off the road almost immediately if
Speaker 1: the government actually incentivized it. But they won't do it,
Speaker 1: because if you incentivize it, that means that people will
Speaker 1: work from somewhere else. I've said it before and I'll
Speaker 1: say it again. If this company ever actually lets me
Speaker 1: work remote full time, I will be moving part time
Speaker 1: to Santa Fe. Not full time, but part time.
Speaker 12: Finding day care for their children like after school and
Speaker 12: things like that. So they hadn't had to deal with
Speaker 12: now for a few years. So that's a hardship.
Speaker 5: On the other hand, an increase in foot traffic could
Speaker 5: benefit some businesses.
Speaker 1: And this is the other thing. As much as I
Speaker 1: am a huge fan of restaurants and cafes and sandwich shops,
Speaker 1: I really get irritated by the idea of, well, we
Speaker 1: have to send people back to the office that don't
Speaker 1: want to go back to the office because the sandwich
Speaker 1: shop needs the business. First off, because they're spending so
Speaker 1: much on gas, they might be taking a sack lunch
Speaker 1: to work. But also, shouldn't it be on the state
Speaker 1: of California and the City of sac to repurpose those
Speaker 1: empty office buildings? For instance, we're wasting a billion dollars
Speaker 1: on the Capital Annex project. Do we even need that
Speaker 1: if we have all this empty office space already in Sacramento?
Speaker 1: Or I don't know, we keep talking about how we're
Speaker 1: in a housing shortage. I know it's more complicated than
Speaker 1: it sounds, but maybe we do a little adaptive reuse
Speaker 1: for all of these commercial buildings that we do not need.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're ever going to reverse the trend
Speaker 1: of having thirty percent plus vacancies in downtown Sacramento. Downtown
Speaker 1: San Francisco, downtown Oakland, and downtown Los Angeles.
Speaker 11: We know that they need to get back into their
Speaker 11: offices because it's hurting the economy for Sacramento, because you know,
Speaker 11: if an empty if the offices are empty, then you
Speaker 11: know there's no one to go to the restaurants or anything.
Speaker 11: And it's all the way around.
Speaker 7: The union, however, says that side of it is not
Speaker 7: their priority.
Speaker 1: It's also not their problem. If nobody's using the building,
Speaker 1: then we should figure out a way for someone to
Speaker 1: use the building.
Speaker 13: Our job as state employees is to continue to provide
Speaker 13: critical services to Californians. It has nothing to do with
Speaker 13: making sure that downtown hubs are functioning in a you know,
Speaker 13: in a good way, or that they're making money in Sacramento.
Speaker 7: I'm on ju Jufari case here three news.
Speaker 8: Governor Newsom's office says ninety eight percent of departments have
Speaker 8: enough office space to welcome back workers.
Speaker 1: He says the unions say they don't.
Speaker 8: For the other two percent, they should continue working with
Speaker 8: a Department of General Services and thinks strategically about extending
Speaker 8: space availability.
Speaker 1: And of course, Gavin says, we have to do this because.
Speaker 7: Nice to run into you in the hall.
Speaker 1: Because what we need in our offices from our state
Speaker 1: workers is more idle, inane chit chat.
Speaker 7: Nice to see you again, Nice to run here?
Speaker 1: Are you watching Perfect Match? Or are you watching loves Blind?
Speaker 7: Nice to run into you in the hall?
Speaker 1: What you're watching Love is Blind Mexico? Are you watching that?
Speaker 1: Dubbed or subbed?
Speaker 7: Nice to develop a relationship?
Speaker 1: How about the new Love Island? Are you excited for
Speaker 1: the American version of the British version?
Speaker 10: Nice to develop a relationship?
Speaker 1: Also, I don't know if i'd use the term relationship.
Speaker 1: State workers aren't supposed to be doing that with each other. Look,
Speaker 1: you might ask, Randy, are you talking about this for
Speaker 1: your own selfish reasons? Because you don't want to drive
Speaker 1: to Culver City anymore? Maybe Johnny is back on Monday.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to email us, you can do so
Speaker 1: at Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail dot com. That's
Speaker 1: Johnny Don't like Show at gmail dot com, or my
Speaker 1: email address at Randy Wangradio at gmail dot com. Will
Speaker 1: wrights in and says greasynewsome has a lot of nerve
Speaker 1: pressing overpaid Madonna state pencil pushers to work more than
Speaker 1: two days a week, when that's two days more than
Speaker 1: he's ever worked in the entirety of his life. Eric
Speaker 1: writes in at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: you are spot on regarding working from home. Get rid
Speaker 1: of the offices, sell the buildings. The big savings for
Speaker 1: taxpayers is the government workers can't steal the post it
Speaker 1: notes from the office. If there is no longer an
Speaker 1: office to steal from, those are pricey. I've had a
Speaker 1: lot of fun with you all this week. It is really, really,
Speaker 1: really been a blast. As I said, I used to
Speaker 1: stress out a little about having to do four hours
Speaker 1: a day all by myself minus the guests. But first,
Speaker 1: huge shout out to Tricia who does our booking. She
Speaker 1: got us some excellent, excellent guests this week. And I
Speaker 1: always love to try to feature people that you don't
Speaker 1: regularly hear on this show that we've tried out on
Speaker 1: the five o'clock show, that I like to say are
Speaker 1: ready for primetime. And so we had a lot of
Speaker 1: fun this week with some of my favorites. Love that
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Barko'honna, Juan Nala, Tom Wolf, Susan Dyer, Reynolds, We've
Speaker 1: had a really, really, really fun week Joey Tuccio. I
Speaker 1: know those interviews are hard to hear, but he is.
Speaker 1: It is so important what he's doing and what's going
Speaker 1: on with the animal abuse that I'm glad somebody out
Speaker 1: there is talking about it. Now. I'm about done, but
Speaker 1: the weekend's not starting for me just yet, because I'm
Speaker 1: going to be jumping on the four to five freeway,
Speaker 1: which let's just check right now, how awful is it
Speaker 1: gonna be on a Friday. It's usually pretty darn bad.
Speaker 1: It says fifty one minutes, eh, fifty eight minutes, and
Speaker 1: I always have to decide if I'm getting off on
Speaker 1: the four h five or if I'm getting off on
Speaker 1: the one oh one, and either way is terrible. But
Speaker 1: then I'll be back on the air from my home
Speaker 1: studio to do the News Blitz at five o'clock. It
Speaker 1: airs on seven ninety KABC at five o'clock, but you
Speaker 1: can also stream it wherever you are at KABC dot com.
Speaker 1: The Bay Area stories that didn't get a chance to
Speaker 1: cover that I will be covering in the news Blitz,
Speaker 1: including a new proposal to make it easier to build
Speaker 1: housing in San Francisco by banning what they call the
Speaker 1: shadow rule, where apparently you can sue to stop a
Speaker 1: development over Siqua in San Francisco based on how long
Speaker 1: the building shadow is supposed to cast. Ultimately, maybe what
Speaker 1: we need to do is eliminate the private right of
Speaker 1: action to sue anybody from anywhere. At Viragosa had a
Speaker 1: decent line about this during the debate. People in Richmond,
Speaker 1: Virginia are able to sue to stop a project going
Speaker 1: on in Richmond, California. That's not bad for what is
Speaker 1: definitely his final debate performance. Ever, and Waimo is continuing
Speaker 1: to expand their service to Cooper, Tino and Campbell. Look
Speaker 1: at that. We have listeners out there in Campbell, hi
Speaker 1: Erin and I'm a big fan of the Waimos. You
Speaker 1: know what, I just found out Wamo's are now operating
Speaker 1: in Dallas. So that means the next time I go
Speaker 1: to Dallas, which is actually very soon, I'm going to
Speaker 1: take a Waimo to meet Cosina with my wife, and
Speaker 1: my wife and I are gonna have some ranch waters
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have some Caso blanco with the brisket
Speaker 1: in there, and we're not gonna have to worry about
Speaker 1: driving back because the robot's gonna drive us back. That's
Speaker 1: gonna be great. Have a wonderful weekend, everybody. We'll see
Speaker 1: a Monday with John Phillips from noon to three right
Speaker 1: here on The John Phillips Show.