Speaker 1: And we continue at one oh five in the afternoon
Speaker 1: on The John Phillips Show, broadcasting live from Claremont, California,
Speaker 1: where Randy There's going to be a gubernatorial debate later
Speaker 1: on this evening, and we're going to be there tonight
Speaker 1: at five point thirty on all CBS stations statewide, so
Speaker 1: CBSLA channel two to nine in southern California, KPIX five
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area, CBS thirteen, CBS Sacramento, CBS eight
Speaker 1: in San Diego. You're going to be able to watch
Speaker 1: this debate. All eight candidates will be there, even Tony Thurmand,
Speaker 1: even Antonio Viragosa, but not Tony Atkins because he dropped
Speaker 1: out six months ago. Said there will not be a
Speaker 1: Tony Tony Tony at this debate. People love reunions, but
Speaker 1: we're going to be there.
Speaker 2: We're going to be watching the debate live. And if
Speaker 2: John has any kind of a run in with Katie
Speaker 2: Porter at Pomona c you're gonna hear about it tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Please eight hundred two two two five two two two
Speaker 2: is the telephone number one eight hundred two two two
Speaker 2: five two two two. It is our pleasure to welcome
Speaker 2: our next guest to the program. He is the host
Speaker 2: of the Gotham Oakland podcast, which you can download wherever
Speaker 2: you download your favorite podcast. You can also get him
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Seneca Scott Seneca Scott.
Speaker 1: Welcome, thanks to John.
Speaker 3: Good to be back.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's start out with an update on
Speaker 1: our favorite former mayor of Oakland, California, Shang Tao. What's
Speaker 1: going on with Shny?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, what a funny uh. You know, no
Speaker 3: one knows and no one seems interested. He's a if
Speaker 3: I was actually going back. I wrote an article for
Speaker 3: the Open Report called Emotional blacks about emotional blackmail, about
Speaker 3: this new tax measure that the firefighters are pitching, and
Speaker 3: took to remind everyone of how many people support a
Speaker 3: Shin and how passionate they were, that she was a
Speaker 3: good person who did not deserve to be recalled. And
Speaker 3: remember she said I'm not going anywhere. Well she went away.
Speaker 3: No one knows where she is. She hasn't been seen
Speaker 3: in public in months, and far as we know, she
Speaker 3: hasn't talked the plea either. So the trial will be
Speaker 3: on October nineteenth.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it benefits her or works against her.
Speaker 1: For the fact that they're going to wait a long
Speaker 1: time obviously before this goes to trial, and people's memories
Speaker 1: are not as long as they used to be. If
Speaker 1: they wait a couple of years, no one's going to
Speaker 1: remember her at all. I wonder if that helps her.
Speaker 3: Well, it's start a court of public opinion. It's the
Speaker 3: court of for law. And so even if the jury
Speaker 3: that they ultimately select it's unfamiliar or memory has faded,
Speaker 3: they're gon't even be reminded when they present their case.
Speaker 3: And that's how Who matters is the jury and the
Speaker 3: decision that they make. And so not that public opinion
Speaker 3: does have it does not have any influence over a jury.
Speaker 3: I don't think it matters as much. Actually, the ZiT guys,
Speaker 3: the political zite guides, has shifted more toward exposing corruption.
Speaker 3: If you look at Nick Shirley, if you look at
Speaker 3: all of a sudden Gavin Newsom's renewed interest in exposing
Speaker 3: fraud as well as a toney general of our Bonta right,
Speaker 3: the corruption is the cause the jure, and so this
Speaker 3: trial is highly anticipated because it's not just about former
Speaker 3: mayor Centile, it's not just about the Doon family. We're
Speaker 3: waiting to see what happens with information about the Bonta
Speaker 3: here in Oakland. We're waiting to see how many other
Speaker 3: people who well currently in positions of power and influence
Speaker 3: in Oakland, California, had something to do with Shankao's life
Speaker 3: to power, or who at least knew about her coruption
Speaker 3: and let it go on because they got something out
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the Bontes and Nick Shirley. Mia Bonta, who
Speaker 1: is the assembly woman from Oakland, was the author of
Speaker 1: legislation that would go after citizen journalists like Nick Shirley,
Speaker 1: which sparked Nick Shirley to show up to the California
Speaker 1: State Capitol in Sacramento to make his case to legislators
Speaker 1: in person. When she was asked about Nick Shirley specifically,
Speaker 1: Nick Shirley, of course, is the one who exposed all
Speaker 1: of the fraud going on at the hospice centers in
Speaker 1: the San Fernando Valley, among other fraud, and Mia Banta
Speaker 1: claims that she had never heard of Nick Shirley before
Speaker 1: and didn't have him in mind when she wrote this legislation.
Speaker 1: What do you make of that?
Speaker 3: I think that it's a comical level of dishonesty, and
Speaker 3: it shows how blazon California progressives has gotten and how
Speaker 3: confident they are that it doesn't really matter what they
Speaker 3: do or say that there are no consequences for their
Speaker 3: bad behavior. It's just it's so dumb to think that
Speaker 3: anyone would believe that, Like the how targeted this legislation
Speaker 3: is to the bombshell and the fact that her husband
Speaker 3: had to respond to it as a toney general and
Speaker 3: not to start charging people. I mean, it's just come on, Mia, like,
Speaker 3: get out of there. They're not to get out of
Speaker 3: their bubble or maybe not. I mean, what's the old
Speaker 3: saying when the enemy is making a mistake, don't interrupt them.
Speaker 3: So maybe I should just encourage her keep going, me,
Speaker 3: keep go go, We'll get it. Go go.
Speaker 1: Well, it's wild to me that the attitude and it's
Speaker 1: not just from the Bonds. Newsome had this attitude too,
Speaker 1: because his social media team attacked Nick Shirley with Nick
Speaker 1: Shirley exposed the fraud with the hospice centers, and it
Speaker 1: seems like their attitude is we should be angry at
Speaker 1: the people who are exposing the corruption and not at
Speaker 1: the people who are corrupt who are stealing from taxpayers,
Speaker 1: because if none of this was exposed, then no one
Speaker 1: would know about it, and we could talk about other things.
Speaker 3: Well, and I can keep stilling on money. The people
Speaker 3: who are the gatekeeper very likely all sides point to
Speaker 3: it involved with or at least knowledgeable about the collection.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's kind of obvious why they're attacking
Speaker 3: people who are exposing it is because they're given away
Speaker 3: what side there on they should be enclosing this level
Speaker 3: of exposure. But what do you make of the recent
Speaker 3: news that guy Vin Newsom was notified a decade ago,
Speaker 3: over decade ago about the levels of flawed in Hapu's
Speaker 3: care A news centers a lot of the things that
Speaker 3: were exposed who got noticed of a decade ago?
Speaker 1: Well, one of the departments in the state of California
Speaker 1: that is actually performing quite well as the California State Auditor,
Speaker 1: And so a lot of the waste, fraud and abuse
Speaker 1: that exists in California government isn't buried away where no
Speaker 1: one can find it. They're finding it and they're putting
Speaker 1: in reports. It's just the Electeds and Sacramento are choosing
Speaker 1: not to do anything with it. When a journalist like
Speaker 1: Nick Shirley goes and exposes all of the fraud with
Speaker 1: the hospice care. It's not like he just randomly woke
Speaker 1: up one morning and showed up and, oh, look what
Speaker 1: I stumbled upon. He's going to these reports and he's
Speaker 1: seeing what's in black and white that the state legislature
Speaker 1: is theoretically seeing too. Just unlike them, he's deciding to
Speaker 1: act on it and just expose them on the internet.
Speaker 1: But if Galvin Newsom or Robonta or any of these
Speaker 1: people wanted to be proactive about it, they could. They
Speaker 1: just choose not to, which is funny because now Galvin
Speaker 1: Newsom and Robonta are trying to portray themselves as law
Speaker 1: enforcement officers fighting corruption.
Speaker 3: I mean, the only people who believe that are the
Speaker 3: fellow progressive cult members, which, as much as I laugh
Speaker 3: at them and call them soggies, unfortunately represents at least
Speaker 3: one fifth of voters nationwide and probably more like one
Speaker 3: third of voters in the state of California, making them
Speaker 3: a very formidable and dangerous coup, which is exactly what
Speaker 3: they are. So it's quite frightening again to see how
Speaker 3: confident these people are. So they can continue this bad
Speaker 3: behavior and just lie to our face and think that
Speaker 3: anybody's going to buy it. But when you look at
Speaker 3: the comment sections of anything, you never see any weren't
Speaker 3: buying it. Even their supporters are too ashamed to you know,
Speaker 3: beat their chest and act like they're really behind this
Speaker 3: type of stuff, even though they're going to vote that
Speaker 3: way and they can count on it. Uh, it looks
Speaker 3: like there's there's some issues there. Also, if you look
Speaker 3: at the governor's race that you're you're about to motivate
Speaker 3: or that you're at today, look about think about how
Speaker 3: all the unions which usually work in lockstep are sort
Speaker 3: of in some inner competition with each other around these candidates,
Speaker 3: which each shall be at least Katie Porter mayheand I'm
Speaker 3: not Mayhand. I'm sorry he doesn't have much union and support,
Speaker 3: but Katie Porter and Staya having a significant amount of
Speaker 3: very influential unions who usually work together, as I said before,
Speaker 3: on the Central Labor Council. So that's something's going on.
Speaker 3: I can't quite put my finger on it, but it
Speaker 3: looks like they're recognizing that they're losing the people and
Speaker 3: that nobody's buying their bs. Anymore. And so there's the
Speaker 3: look for ways to we pland himself. And I think
Speaker 3: that there's some differences of opinion amongst the progressive on
Speaker 3: the best way to do that.
Speaker 1: Why do you think they're not on the same page
Speaker 1: this time around? Do you think it's traced back to
Speaker 1: the expectation that Kamala Harris was going to be the
Speaker 1: candidate and that everyone would get behind her and there
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a question. So there was no forward planning,
Speaker 1: no forward thinking going on at all, where they were
Speaker 1: looking at these candidates two three years ago and sizing
Speaker 1: them up. And then when she took a pass on
Speaker 1: the race, people expected Alex Padilla to jump in and
Speaker 1: they would all get behind him, and then he decided
Speaker 1: at the eleventh hour not to get in the race,
Speaker 1: and they were just caught flat footed. And when unions
Speaker 1: are caught flat footed, that puts them in a bad place.
Speaker 3: You know. I don't pay attention enough to it to
Speaker 3: speak to a high level on it. So I don't
Speaker 3: want to claim or know something I don't, but I
Speaker 3: will shoot from the hip and say what I feel
Speaker 3: if that's okay. Sure, So some of these people aren't
Speaker 3: bad people. A lot of the progressives, even the ones
Speaker 3: who may know about the bad behavior or have heard
Speaker 3: of it, aren't benefited from it financially, and maybe they
Speaker 3: will offer it in a good faith or be a
Speaker 3: user's useful idiots for nefarious causes. And I think that
Speaker 3: they're not willing to go down with the ship from
Speaker 3: people who they're discovering have been, you know, stealing money
Speaker 3: and doing things that are very bad, and so that
Speaker 3: could be part of it. The more the corruption goes
Speaker 3: and more it gets exposed, people and just self interest
Speaker 3: start to act different. Another issue is what allows people
Speaker 3: to get elected and Swallowell, there's some significant insight into that, right,
Speaker 3: so everybody knew what that dude was doing. Man, and
Speaker 3: then people who want to get mad like, well, if
Speaker 3: you knew, why don't you say anything. It's like because
Speaker 3: just accused public figures of crimes like that, you'll get sued.
Speaker 3: The guy's a lawyer, you know, like you have to
Speaker 3: have evidence. So before anybody asked me that come forth
Speaker 3: and took rich themselves to do so even if you
Speaker 3: knew about it, you really couldn't say much. Also, they
Speaker 3: like people like that Shintow, Swallowell, maybe Rob Bonta. It
Speaker 3: looked like the Democrats like people who are compromise doesn't
Speaker 3: work for it, that they have a German world or
Speaker 3: Russian world. I don't know what I'm playing. I know
Speaker 3: what I see there, you go, my man. So like
Speaker 3: they like that type of stuff, that's their vibebe and
Speaker 3: so they don't like good people, and so they don't
Speaker 3: put good, honest sleeper with ties to any positions of authority.
Speaker 3: Because the moment's actually trying to solve a problem faith,
Speaker 3: the first thing you realize is something's wrong here, and
Speaker 3: then you start playing detectives, and then you realize, oh crap,
Speaker 3: this is corrupt a hell. Right, That's exactly what happened
Speaker 3: to me. I didn't know anything about politics until I
Speaker 3: went in for city council, and then I ran familiar
Speaker 3: and as I was trying to be a good candidate
Speaker 3: and really learn the jobs is that I was trying
Speaker 3: to win, it is expected to win, and then I
Speaker 3: would have to perform the duties. I took it serious
Speaker 3: bly started trying to figure out how would I solve
Speaker 3: our problem? And the first thing I see is a
Speaker 3: holy crap, it's corrupt as hell. That's why you can't
Speaker 3: solve the problem. These people are stealing money hand over fifth,
Speaker 3: they're using Oakland's budget as a way to reward themselves
Speaker 3: and their political allies and keep the cycle of corruption going.
Speaker 3: And Oakland is the same as the state of California.
Speaker 3: It's the stay at the state of the Democratic Party nationwide.
Speaker 3: And it's actually very tragic because that we have no
Speaker 3: will left in America if you're looking at what the
Speaker 3: left is apposed to represent, the actual real interests of
Speaker 3: the people who can point to measurable results and things
Speaker 3: that are working to help improve the trajectory and traditions
Speaker 3: of the working class and the upper economic mobility of
Speaker 3: the working class, and you look at the progressive's handy work,
Speaker 3: which due to the exact opposite, America has no real left.
Speaker 3: And so I think that's actually tragic for the political
Speaker 3: spect to being balanced in the sleve in California with
Speaker 3: a one party state that in places very bad, toxic people,
Speaker 3: and I think all of them are like that to
Speaker 3: this point, and so they don't have anybody to go
Speaker 3: to because they.
Speaker 1: All stock Oh Josh, you gotta dump that, all right,
Speaker 1: Do you believe you referenced Eric Swalwell, who was a
Speaker 1: longtime member of Congress in the East Bay, and he
Speaker 1: was able to hold that seat for a long time
Speaker 1: without any of his skeletons coming out because I guess
Speaker 1: he didn't fly too close to the sun. But when
Speaker 1: he ran for governor, he flew too close to the sun,
Speaker 1: and that's when everything came out, and that's when his
Speaker 1: career was ended. Do you believe that had Rob Banta
Speaker 1: ran for governor instead of re election for attorney general,
Speaker 1: he would have gotten some of the Swallowell treatment.
Speaker 3: So, first of all, I do know that that's the
Speaker 3: conventional things and he flew too close to the sun.
Speaker 3: But that's not my hypothesis at all. I think it's
Speaker 3: a lot more simple than that. And if you know
Speaker 3: the people behind it, then maybe you agree with me.
Speaker 3: So I'll hear you what I think happened. Tom Steia
Speaker 3: is backed by California Noses Association. California Noses Association was
Speaker 3: the ones who almost got Bony that with a single
Speaker 3: pay of platform with a big red bus that used
Speaker 3: to follow him around the country. And Rosa Tomorrow and
Speaker 3: Michael Lighty if you know those names and you know them,
Speaker 3: two of the most intelligent. I don't know if they
Speaker 3: run the union anymore, but they start. Look, California Nurses
Speaker 3: Association is not someone to mess around with. And the
Speaker 3: moment I saw that they were back in Sia, I
Speaker 3: knew that anyone in their past had a problem coming.
Speaker 3: And so it's my hypothesis that that's just good old
Speaker 3: old fashioned California nice fight in the phone booth politics
Speaker 3: and California Noteses Association and Tom Shia paid enough people
Speaker 3: and took him out, all right. So I don't think
Speaker 3: that he flew too close to the sun. I think
Speaker 3: he was actually going to be our next governor, and
Speaker 3: had they did not want to file. You know, Tom
Speaker 3: Steyer's ambition has not grown so much that they did
Speaker 3: what they always do. They're taking each other out. At
Speaker 3: this point, there's going to be more coming on other candidates.
Speaker 3: I predent.
Speaker 1: Because using your logic here, then Katie Porter is standing
Speaker 1: in the way of the Nurses Association, and so is
Speaker 1: Javier Basera.
Speaker 3: Oh. I feel bad for him, bro, but out to
Speaker 3: finish the question, Bounca, I think it's more about that
Speaker 3: trial in October. I think that Rob Bouncer would have
Speaker 3: won government easy had he not had any issues with
Speaker 3: the zoos in Shintau who swore in familiar and until
Speaker 3: he can get clear of that, political future as uncertain.
Speaker 3: So somehow he escapes unscathed, then he'll be right back
Speaker 3: in the game and you can expect his trajectory to
Speaker 3: continue because he's a very smart person and a very
Speaker 3: skilled politician. But if he doesn't, you know, it's a
Speaker 3: big risk for him, so personally, and so I just
Speaker 3: the more if you're wanting for governor, there's more scrutiny,
Speaker 3: and it's just I'm feel bad for the party because again,
Speaker 3: these things are being innocent to proven guilty. That's the
Speaker 3: court of off thing, that in a public opinion thing.
Speaker 3: So if I was my opposition, his opposition, I will
Speaker 3: exploit that. And he's just got too much badge an
Speaker 3: apple out there who means to sit down until it
Speaker 3: goes away, and he probably can win, So this Jeno
Speaker 3: are much easier.
Speaker 1: Seneca Scott, host of the Gothamoakland podcast. If you haven't
Speaker 1: checked out that podcast, definitely check it out. All the
Speaker 1: latest news on the political scene in Oakland and so
Speaker 1: much more on that Gotham Oakland podcast. Seneca Scott, Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for stopping by.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me John take care.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to email the show, you can do
Speaker 1: so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com, and Randy,
Speaker 1: you're monitoring the mail bag. Chris writes in at Johnny
Speaker 1: don't like show at gmail dot com on the subject
Speaker 1: line new listener, Greetings radio heads. I recently left the
Speaker 1: Godfather Show at KFI John Cobalt because he left his
Speaker 1: one to four slot and I can't listen to their
Speaker 1: current talent while trying to digest my boloney sandwich. I
Speaker 1: have been been listening to AM radio since the late sixties,
Speaker 1: and I can tell you that you two know how
Speaker 1: it is, and I wish I had discovered you earlier.
Speaker 1: You make me laugh numerous times with your soundbites. Absolutely
Speaker 1: absolutely and many others. Please don't ever change outstanding job, guys,
Speaker 1: to which I responded absolutely absolutely. I sent him the
Speaker 1: MP three eight hundred two two two five two two
Speaker 1: two is jellphone number one eight hundred two two two
Speaker 1: five two two two here with an update on the
Speaker 1: City of Dumpy. Mister Randy Wayne.
Speaker 6: You know this has really been an issue for the
Speaker 6: City of Dumpy.
Speaker 7: Excuse me.
Speaker 2: A new audit has shown that the City of Dumpy
Speaker 2: is not just being dumped on by outside contractors, but
Speaker 2: also you know who's dumping in the City of Dumpy,
Speaker 2: Oakland ers themselves.
Speaker 1: I guess word got out.
Speaker 2: Well for some people, you see a giant pile of
Speaker 2: garbage and you're like, well, why go to the dump?
Speaker 1: I said, hell, no, baby boy, let me get up
Speaker 1: on out of here.
Speaker 2: But it's not only that contributing to the illegal dumping
Speaker 2: problem in the city of Oakland. For more on the
Speaker 2: audit here is kron four.
Speaker 8: D of Oakland just announced a new series of initiatives
Speaker 8: to combat illegal dumping in that city, and now an
Speaker 8: auditor's report zero is in on who is dumping the
Speaker 8: most and why corn Forest Dan Kerman reports.
Speaker 1: Why because why not? Because it's free?
Speaker 6: Illegal dumping has long been a problem in the city
Speaker 6: of Oakland. Now a new report by the city auditor
Speaker 6: has uncovered it's not just out of area contractors using
Speaker 6: Oakland as a dumping ground.
Speaker 7: A lot of the problems driven by residents.
Speaker 1: So it's not contractors in Fremont. Well, I'm sure they
Speaker 1: have that problem too.
Speaker 9: So residents just throwing their trash things that you would
Speaker 9: see in residents private trash bags.
Speaker 7: We saw them all over the streets of Oakland.
Speaker 6: City Auditor Michael Houston.
Speaker 1: Such just lots of little debbie rappers. I don't live there.
Speaker 7: We saw them all over the streets of Oakland.
Speaker 6: City Auditor Michael Houston says one of the reasons Oakland
Speaker 6: ers may be dirting their own city is because of
Speaker 6: how much trash pickup costs.
Speaker 2: This is one of the things that does not get
Speaker 2: talked about enough when it comes to the illegal dumping
Speaker 2: problem in the city of Dumpy. You have to go
Speaker 2: all the way back to the crooked contract that was
Speaker 2: authored to California Waste Solutions to be the trash provider,
Speaker 2: which is the Dong family. And in fact, Oakland Report
Speaker 2: has a fantastic thread about this on social media. Why
Speaker 2: is Oakland to Washington illegal dumping? According to a recent audit,
Speaker 2: Oakland's trash pickup fees are exorbitantly high. Rebecca Kaplan, who
Speaker 2: was Sheng Tao's mentor when on the city council in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty fourteen, helped steer Oakland's recycling contract to California
Speaker 2: Waste Solutions. Waste Management filed a lawsuit claiming the contract
Speaker 2: was unlawfully steered due to personal and political connections, something
Speaker 2: that we know the Dong family has done a lot
Speaker 2: of a few years later, the owners of California Wate Solutions,
Speaker 2: David and Andy Dong, were federally indicted making illegal political
Speaker 2: donations to several Oakland politicians, including Rebecca Kaplan, including Rabanta,
Speaker 2: and of course including Shang E. Tal.
Speaker 1: That's right, I like that.
Speaker 7: That is amazing.
Speaker 2: The FPPC alleged that over thirty five hundred dollars was
Speaker 2: routed to Kaplan through several straw donors. Kaplan denied any
Speaker 2: awareness or wrongdoing. Today, Oakland's trash fees are fifty percent
Speaker 2: higher than the average fees in other cities.
Speaker 1: And when they are artificially high, people don't pay it.
Speaker 1: What they do is they dump it illegally costs.
Speaker 7: We found that our hauling rates were among the highest within.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the same thing that we saw
Speaker 2: going on in Los Angeles. It costs you more to
Speaker 2: take a load of trash to the dump than to
Speaker 2: pay the illegal dumping fine. And that's if you get caught, but.
Speaker 9: Even among those jurisdictions that used the same contracted hauler.
Speaker 6: But the audit also found the city has not done
Speaker 6: enough to deter people from illegal dumping.
Speaker 9: The enforcement has been lacking in the city. The fines
Speaker 9: are really low.
Speaker 2: Now they did just increase the fines quite a bit.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that they said that they're
Speaker 2: going to do is they're going to use license plate
Speaker 2: reading cameras to directly send out tickets to the people
Speaker 2: that they capture doing the illegal dumping. Maybe that will
Speaker 2: make a difference, but at this point enforcement has been
Speaker 2: almost non existent.
Speaker 1: Well, and when they initially said that they were going
Speaker 1: to employ the drones to keep an eye on where
Speaker 1: the dumping was going on, they made the point that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't use the drones to get anyone in trouble.
Speaker 1: They just wanted to know where the dumping was.
Speaker 9: And then even when the fines are administered, we don't
Speaker 9: have very much success in getting the fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe it was a story we talked about
Speaker 2: last week where the city of Oakland has spent about
Speaker 2: two million dollars trying to get about sixteen thousand dollars
Speaker 2: in fines.
Speaker 6: The report comes with a variety of recommendations, including renegotiating
Speaker 6: trash fees and stepping up enforcement. Dan Kerman Krown for News.
Speaker 2: With everything that's going on with the Dongs, how are
Speaker 2: they even allowed to still be the service provider for
Speaker 2: the city of Oakland with all the corruption that's been
Speaker 2: going on with that family.
Speaker 1: Well, this is original sin for a lot of these people.
Speaker 1: It's original sin for Shang Tao, it's original sin for
Speaker 1: Brian Osevido, it's original sin for the dumping crisis in Oakland,
Speaker 1: and it might be original sin for let's just say
Speaker 1: a politician who's now in Sacramento.
Speaker 10: Bob Bonta.
Speaker 1: All right, so that's what's going on with the dumping
Speaker 1: in Oakland, the illegal dumping. I guess I should say.
Speaker 1: We also have an update on what's going on at
Speaker 1: the Oakland Unified School District OUSD. After over twenty years,
Speaker 1: finally got out of receivership, and less than a year later,
Speaker 1: it looks like they're heading back into receivership. Good job
Speaker 1: for Mare. Here is kpix in.
Speaker 10: The Bay tonight in Oakland, where the school district's budget
Speaker 10: problems are well documented and have been well reported on
Speaker 10: the Oakland Unified School District board has to close this
Speaker 10: massive budget gap by the end of June. We've talked
Speaker 10: about this on the broadcast, or they risk a state
Speaker 10: and county takeover. The board already said cuts would be
Speaker 10: necessary to get into a better financial position.
Speaker 2: This is after they decided to avoid a strike to
Speaker 2: give the teachers union that was going to strike everything
Speaker 2: they asked.
Speaker 1: For something they cannot afford.
Speaker 2: And the best detail about that whole story is that
Speaker 2: the teachers unify. The teachers that represent Oakland. They have
Speaker 2: been threatening to go on strike so many times that
Speaker 2: they actually have a storage closet where they keep all
Speaker 2: of the strike signs.
Speaker 1: They don't even make new ones.
Speaker 10: The board already said cuts would be necessary to get
Speaker 10: into a better financial position. The district approved layoffs earlier
Speaker 10: this year, affecting more than four hundred educators. Another one
Speaker 10: hundred and forty four will have their hours reduced. The
Speaker 10: district also suspended its search for a permanent superintendent less
Speaker 10: than a year after the previous superintendent's contract was terminated.
Speaker 2: They why not just leave that job vacant when it's
Speaker 2: either Oakland or LAUSD. Superintendents don't last very long, and
Speaker 2: some of them are crooked.
Speaker 1: And this is also what they did with the police chief.
Speaker 1: How long was that position vacant for It was.
Speaker 2: Vacant for about a year and a half when Shang
Speaker 2: Tao decided to fire because she was a girl. Bars
Speaker 2: Lauren Armstrong absolutely, absolutely, and then it took a year
Speaker 2: and a half to get Floyd Mitchell in that job.
Speaker 2: Floyd Mitchell does the job for a year and a
Speaker 2: half and says, screw you, guys, I'm going to fremont.
Speaker 3: Our.
Speaker 10: Kevin co spoke to two school board members who say
Speaker 10: the district is pretty much at a breaking point.
Speaker 11: In two thousand and three, the Oakland Unified School District
Speaker 11: faced financial ruin, taking a one hundred million dollar loan
Speaker 11: from the state, giving up control of the district. That
Speaker 11: state oversight ended last summer, and.
Speaker 1: Here we are again. The more things changed, the more
Speaker 1: things stayed the same.
Speaker 2: Of course, you got to remember that means that Oakland
Speaker 2: was still under receivership for all these years and years
Speaker 2: and years where the board was kicking the can down
Speaker 2: the road. They knew that enrollment was declining, They knew
Speaker 2: they had to make cuts, and they were not making
Speaker 2: the cuts.
Speaker 1: No, because how many of these members of the board
Speaker 1: are supported by the teachers union or the other unions
Speaker 1: representing other work groups that do business with the district.
Speaker 1: Those work groups don't want any cuts to be made.
Speaker 1: They want raises to be given to all of their members.
Speaker 11: And now there are concerns it won't last.
Speaker 12: We are poised to be the first district in history
Speaker 12: to regain full local control and then lose it again
Speaker 12: within a year.
Speaker 2: Oh, I I've said this before. I'll say it again.
Speaker 2: That's Michael Hutchinson of the Oakland Board. When eventually he
Speaker 2: loses his job for speaking out, get into vo my guy, Well.
Speaker 1: There seems to be no shame. It seems as if
Speaker 1: their attitude is. Well, if we go back into receivership,
Speaker 1: and we do that because we gave the teachers everything
Speaker 1: that they wanted. Well, if I were to then turn
Speaker 1: around and run for city council, or I were to
Speaker 1: run for state Assembly or Congress or whatever, then the
Speaker 1: teachers are going to stick with me. So what do
Speaker 1: I have to lose? It won't last.
Speaker 12: We are poised to be the first district in history
Speaker 12: to regain full local control and then lose it again
Speaker 12: within a year.
Speaker 1: Oakland's going to Oakland. Sometimes they can't help themselves.
Speaker 11: Oakland Unified School Board members Mike Hutchinson and Patrise Barry
Speaker 11: speaking out at a virtual town hall on Monday, as
Speaker 11: turmoil in the district echoes across the East Bay. Earlier
Speaker 11: this month, the Alameda County superintendent called the district's financial
Speaker 11: picture incomplete and not typical before.
Speaker 1: They would get an f and people in that district
Speaker 1: are familiar with that letter before. What does it say
Speaker 1: when the people in charge of the schools can't do math,
Speaker 1: there's no hope for those students at all.
Speaker 11: Before requiring the district to submit new budget reports by
Speaker 11: this Thursday, the concern is even if the district cuts
Speaker 11: its way past the upcoming budget, it won't be financially
Speaker 11: sustainable in the years and budgets to come. As this
Speaker 11: week's deadline looms, more than forty ousd principles sign this
Speaker 11: letter expressing decreasing confidence in district leadership, noting only thirty
Speaker 11: percent of students are reading at grade level.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, and no one's upset about that. That's
Speaker 2: way below the state average. But at that point, everybody
Speaker 2: in leadership has got to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you need a new school board, you need new
Speaker 1: contracts with the unions, you need new administrators to oversee
Speaker 1: the schools. You need to clean house top to bottom.
Speaker 2: If we have only thirty percent of OUSD students that
Speaker 2: are graduating at reading levels and the teachers' union just
Speaker 2: got a big old raise, what is that about the
Speaker 2: priorities of the district.
Speaker 1: Well, isn't this the same district that got in trouble
Speaker 1: for promoting anti Semitic rhetoric to the kids. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 13: Looking at the data, it is in fact beyond.
Speaker 2: Our kids spell genocide gn It.
Speaker 13: Is in fact beyond discouraging, and some of it is
Speaker 13: enough to piss you off.
Speaker 11: All of this happening as the district confirms it will
Speaker 11: not have a permanent superintendent for at least another year,
Speaker 11: Doctor Denise Sadler will stay in the interim. After the
Speaker 11: school board decided in a closed session to suspend the search,
Speaker 11: the letter from OUSD Principles also now.
Speaker 2: Are they suspending the search because it would be too expensive?
Speaker 2: Or are they suspending the search because no one's applying?
Speaker 1: When if you ever heard that phrase in the context
Speaker 1: of an opening for a big city superintendent. Suspending the
Speaker 1: search is something that happens when someone goes overboard on
Speaker 1: a cruise ship.
Speaker 11: The letter from OUs D Principles also calls for the
Speaker 11: search to continue with more transparency.
Speaker 13: Some of the most consequential decisions we face today are
Speaker 13: going to be made without permanent executive leadership, and all
Speaker 13: of that happening during an election year. The reality is
Speaker 13: that that's the moment we're in right now.
Speaker 10: O USD says it is on track to balance its
Speaker 10: budget for the upcoming school year, but that it still
Speaker 10: needs to find tens of millions of dollars in cuts
Speaker 10: to bridge the.
Speaker 2: Shortfall, so they're not balancing their budget, of course not.
Speaker 2: This is the sad news for anybody that wins this
Speaker 2: governor's race. They're going to be in a situation where
Speaker 2: not JUSTUSD, but also SFUSD and also la USD, they're
Speaker 2: all going broke. They're all going to need bailouts from
Speaker 2: the state in a time where the state does not
Speaker 2: have the money.
Speaker 1: Nope, if you live in Oakland, do not send your
Speaker 1: kids to those schools. Homeschool them, put them in private schools,
Speaker 1: lie about your address, do whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: have to do, but that school district is a mess
Speaker 1: and it's not getting better anytime soon. What eight hundred
Speaker 1: two two two five two two two. Let's shift gears
Speaker 1: from Oakland to the nearby city of Vallejo.
Speaker 2: There is a neighborhood in Vallejo and neighbors are pissed
Speaker 2: off and they've had enough because one house in the
Speaker 2: neighborhood is surrounded by garbage. You don't say there's a
Speaker 2: lot of issues with having to be in an hoa,
Speaker 2: but one of the things you probably don't have in
Speaker 2: hoas is a house in the neighborhood that is nothing
Speaker 2: but blight.
Speaker 1: Nope, the Karens won't stand for that. Well, let's find
Speaker 1: out about this garbage house in Vallejo. Here is kpix
Speaker 1: in the Bay.
Speaker 14: To begin this evening in Vallejo, where neighbors say they're
Speaker 14: sick of dealing with the property that they say has
Speaker 14: been a blight on their block for months. The property
Speaker 14: on Indiana Street is covered in all sorts of junk, trash, clothes,
Speaker 14: even an old refrigerator.
Speaker 1: What is this the set of Sanford and Son. It
Speaker 1: sounds like the aftermath of a hurricane.
Speaker 14: The city has already issued three citations. Our Brad Hamilton
Speaker 14: spoke with a nearby neighbor who says it's not just
Speaker 14: an eye sor it's also making neighbors feel unsafe.
Speaker 4: As Lily Heard approaches the first home she bought in
Speaker 4: nineteen fifty four, the memories floodback, and so does the satisfaction.
Speaker 2: Was eighteen Wait, she bought it in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 2: So she bought a house for probably like what twenty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and it is probably worth two million, probably,
Speaker 2: and her property taxes got capped in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: But look what she's living next to.
Speaker 4: As Lily Heard approaches the first home she bought in
Speaker 4: nineteen fifty four, the memories floodback, and so does the satisfaction.
Speaker 15: I was eighteen years old when I purchased home.
Speaker 2: Val Have you ever heard of an eighteen year old
Speaker 2: in this generation or even the previous generation that could
Speaker 2: buy a house? Not unless grandma died and left them
Speaker 2: a king's ransom?
Speaker 15: Have been Valaila ever since? Much pride here.
Speaker 4: However, just steps away from her pride, a problem, she says,
Speaker 4: has taken over this Vallejo neighborhood, this home on Indiana
Speaker 4: Street doesn't exactly hide it. Trash, debris and junk filling
Speaker 4: up the front lawn of the property.
Speaker 1: But do they call that portion of Indiana Street Gary Indiana?
Speaker 4: But for Lily, this site is only part of it.
Speaker 4: She walked us to the back of her property that
Speaker 4: she now leases out and showed us where she says,
Speaker 4: strangers cut through like a passageway.
Speaker 15: You're jumping over there, annoying her all times of night.
Speaker 15: The noise, etc.
Speaker 2: Her tenant, she says, is terrible, these vacant abandoned properties,
Speaker 2: they usually end up becoming stomping ground for squatters.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, tenant, she says, is terrified. So they've built
Speaker 4: two massive fences trying to draw the line. That hasn't helped,
Speaker 4: and Lily says, neither is reporting each issue to the
Speaker 4: city for months.
Speaker 15: We need somebody to do something. Poice department for colde enforcement,
Speaker 15: somebody help. We're not getting that help.
Speaker 2: Code enforcement seems to be the process that, for some
Speaker 2: reason is the slowest moving process in any city. But
Speaker 2: this is specifically things that we see in California cities
Speaker 2: like Vallejo or Los Angeles. When you've got vacant homes
Speaker 2: where you have squatters, people starting fires, people committing crimes.
Speaker 2: The only avenue the government says they have, which I
Speaker 2: don't believe them, is code enforcement.
Speaker 1: No, you have to go to the local news to
Speaker 1: get any action.
Speaker 15: We're not getting that help.
Speaker 4: We did hear from officials from the Vallejos City management
Speaker 4: team who told us that there is an active code
Speaker 4: of Enforcement case against the property. They shared that just
Speaker 4: last week, the Indiana Street home received its third citation,
Speaker 4: adding that it's also registered to their vacant property program.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, three tickets. That'll get them to change.
Speaker 4: But the case itself remains unresolved.
Speaker 3: Woo.
Speaker 4: So why hasn't I always.
Speaker 2: Wonder when you have these vacant properties, are the owners
Speaker 2: even paying property taxes?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: I wonder, and I'm just spitballing here, but you know
Speaker 1: that a lot of foreigners just park their money here
Speaker 1: by buying real estate. Yes, we know that that is
Speaker 1: something that is very common, for example, in California, San
Speaker 1: Gabriel Valley. I wonder if it's just literally an absentee landlord,
Speaker 1: someone from Russia or Saudi Arabia or China or wherever,
Speaker 1: who's just parking money not in the country and doesn't care.
Speaker 4: So why hasn't more been done? San Jose State Professor
Speaker 4: Jeffrey Hare says even with multiple citations, the process to
Speaker 4: take action is complicated.
Speaker 5: Since the ultimate goal is compliance and not, you know,
Speaker 5: just collecting money. They're willing to wait it out and
Speaker 5: try to take care of it. Now, if there's the
Speaker 5: illegal activity, then it becomes a law enforcement matter.
Speaker 2: No, because then law enforcement will say, the city told
Speaker 2: us it's private property, there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they always wash their hands with it and
Speaker 1: direct you to the city or a judge.
Speaker 4: Lily knows that there might be limits to what the
Speaker 4: city can do, but as a longtime property owner, she
Speaker 4: says staying quiet is not an option.
Speaker 15: Sir just In Jama stated, there's nothing they can do.
Speaker 4: The problem remains, but so does Lily. At ninety one
Speaker 4: years old, she's on a mission to do right by
Speaker 4: a neighborhood she's always been proud of.
Speaker 1: So there you go. The blight house in Vallejoe