Speaker 1: It is the John Phillip Show. Johnny's back on Monday.
Speaker 1: It's Randy Wang here and the phone number to join
Speaker 1: us is eight hundred two two two five two two
Speaker 1: two one eight hundred two two two five two two two.
Speaker 1: Your emails at Johnny Don't Like show at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com and search for the John Phillips Show wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Julie Watts is an incredible reporter for
Speaker 1: CBS Sacramento.
Speaker 2: In case you.
Speaker 1: Don't know the name, you'll know her work because Julie
Speaker 1: Watts was the reporter responsible for the interview that well
Speaker 1: pretty much ended Katie Porter's gubernatorial aspirations.
Speaker 3: Well to those voters, Okay, so you I don't want
Speaker 3: to keep doing this, I'm gonna call it.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: You're not gonna do the interview with them?
Speaker 1: Nope, not like this.
Speaker 4: I'm not not with seven follow ups to every single
Speaker 4: question you ask.
Speaker 1: Now, that wasn't Julie's intention, but Katie Porter kind of
Speaker 1: shut herself in the with how she handled a very
Speaker 1: straightforward interview, an interview that Julie did with several other candidates. Well,
Speaker 1: Julie Watts is the investigative reporter for CBS Sacramento, and
Speaker 1: her pieces get carried on the other CBS stations in California,
Speaker 1: So you'll see her pieces on KPIX in the Bay,
Speaker 1: on CBSLA in Los Angeles, and of course on Channel
Speaker 1: thirteen in Sacramento. And she's done quite a great piece
Speaker 1: here showing us how the California legislature and of course
Speaker 1: the California governor and this is true for our current
Speaker 1: elected class and former elected classes never ever ever listen
Speaker 1: to good advice. See, there's a lot of dumb things
Speaker 1: that California does. And you can assume, okay, well we
Speaker 1: didn't know any better because we've got a bunch of
Speaker 1: morons in Sacramento. Or you can look at the fact
Speaker 1: that we have regular audits of our departments, where reports
Speaker 1: are put out, where failures in departments are highlighted, and
Speaker 1: then the legislature does nothing about them at that point.
Speaker 1: That is willful negligence and that is not being mindful.
Speaker 5: That is something we are mindful of.
Speaker 1: What am I talking about? Listen to this report from
Speaker 1: Julie Watts on CBS Sacramento.
Speaker 6: You're the best, Okay, so the information.
Speaker 4: Then my question to you is, are you okay with
Speaker 4: the audit.
Speaker 3: Then the California State Auditor is supposed to be the
Speaker 3: state's early Oh.
Speaker 2: Boy, you hear that music? That means it sweeps weak.
Speaker 3: The California State Auditor is supposed to be the state's
Speaker 3: early warning system. Is that safe for folks to drink?
Speaker 6: It's within the state guidelines.
Speaker 3: When government programs fail, the cost worth it when money
Speaker 3: is wasted.
Speaker 7: California has spent twenty four billion dollars to tackle homelesses.
Speaker 5: When fraud goes up.
Speaker 2: There's a big one.
Speaker 1: We have people who are paid to constantly audit the
Speaker 1: state government, and the auditors come out with reports and
Speaker 1: actions that we should take to stop making these mistakes,
Speaker 1: and the legislature doesn't do anything about it.
Speaker 7: California has spent twenty four billion dollars to tackle homelessness.
Speaker 5: When fraud goes unchecked. That's according to a state audit
Speaker 5: just out.
Speaker 3: Lawmaker's request, and auditis reports indicate a state auditor investigates,
Speaker 3: sendels agencies and lawmakers what needs to change.
Speaker 5: The answer I received is this is as good as
Speaker 5: we can do.
Speaker 3: But it turns out lawmakers in this building have failed
Speaker 3: to act on most of those recommendations.
Speaker 1: Then why are we paying for the auditors. You have
Speaker 1: a lot of departments that are incredibly inefficient, a lot
Speaker 1: of departments that are completely wasting money, money that's not
Speaker 1: accounted for at all, like the homeless budget. If we're
Speaker 1: doing audits and the audit show where government can improve,
Speaker 1: why would we not take them up on that?
Speaker 3: But it turns out lawmakers in this building have failed
Speaker 3: to act on most of those recommendations, recommendations that you
Speaker 3: paid for. We're talking government waste from public safety concerns
Speaker 3: that we're allowed to continue for years after the auditor
Speaker 3: identified solutions. CBS News California analyzed a decade of state
Speaker 3: audits and we found your lawmakers failed to act on
Speaker 3: three out of four recommendations. So year after year, the
Speaker 3: auditor attracks the same problems, same in action, costing California billions.
Speaker 1: For instance, three out of four reports coming from our
Speaker 1: state auditor showing that there are failings within the government
Speaker 1: led to zero action from the legislature. Because they know better,
Speaker 1: they know what they're doing, they don't need to have
Speaker 1: any kind of check. And by the way, this is
Speaker 1: not unique to Sacramento. Look at what we just discovered
Speaker 1: last week with the major arrest of that crooked homeless
Speaker 1: nonprofit guy, the guy from Abundant Benefits or whatever it
Speaker 1: was called, who was pocketing millions of dollars to live
Speaker 1: a lavish lifestyle while the homeless he was in charge
Speaker 1: of taking care of. We're getting ramen noodles. That was
Speaker 1: originally uncovered by the city's auditor, Kenneth Mahea, the controller,
Speaker 1: and I got to imagine he flagged it to the city.
Speaker 1: Did the city do anything about it? Did the city
Speaker 1: change protocol? Did the city cut off the funding. No,
Speaker 1: it had to wait until the DA and then the
Speaker 1: Feds got involved. So this is a very California thing.
Speaker 1: We have people who are paid to make sure our
Speaker 1: government is running efficiently and we're not wasting money or
Speaker 1: I don't know, giving it to criminals and we don't care,
Speaker 1: or are elected if leaders don't care. But then we're
Speaker 1: the ones that put those elected leaders in office, so
Speaker 1: maybe we don't care either.
Speaker 3: For instance, remember this continuing to pay unemployment sturms benefits.
Speaker 2: Within three weeks within twenty one days. If it's three weeks,
Speaker 2: then why haven't I been paid yet?
Speaker 3: It's estimating California lost twenty billion dollars, a pandemic unemployment fraud.
Speaker 1: Oh remember that one, I remember it. Look, twenty twenty
Speaker 1: was a dark time for everybody. Well, I did get
Speaker 1: married in twenty twenty, so it wasn't all bad. Became
Speaker 1: a homeowner. Traffic was really good. You know, those were
Speaker 1: some great days, Tiger King. No, of course, it was
Speaker 1: a disaster for everybody, and there was so much uncertainty
Speaker 1: in the air. And even working as an essential employee
Speaker 1: at a radio station, you know, we weren't we weren't
Speaker 1: immune from all the effects of the economy. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously people aren't going to be advertising as much radio
Speaker 1: revenue went weighed down. I was furloughed for three weeks
Speaker 1: of the year twenty twenty. I think John was two,
Speaker 1: and a whole bunch of people. It was like a
Speaker 1: company wide thing in all five hundred radio stations. And
Speaker 1: the thing was, Okay, if you're gonna get furloughed, that
Speaker 1: means you can apply for one week's worth of unemployment
Speaker 1: here and one week's of unemployment there. And yeah, that
Speaker 1: system was a nightmare to navigate. By the way, the
Speaker 1: overly generous unemployment payments incentivize certain companies to furlough people.
Speaker 1: Just pointing that out, but the legitimate process of getting
Speaker 1: those unemployment checks was a nightmare, and we took calls
Speaker 1: so many days from so many people that could not
Speaker 1: get a hold of ed D. There was literally a
Speaker 1: Reddit thread going on of people hiring people to stand
Speaker 1: on hold with EDD. And at the same time, EDD
Speaker 1: was writing checks left and right to criminals and fraudsters
Speaker 1: using fake SoC security numbers. Notably, somebody used the social
Speaker 1: Security number of Scott Peterson who was in prison. And
Speaker 1: according to one anecdotal story from mister John Phillips, a
Speaker 1: lot of these criminals took their money to Vegas, to
Speaker 1: expensive state houses steakhouses, paid for their meals with EDD
Speaker 1: and were too cheap to tip. We saw people renting
Speaker 1: cars in Beverly Hills, luxury vehicles. We saw so much
Speaker 1: irresponsible spending. Again, how did no one ever get fired
Speaker 1: over this? Not even Julie Sue, who was the head
Speaker 1: of California's labor department now then got promoted to the
Speaker 1: Biden administration, not officially, and now isn't she working for
Speaker 1: Mom Donnie. Nobody got fired over the fact that this
Speaker 1: state gave out twenty billion dollars to criminals.
Speaker 3: Twenty billion dollars a pandemic unemployment, fraud, money California paid
Speaker 3: to criminals well out of work. California's struggled to survive all.
Speaker 8: Forty times, six hundred and thirty two times, Try again later.
Speaker 3: Back then, we asked the auditor, Elaine Howell, if the
Speaker 3: EDD had complied with your previous do you think we'd
Speaker 3: be in a situation right now?
Speaker 1: There would still be some issues at EDD, but certainly
Speaker 1: not as severe as they are now. But what as
Speaker 1: California supposed to listen to the advice of the people
Speaker 1: that are auditing our departments, Like the failures at EDD and.
Speaker 3: Years later brought its indicate fraud continues while the legislature
Speaker 3: continues not to take action.
Speaker 1: We've got some real documentary level music on this thing,
Speaker 1: because this is how pathetic our elected leaders are now.
Speaker 1: There could be a lot of reasons for this term.
Speaker 1: Limits might be one of them because the people who
Speaker 1: are in the legislature now weren't even in the legislature
Speaker 1: a few years ago. Because it's a constant revolving door
Speaker 1: of moving to this office, moving back to local, moving
Speaker 1: back to state it's it hasn't really worked the way
Speaker 1: it was intended. But ultimately you also have one party rule.
Speaker 1: You have a legislature that feels very invincible in their anonymity,
Speaker 1: that nobody really knows who they are. As long as
Speaker 1: they have the right letter next to their name on
Speaker 1: the ballot, they're going to get in. They're going to
Speaker 1: stay in, they're going to move around. They've got the
Speaker 1: endorsements of the unions, they've got the money from the lobbyists.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how they actually run the state's government.
Speaker 1: And when you have auditors that are saying, hey, here's
Speaker 1: ways you can prevent billions of dollars of abuse and
Speaker 1: fraud and they're ignoring it, well, it suddenly starts to
Speaker 1: make sense. How the budget for this state has gone
Speaker 1: up every single year massively, but we're always still in
Speaker 1: a deficit.
Speaker 3: And years later broudits indicate fraud continues while the legislature
Speaker 3: continues not to take action.
Speaker 5: This is our state capital and this is not humane.
Speaker 5: We also found years of homelessness audits.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, Gavin doesn't want to hear about that. Remember
Speaker 1: how the legislature to give them a tiny piece of
Speaker 1: credit unanimously supported a bill that would audit where the
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars of homeless funding went over the last
Speaker 1: five years, and then Gavin vetoed it.
Speaker 3: We also found years of homelessness audits repeating the same
Speaker 3: core warnings and recommendations, culminating in more than twenty billion
Speaker 3: spent on homelessness without a state wide plan or accountability.
Speaker 5: Mustion doupos appropriations.
Speaker 3: But again and again lawmakers killed the recommended legislation behind
Speaker 3: closed doors without a public vote.
Speaker 1: Now, why would we ever want to make sure that
Speaker 1: we weren't wasting money on homelessness unless you know the
Speaker 1: point is to be funding our friends in, our donors
Speaker 1: and these crooked heads of nonprofits. I mean, if the
Speaker 1: point is that it's all a giant grift and none
Speaker 1: of the money actually reaches skid Row in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: or the tenderloin in San Francisco, all right, I guess
Speaker 1: that's it. And we keep electing the same people who
Speaker 1: keep throwing this money away and not really helping anybody. Well,
Speaker 1: that one's on us.
Speaker 3: But this is about much more than money. For instance,
Speaker 3: the art found water districts failing to tell people that
Speaker 3: they're drinking water was unsafe.
Speaker 1: I mean, the same water districts that keep jacking up
Speaker 1: the water rates.
Speaker 5: An issue we've been covering for years.
Speaker 4: For how long have they done that? How long have
Speaker 4: they they known that TC has been in the water
Speaker 4: but left it off of an annual report that's supposed
Speaker 4: to be given to the public. TCE The number one
Speaker 4: cancer causing it of TCE is kidney cancer. That's what
Speaker 4: my son had.
Speaker 8: Liver cancer is the second.
Speaker 4: That's what my neighbor died of.
Speaker 8: So why did we not know?
Speaker 5: The UITs?
Speaker 1: Like Aaron Brockovich all over again. But instead of PG
Speaker 1: and E, it's our state agencies that are ignoring dangerous
Speaker 1: threats even when they're presented to them.
Speaker 5: The auditor push for more disclosure years ago.
Speaker 9: It's been horrible, it's so painful.
Speaker 5: As wild buyers can.
Speaker 1: There are so many problems going on in this state,
Speaker 1: and it sure seems like our elected leaders through the Assembly,
Speaker 1: the State Senate, and of course Gavin Newsom, instead of
Speaker 1: addressing those and shining light on those, let sweep them
Speaker 1: all under the rug.
Speaker 3: As wild buyers continue to destroy unities, We found lawmakers
Speaker 3: taking no action on auditor recommended oversight laws one of
Speaker 3: more than three hundred outstanding audit recommendations on more than
Speaker 3: one hundred different issues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and wildfire would be a pretty big one, considering
Speaker 1: how many massive destructive wildfires have happened since Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: took office.
Speaker 3: Relating to law enforcement, courts, healthcare, hate crimes, untested rape kits,
Speaker 3: they even failed to act on policies that put child
Speaker 3: abuse victims at risk.
Speaker 1: You know, what does this legislature actually do? You know,
Speaker 1: it's we pass a whole bunch of new laws, We
Speaker 1: act all important. We don't care about how any of
Speaker 1: it is implemented, and we don't care how any of
Speaker 1: our departments are run. It is, and you know, the
Speaker 1: sooths there Shang Tao told us all about this.
Speaker 5: The bureaucracy is real.
Speaker 1: Nobody is held, to use everyone's favorite word, accountable for
Speaker 1: any of this when we're not even paying attention to
Speaker 1: state audits.
Speaker 10: You know, it's why we do the job.
Speaker 3: We caught up with one of the new shairs of
Speaker 3: the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, which instructs the auditor to
Speaker 3: conduct these audits. Why are we paying for these audits
Speaker 3: if the legislature isn't acting on them.
Speaker 5: I mean, what's a reaction to that.
Speaker 10: I think that being new to the legislature the past
Speaker 10: year and now being the chair of the Joint Legislative
Speaker 10: Audit Committee, I am keenly focused on oversight.
Speaker 2: That was saying nothing. He said completely nothing.
Speaker 8: Something.
Speaker 1: Ben thought, of course he's new, maybe he'll be different,
Speaker 1: maybe something.
Speaker 3: Remember Hairbedian is one of more than thirty new California
Speaker 3: lawmakers this session.
Speaker 10: When I hear that there are many audits and recommendations
Speaker 10: from those audits that haven't been addressed, I think that's
Speaker 10: a wake up call.
Speaker 3: The warnings are written, the solutions identified. The question is
Speaker 3: will the new class of lawmakers finally finish what their
Speaker 3: predecessors started investigative journalism.
Speaker 6: What you're doing is important, it's important.
Speaker 1: You don't need to kiss her ass. We know what
Speaker 1: she's doing is important. And ultimately, here's what needs to
Speaker 1: be done, because the elected leaders will only do what
Speaker 1: they're shamed into doing. When we're gonna need more, Julie
Speaker 1: Watts is out there. When there is an audit, a
Speaker 1: damning audit, it needs to be made public. If there
Speaker 1: are failures in the EDD that led to the twenty
Speaker 1: billion dollars maybe thirty billion dollars of fraud.
Speaker 2: We should know what that is.
Speaker 1: What are the failures and the way the state manages
Speaker 1: brush and it's led to wildfires? What are the failures
Speaker 1: we should know? We should be open and honest about it.
Speaker 1: Stop telling us that everything is great in this state
Speaker 1: when it's not.
Speaker 10: It's important because it keeps everyone accountable and at highlights
Speaker 10: issues that might not be on my radar any anyone
Speaker 10: else's radar that I serve will and so keep doing
Speaker 10: where you're doing.
Speaker 5: Oh, we will.
Speaker 3: For CBS News California Investigates, I'm Julie Watts.
Speaker 1: Make sure you follow Julie Watts on social media, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, I felt like so cool she follow
Speaker 1: me today. She didn't even know I was gonna do
Speaker 1: this story, but uh, I think she's great. We have
Speaker 1: some really great investigative reporters on television in California. Julie
Speaker 1: Watts is great. Ashley Zavala is incredible on kc ra
Speaker 1: A three. She covers Sacramento like nobody else. We have
Speaker 1: some really, really, really great people. Now, I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are probably some good newspaper people. That's not how I
Speaker 1: get my news. I am a visual and audio learner.
Speaker 1: I'm not much of a reader. That's how I get
Speaker 1: all the news that I bring to you is I
Speaker 1: listen to all of these things on YouTube and those
Speaker 1: are two of the best we have. The phone number
Speaker 1: to join us is eight hundred two two two five
Speaker 1: two two two one eight hundred two two two five
Speaker 1: two two two, And boy do I have a great
Speaker 1: pair of tickets for you that rhymed seven ninety KABC
Speaker 1: welcomes Luke Brian the Word on the Street Tour at
Speaker 1: the Long Beach Amphitheater August fifteenth. Tickets are on sale
Speaker 1: next Friday at ticketmaster dot com. But right now, collar
Speaker 1: number nine at one eight eight eight seven ninety five
Speaker 1: two two two gets a pair of tickets to the show.
Speaker 1: Tickets furnished by Live Nation. Good luck dialing, and you
Speaker 1: know what's really exciting. A week from Friday is already
Speaker 1: gonna be our second big live remote of the year.
Speaker 2: How exciting is this? Everyone?
Speaker 1: Come join us for a live broadcast at one of
Speaker 1: our favorite places, Gladstone's in Long Beach, Friday, February sixth,
Speaker 1: from noon to three. We're heading to Gladstones in Long
Speaker 1: Beach for our next live broadcast, and you're invited. You're
Speaker 1: gonna enjoy great food, good vibes, excellent drink, and a
Speaker 1: fun afternoon by the water. John saying, meister is gonna
Speaker 1: take care of you. Now. We're gonna have a lot
Speaker 1: of special guests at this event, including our friend Susan
Speaker 1: Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. She'll tell you
Speaker 1: more about your taxpayer rights and protecting Prop thirteen. The
Speaker 1: courts have made it easier to raise your taxes. You
Speaker 1: remember that story we did yesterday about how San Diego,
Speaker 1: through the unions is doing a citizens initiative to raise
Speaker 1: the sales tax in November. Well, the reason say citizens
Speaker 1: initiative is because that means you need a simple majority
Speaker 1: instead of two thirds that was established by Prop thirteen.
Speaker 1: This technicality is making it easier for everyone to raise
Speaker 1: your taxes. And it's why you need to go to
Speaker 1: the website Saveprop thirteen dot com, print out that petition,
Speaker 1: send it in or bring it in person to Gladstone's
Speaker 1: in Long Beach. Susan needs all those signatures by February seventeenth,
Speaker 1: So if you've already done it, thank you. Get your
Speaker 1: friends to do it, your neighbors to do it. If
Speaker 1: everyone listening to this show got ten ten people to
Speaker 1: sign that petition, we would have the signatures that we needed.
Speaker 2: We need to.
Speaker 1: Get this thing on the ballot. Otherwise all that's going
Speaker 1: to be on the Neember ballot is a bunch of
Speaker 1: insane tex increases. So we need you to come by,
Speaker 1: hang out with us, be part of the broadcast. It's
Speaker 1: the John Phillips Show live at Gladstone's in Long Beach Friday,
Speaker 1: February sixth, from noon to three. And we do get
Speaker 1: a lot of emails from our Bay Area listeners, and
Speaker 1: we love all of you at KSFO. We are dying
Speaker 1: to do a remote up there. Two things that we
Speaker 1: need to make it happen are a venue and a sponsor.
Speaker 1: So if you know anybody that is interested in bringing
Speaker 1: us up to the Bay, if you've got a venue,
Speaker 1: if you've get a restaurant, a bar, what have you,
Speaker 1: we're dying to go up there. Get in touch with us.
Speaker 1: We'll get you in touch with our sales department. Email
Speaker 1: us at Johnny Don't like show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: These events really are not that expensive to put on,
Speaker 1: but we really want to be up there. We love
Speaker 1: the Bay Area, We love this whole state. So emailis Johnny,
Speaker 1: don't like show at gmail dot com. All right, For
Speaker 1: this next story, We're heading to a gem of Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: MacArthur Park, a place so famous they even wrote a
Speaker 1: song about it.
Speaker 6: Or fling, someone left.
Speaker 2: The cake in the ring. Thanks for the assist, Cecily.
Speaker 1: MacArthur Park is the Los Angeles equivalent to the Tenderloin.
Speaker 1: It is the open air drug den. It is a
Speaker 1: park where not a lot of children get to play,
Speaker 1: not a lot of families get to have picnics. But
Speaker 1: it is a park that visit been completely taken over
Speaker 1: by gangs and drug dealers. It is the park that
Speaker 1: is right next to Langers Deli, which has gotten the
Speaker 1: of Langer's Norm Langer to constantly threaten that he might
Speaker 1: need to close his business because his employees don't feel
Speaker 1: safe and it's not really easy to do business in
Speaker 1: that part of town when there's all kinds of illegal
Speaker 1: street vending going on. MacArthur Park is the place you
Speaker 1: go to in Los Angeles if you want a stolen
Speaker 1: Social Security Guard card and a whole bunch of other things.
Speaker 1: And MacArthur Park has a lot of crime. Now, you
Speaker 1: may remember La City council Woman Unices.
Speaker 5: Hernandez, quite frankly.
Speaker 1: Putting forward a task force to deal with the crisis
Speaker 1: in MacArthur Park. Yes, this was about a week before
Speaker 1: the Palisades fire, so nobody remembers it. But she held
Speaker 1: this press conference where she announced all of this money,
Speaker 1: some of it coming from the city, some of it
Speaker 1: coming from the county, some coming from the state to
Speaker 1: fund all of these nonprofits to clean up MacArthur Are
Speaker 1: we gonna get it? And one of those nonprofits was
Speaker 1: Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles, a nonprofit that I will never
Speaker 1: stop talking about because they get city and county and
Speaker 1: state and probably federal money too to pass out meth pipes. Well,
Speaker 1: Unisses wanted to hire them to drive around MacArthur Park
Speaker 1: in golf carts passing out drug paraphernalia. It's been over
Speaker 1: a year now, is MacArthur Park any safer than before
Speaker 1: Unisses PLoP three million dollars into it?
Speaker 2: No, it is not.
Speaker 8: You know, you can't get well in a cell, you.
Speaker 1: Also can't get well at MacArthur Park. Now, this has
Speaker 1: led certain activists like John Ally of the Santa Monica Coalition,
Speaker 1: who happens to own a lot of properties around there,
Speaker 1: to start to make a little bit of a ruckus
Speaker 1: because the situation in MacArthur Park is embarrassing and we're
Speaker 1: supposed to invite the world here in just a couple
Speaker 1: of months. So he wanted to organize because of requests
Speaker 1: of people that they look into the lake in MacArthur
Speaker 1: Park for possible weapons, for possible evidence of crime, and
Speaker 1: even possible missing bodies. And this, I'll call it a stunt.
Speaker 1: It's a great stunt, but it's a stunt. Was shut
Speaker 1: down by unicices Hernandez and Karen Bass because the last
Speaker 1: thing they need is somebody dredging up a body from
Speaker 1: the bottom of MacArthur Park. For more on this one,
Speaker 1: we got a Fox eleven and Fox eleven's Hazard Pay
Speaker 1: Reporter of the Year, Matthew Seedorf. Whether it is an
Speaker 1: underground tunnel where they're stealing cars and there's no light,
Speaker 1: they said, Matthew Seedorf. A mosquito infestation in El Segundo,
Speaker 1: they said, Matthew Seedorf. This guy has to go to
Speaker 1: all the dangerous locales. I'm guessing he signs up for it.
Speaker 1: But let's hear what's going on at MacArthur Park.
Speaker 7: Only on Fox eleven. A local business man says park
Speaker 7: rangers threatened him with arrest as he planned to to place.
Speaker 2: Wait a second, hold on a second already.
Speaker 1: If you want to know how insane this story is,
Speaker 1: there is open air drug dealing every single day in
Speaker 1: MacArthur Park. There is open air drug use every single
Speaker 1: day in MacArthur Park. Gaines gangs operate with impunity in
Speaker 1: MacArthur Park. But the park rangers want to arrest the
Speaker 1: businessman that wants to see if there's any dead bodies
Speaker 1: in the lake. This is Los Angeles and elections have consequences.
Speaker 1: And when a very small percentage of people that actually
Speaker 1: voted in Council District one voted for unses Hernandez, Yes,
Speaker 1: this is how bad it was going to get.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: Was it already bad under GUILSIDEO yes, but that district
Speaker 1: has gotten a hell of a lot worse does.
Speaker 7: He planned to deploy sonar in MacArthur Park. Lake says
Speaker 7: the goal was to investigate rumors of weapons and possibly
Speaker 7: human remains beneath the water.
Speaker 1: By the way, just politically, tactically speaking, shutting down. His
Speaker 1: little stunt made it much bigger than it probably would
Speaker 1: have been. Who knows what would have been in there,
Speaker 1: if anything, But now this has become al Capone's vault,
Speaker 1: and we got to see.
Speaker 7: Fox Loves Matthew Cedar for Live at the Park with
Speaker 7: one Matthew Well Christine.
Speaker 11: We actually had to move our live shot further away
Speaker 11: from MacArthur Park because it wasn't safe there.
Speaker 1: Tonight Matthew Seedorf, who again is the hazard pay reporter
Speaker 1: for Fox eleven, could not even do the live shot
Speaker 1: from MacArthur Park because because that park is so dangerous.
Speaker 1: This is the same park where Karen Baz took a
Speaker 1: victory lapse, saying the park is so much safer than
Speaker 1: it used to be.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 1: It's as bad as it ever has been. Because we
Speaker 1: don't want to do anything about the open air drug
Speaker 1: den I don't know why this is such a uniquely
Speaker 1: California problem.
Speaker 2: Well I do.
Speaker 1: Prop forty seven has a lot to do with it,
Speaker 1: and Prop thirty six is not being properly funded. That
Speaker 1: being said, I don't care anymore if we're not funding
Speaker 1: the rehab aspect of it. Every single person who is
Speaker 1: sparkling up a meth pipe one provided to them by
Speaker 1: the City of Los Angeles needs to be arrested. Every
Speaker 1: single drug dealer there needs to be arrested. And we
Speaker 1: know where the gang members are, including the five that
Speaker 1: got shot a year ago.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: What are we doing? You know where all the crime is,
Speaker 1: but we're going to make sure we threaten to arrest
Speaker 1: the guy that wants to see what's in the lake.
Speaker 11: Well, Christine, we actually had to move our live shot
Speaker 11: further away from MacArthur Park because it wasn't safe there tonight.
Speaker 6: Whatever is in that lake remains a mystery.
Speaker 2: It's the Luckness Monster. I tell you.
Speaker 6: Sad sights and sounds of LA's MacArthur Park.
Speaker 1: It is the soundtrack to southern California. I know you
Speaker 1: thought it was k Earth one oh one.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 11: Sirens blaring, people passed out in open drug use in
Speaker 11: almost every direction.
Speaker 1: So mean, seriously, why are we inviting all of these
Speaker 1: major international events too, and some of them within close
Speaker 1: proximity to this hell hole of a park. Shouldn't be
Speaker 1: that should be a gem. And Unisy's Hernandez is an
Speaker 1: interesting case too, because she talks about MacArthur Park a lot,
Speaker 1: and she says, the big injustice with MacArthur Park isn't
Speaker 1: the drug dealing. It isn't the crime, It isn't the gangs,
Speaker 1: It isn't the selling of Social Security cards. No, it's
Speaker 1: that Wilshire Boulevard splits it in half, and we should
Speaker 1: close that.
Speaker 2: Because you know, too many cars.
Speaker 9: So many people.
Speaker 1: But you know what this is who votes in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and it is why I am actively thinking about getting out.
Speaker 1: You know, it was up to me, i'd be doing
Speaker 1: this show from Santa Fe this week. I would never
Speaker 1: come back, but I'd probably have to live in La
Speaker 1: County or southern California for quite a while. For the
Speaker 1: Bay Area, I cannot afford the Bay Area. I'd love
Speaker 1: to do, would love to be in the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: But actively I am thinking about leaving the city of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles because I'm out numbered with the amount of
Speaker 1: nonsense that participates in our elections. The other cities in
Speaker 1: La County are not this crazy Santa Monica. Outside of that,
Speaker 1: El Segundo, common sense, Burbank common sense, Calabasas Commons, Pasadena
Speaker 1: common sense.
Speaker 2: I gotta go.
Speaker 8: So many people come here to get high.
Speaker 6: At night, what kind of drugs do you see out here?
Speaker 5: A lot of like crystal fednah.
Speaker 6: Fox eleven excrusively.
Speaker 1: And when you hear Unisses talk about this park, she'll
Speaker 1: constantly talk about how this is the only green space
Speaker 1: in the most densely packed part of Los Angeles, which
Speaker 1: makes it an even bigger indictment that she doesn't want
Speaker 1: to clean it up?
Speaker 8: How dare you?
Speaker 1: And by the way, little history lesson for you. You
Speaker 1: know how MacArthur Park got to be so horrible over
Speaker 1: the last few years, it's because the open air drug
Speaker 1: scene used to be at MacArthur Park metro station, the
Speaker 1: scariest metro station in the entire city, maybe the whole world.
Speaker 1: And then news cameras from CBSLA and Fox eleven and
Speaker 1: NBC four and ABC seven got tips that they should
Speaker 1: go down there, they should see what's in that metro station,
Speaker 1: and it was everything that you're hearing about right now,
Speaker 1: but in this confined space that was supposed to be
Speaker 1: for public transit, and Metro got so embarrassed that they
Speaker 1: blasted loud classical music, they turned on the bright lights,
Speaker 1: they made it a one entry, one exit station, and
Speaker 1: they cleared everyone out of there, and where did they
Speaker 1: clear them to? Well, MacArthur Park, be Fox. It's pretty
Speaker 1: much this park is the LA equivalent of the third
Speaker 1: season of The Wire, where let's just push everything to
Speaker 1: this one awful neighborhood and they can just do whatever
Speaker 1: they want there. It's Hamsterdam all over again.
Speaker 11: Bet No Fox eleven exclusively walking to park Monday night
Speaker 11: with businessman John Alley. Okay, hours after LA park rangers
Speaker 11: threatened to arrest him for trying to use sonar in
Speaker 11: the park's wake core.
Speaker 1: This is an arrestable offense, but the illegal activity that
Speaker 1: goes on in that park every single day is not.
Speaker 1: That is everything you need to know about the city
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles.
Speaker 6: What were you thinking could be in there?
Speaker 9: Well, we've been told dead bodies.
Speaker 1: Not a laughing matter, But I mean at times like
Speaker 1: this you can't help but not laugh.
Speaker 11: Ali has helped relocate dozens of LA's homeless back to
Speaker 11: families out of state.
Speaker 1: If you ever want to, He's privately funding his own
Speaker 1: San Francisco Homeward Bound project.
Speaker 2: It's pretty cool.
Speaker 9: If you ever want to reunify with your family or hometown,
Speaker 9: but says recently, some have reached out searching for missing
Speaker 9: loved ones last scene near the park kids have gone missing.
Speaker 9: The police have been very helpful. They've said some of
Speaker 9: them could be in the water.
Speaker 1: And now that Ed Buck is in prison, we know
Speaker 1: they're not at his house.
Speaker 9: They've said some of them could be in the water,
Speaker 9: strapped to wheelchairs, bikes, wheels thrown in.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I can see why Karen Bass and Unissi's
Speaker 1: Hernandez do not want a sonar inside that lake. The
Speaker 1: corpses in that lake right now, and that won't look
Speaker 1: very good for re election season for Unisses or for
Speaker 1: Karen Bass, although.
Speaker 2: Who are we kidding? At this point, I think they're
Speaker 2: both gonna win.
Speaker 6: But park rangers shut down the operation before the sonar
Speaker 6: hit the water, instead giving the search team a parking
Speaker 6: ticket in a park plagued by crime.
Speaker 9: It's a devil standard. It's they don't want to ever
Speaker 9: face bad news.
Speaker 11: A spokesperson for councilwoman Unices Hernandez tells Fox eleven. Organizers
Speaker 11: were warned in advance that sonar could not be used
Speaker 11: without a permit.
Speaker 1: And do the meth heads have a permit for smoking
Speaker 1: on the park property? Do the people selling stolen social
Speaker 1: security numbers. Do they have a permit? How about all
Speaker 1: the illegal street vendors that are there. You know, the
Speaker 1: MacArthur Park is not only the LA equivalent of the tenderloin,
Speaker 1: it's also the LA equivalent of the Mission where, thanks
Speaker 1: to state law that was written by Ricardo Laura.
Speaker 8: I'm very kind of sketch.
Speaker 1: Lawn four cannot do anything about selling stolen goods because
Speaker 1: La County and San Francisco County opted into Ricardo Lara's law,
Speaker 1: which was some nonsensical thing to have to do with immigration.
Speaker 1: So public Health has to intervene when people are selling
Speaker 1: stolen goods at MacArthur Park, the same way public works
Speaker 1: has to intervene when people are selling stolen goods in
Speaker 1: the Mission.
Speaker 6: And this morning authorities stepped into.
Speaker 1: While we do this show, our two great cities are
Speaker 1: tied together by idiocy.
Speaker 11: And this morning authorities stepped in to stop the unpermitted operation.
Speaker 9: We were told we didn't need a permit, and we
Speaker 9: organized this six weeks ago.
Speaker 11: The park's surrounded by people who need help in a
Speaker 11: murky lake for now keeping its secrets.
Speaker 8: W greatcha know what's under it?
Speaker 1: As cond I mean they've only drawn more attention to
Speaker 1: the story by denying the sonar.
Speaker 11: John says he wants to work with the city to
Speaker 11: get that permit and get back out there. Forty lacksign
Speaker 11: Matthew or Fox lovenoos.
Speaker 1: So there you go. That is the latest from MacArthur Park.
Speaker 1: A complete embarrassment of every single level of government in
Speaker 1: the city of Los Angeles, even the police chief who
Speaker 1: says he's cracking down on crime. Great, we've arrested a
Speaker 1: few gang members, but we see it out there in
Speaker 1: the open every single day.
Speaker 2: Donna Summer, can you play us out?
Speaker 8: He's merton promising in the ray.
Speaker 1: Thanks Eily, and if you'd like to email us, you
Speaker 1: can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. That's Johnny. Don't like show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Justin writes in and says I cover this area and
Speaker 1: do real estate research. He sent picture it's like a monet.
Speaker 1: Looks good from a far but a total mess up close.
Speaker 1: There are zombies guarding every entrance to the park. It's dangerous.
Speaker 1: Avoid this area at all costs. Do not bring children.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Instagram for daily photos of La n
Speaker 1: Oc and you can follow him Justin pb Photography and
Speaker 1: I just did Cami Rights in at Johnny Don't Like
Speaker 1: show at gmail dot com. I'm MacArthur Park. This is
Speaker 1: what the athletes and the tourists for the Olympics need
Speaker 1: to know about. This is the real LA, not the
Speaker 1: shined up penny idiot Bass is trying to sell. LA
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve the Olympics. Please do a show on that.
Speaker 1: That's a great idea for a topic. By the way,
Speaker 1: I did this on my five o'clock show on KABC yesterday,
Speaker 1: which you could download the podcast at KABC dot com
Speaker 1: or search for the KABC News Blitz wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Do you know that caltrans is spending your
Speaker 1: taxpayer dollars to put up graffiti resistant ivy on the
Speaker 1: sides of the one to one Freeway in downtown LA?
Speaker 1: And because it's Coltrands, guess what the graffiti resistant ivy
Speaker 1: got tagged by graffiti.
Speaker 2: You can't make this up.
Speaker 1: The Fixed California Hour is coming up next, and oh boy,
Speaker 1: am I excited. One of my favorites is gonna join us.
Speaker 1: Marla Tea's anchor at Fox eleven. You'll hear her next.
Speaker 1: It's Randy Wang here on The John Phillips Show.