Speaker 1: The city Council might only give you sixty seconds to
Speaker 1: where your grievance is.
Speaker 2: Oh hi, i'd like to start go to the first
Speaker 2: caller on the phone.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're lucky, now we're giving you a full
Speaker 1: sixty minutes. It's a KABC News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 1: and our long recap of the day's top local stories
Speaker 1: on your drive home. And unlike the City Council, we're
Speaker 1: the perfect vehicle to actually get your voice heard. The
Speaker 1: KABC News Blitz with Randy Wang starts no, no, No.
Speaker 3: It is the News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk
Speaker 3: Radio seven ninety KABC. This is your daily rundown of
Speaker 3: everything you need to know that's going on in southern
Speaker 3: California as well as the Bay Area, Sacramento, San Diego,
Speaker 3: and the Central Valley.
Speaker 2: I carry a list every.
Speaker 3: Single morning of all the stories that I found that
Speaker 3: I found interesting that you may have missed at Randywangradio
Speaker 3: dot substack dot com. And we have made it even
Speaker 3: easier to find all of our video content. Just go
Speaker 3: to Johnny don't Like dot com or Randy Wangradio dot com.
Speaker 3: It sends you to the exact same YouTube channel. And
Speaker 3: we announced our brand new soundboard, cashier is dummy dot com,
Speaker 3: where you can play all the silly sound drops that
Speaker 3: you hear on this radio station for free. Cashier is
Speaker 3: dummy dot com. Let's start with this ridiculous story in
Speaker 3: downtown LA near the Orphium Theater, which I think I've
Speaker 3: been to the Orpheum Theater once and it was for
Speaker 3: a cat convention.
Speaker 2: I'm not totally sure why I went.
Speaker 3: I think I went just to because this is when
Speaker 3: I was hosting a podcast and I would just do things,
Speaker 3: just say that I did stuff on the weekend. So
Speaker 3: my weekend recap episodes weren't just well, I played a
Speaker 3: lot of Xbox three sixty and complained how I didn't
Speaker 3: have a date, although I'm sure a lot of my
Speaker 3: own podcast episodes were that. But CBSLA captured quite a
Speaker 3: wild scene outside of the Orphium Theater, and this is
Speaker 3: something that you see not just at the Orphium, but
Speaker 3: something that you see at so many different venues in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles where even though there's supposed to be different rules,
Speaker 3: there's supposed to be different regulations for things that you're
Speaker 3: not really supposed to be doing out in the open. Well,
Speaker 3: people seem to not care, and they actually get offended
Speaker 3: if you complain about it.
Speaker 2: What was the scene out there?
Speaker 3: People standing outside the Orpheum Theater for whatever concert was
Speaker 3: going on inhaling big old balloons.
Speaker 2: That's right, whippets.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if you have seen this, or
Speaker 3: maybe you didn't even know what was going on. About
Speaker 3: about a year and a half ago, I went to
Speaker 3: one of the best concert I've ever been to in
Speaker 3: my life, the Willie Nelson ninetieth Birthday celebration at the
Speaker 3: Hollywood Bowl. Might have been over two years ago now.
Speaker 3: We went both nights. It was one of the coolest
Speaker 3: things I've ever seen. But I always have this memory
Speaker 3: sticking out in me going to the Hollywood Bowl for
Speaker 3: that event because as we were walking down Highland because
Speaker 3: I think one of the nights we parked at Hollywood
Speaker 3: and Highland and then took the shuttle because the first
Speaker 3: time we parked on Ventura Boulevard and took the shuttle,
Speaker 3: and the shuttle took so long it got stuck in traffic.
Speaker 3: It was trying to make that left turn on Kowanga
Speaker 3: and it just was not happening. So we're like, all right,
Speaker 3: let's try Hollywood and Highland, maybe that will be better.
Speaker 3: Of course, the thing with Hollywood and Highland is you
Speaker 3: can take the shuttle, but you can also just hoof
Speaker 3: it down there. And I remember seeing all of these guys.
Speaker 3: Of course, you have your hot dog cart, and I'm
Speaker 3: sure in some of those hot dog carts someone's selling
Speaker 3: a beer even though they're not supposed to, because they're
Speaker 3: really not supposed to be selling the hot dogs either,
Speaker 3: but nobody stops that.
Speaker 2: But I saw all of these people.
Speaker 3: Selling big clear balloons, you know, not like mylar balloons
Speaker 3: for somebody's birthday, but big clear balloons.
Speaker 2: Like what is that?
Speaker 3: And then when I realized what that was, I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: So we've come to this and it's happening out and
Speaker 3: open in front of all kinds of different concert halls.
Speaker 3: Some people like to get a little drink gone before
Speaker 3: the show. Some people like to get a little smoke
Speaker 3: gone before the show. Hey, and I'm not knocking it.
Speaker 3: I was one of those people that thought it would
Speaker 3: be really cool to bring a joint to the Hollywood
Speaker 3: Bowl and smoke that joint while I was seeing earth
Speaker 3: wind and fire fireworks. In fact, you know what, I
Speaker 3: also remember, I remember going to the Greek Theater and
Speaker 3: going to see Steely Dan in twenty fourteen, and let's
Speaker 3: just say you didn't need to bring anything, because if
Speaker 3: you were going to see Steely Dan at the Greek
Speaker 3: Theater in twenty fourteen, there were joints getting passed around
Speaker 3: from every which direction. But I don't know, maybe I'm
Speaker 3: just a prude.
Speaker 2: There seems to be.
Speaker 3: A slight difference from the people that are drinking wine,
Speaker 3: beer or spirits, the people smoking pot, and the people
Speaker 3: inhaling nitrous oxide before they go to a show. Maybe
Speaker 3: I'm just old fashioned. Maybe I just don't understand it.
Speaker 3: But it's something by the way that while pot is
Speaker 3: legal and drinking is legal, although openly drinking in the
Speaker 3: middle of the street isn't. Nitrous oxide use outside of
Speaker 3: medical use, like if you're at the dentist is not legal,
Speaker 3: and yet it doesn't stop anybody from doing it, because
Speaker 3: when the CBSLA camera is pulled up on this scene
Speaker 3: of people just inhaling nos balloons outside of the Orpheum Theater,
Speaker 3: they got threatened by those people who then decided, you
Speaker 3: know what, let's go do the live shot a mile away,
Speaker 3: and law enforcement, where are they with this. I mean,
Speaker 3: I know it's a low priority thing, but when you
Speaker 3: have no enforcement, that means that everything is to fact illegal.
Speaker 3: Now let's move on to just kind of a sign
Speaker 3: of the times. Look, things are expensive. If you live
Speaker 3: in a big city like Los Angeles, and things are
Speaker 3: only getting more expensive, housing costs only go up in
Speaker 3: one direction, and if your income is not also going
Speaker 3: up in that same direction at the same rate, it
Speaker 3: might be time for you to realize that there is.
Speaker 2: Value in taking some.
Speaker 3: Of the space that you have, cutting it in half,
Speaker 3: getting a little roommate. And currently there's a new trend
Speaker 3: in getting roommates. It's something called speed roommting, where you
Speaker 3: go to an event like you're going to a speed
Speaker 3: dating event for singles, but you're not there to hook up,
Speaker 3: although you know some guys are doing that. You know,
Speaker 3: some guys are going to these things thinking that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm looking for a roommate, but really they're trying to
Speaker 3: pick up on somebody because young guys are stupid. I know,
Speaker 3: I was a young guy and I was stupid. But
Speaker 3: it's kind of a cool idea where the whole process
Speaker 3: of you know, putting out an ad going down apartments
Speaker 3: dot com. I don't know craigslist. I mean asking a
Speaker 3: friend of a friend. You go to an event with
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of like minded individuals who all are
Speaker 3: looking for someone to have a place to live, and
Speaker 3: you quickly realize in fifteen minutes, can you vibe with
Speaker 3: this person? Can you not vibe this person? And I
Speaker 3: think that's really great. I think that is smart. And
Speaker 3: you know, as things do get more expensive, if you
Speaker 3: can deal with living somebody, that's a huge deal.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Look, I have lived alone, I have lived with roommates,
Speaker 3: I have lived with my spouse.
Speaker 2: I know there are.
Speaker 3: Pros and cons to all of these things, and whether
Speaker 3: it's a good roommate or not really tells you everything
Speaker 3: you need to know. But the thing it's funny is
Speaker 3: even when they are the best roommate, there's still some
Speaker 3: things about living alone that are just that are just
Speaker 3: so special that everyone needs to do it once, but
Speaker 3: don't do it for that long because when you live alone.
Speaker 3: For as long as I lived alone, and I meant
Speaker 3: alone alone, I mean I had people that would come
Speaker 3: over because I was almost on a podcast out of
Speaker 3: my studio apartment, but I didn't have any pets, I
Speaker 3: wasn't really dating anybody, and uh, I would get real
Speaker 3: stoned by myself and do nothing but eat and feel
Speaker 3: sorry for myself. Then I got a cat, and uh
Speaker 3: out magically, It's like I opened all the world into
Speaker 3: my life. And just a couple months later, I met
Speaker 3: my girlfriend, who then became my wife. So but you know,
Speaker 3: in the times where I even was living with my wife,
Speaker 3: we had roommates, and I've had really good roommates, and
Speaker 3: I've had roommates from hell. Even in the best of situations,
Speaker 3: there's tiny little things that will always irritate you. And
Speaker 3: unlike a spouse, you cannot solve these situations with sex.
Speaker 3: You have to have the uncomfortable conversations or you just
Speaker 3: ignore it because it's not worth having the conversation. Like
Speaker 3: I was living, we had somebody staying with us very
Speaker 3: recently for a few months because you know, we're nice
Speaker 3: like that, and we have the extra bedroom and the
Speaker 3: tiny little is little thing we get on my nerves.
Speaker 3: But I was never enough of a thing where I
Speaker 3: wanted to bring it up, because well, I'm not confrontational
Speaker 3: and I don't want things to be awkward. But It
Speaker 3: would bother me when I would put my keys on
Speaker 3: my key ring and the person that was living with
Speaker 3: us would put their keys on my key ring right
Speaker 3: on top of my keys. Too small to care about,
Speaker 3: but it was like, what's that about. Also, this person
Speaker 3: would not fill up the britta. They would drink from
Speaker 3: the britta, but they would not.
Speaker 2: Fill the brita.
Speaker 3: These are very small complaints, and I never really said
Speaker 3: anything because I felt like I have it good.
Speaker 2: I know it. Having a roommate from hell is like.
Speaker 3: At one point I was living with somebody who, well,
Speaker 3: you couldn't keep booze in the house because they would
Speaker 3: drink it. If you get wine, they wouldn't take that,
Speaker 3: but if you had any spirits in the house, they'd
Speaker 3: be gone. At the time, I was a pot smoker
Speaker 3: and I was trying to cut down and this person
Speaker 3: liked to go at my stash all the time. And
Speaker 3: one time I kind of got sick of it, and
Speaker 3: so I hid my stash and said, oh, I'm not
Speaker 3: doing that anymore, and I got revenged upon. This person
Speaker 3: that I was living with got so mad at me
Speaker 3: for hiding my pot from her.
Speaker 2: This is a true story.
Speaker 3: They unplugged my stand up outdoor pool that I had
Speaker 3: that summer. Unplugged it, so the filter stopped working, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, about a day and a half later,
Speaker 3: without me realizing it, my pool that I had loved
Speaker 3: all summer long had turned green, and there was no
Speaker 3: amount of shock treatment that could have made that any better.
Speaker 3: I ended up having to get rid of the pool,
Speaker 3: and well, a few months later we decided to change
Speaker 3: that living situation.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's funny.
Speaker 3: I think about it all the time about how we
Speaker 3: have extra space here and we should be It's nice
Speaker 3: to have a guest room. I'm using up my guest
Speaker 3: room this week, my sister in law staying with me.
Speaker 3: But for the most part, it's like we have an
Speaker 3: extra room that we almost never use and we should
Speaker 3: be using it because, you know.
Speaker 2: We could.
Speaker 3: You know, sure, we can make a little money off
Speaker 3: of it, but also it would give somebody a place
Speaker 3: to live that's decent, and we wouldn't charge that much.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Part of me.
Speaker 3: Loves just me and my wife and our pets, but
Speaker 3: there are some benefits to having a roommate or a
Speaker 3: shared living situation and pets being one of them. You know,
Speaker 3: when we lived with roommates, including that roommate from Hell,
Speaker 3: there were positives. We could go on vacation and we
Speaker 3: could leave the dogs there, and we trusted that person
Speaker 3: with that. So there are benefits. You know, when we
Speaker 3: had this person staying with us for six months, I
Speaker 3: didn't have to bug my neighbors to watch my cat
Speaker 3: because the person staying in the other room could watch
Speaker 3: the cat. So there are some benefits. But I like
Speaker 3: the idea of the speed roommting. You have to find
Speaker 3: your match. It's only going to get more expensive to
Speaker 3: live here, so and you know what's funny is the
Speaker 3: biggest growing demographic of people looking for roommates are seniors,
Speaker 3: are older people, and I understand that, especially if you're
Speaker 3: on a fixed income and you don't want to leave.
Speaker 3: Maybe your family still here and they don't want to
Speaker 3: put you up and they don't want to do a
Speaker 3: granny flat. Maybe getting a roommate is the right thing
Speaker 3: to do, and if you're a certain age, you probably
Speaker 3: feel like you can trust the person a little more.
Speaker 3: I don't know, could also have a real odd couple
Speaker 3: situation going on. It's the news blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 3: on talk radio seven ninety KABC. It's the News Blitz
Speaker 3: with Randy Wang on Talk radio seven ninety KABC. It
Speaker 3: is getting a lot more expensive to be a small
Speaker 3: business owner in the state of California, and that is
Speaker 3: because medical insurance costs are increasing, not just for the payer,
Speaker 3: but also for the employer because that's how our system works.
Speaker 3: Employers have to pay into this system, which I hate that.
Speaker 3: It really the the I can't stand our current system.
Speaker 3: I don't know if there is a better way, but
Speaker 3: I hate that your healthcare is tied to your employment, unless,
Speaker 3: of course, your destitute and then you qualify for the
Speaker 3: best healthcare medical It's just our system doesn't make a
Speaker 3: whole lot of sense. And part of the reason that
Speaker 3: the rates are going up is because Gavin Newsom has
Speaker 3: passed on new increases too. What employers are paying and
Speaker 3: it's already so difficult to operate a small business in
Speaker 3: the state of California. And you look at how much
Speaker 3: we have to pay, or you have to pay. I'm
Speaker 3: not a small business owner, I'm a employee and I
Speaker 3: guess a content creator whatever that means. But you have
Speaker 3: to pay so much in payroll taxes. It increased amount
Speaker 3: in payroll taxes because the state of California still hasn't
Speaker 3: paid back the federal government for the loan they took
Speaker 3: out for unemployment money that went out the window to fraud.
Speaker 3: But our healthcare system is so expensive and the coverage
Speaker 3: that people get. I know people who have employer based
Speaker 3: healthcare where they're so afraid to use it, to even
Speaker 3: go for a checkup because they don't know what anything
Speaker 3: is going to cost. Even if there's medication that they need,
Speaker 3: they don't want it. They don't feel like they know
Speaker 3: it will cost, so they're afraid to do it. I
Speaker 3: think that I'm supposed to have pretty good health care
Speaker 3: where I have low premiums with my union health care,
Speaker 3: but it's not great.
Speaker 2: I used to be.
Speaker 3: When I'd go to get a physical, I would pay
Speaker 3: the twenty dollars Copey or I think when I first
Speaker 3: got SAG after insurance, I didn't pay any Copey and
Speaker 3: then all right, I got my physical.
Speaker 2: Now when I get a physical, I.
Speaker 3: Get nickel and dime for every single blood test, every
Speaker 3: single one, I get some twelve dollars charge from some
Speaker 3: company called lab Corp.
Speaker 2: And if you're an updateate on those.
Speaker 3: They will send you the most amount of mail you
Speaker 3: have ever seen to get ten dollars out of somebody
Speaker 3: when it's like, send me an email. So I don't
Speaker 3: love it, but gosh, we just make it harder and
Speaker 3: harder and harder. And for the employee too, our system sucks,
Speaker 3: you know. I remember being a part time employee when
Speaker 3: I was working at a different radio station, KAFIVE. I
Speaker 3: was a part time employee right around the time that
Speaker 3: the Affordable Care Act passed. And look, there are some
Speaker 3: very good things about the Affordable Care Act. There are
Speaker 3: some very dumb things about the Affordable Care Act. But
Speaker 3: one of the things that personally screwed me over. Now,
Speaker 3: I was somebody that was paying my own health care
Speaker 3: because I thought Kaiser was better than whatever planned clear
Speaker 3: Channel was going to give out. And I think I
Speaker 3: was paying like two hundred dollars a month or something. Well,
Speaker 3: the Affordable Care Act passes, and it says that any
Speaker 3: employee working more than twenty hours a week, you have
Speaker 3: to provide them healthcare. And this was true for a
Speaker 3: lot of employers, whether it's small businesses that just can't
Speaker 3: afford it or very greedy corporations like the one I
Speaker 3: used to work for. They just decided, all right, nobody's
Speaker 3: working more than twenty hours a week, so now you're
Speaker 3: going to make three hundred dollars a week. Great, and
Speaker 3: two hundred dollars a month that that's going to go
Speaker 3: to healthcare.
Speaker 2: Great. And I still didn't make it.
Speaker 3: I still made too much money to qualify for food stamps,
Speaker 3: which if I had that, that would have been six
Speaker 3: hundred dollars a month that could have spent on McDonald's.
Speaker 2: But no, didn't qualify for that either.
Speaker 3: It's just our whole system is a mess, and I
Speaker 3: don't think it's getting any better any time soon. Hey,
Speaker 3: I've got something exciting for you. Let's get this out
Speaker 3: of the way right now. Seven ninety KABC welcomes. Oh,
Speaker 3: it's a big one. Get ready The Gypsy Kings featuring
Speaker 3: Nicholas Reyes at the Greek Theater on August seventh, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty six.
Speaker 2: Now, that's gonna be a great show. Can I call
Speaker 2: in for that?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm allowed to.
Speaker 3: If you're an employee of the company, you can't win
Speaker 3: the contest. Tickets are on sale now at ticketmaster dot com,
Speaker 3: but right now, caller number nine at one eight eight
Speaker 3: eight seven ninety five two two two gets a pair
Speaker 3: of tickets to the show. Tickets furnished by Nita Lander Concerts.
Speaker 3: Good luck dialing. You know, we're doing this show for
Speaker 3: you every single day, but if you ever miss part
Speaker 3: of the show, we podcast and if you want to
Speaker 3: watch what we're doing, I post video of every single
Speaker 3: show that we do here with the Newsplitz. And of
Speaker 3: course we have so much video content for you that
Speaker 3: you can watch on our YouTube channel, which I bought
Speaker 3: a domain so it's easier for everyone to find. You
Speaker 3: can just go to Johnny don't Like dot com or
Speaker 3: Randy Wang Radio dot com. Either one will be fine,
Speaker 3: and you go right there. You can see all the
Speaker 3: clips that we have from the noon to three show,
Speaker 3: the full live stream, and I put video of every.
Speaker 2: Single one of these shows.
Speaker 3: And so in case you want to see me delivering
Speaker 3: the news right to you, it's like we're at.
Speaker 2: A speed dating situation. You can enjoy that.
Speaker 3: It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk Radio
Speaker 3: seven ninety KABC. It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 3: on Talk Radio seven ninety KABC. This is your daily
Speaker 3: rundown of everything you need to know that's going on
Speaker 3: in southern California as well as the Bay Area, Sacramento,
Speaker 3: San Diego, and the Central Valley. Check out my list
Speaker 3: that I put together every single day at Randywangradio dot
Speaker 3: substack dot com and check out all our video content
Speaker 3: at Randywangradio dot com or Johnny don't like dot com.
Speaker 3: I bought both domain names and they go to the
Speaker 3: exact same place. Our next guests are trying to raise
Speaker 3: the alarm potentially very dangerous development going on in the
Speaker 3: Woodland Hills area in the Santa Monica Mountains. There are
Speaker 3: two volunteers from the Woodland Hills Neighborhood Collective. I'd like
Speaker 3: to welcome to the show Alison Charle Lambis and Matt Heise.
Speaker 3: Let me just put you both on here. Allison and Matt,
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Hello, Hello, thanks so much for having us on.
Speaker 3: Why don't you go ahead and tell us about the
Speaker 3: situation that's going on here and what are your big concerns,
Speaker 3: like give an overview for anyone that doesn't know about
Speaker 3: this situation.
Speaker 4: Definitely already this development really should scare anyone who lives
Speaker 4: in a fire zone, not just us. A developer is
Speaker 4: applying to put three hundred and ninety eight high density
Speaker 4: condo units on the Wooden Hills country Club golf course,
Speaker 4: which is inside a canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Speaker 4: Right now, it's ninety acres of brush in a very
Speaker 4: high fire severity zone. We were evacuated from the Pali
Speaker 4: States fire and homeowners here can't even get fire insurance.
Speaker 4: The developers are not asking permission. They're using new state
Speaker 4: law AB twenty eleven and others to make ministerial or
Speaker 4: to get ministerial approval for this project, which means no
Speaker 4: environmental review, no fire department input, no hearing, not even
Speaker 4: the city council can weigh in. And I'm happy to
Speaker 4: get into the details of how they did it because
Speaker 4: this really affects neighborhoods all over Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, please do, because you know, with all of
Speaker 3: the reforms that we've made over the years, you would
Speaker 3: think that, especially when you're building in a fire zone,
Speaker 3: that's exactly when you would want an environmental review or
Speaker 3: to use the California Environmental Quality X. So, how exactly
Speaker 3: did this developer skirt all of that.
Speaker 4: You would think that that would all be included in
Speaker 4: the law, but there's loopholes and these developers know them.
Speaker 4: In this case, AB twenty eleven says that you can
Speaker 4: build on any commercial corridor. Now, this isn't a commercial corridor.
Speaker 4: It's a golf course in the mountains, but it is
Speaker 4: agriculture land zoned as open space. And according to LA
Speaker 4: Planning Code, you can park a car on agricultural land
Speaker 4: if you have a permit, and parking counts as commercial.
Speaker 4: So the whole golf course is now a commercial corridor
Speaker 4: and the entire development can get approved by right. There's
Speaker 4: been so many additions to these laws to make more
Speaker 4: and more areas considered commercial just based off the width
Speaker 4: of the road or the fact that there's a restaurant
Speaker 4: on the golf course. Boom. Now suddenly you can build
Speaker 4: five story condo buildings by in a neighborhood where the
Speaker 4: roads are as little as nine feet wide.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, and I got to imagine. The immediate concerns
Speaker 3: are emergency axs. Like you said, we just lived through
Speaker 3: the Palisades fire. This is a part of the valley
Speaker 3: that has dealt with a lot of horrific fires in
Speaker 3: the past. I mean, look at all the closures into
Speaker 3: Penga Canyon, Like what is the current access in and
Speaker 3: out of this area?
Speaker 4: So right now there's essentially two roads in and out,
Speaker 4: like one lane going each direction. And if a fire
Speaker 4: is coming from the Santa Monica Mountains towards the valley,
Speaker 4: you're going to be funneled into only those two roads.
Speaker 4: And right now there's about six hundred homes behind the
Speaker 4: golf course where the roads are as narrow as nine
Speaker 4: feet wide, and they need to evacuate past the golf course.
Speaker 4: Add a thousand more cars from all of these new
Speaker 4: condos that they're planning to build there. And again our
Speaker 4: city council member wrote to the governor called that a
Speaker 4: recipe for disaster.
Speaker 3: So your city councilman, which has turned out Bob Blumenfeld,
Speaker 3: he is not a big fan of this. I'm assuming
Speaker 3: from what you're putting down there.
Speaker 4: He Bob Bloomenfeld's extremely pro development, and frankly all of
Speaker 4: us are as well for that. I think our hankings
Speaker 4: over to Allison to talk about some of the community engagement,
Speaker 4: because Bompson is very involved in this project.
Speaker 2: Great Alison, let's hear from you, howdy.
Speaker 5: Thanks, thanks so much for having us on. Just a
Speaker 5: bit of background. I'm a born and bred Valley girl.
Speaker 5: My parents still own the house here in the Girard
Speaker 5: Track from seventy nine that they bought that I grew
Speaker 5: up in. And as you know, Randy, you're very familiar
Speaker 5: with all the development going on in the Warner Center,
Speaker 5: the rams Plaza. They just tore down the fancy mall
Speaker 5: of my childhood to bang a plaza.
Speaker 2: Right, well, they not to bang a plaza.
Speaker 5: Oh the promenade. Is that what we used to call it?
Speaker 5: I'm forgetting. I'm totally spacing now. But yeah. So since
Speaker 5: two thousand and eight, we've built twenty thousand homes and
Speaker 5: we are three times our share of this city housing target.
Speaker 5: And because I grew up here, I'm so excited about
Speaker 5: all that Warner Center development because there was nothing to
Speaker 5: do here in my childhood. I have to literally flee.
Speaker 5: I came back about fifteen years ago, excited to see
Speaker 5: the place changing and developing, but in the absolute appropriate areas.
Speaker 5: You see what's happening right now with Wistaria. They had
Speaker 5: to take out like a lane or two of Canoga
Speaker 5: Avenue north of the one AH one in order to
Speaker 5: let those construction trucks help help do that build there.
Speaker 5: The one on one is a nightmare to get off
Speaker 5: on and that's that right, there is a true commercial corridor.
Speaker 5: So in our case, you know, our council member sees
Speaker 5: that this is this development is highly inappropriate in the
Speaker 5: area that it's that it's seemed right. My son is
Speaker 5: ten years old. While I was afraid of earthquakes when
Speaker 5: I grew up, he's afraid of fires. He's had two
Speaker 5: he's had two school evacuations due to fires. So Bob
Speaker 5: has been very supportive of the community, looking for solutions,
Speaker 5: proposing motions, having public meetings where he's addressed the entire community.
Speaker 5: And so we're really proud of what Proba has done
Speaker 5: for us so far.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like he's on your side with this,
Speaker 3: but it also sounds like they're Usually, you know, the
Speaker 3: city council person and the city themselves they have like
Speaker 3: the final say on if these projects go forward or not.
Speaker 3: But because this project kind of went over the head
Speaker 3: of the city, I mean, what is the recourse to
Speaker 3: get at the very least a real environmental review done
Speaker 3: for this project, Like, what is your group trying to
Speaker 3: accomplish here.
Speaker 5: Well, we are trying to company. I'll let you go.
Speaker 4: Ahead, Matt, okay, great, thank you. Well. There are two tracks.
Speaker 4: One track is specifically for this project. How can we
Speaker 4: get this back into really a review process where the
Speaker 4: fire department and the city can get involved. And for that,
Speaker 4: there's two avenues that are really proving to be viable.
Speaker 4: One is the fact that this is wildlife habitats, a
Speaker 4: protected species. There's proven site is a video of mountain
Speaker 4: lions using this, and this is very close to the
Speaker 4: new one hundred million dollar mountain lion crossing that's being
Speaker 4: built over the one oh one. We're investing in protecting
Speaker 4: endangered species, and this would take almost one hundred acres
Speaker 4: of protective species off the map of those animals, and
Speaker 4: that is one of the exceptions to these laws. The
Speaker 4: other track, however, is really working with politicians to try
Speaker 4: to start to carve away at some of these exceptions,
Speaker 4: like we talked about like the commercial cord or work
Speaker 4: around the fact that if parking is permitted, the whole
Speaker 4: thing can be rezoned as commercial. And for that we're
Speaker 4: working with state and local resources, and again Allison has
Speaker 4: really been leading the charge on that.
Speaker 3: And what do you need right now from the community,
Speaker 3: like from people in Woodland Hills or in the greater
Speaker 3: San Fernando value that aren't aware of this. What do
Speaker 3: you want them to know and what do you need
Speaker 3: from them to show that there's more support for getting
Speaker 3: something done on this project.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So two things for our direct community who would
Speaker 5: be directly impacted by egress or evacuation issues here and
Speaker 5: in Gerrard track to sign up for our mailing list
Speaker 5: at whnighbors dot com. Okay, so they can stay abreast
Speaker 5: of things that we're doing to advocate both our city
Speaker 5: and state representative, and just stay informed on how things
Speaker 5: are going. In general. If we can push this into
Speaker 5: a full review, we will need full community support to
Speaker 5: show up to all of those SEQL events for them
Speaker 5: to voice their opinion more broadly in the LA area.
Speaker 5: If you live also in a hillside community or even
Speaker 5: if you live within this region, a development like this
Speaker 5: will impact your insurance rates and even if you're a renter,
Speaker 5: your landlord's going to pass that cost over onto you.
Speaker 5: So I do think that all should be cognizant, especially
Speaker 5: those in the hillside communities, because we are the canary
Speaker 5: in the coal mine. If this gets to pass l
Speaker 5: Cab over there in Nsino, you know, also a hillside
Speaker 5: community and a golf course something like this could happen
Speaker 5: in El Cab right there. And then separately, you know,
Speaker 5: we've been attacked by the represented by the developers as
Speaker 5: not being pro affordable housing, But it's not. When you're
Speaker 5: going to bring in ninety five units of individuals for
Speaker 5: affordable housing and they may not be able to be
Speaker 5: their homes and may not be able to be insured,
Speaker 5: how is that being supportive of affordable housing If they
Speaker 5: come in an insurance company says, just like an insurance
Speaker 5: company is said to me and many of my neighbors,
Speaker 5: sorry you're canceled, or sorry you're doubled, or sorry you
Speaker 5: got to go onto California Fair Plan. How is that
Speaker 5: going to be supportive of an individual on fixed income?
Speaker 5: How is the senior community who's going to need more
Speaker 5: time to be able to escape in an emergency? Why
Speaker 5: would you put them directly into a fire zone. So,
Speaker 5: either way, whether you're direct community member impacted or you're
Speaker 5: somebody in the vicinity whnighbors dot com.
Speaker 3: Whnighbors dot com is the website. Last question before you go,
Speaker 3: and you can both address this if you want. What
Speaker 3: would you say to people that are listening to this
Speaker 3: and think, well, I understand your concerns, but California is
Speaker 3: in a housing crisis and this sounds like nimbiism?
Speaker 2: What would you say to that, I can jump on that.
Speaker 4: So our neighborhood, Wilden Hills is second only to downtown
Speaker 4: Los Angeles and building new housing and building new housing
Speaker 4: has been done by concentrating in sure commercial areas walking
Speaker 4: distance to shopping and restaurants, and the mass transit system
Speaker 4: that has been expanded through the West Valley. Wilden Hills
Speaker 4: Neighbors has advocated in support of these projects. There's almost
Speaker 4: ten thousand units within a mile of where we live
Speaker 4: being built. Point is exactly again, ware from an environmental perspective,
Speaker 4: is an area that can support that density in a
Speaker 4: safe way and protect all residents rather and that point
Speaker 4: of sequel. The point of the environmental review process is
Speaker 4: to answer those questions, and the developers are just shortcutting
Speaker 4: around it and trying to really skip to the end.
Speaker 3: Matt Heise and Alison Charambalis, you can get them at
Speaker 3: whnighbors dot com. If you want to learn more about
Speaker 3: this and you want to get involved at whnighbors dot com.
Speaker 3: Matt and Allison, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 3: today and letting everyone know about this.
Speaker 5: Randy, thanks so much, so much.
Speaker 3: It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk Radio
Speaker 3: seven ninety KABC. It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 3: on Talk radios KABC. If you'd like to send me
Speaker 3: an email, you can do so at Randy Wangradio at
Speaker 3: gmail dot com. Judy writes in on the concept of
Speaker 3: speed room mating. I am seventy seven and absolutely have
Speaker 3: no interest in getting a roommate after watching Squatter Hunter.
Speaker 3: There's no way I would let anyone other within family
Speaker 3: live with me. That is an issue, and that is
Speaker 3: definitely something that would be especially if you own the
Speaker 3: house and you're looking at renting out one of your rooms. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that could be an issue. Now, if you're renting and you,
Speaker 3: you know, are trying to split the rent with somebody,
Speaker 3: then you're not the one taking on that risk. But yes,
Speaker 3: if you're the homeowner, that's definitely a concern, especially in
Speaker 3: the state of California, as we have done a lot
Speaker 3: of squatter stories lately, although family could also decide to
Speaker 3: not pay you rent and then screw you over and
Speaker 3: refuse to leave. So be careful when it comes to
Speaker 3: the box office. This weekend, The Odyssey dominates two weeks
Speaker 3: in a row with ninety million dollars. Mawana comes in second,
Speaker 3: they've got ten million dollars, and then Haities Town. I
Speaker 3: guess they did a pro shot of Hadestown, which that's great.
Speaker 3: I saw Haiti's Town last year when it was at
Speaker 3: the Pantagious, and it was a lot of fun. I
Speaker 3: don't know which cast was done in the pro shot.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was the Broadway cast, but I'd love to
Speaker 3: see who did Hades, because usually Hades is a real
Speaker 3: baritone voice and it's a it's a good time toy
Speaker 3: Story five is coming in at fourth place. It's made
Speaker 3: four hundred and forty eight million dollars so far. Minions
Speaker 3: and Monsters, Okay, I think the Minions franchise is going
Speaker 3: through an era of diminishing returns. They made nine million
Speaker 3: dollars a total of one hundred and fifty five million,
Speaker 3: but I think that's domestic because worldwide those movies do
Speaker 3: really well because it's very easy to tran late a
Speaker 3: Minions movie because they're all just speaking gibberish evil dead
Speaker 3: Burne in sixth place, the Invite in seventh, Young Washington
Speaker 3: and eighth, Motor City in ninth, and Obsession is still
Speaker 3: in the top ten. It has made two hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty one million dollars on a budget of like what
Speaker 3: under a million or something the YouTuber era of going
Speaker 3: to the movies. Now this weekend will be a big
Speaker 3: one for the box office because the Spider Man movie
Speaker 3: is here and people are very excited about it. As
Speaker 3: much as I felt like, okay, I'm kind of over
Speaker 3: all the Marvel stuff, I don't I haven't watched every
Speaker 3: single show, Believe you me. There was a time in
Speaker 3: COVID where they were overwhelming us with this stuff where
Speaker 3: I was caught up on all the shows. There's a
Speaker 3: few that I know they're out there, and I hear
Speaker 3: they're very good. But you know, I've got fifty hours
Speaker 3: of Love Island to watch on different continents.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: If you're just the USA Love Islander, okay, that's fifty hours.
Speaker 3: But then if you're also a UK Love Islander that's
Speaker 3: another fifty hours, and then if you're also at Australia
Speaker 3: Love Islander, that's fifty hours, and then you get to
Speaker 3: Love is Blind that's twelve hours two nice a year,
Speaker 3: and then Love is Blind UK that's another twelve hours
Speaker 3: once a year. Reality TV takes up a lot of
Speaker 3: our time, so I haven't cut up in all the
Speaker 3: Marvel shows. I think we're caught up in all the movies.
Speaker 3: But the hype is starting to come for the Spider
Speaker 3: Man movie, I'll tell you that, and specifically the Hall
Speaker 3: h experience. It did happen at Comic Con this weekend,
Speaker 3: and they could have saved a whole bunch of reveals
Speaker 3: for d twenty three, but they.
Speaker 2: Did it where.
Speaker 3: Really, you know, the big the big hype around the
Speaker 3: Avengers really started at Comicon at twenty twelve, So to
Speaker 3: see it all, come back there to see all the
Speaker 3: big announcements and the reveals. And Ryan Gosling is ghostwriter
Speaker 3: and Ryan Reynolds dressed up in a denim tuxedo version
Speaker 3: of Deadpool asking if he's in the movie.
Speaker 2: All right, you did it. I'm excited.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if I can talk to the
Speaker 3: wife into seeing that one in the theater. Spider Man,
Speaker 3: I can get away with because she's out of town,
Speaker 3: and I'll just watch it with her, you know, later
Speaker 3: when it comes out on whatever streaming service. I think
Speaker 3: they all come out on Disney Plus now, which would
Speaker 3: be great because as I'm doing an audit of what
Speaker 3: I actually am spending money on and what am I
Speaker 3: actually watching, I don't think I can count many things
Speaker 3: I've watched it all this year that I'm paying for
Speaker 3: in Disney Plus Now. It's bundled with Hulu and it's
Speaker 3: bundled with HBO Max, so it's a deal, and I'm
Speaker 3: currently getting it free because well the bundle's like thirty
Speaker 3: two dollars, but I'm using the wife's AMEX card which
Speaker 3: has the twenty five dollars entertainment credit, and then I'm
Speaker 3: using my own twenty five dollars entertainment credit for Peacock
Speaker 3: and for YouTube TV, because for some reason, Netflix doesn't qualify.
Speaker 3: Netflix I think is the only service I really have
Speaker 3: to pay for. But we get a lot of use
Speaker 3: out of that because there's a lot of reality television
Speaker 3: garbage out there. But yeah, of recent memory, maybe there's
Speaker 3: been a movie here or there. I don't think I've
Speaker 3: really watched anything on Disney Plus, and again I could.
Speaker 3: There are Marvel shows that I have yet to see
Speaker 3: that I'm by myself for the next few weeks. I
Speaker 3: could watch them now, but I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3: When I'm just me and the dog's home alone, I
Speaker 3: don't have a drive to really well, I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: watch anything serialized because well, I'll save that stuff for
Speaker 3: when my wife gets back, because we like to watch
Speaker 3: shows together. I don't really want to watch a movie
Speaker 3: by myself. I just get reacquainted with my Nintendo Switch,
Speaker 3: or I will watch it.
Speaker 2: I am the.
Speaker 3: Generation I watch so much content on YouTube, and I
Speaker 3: pay for YouTube Premium and it's like eighteen dollars a month,
Speaker 3: and I get every penny out of it because for
Speaker 3: as much as I watch, I.
Speaker 2: Never see an ad and I like that. I enjoy it.
Speaker 3: What do I watch on YouTube? You ask, Well, show
Speaker 3: prep during the morning, but at night it's a lot
Speaker 3: of like old school video game related content and people
Speaker 3: making reviews and documentaries about games I played twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: This is what I do with some of my free time. Hey,
Speaker 3: thanks so much for being a part of the show.
Speaker 3: We're here every single day from five to six, and
Speaker 3: you can watch it on demand at Randy Wangradio dot com.
Speaker 3: You'd also search for the KABC newsplits wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 3: But you know, I also listen to the stuff that
Speaker 3: I'm watching on YouTube. That's what I do all the time.
Speaker 3: Have a great rest of your Monday. See it tomorrow
Speaker 3: for another news Blitz with Randy Wang on KABCM.