Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: This is Michael Monks Reports. I'm Michael Monks from KFI News.
Speaker 2: We're with you tonight till nine o'clock on this beautiful
Speaker 2: first Saturday of Spring here in southern California. But we
Speaker 2: got some hot days ahead, way hotter than usual. Highs
Speaker 2: in the eighties on Monday and Tuesday around Metro La.
Speaker 2: Upper eighties, mid nineties in the San Gabriel Valley and
Speaker 2: the Anelope Valley, around ninety in the San Fernando Valley.
Speaker 2: In the Santa Clarita Valley, we'll see the mid eighties
Speaker 2: and the Santa Monica Mountains. Eighties inland Oc. I gotta
Speaker 2: get a place on the coast. It's seventy three, maybe
Speaker 2: seventy five at the beaches on Monday and Tuesday, so
Speaker 2: it's gonna feel like July everywhere else. But it is March,
Speaker 2: and the madness is here. Some teams already punch their
Speaker 2: ticket to the Sweet sixteen Michigan, Texas Tech, Arkansas Purdue.
Speaker 2: We're keeping an eye on this UCLA game right now.
Speaker 2: The Bruins are up eight to seven over Tennessee. Seated
Speaker 2: UCLA second seed to Tennessee. They've tipped off in Lexington, Kentucky,
Speaker 2: a little over fifteen minutes in the first half.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: We'll keep an eye on that game. My bracket was
Speaker 2: off to a good start. I've not done well today, though.
Speaker 2: How's your bracket? Have you been doing some cussing over it?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you where you'll need to be watching your mouth,
Speaker 2: and that is LA City Hall. Seven city council members
Speaker 2: have filed a motion to stop two words from being
Speaker 2: used during public comment periods. If you've ever watched a
Speaker 2: city council meeting in Los Angeles, you know the public
Speaker 2: comments are a vile display profanity, racism, sexism. It's the
Speaker 2: only time you might feel deep sympathy for a politician.
Speaker 2: Some of these speakers are regulars, they're at every meeting,
Speaker 2: including committee meetings, but they could be limited on what
Speaker 2: they say going forward. Listen to what the two words
Speaker 2: up for banning are. The N word and the C word.
Speaker 2: They are routinely hurled at LA City Hall at our
Speaker 2: elected officials, and those are, of course bad words. They're
Speaker 2: not the only bad words, but right now. This motion
Speaker 2: specifically targets those two words. We're going to go deeper
Speaker 2: into that next week. I'll have plenty of examples of
Speaker 2: these virable public comments, obviously with the edit button used frequently.
Speaker 2: But this story came down late Friday, so we'll gather
Speaker 2: some more details and see how that proceeds this week
Speaker 2: at city Hall in the coming week. But city Hall
Speaker 2: is an appropriate place to be using other bad words.
Speaker 2: I can tell you that the same way you might
Speaker 2: exclaim some profanities when maybe you open up a bill
Speaker 2: that's a billion times larger than you expected. If you
Speaker 2: haven't heard, the City of la is facing a one
Speaker 2: billion dollar budget deficit just in time to put a
Speaker 2: new budget together. So how does that happen? Well, As
Speaker 2: kfi's intrepid city Hall reporter, I'd like to put it
Speaker 2: into some context for you this hour. And first, I
Speaker 2: want to play a clip from a city council meeting
Speaker 2: just this week.
Speaker 4: This is on Tuesday.
Speaker 2: It may not sound that important, but I want you
Speaker 2: to listen because this is a theme that has played
Speaker 2: out all fiscal year.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, thank you for item thirty two in the
Speaker 3: case entitled Adam Hollins versus City of Los Angeles at all,
Speaker 3: there's a recommendation to expand up to six hundred seventy
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars in settlement. For item thirty three in
Speaker 3: the case entitle Stephanie Hernandez versus City of Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: that's all, there's a recommendation to expand up to two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars in six seventy five thirty
Speaker 3: four is in the case entitled Margarito ti Lopez AT's
Speaker 3: all versus the City of Los Angeles. That's all. There's
Speaker 3: a recommendation to expand up to eight million dollars million.
Speaker 3: For item thirty five in the case entitle Andrea Are
Speaker 3: not to burn versus City of Los Angeles, that's all,
Speaker 3: there's a recomvation to expend up to ninety five thousand
Speaker 3: dollars in settlement. And for item thirty six in the
Speaker 3: case entitled d'Artagnan Wallace versus City of Los Angeles, it's tall,
Speaker 3: there's a recomvation to expend up to one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars in settlement.
Speaker 1: So there you go.
Speaker 4: Just those items are now before us.
Speaker 5: Here they go listen to this close the role tabulate
Speaker 5: the vote.
Speaker 2: Twelve eyes, twelve eyes, just like that one fell swoop,
Speaker 2: no comments from any council members. They've approved more than
Speaker 2: nine million dollars of your money to be paid in
Speaker 2: legal settlements from people who have sued the city. Now,
Speaker 2: the bulk of that was one obviously, eight million dollars
Speaker 2: is the bulk of all of those. But it is
Speaker 2: routine to hear these settlements every week, coming down two
Speaker 2: fifty here, five hundred there, one point five here, a
Speaker 2: six million there. The city is hundreds of millions of
Speaker 2: dollars over budget this fiscal year in legal settlements alone.
Speaker 2: They are down with their sales revenue, they are down
Speaker 2: with their hotel tax, they are on with their business tax,
Speaker 2: they are down with their property tax. And by the way,
Speaker 2: one of their fancier neighborhoods burned at the ground in January.
Speaker 2: So that's how you add it up to about a
Speaker 2: billion dollars. There was a budget committee meeting right after
Speaker 2: that City council meeting, and there were twenty eight more
Speaker 2: lawsuits on the agenda to consider, so those will make
Speaker 2: their way to city council at some point for a
Speaker 2: full vote as well. The way it works is that,
Speaker 2: you know, the lawyers work out the deals and then
Speaker 2: they bring it to the Budget Committee for consideration. They
Speaker 2: usually meet behind closed doors in a closed session, and
Speaker 2: then they decide at council whether they will pay it.
Speaker 2: And typically the council president will ask the budget committee chairperson,
Speaker 2: is there anything we need to know? They usually say no,
Speaker 2: it's okay, We've gone through these, go ahead and vote
Speaker 2: on them, and that's it. More millions of your dollars
Speaker 2: are paid out. Now, Look, these are legal settlements. They've
Speaker 2: made their way through the court system. We can't dispute
Speaker 2: that somebody has claimed that they were wronged or that
Speaker 2: they hurt themselves. That eight million dollar lawsuit you heard
Speaker 2: was on behalf of a family who had a loved
Speaker 2: one killed by police and it was determined to be
Speaker 2: unjustified and that cost eight million dollars. We're going to
Speaker 2: spend this hour talking about how the city got here,
Speaker 2: and the mayor has come out with I guess the
Speaker 2: first page of a PowerPoint presentation on how we're going
Speaker 2: to address this, and I'm not sure that there's a
Speaker 2: lot of stock that we can put into that yet.
Speaker 2: Because I revisited her budget proposal from a year ago
Speaker 2: and pulled some comments and I'll want you to hear
Speaker 2: those to see how much trust we can put into that.
Speaker 2: The city Controller, Kenneth Mahea, he's all over this and
Speaker 2: this is what he told city council just this week when.
Speaker 5: It comes to the city's budget.
Speaker 2: We know we're in a structural deficit.
Speaker 6: But how did we get here.
Speaker 2: You know we didn't get here.
Speaker 3: We didn't have a COVID or global recession.
Speaker 4: This is something happening from the inside.
Speaker 2: It's coming from inside the house. I hate to be
Speaker 2: a guy since I told you so. I had Kenneth
Speaker 2: Mahia on this very program back in the fall. I
Speaker 2: had him on again a few weeks ago. I can't
Speaker 2: believe that this hasn't been front page news for months
Speaker 2: and months and months that the city was going broke.
Speaker 2: I'm harping on it constantly. It's shocking how much money
Speaker 2: is flying out of that building. That's why I hope
Speaker 2: you continue to listen to KFI AM six forty. It's
Speaker 2: what we've been talking about for months, and we're gonna
Speaker 2: dig into it deep again. This budget as proposed by
Speaker 2: Mayor Bass, it wasn't all rosy, but it wasn't supposed
Speaker 2: to end up like this, So we're going to talk
Speaker 2: more about all of that on Michael Monks Reports.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: Bruins down three right now to Tennessee and Lexington. Here
Speaker 2: in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Ruins at
Speaker 2: the line, see if they can cut into that score
Speaker 2: with a trip to the sweet sixteen on the line.
Speaker 2: Like so many of you, I just pulled up that
Speaker 2: bald eagle cam and big bear. I've been a little
Speaker 2: cynical about all of it, and I apologize, but it
Speaker 2: is quite lovely this evening. There's a beautiful little eaglet sleeping.
Speaker 2: You can see his little belly moving up and down.
Speaker 2: One of the parent eagles roosting, watching over the scenery,
Speaker 2: making sure there is no danger. As always, there's a
Speaker 2: pile of carnage off to the side. Bloody fish, some
Speaker 2: other furry animal that used to be living a fine
Speaker 2: life until he was caught in these talons and brought
Speaker 2: up to be eglet feed. Question for all of you
Speaker 2: eagle lovers out there, this crossed the wires. Today, a
Speaker 2: pet bird died and some others were injured during a
Speaker 2: shed fire and attic fire in the back of a house,
Speaker 2: and Van.
Speaker 4: Nys see a bunch of tweets or tiktoks about this pet.
Speaker 2: Bird was all there was on social media when we
Speaker 2: lost this poor eaglet last week.
Speaker 4: Hypocrites, all of you.
Speaker 2: There are more important things happening, of course, namely at
Speaker 2: Los Angeles City Hall, where I mean, for the first time,
Speaker 2: it felt like the seriousness of the situation was at
Speaker 2: least being presented to the city government. Now there were
Speaker 2: no actions taken, There weren't a lot of comments from
Speaker 2: your elected officials about the seriousness the gravity of the situation.
Speaker 2: But on two different days you had the City Controller's
Speaker 2: office deliver a presentation to the City Council, and the
Speaker 2: next day you had the city administrator basically read the
Speaker 2: obituary for the current fiscal year budget. I want you
Speaker 2: to first hear from Rick Cole, he works in the
Speaker 2: City Controller's office, laying out just how daunting of a
Speaker 2: task is ahead for the City of Los Angeles.
Speaker 6: This is a multi year challenge and it's a fiscal crisis.
Speaker 6: We're not alone. San Francisco is facing big shortfalls. San
Speaker 6: Diego is, but this is a fiscal crisis, and therefore
Speaker 6: it's important to recognize that all of the wisdom is
Speaker 6: not within the walls of city Hall, really the forty
Speaker 6: four departments other cities. There's a mentality in Los Angeles
Speaker 6: that says we can only learn from giant cities, and
Speaker 6: there's only two other giant cities, and they are so
Speaker 6: different from Chicago and New York that we can't learn
Speaker 6: anything from them. They have a different form of government,
Speaker 6: they have different demographics, they have different weather, And then
Speaker 6: we can't learn from smaller cities because they're smaller than us.
Speaker 6: And the reality is is that Los Angeles has struggled
Speaker 6: since the early nineties with finances, and it is important
Speaker 6: and not only learn from other cities, but from the
Speaker 6: private sector, from the nonprofit sector, from academics, and to
Speaker 6: think fresh about the future. This city is one of
Speaker 6: the most dynamic, diverse, and rich in talent cities on
Speaker 6: the planet, and we're going to have to draw upon
Speaker 6: that talent, that brain power, and that commitment from the
Speaker 6: stakeholders that the Controller has talked about. We've got to
Speaker 6: enlist labor. We've got to enlist business, We've got to
Speaker 6: enlist the nonprofit sector. We've got to most of all,
Speaker 6: enlist the people of Los Angeles in owning this problem
Speaker 6: and helping solve it.
Speaker 2: So it's all hands on deck from the City Controller's office.
Speaker 2: Everybody needs to get involved because the financial situation is
Speaker 2: so bleak in the City of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I want you to think about the city. If you're
Speaker 2: listening in San Bernardino, if you're listening in Riverside, if
Speaker 2: you're up in a Thousand Oaks, if you're in San Clemente,
Speaker 2: if you're an unincorporated La County, what's happening at Los
Speaker 2: Angeles City Hall could impact the entirety of Southern California.
Speaker 2: You've got to be honest, regardless of what you think
Speaker 2: about the politics or the homeless situation. It's the place,
Speaker 2: it's the most important place in Southern California, and it
Speaker 2: is in serious trouble, far more serious than we thought
Speaker 2: four months ago. And we thought it was pretty serious then,
Speaker 2: but it's only gotten worse. And if like me, you
Speaker 2: live in the City of Los Angeles and you look
Speaker 2: around and you see crumbling sidewalks, damaged streets, overgrown trees,
Speaker 2: graffiti everywhere, trash everywhere, Parks that you cannot use because
Speaker 2: they've been overrun by camps. And you think, what am
Speaker 2: I paying for? This is bad news because what you're
Speaker 2: paying for when you think about your neighborhood is what
Speaker 2: will be on the chomping block. First, City Administrator Matt
Speaker 2: Zabo also spoke to city council this week and finally
Speaker 2: there was some feeling of gravity in the room.
Speaker 4: That this is bad. This is what he told the
Speaker 4: city council.
Speaker 5: Therefore, the gap between anticipated revenues and planned expenditures for
Speaker 5: fiscal year twenty five twenty six is nearly one billion.
Speaker 4: Dollars a billion dollars.
Speaker 5: The proposed budget the mayor will deliver to this council
Speaker 5: in just over a month from today will close that gap,
Speaker 5: but it will require extremely difficult cost cutting decisions. The
Speaker 5: severity of the revenue decline paired with rising costs, has
Speaker 5: created a budget gap that may layoffs nearly inevitable. We
Speaker 5: are not looking at dozens or even hundreds.
Speaker 4: Of layoffs, but thousands.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 5: Layoffs may be necessary. It cannot and will not be
Speaker 5: the only solution, and I can tell you that the
Speaker 5: mayor is absolutely committed to preserving as many jobs in
Speaker 5: city services as possible as we face these economic headwinds.
Speaker 2: That is City Administrator Matt Zabo telling the city council
Speaker 2: that you have spent too much and we have not
Speaker 2: brought in enough revenue, and now, as he said, not dozens,
Speaker 2: not hundreds, but thousands of layoffs are possible. He also
Speaker 2: mentioned services that the mayor is committed to preserving services
Speaker 2: as much as she can. So think about layoffs in
Speaker 2: the public sector here. This isn't going to be faceless
Speaker 2: bureaucrats the way that you can brush off any cuts
Speaker 2: you've heard Doze doing out of Washington, Because it's probably
Speaker 2: not going to be police officers. It's probably not going
Speaker 2: to be the fire department, not after the political storm
Speaker 2: that we've been dealing with after the fires. So who
Speaker 2: are the people who will be on the chopping block
Speaker 2: should it come to this, and it looks like it will.
Speaker 2: The street sweepers, the animal shelter workers, the people who
Speaker 2: might wipe the occasional graffiti off of a downtown building,
Speaker 2: the people that you interact with as a citizen, the
Speaker 2: people whose services you rely on every day. And if
Speaker 2: you think service is bad now, this news is only
Speaker 2: going to make it worse.
Speaker 4: This is bad.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: You heard Matt and Zabo say that the mayor is
Speaker 2: committed to limiting the layoffs preserving services as much as
Speaker 2: she can. And it is true that Mayor Bass has
Speaker 2: released a few bullet points about what the plan is.
Speaker 2: We'll dive into those, but I'm also going to bring
Speaker 2: to your attention some of her comments from about one
Speaker 2: year ago when she was releasing this very budget that
Speaker 2: is now a billion dollars short, and we will compare
Speaker 2: what she said then to what we're dealing with now
Speaker 2: and put that into the context of whether we should
Speaker 2: feel good about what this plan is coming from the mayor.
Speaker 2: We're not just going to hear from the mayor. I
Speaker 2: want to hear from you too. You can always join
Speaker 2: our conversation here by opening up the iHeartRadio app, click
Speaker 2: on that talkback button, and we will play some of
Speaker 2: your comments. Why do you think we are in the
Speaker 2: financial mess in Los Angeles that we are?
Speaker 4: What do we need to do? Are you a.
Speaker 2: Resident of LA and are you concerned about potential service
Speaker 2: cuts and layoffs? Join our conversation that way, The Mayor's
Speaker 2: plan preview is coming up next here on Michael Monks Reports.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: We're notted up, We're tied UCLA twenty three, Tennessee twenty three.
Speaker 2: The spot in the sweet sixteen on the line there
Speaker 2: will keep you posted as that goes on. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: bigger fish to fry right here in LA with a
Speaker 2: billion dollar budget shortfall looming, just in time to craft
Speaker 2: next year's budget. Now, the way the budget works in
Speaker 2: the City of Los Angeles is the mayor creates a budget.
Speaker 4: This is the mayor's proposed budget.
Speaker 2: She's supposed to announce that next month, and then it
Speaker 2: goes to city Council and there is a committee of
Speaker 2: special hearings and all that.
Speaker 4: All the departments are paraded through.
Speaker 2: They make their case for how much money they need,
Speaker 2: which positions they should keep, and then the public gets
Speaker 2: the weigh in, and ultimately council will adopt a budget.
Speaker 2: The mayor is obviously aware now of I guess she
Speaker 2: got the text messages about the fiscal crisis and she
Speaker 2: sent out an image on her social media a New
Speaker 2: way of Budgeting. It's titled Mayor Bass has directed city
Speaker 2: officials to provide proposals in order to move the city forward.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind, this budget is supposed to come out
Speaker 2: in a few weeks. She has now directed city officials
Speaker 2: to provide proposals in order to move the city forward.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the six bullet points that
Speaker 2: she included, and then we're going to revisit her comments
Speaker 2: from a year ago when she released the budget that
Speaker 2: is now a billion dollars short. Priority Number one reduced
Speaker 2: liability costs. If you were listening at the top of
Speaker 2: the show, I played a clip from this week's city
Speaker 2: council meeting where they just vote for almost nine million
Speaker 2: dollars I think more than nine million dollars in lawsuit settlements,
Speaker 2: and the next day had twenty eight more on a
Speaker 2: committee agenda that will eventually make its way to a
Speaker 2: full vote. Hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and
Speaker 2: liability costs just this fiscal year.
Speaker 4: Since July.
Speaker 2: She says she wants to restructure departments and reassign city
Speaker 2: services to refocus the city's work on its most critical services.
Speaker 2: If you want to translate that, open up the iHeartMedia app,
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, sorry, and click on the talkback button. We're
Speaker 2: going to play some of those messages throughout the show.
Speaker 2: I want to hear your perspective as well on LA's
Speaker 2: financial situation. Step number three reduced departmental contract expenses. Step four.
Speaker 2: This is some wording that we need to pay attention
Speaker 2: to realize payroll.
Speaker 4: And benefit savings.
Speaker 2: That might be a fancy way of saying layoffs, but
Speaker 2: you also have to keep in mind there are public
Speaker 2: employees in the city who are in unions. Then they
Speaker 2: have contracts those may need to be renegotiated. There are
Speaker 2: some of those unionized public employees who are due to
Speaker 2: receive raises before this fiscal year is over. Will that
Speaker 2: be postponed? Step five is to preserve our reserve fund.
Speaker 2: The way the city council likes to set up a budget,
Speaker 2: I should say, the city administrator says five percent of
Speaker 2: the city's eight billion dollar budget should be in the reserve,
Speaker 2: and once it dips below five percent, they get a
Speaker 2: little nervous. Once it dips below three percent, they get
Speaker 2: really nervous. It's below two and a half percent, right, now,
Speaker 2: so they want to find a way to put more
Speaker 2: money into that. And the six point is to create
Speaker 2: structural reforms to enable ongoing budget balance in future fiscal years.
Speaker 2: So she has directed city officials to provide proposals on
Speaker 2: those six items. Hopefully those come in in time before
Speaker 2: her budget is released in April, and we will be
Speaker 2: there at that unveiling and we'll be talking about that now.
Speaker 2: A year ago, I was at City Hall when Mayor
Speaker 2: bas announced this budget, and I've got a few clips
Speaker 2: that I pulled from that press conference that I'd like
Speaker 2: to play for you, and we'll start with the first one.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 7: In the coming years, we know that we will face
Speaker 7: challenging times amid national, state and local economic uncertainty driven
Speaker 7: by broad economic trends and the coming national election. This
Speaker 7: budget continues our momentum toward change by prioritizing city services
Speaker 7: core city services, but using this as an opportunity as
Speaker 7: a reset, so that our budgets moving forward are more honest, transparent,
Speaker 7: and more focused on getting the job done for Angelino's.
Speaker 2: So, a year ago, the budget presented was supposed to
Speaker 2: be a reset, and she knew then that things were
Speaker 2: a little weird and the country as it relates to
Speaker 2: the economy. It's been a little uncertain. It's only gotten
Speaker 2: more so recently. Those were her remarks at city Hall
Speaker 2: for what her goals were with the budget, and in
Speaker 2: this next clip we'll hear her talk about ethical governance.
Speaker 7: Budget also invests in increased ethical governance and ensures the
Speaker 7: city he remains prepared to endure any uncertainties in the
Speaker 7: year ahead. We made difficult decisions in the process. One
Speaker 7: example is my own office budget is taking a ten
Speaker 7: percent cut. But we have learned that LA needs to
Speaker 7: change the way it budgets so that it is honest,
Speaker 7: transparent and delivers on the people's business. This is something
Speaker 7: the city Controller pointed out. And as soon as this
Speaker 7: budget assigned, we plan to really use this opportunity to
Speaker 7: make a strategic analysis, a comprehensive analysis of all city departments.
Speaker 2: So there she is saying that the budget she presented
Speaker 2: last year was supposed to be prepared for the uncertainty,
Speaker 2: and now that we are a billion dollars short. How
Speaker 2: would you grade that? iHeartRadio out. Click on that talkback
Speaker 2: button will play your messages as well. There's one last
Speaker 2: clip I want to play for you, and let's just
Speaker 2: hear it and I'll talk about it.
Speaker 7: We will begin preparing for next year's budget immediately after
Speaker 7: this year's budget assign so we can take advantage of
Speaker 7: these tough times to determine how departments can function in
Speaker 7: a more efficient and effective manner. And because we are
Speaker 7: expecting difficult times ahead, we are proactively creating a unit
Speaker 7: in the CEO's office to pursue grants that will help
Speaker 7: address these issues. One thing I learned in the years
Speaker 7: I spent in Congress was that Los Angeles leaves dollars
Speaker 7: on the table, and we're going to make sure that
Speaker 7: every dollar that could possibly come to LA, either from
Speaker 7: the public or private sector, we are able to capture.
Speaker 2: So the city last year was creating a budget that
Speaker 2: would be prepared for financial trouble in the fiscal year ahead,
Speaker 2: and then would immediately also start working on the budget
Speaker 2: that's supposed to be presented next month. And here we
Speaker 2: are a month out and the mayor says she has
Speaker 2: now directed city officials to provide proposals in order to
Speaker 2: fix this crisis. So it doesn't appear that the current
Speaker 2: budget was prepared as well as it should be for
Speaker 2: the uncertainty, and it doesn't appear that there was a
Speaker 2: lot of work done ahead of time on the budget
Speaker 2: that is supposed to be released next month. This is
Speaker 2: a very serious crisis and it will affect you, especially
Speaker 2: if you live in the city of Los Angeles. Keep
Speaker 2: in mind, this is a city that has some big
Speaker 2: events coming up, you know, the Olympics. How are we
Speaker 2: going to throw a party like that with no money.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about the Olympics in the next
Speaker 2: hour because our LA twenty eight committee folks were over
Speaker 2: in Greece presenting to the International Olympic Committee about where
Speaker 2: we stand, and they talk a bit about recovering from
Speaker 2: the wildfires and all that, but also how we'll be
Speaker 2: dealing with our traffic and the investments that the region
Speaker 2: has been making in Metro for example. It's gonna cost money.
Speaker 2: It doesn't look like we're gonna have any We're gonna
Speaker 2: continue to follow this just like we do every day
Speaker 2: here KFI Am six forty, and we'll take your comments
Speaker 2: as well on the iHeartRadio app. Click on the talkback button.
Speaker 2: We'll play some of those messages coming up next. There's
Speaker 2: one way that the city should be making money, and
Speaker 2: it does try.
Speaker 4: But even Los Angeles can't seem to get this right.
Speaker 2: They've managed to lose money on what is usually a
Speaker 2: gimme in the Revenue Department for Local governments.
Speaker 4: We'll talk about that next.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: It's halftime in Lexington, Kentucky. The Bruins are down seven,
Speaker 2: seven seeded UCLA trailing second seeded Tennessee thirty two to
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 3: Win.
Speaker 2: Are going to the Sweet sixteen, six seeded BYU just
Speaker 2: upset three seeded Wisconsin. That could be big for those
Speaker 2: of you in the bracket pools this year. And Houston
Speaker 2: and Gonzaga in the final two minutes. Top seeded Houston
Speaker 2: is up seven right now. I hope you're enjoying all
Speaker 2: this madness. There's plenty of madness in Los Angeles. We
Speaker 2: did some stories recently about how you're not supposed to
Speaker 2: be parking in bike lanes, and this time they mean it.
Speaker 2: If you get caught parking in the excuse me bike lane,
Speaker 2: the bus lane, your ticket's like two hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: seven dollars. They are not messing around. They need the
Speaker 2: cash and that's a big fine, so you got to
Speaker 2: keep it moving. But there are other ways that you
Speaker 2: can violate parking laws meters expiring, no parking zonezes, loading zones,
Speaker 2: handicapped spots that you're not supposed to be in, and
Speaker 2: the city collects that money. And none of us likes
Speaker 2: getting a ticket, but that money can be put to
Speaker 2: good use when it comes in, and cities depend on it.
Speaker 2: I know there are smaller communities that don't have the
Speaker 2: type of revenue a city like Los Angeles should where
Speaker 2: I mean, they've got patrol people out there watching every
Speaker 2: little stop sign to make sure you don't do one
Speaker 2: of those rolling stops that you saw. I mean, they're
Speaker 2: collecting every single penny. There's money to be made in
Speaker 2: parking enforcement and LA seems to know it. But this
Speaker 2: city can't even get this right. A new report from Crosstown, LA,
Speaker 2: a really excellent report, analyzed a bunch of this data
Speaker 2: and they found that in the fiscal year that ended
Speaker 2: last year, and again it just quick municipal econ one
Speaker 2: oh one fiscal years they run from July first to
Speaker 2: June thirty, so the current fiscal year will end at
Speaker 2: the end of June, but the one that ended at
Speaker 2: the end of June last year, the city collected one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten million dollars in parking fines.
Speaker 4: One hundred and ten million dollars. That's a good chunk
Speaker 4: of change.
Speaker 2: But Crosstown LA analyzed the costs of collecting those fines, salaries,
Speaker 2: equipment used, the processes, and all of that. That added
Speaker 2: up to eighty eight million dollars. And then, when you
Speaker 2: work a good government job like parking enforcement, you've also
Speaker 2: got a pension and you have benefits. And according to
Speaker 2: this data released by Crosstown LA, the city spent one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy six million dollars. The City of Los
Speaker 2: Angeles spent one hundred and seventy six million dollars to
Speaker 2: collect one hundred ten ten million dollars in parking fines.
Speaker 2: And that's why you heard this week term words like
Speaker 2: fiscal crisis.
Speaker 4: At city hall.
Speaker 2: Crosstown LA reports that parking finds used to be a
Speaker 2: reliable source of revenue, but LA's parking enforcement program has
Speaker 2: produced a widening hole in the city's finances, racking up
Speaker 2: three hundred and seventy four million dollars more in total cost,
Speaker 2: and it has from fines since twenty sixteen, so that's
Speaker 2: eight years that they've analyzed and found that the city
Speaker 2: brought in three hundred and seventy four million dollars less
Speaker 2: than it cost to collect the fines. That's why the
Speaker 2: city is failing financially and across down LA suggests that
Speaker 2: there are various factors for this, that there are vacancies
Speaker 2: and cuts in staffing that have contributed to a decline
Speaker 2: in citations. Keep that in mind as we talk about
Speaker 2: layoffs in the coming year, and those traffic officers who
Speaker 2: still exist that they've got more work to do. The
Speaker 2: people who write the parking tickets in La, by the way,
Speaker 2: are usually not police officers. They work for the Department
Speaker 2: of Transportation. It's a different unit. And that's why I
Speaker 2: would be nervous when I hear thousands of layoffs possible
Speaker 2: in the city and that were my job, because you
Speaker 2: have to assume the police are safe, that the fire
Speaker 2: department is safe. But if you're anybody else, you've got
Speaker 2: to be shaking in your boots. And when the city
Speaker 2: cannot manage its own finances and it makes these cuts,
Speaker 2: it loses out on the opportunities to bring more money
Speaker 2: in because having the appropriate number of traffic enforcement officers
Speaker 2: should bring you the amount of money that you forecast. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they've got pensions and health benefits and all of that,
Speaker 2: but you should be able to budget it appropriately and
Speaker 2: it's not working right now. But that's not the only
Speaker 2: area where this is screwing with the city finances. Top
Speaker 2: of the show, we mentioned these lawsuits. You know a
Speaker 2: lot of these lawsuits they get settled for one rand
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty grand, but they're happening every week,
Speaker 2: so they're adding up. They're listed as trip and fall,
Speaker 2: trip and fall, Trip and fall, that's the category that
Speaker 2: they're in, and it usually involves somebody being injured by
Speaker 2: city infrastructure, a sidewalk that was broken, a a street
Speaker 2: light that may have fallen on somebody's car, and some
Speaker 2: of them are terrible injuries, and so the city has
Speaker 2: to pay out and then they don't have the money
Speaker 2: to invest in the infrastructure in the first place to
Speaker 2: prevent these things from happening. And it's only going to
Speaker 2: get worse. The city is in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 2: Like I said, we want to hear from you as well,
Speaker 2: and you've been playing along. Do we have some of
Speaker 2: those talkbacks in the system ready to go yet?
Speaker 4: Roll we do. Let's hear the first one.
Speaker 8: Hi, Michael Karen Bass is a total idiot. She has
Speaker 8: no experience in running anything, let alone a city the
Speaker 8: size of the Los Angeles. I can't believe you could
Speaker 8: even sit there and listen to these people. There's such liars.
Speaker 8: They've ruined everything. We're doomed. I'm moving away.
Speaker 2: Good luck to you. I know you'll miss the weather.
Speaker 2: That's what sucks about it. If you feel like you
Speaker 2: got to leave it, it is often beautiful. Here we
Speaker 2: got another one, Raoul.
Speaker 1: Careen bass is full of s reading from a scriep
Speaker 1: script s her.
Speaker 4: Full of s.
Speaker 2: Somebody got the memo about the new rules at city Hall.
Speaker 2: You've got to watch your language. And I've got another
Speaker 2: one I want to play for you.
Speaker 9: Hey there, I'm not sure if you actually looked at
Speaker 9: the city budget here, but there is so much waste
Speaker 9: it's not even funny. The fact that union employees get
Speaker 9: paid like ninety seven dollars an hour to stand around
Speaker 9: and do nothing. You know, a dozen of them while
Speaker 9: one guy digs a hole. No, man, there's so much
Speaker 9: waste that's not even funny. They can cut a billion
Speaker 9: out of the budget and not even flinch about it.
Speaker 9: But oh, it's got it.
Speaker 2: We are so grateful that you're participating in the conversation.
Speaker 2: If you are listening and want to join as well,
Speaker 2: open up the iHeartRadio app, click on the talkback button.
Speaker 2: We will play more messages throughout the next hour. Coming
Speaker 2: up in the next segment, you know how much how
Speaker 2: many billions of dollars the city of the county are
Speaker 2: spending to address homelessness. Well, it turns out that after
Speaker 2: a couple of scathing audits, the city of Los Angeles
Speaker 2: has realized that they have nobody at city Hall keeping
Speaker 2: track of the money. They said that this will past week.
Speaker 2: I heard it. I've got the clip. I'm going to
Speaker 2: play it for you and tell you what their plan
Speaker 2: is to address that. There's more to come in the
Speaker 2: next hour here on Michael Monks Reports on KFI AM
Speaker 2: six point forty.
Speaker 1: Keep it here KFI AM six forty on demand