Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty and this is KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: KFI Wow, I'm going to try out for the Vienna
Speaker 2: Boys Choir.
Speaker 1: Some of the big stories we are looking at.
Speaker 2: Hurricane Helene is just barreling down the Gulf Coast and
Speaker 2: it's going to hit the Panhandle of Florida and it's
Speaker 2: going to be a god awful mess, life threatening and
Speaker 2: they're not kidding. And then US France allies are calling
Speaker 2: for an immediate ceasefire in between hasbe Llah and Israel I.
Speaker 1: Mean, this thing is just exploding. None of it's fun. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get local for a moment.
Speaker 2: And this is a story about a report that was
Speaker 2: just released by La City.
Speaker 1: But it affects all.
Speaker 2: Of the communities in southern California because every one of
Speaker 2: these communities have something in common, and that is, single
Speaker 2: family homes are basically their upper class homes. If you're
Speaker 2: looking at access to good schools, if you're looking at
Speaker 2: living in better neighborhoods, and if you're white, because if
Speaker 2: you're not, let's say per capita, you're Hispanic, you're black,
Speaker 2: per capita, you're going to have fewer ownership of single.
Speaker 1: Family homes, and therein lies the problem.
Speaker 2: LA is looking at redrafting the blueprints for all of
Speaker 2: LA according to this plan. Now here is what really
Speaker 2: doesn't change. And this report is big. It's hundreds of pages.
Speaker 2: It's one hundred and twenty four page study that just
Speaker 2: came out that the city in fact had made three
Speaker 2: years in the making. And it studies, you know, the zoning.
Speaker 2: Do we change the zoning? And they're saying, yeah, we
Speaker 2: have to change things. Single family homes although they are
Speaker 2: the fabric of Los Angeles. We grew up with single
Speaker 2: family homes. That's what makes southern California so neat and wonderful. Well,
Speaker 2: it's we don't have enough, and the only way to
Speaker 2: have more is to get into multi multifamily density.
Speaker 1: You've got to put more on less land.
Speaker 2: And so they accept that, Okay, we have to put
Speaker 2: more on less land, and then when you start looking
Speaker 2: at it, they go, well, what we're really not going
Speaker 2: to do is put more on less land. Single family
Speaker 2: homes will for the most part, be left alone. It's
Speaker 2: going to be rezoning on multiple multiple family areas or
Speaker 2: multiple multiple dwelling areas. So for example, if the zoning
Speaker 2: now allows eight units on a given piece of property,
Speaker 2: they'll say, you can put twelve units on that same
Speaker 2: piece of property.
Speaker 1: So therefore you'll have more affordable you'll have more units,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna leave alone.
Speaker 2: For the most part, those lots have a single family home.
Speaker 2: And why is that Well, because those of us that
Speaker 2: own single family homes like it. And if you look
Speaker 2: at the kind of power single family homeowners I have,
Speaker 2: it's it's pretty intense. It's pretty intense, even though you
Speaker 2: have builders that are going the other way. I don't
Speaker 2: want to give up my house. I don't want next
Speaker 2: door to me an apartment building that has forty six units,
Speaker 2: although Neil, you have the forty six unit apartment building
Speaker 2: on either side and across the street.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's sad that, you know, these hundred
Speaker 3: plus year old homes are being torn down. People are
Speaker 3: buying them, sometimes corporations are buying them, knocking them down
Speaker 3: because there are two or three or four and putting
Speaker 3: up you know, six eight units of these very expense
Speaker 3: to town homes and the like, and it kind of
Speaker 3: it sucks.
Speaker 1: It just LA has.
Speaker 3: Some really neat homes and We've seen this happen and
Speaker 3: a bunker hill and the like, and now it's happening
Speaker 3: all over the place.
Speaker 1: It is because we just need more homes.
Speaker 2: But certain neighborhoods it will never happen like the majority
Speaker 2: of neighborhoods, and yours is kind of I won't even
Speaker 2: say it's an outlier. You live in a part of
Speaker 2: the city that's very dense, you live in a part
Speaker 2: of the city where the homes are old, they are
Speaker 2: I would say the neighborhood is Would you argue your
Speaker 2: neighborhood is sketchy, you know.
Speaker 3: There's listen, surrounding areas are sketchy. My area is, yeah,
Speaker 3: is nice. I really like my area a lot. It's
Speaker 3: a very hip neighborhood. Yeah, However, we are adjacent to
Speaker 3: a lot of issues, and I can walk half a
Speaker 3: block and get killed, have stuff, and have stuff that
Speaker 3: you wouldn't norm.
Speaker 2: By the way, there was a real big move. I
Speaker 2: just want to share this in Sana. Yeah, Neil does
Speaker 2: not often refer to this, but there was actually a
Speaker 2: move to call his neighborhood toilet town, and.
Speaker 3: It was you know what I would sign off on.
Speaker 2: That the point I'm making is even this study which
Speaker 2: talks for rezoning is saying we're gonna leave single family
Speaker 2: dwellings alone, and our idea of rezoning is just to
Speaker 2: put more multiple housing on top of zoning for multiple housing.
Speaker 2: That's the answer. It's going to be an answer, a
Speaker 2: part of the answer. But LA is going to stay
Speaker 2: for the most part the way it is right now.
Speaker 2: You own a home on a lot, you want to
Speaker 2: keep it that way. I would fight like crazy. I
Speaker 2: would fight like crazy. I don't want four units next
Speaker 2: to me. I don't want Neil's neighbors next to me.
Speaker 2: I can't hear you, Neil.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I turned my mic off on accident. So two
Speaker 3: houses over, they built an entire home another home, twenty
Speaker 3: five hundred square foot home in their backyard.
Speaker 1: As an adu.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's two actual They have two actual houses. And
Speaker 3: I don't you know if you want to do that,
Speaker 3: it's your property. That's the way things go at capitalist society.
Speaker 3: But it does suck when you see these really cool
Speaker 3: old craftsman style homes being torn down to put up
Speaker 3: a cracker box stacked you know, condos.
Speaker 2: Or real Quickly, let me ask you about the demand
Speaker 2: for your kind of home, huge maintenance issues, I mean
Speaker 2: insane maintenance issues, remodel issues.
Speaker 1: Remodeling.
Speaker 3: Yes, the kitchens are small, the closets are small, the
Speaker 3: rooms are small, and the bathrooms are small.
Speaker 1: It's a different because I.
Speaker 2: Know it was built at a different time. I understand that,
Speaker 2: and nineteen.
Speaker 3: Twelve they weren't worried. They didn't even have electricity on the.
Speaker 2: Oh, understood, understood. But the point I make is, is
Speaker 2: your home and yours globally disappearing? Is it just making
Speaker 2: no more sense because of cost relative to maintenance, relative
Speaker 2: to what's going on in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3: I bet your newer homes, I bet you newer homes
Speaker 3: built after the eighties probably have more problems than our
Speaker 3: home does. Okay, they're built incredibly well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's incredibly well.
Speaker 3: So all the piping has been redone wiring, you know
Speaker 3: it's I bet you our house gives us less maintenance problems.
Speaker 1: Maybe.
Speaker 2: I remember, well, I had a duplex that was built
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty seven that I lived in. But the two
Speaker 2: by fours were real two by fours made out of redwood,
Speaker 2: I mean old.
Speaker 3: They have like a you know, two hundred lines of
Speaker 3: growth or whatever on them. You can't we keep everything
Speaker 3: when we have to remove a wall or something like that.
Speaker 3: When we had you know, American Vision windows come in
Speaker 3: and put a new doors in, we kept all the
Speaker 3: old wood because it's amazing stuff and you can reuse
Speaker 3: it for other things.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Now, a real interesting thing is going on at the
Speaker 2: Veterans Administration, the Veterans Administration, and this is across the
Speaker 2: street from the Veterans Cemetery, which is extraordinary, and you
Speaker 2: go across and I think it's Sawtel and you've got
Speaker 2: this large campus, three hundred and something acre campus. That
Speaker 2: land was donated to the Veterans Administration. Actually it was
Speaker 2: donated in the late eighteen hundreds for an old soldier's home,
Speaker 2: because you had soldiers that fought in the Civil War
Speaker 2: that were a mess and there was a movement to say,
Speaker 2: let's take care of them, and it was to help
Speaker 2: out veterans.
Speaker 1: That was what the land was donated for.
Speaker 2: Well, in recent years what has happened is the Veterans
Speaker 2: Administration that owns the land leased it out UCLA baseball
Speaker 2: team and the stadium is Jackie Robinson Stadium, Brentwood.
Speaker 1: The Brentwood School sort of high end.
Speaker 2: College prep school and oil company of their private interests,
Speaker 2: and Veterans Organization sued to say, hey, you know, this
Speaker 2: is for veterans affairs. This is for veterans. That's what
Speaker 2: was donated for. That's what it's about. And Judge David
Speaker 2: o'carter said, you're absolutely right. All the leases that are
Speaker 2: on the land are shut down, and he ordered the
Speaker 2: stadium be shut down.
Speaker 1: And he said, hey, let me tell you something.
Speaker 2: You don't do exactly what I'm ordering to do, and
Speaker 2: that's set up housing that's using the land. Here's what
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do is first of all, he did terminate
Speaker 2: the leases and he said, the swimming pool that belongs
Speaker 2: to UCLA I will fill with sand. The stadium I
Speaker 2: have shut down. All of those interests are gone there.
Speaker 2: There's an oil company there. I mean that land has
Speaker 2: become basically private land. It's it's like when you lease
Speaker 2: land from the government for whatever, except this case is
Speaker 2: at the expense of the veterans. And this is an
Speaker 2: car David o'carter. O'carter said, you know what, veterans need housing,
Speaker 2: and this is the land that was donated to the
Speaker 2: veterans that became the Veterans Administration, and that's where it's.
Speaker 1: Going to go. And here's what we need to do.
Speaker 2: And he ordered thousands of units to be built or
Speaker 2: at least be zoned, be allowed to be built and
Speaker 2: then don't have to worry about zoning because that is
Speaker 2: federal property.
Speaker 1: And he this is what David o'carter is an interesting guy. Uh.
Speaker 2: If you remember the lawsuit that was filed by the
Speaker 2: residents along the Santa Anna River, uh and where they
Speaker 2: were going to be moved, and it was a huge scandal.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: He gave his decision was for the people that were
Speaker 2: there in terms of housing, shelters, et cetera. He actually
Speaker 2: walked the river and I think Todd Spitzer walked with
Speaker 2: if I'm not mistaken, federal judge walked the river. And
Speaker 2: what the federal judge did this is David o'cardner. He says,
Speaker 2: I'm shutting everything down. By the way, I'm going down
Speaker 2: there and I'm personally gonna walk the area to make sure.
Speaker 1: That it's all shut down.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a federal judge that gets involved,
Speaker 2: for sure, and it has the whole thing the VA.
Speaker 2: And this is what the Judge Rode for the last
Speaker 2: fifty years, the VA in West LA has been infected
Speaker 2: by bribery, corruption, influence of the powerful influence of the
Speaker 2: lobbyists that have set up all of these private endeavors,
Speaker 2: private enterprise. So he wants the VA to build ordered
Speaker 2: the v to build seven hundred and fifty units of
Speaker 2: temporary housing within eighteen months and then permanent housing of
Speaker 2: about twelve hundred units already being planned. And he just said,
Speaker 2: we're going to go balls to the wall on this one,
Speaker 2: so good for him, and the veterans are going to
Speaker 2: win on this one, which usually they don't. Okay, we
Speaker 2: were talking this morning about Amazon and drivers in general,
Speaker 2: ups specifically by the way, Neil was pointing out that
Speaker 2: in his neighborhood, the drivers, PARTICULARLYBS drivers, as they come
Speaker 2: up to the door after having of course navigated the
Speaker 2: people living on the sidewalks and people sticking guns to
Speaker 2: your faces, so they have survived by the time they
Speaker 2: get to the front door.
Speaker 1: And he just thought, there are some of the.
Speaker 2: Greatest people out there, which by the way, they are. Well,
Speaker 2: there's a little fight going on now with Amazon, and
Speaker 2: I didn't know this. This was an La Times article
Speaker 2: now I want to preface this with this is a
Speaker 2: very anti Amazon article. This is as biased as I've
Speaker 2: seen in terms of being anti Amazon, so please keep
Speaker 2: that in mind. And it's about this guy, Raj Paul Singh,
Speaker 2: who and I'm not going to make any jokes about
Speaker 2: call centers.
Speaker 1: I'm not. And he's an Amazon driver and.
Speaker 2: He drives in the area of Lancaster and Palmdale, and
Speaker 2: if you've ever been up there, particularly during the summer,
Speaker 2: it gets insanely hot. I mean, this is up right
Speaker 2: next to the Mojave Desert, I think, and it's just
Speaker 2: and they're driving around and in their vehicles it's over
Speaker 2: one hundred degrees. And so he gets nineteen dollars and
Speaker 2: seventy five cents an hour.
Speaker 1: And he was not being paid bought and was is
Speaker 1: an operative word here. He was not being paid by Amazon.
Speaker 2: He was being paid by a company called Battle Tested Strategies.
Speaker 2: It's a delivery company that Amazon is its only client.
Speaker 2: The story that was in the La Times about this
Speaker 2: Amazon driver Raj Dah Raj Paul sing I am guessing
Speaker 2: that he's Indian, just a wild ass guests and he
Speaker 2: drives for Amazon around Lancaster and Palmdale and is hotter
Speaker 2: than hell. And it's just it's miserable, it is. And
Speaker 2: he gets the nineteen dollars and seventy five cents an hour,
Speaker 2: not working for Amazon, working for a company called Battle
Speaker 2: Tested Strategies delivery company that Amazon Amazon, it's its only client.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole world together. So a whole world there.
Speaker 2: So sing and other drivers because they talk to each other,
Speaker 2: banded together and they demanded better working conditions. And we're
Speaker 2: talking about unionizing. Now you put union in front of Amazon,
Speaker 2: just the word union, and you've got yourself a battle
Speaker 2: that's unbelievable. I think there are two or three Amazon
Speaker 2: warehouses that are unionized.
Speaker 1: And Amazon fought it like hell.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you what happened to this company,
Speaker 2: Battle Tested Strategies. They're drivers by the way, for Amazon
Speaker 2: for the most part, don't work for Amazon. They work
Speaker 2: for these third party companies that Amazon helped set up.
Speaker 1: They had a program.
Speaker 2: That they started back in twenty twenty two and they
Speaker 2: ran ads and said, how'd you like to start your
Speaker 2: own business and delivering for us? And the Raj bil
Speaker 2: Raj Paul Singh was hired by Battle Tested Strategies to drive.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The owner of battle Test Strategies is a veteran and
Speaker 2: this program was for veterans, and the program said, we
Speaker 2: can help you set up your own business driving for us,
Speaker 2: delivering for us, and you have to buy the van
Speaker 2: or lease it from us, and you have to be
Speaker 2: trained by us.
Speaker 1: And what you're going to get is you your drivers are.
Speaker 2: Going to get nineteen dollars to seventy five cents an
Speaker 2: hour because that's what Amazon suggested, and that's what they do.
Speaker 2: And by the way, battle Test of Strategies has shut
Speaker 2: down because the owner was in favor of the drivers unionizing.
Speaker 1: The owner was in favor of better.
Speaker 2: Working conditions, and when the union went public or when
Speaker 2: the drivers went public, he backed them up. Amazon effectively
Speaker 2: shut down this company. Just shut it down. Amazon is brutal.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, this is a company that is
Speaker 2: absolutely brutal. I mean, the most obviously the most successful
Speaker 2: internet company that's ever been certainly in terms of sales,
Speaker 2: it does what five hundred and seventy five billion dollars
Speaker 2: a year, more revenue and more business and a lot
Speaker 2: of countries do. But there have been frustrations over pay
Speaker 2: and working conditions, and these drivers went to the National
Speaker 2: Labor Relations Board and they sort of went both ways.
Speaker 2: One uh in one regional director of the eneral and
Speaker 2: LRB said Amazon, it's a The drivers work for both companies.
Speaker 2: Your delivery company that's independent, you say, and you and
Speaker 2: the fight is going on like crazy. The teamsters are
Speaker 2: now involved because they're involved in unionizing these companies UPS.
Speaker 1: It's simple UPS. Drivers work for UPS. That's it. You
Speaker 1: get your pay, which is very good. You have a problem.
Speaker 1: They're unionized.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty simple business arrangement between the drivers and
Speaker 2: the company UPS. And drivers love working for UPS. Although
Speaker 2: all you do is make right turns. You know, they're
Speaker 2: so strategy minded they do.
Speaker 1: Look look it up.
Speaker 2: They the way they plan their deliveries, the way the
Speaker 2: system works is make as many right turns as possible
Speaker 2: because left turns are all delays. You're waiting in line,
Speaker 2: you get caught in the left turn lane and it's Neil.
Speaker 1: You're giving me the look. I'm telling you, fascinating. Look
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 2: It's crazy when I was told this. And by the way,
Speaker 2: it could be a it could be an urban myth.
Speaker 2: It could be like the lady who dried her poodle
Speaker 2: in a microwave, although I doubt it. By the way,
Speaker 2: that's probably more true than the right hand turns on ups.
Speaker 2: But the point is is that Amazon is probably going
Speaker 2: to lose this battle because one of the things that
Speaker 2: Amazon did and accused of doing. Remember this is out
Speaker 2: of the La Times article, and it's anti Amazon.
Speaker 1: I told you that. So keep that in mind.
Speaker 2: Is that they fight, fight, fight, and a lot of
Speaker 2: employees are bitching and moaning like crazy. How about the
Speaker 2: people that work in the fulfillment setters and the Amazon
Speaker 2: work in the Amazon warehouses. We've had story after story
Speaker 2: coming out about the working conditions and how fast they
Speaker 2: have to pack and deliver the packages to the other
Speaker 2: part of the warehouse, and so we've got complaints like
Speaker 2: crazy about them or about Amazon on that level. Let
Speaker 2: me tell you, I mean, the bottom line is that
Speaker 2: Amazon is a tough place to work. And in the
Speaker 2: case of the guy who owns battle tested Strategies, unfortunately
Speaker 2: he got nailed. They just canceled his contract. They just
Speaker 2: said no. And they're saying, oh, because you're the truck.
Speaker 2: There was a problem with the light on the truck.
Speaker 2: A license plate was put on improperly, according to the owner,
Speaker 2: and they gave him sixty days notice and he said
Speaker 2: he lost his shirt.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do this. Oh, I have a story
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: The immigrants that oppose immigration, and I'll tell you a
Speaker 2: personal story in my life. And what is going on
Speaker 2: and why Donald Trump is actually gaining traction with hispanics.
Speaker 1: That's all coming up.
Speaker 2: And I'm coughing, kf I am six forty live everywhere,
Speaker 2: stop laughing stock live everywhere.
Speaker 1: I do it, No, I do?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, is cough on it? You know why I
Speaker 2: don't use the cough button. Maybe I'm wrong on this.
Speaker 2: You're our technical director, Kono. I've always thought that metal
Speaker 2: fingers come out from under the desk and you hear
Speaker 2: a voice that says, turn your head left and cough.
Speaker 2: By the way, that's an old joke because that's what
Speaker 2: they used to do. Doctors used to do that to
Speaker 2: check for hernias.
Speaker 1: Did you know that?
Speaker 3: And then they would cup your your scrob uh yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: For some reason, how can you tell that's the hernia?
Speaker 2: I don't understand.
Speaker 1: It wasn't.
Speaker 3: The doctor was messing with you fell flor it.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're gonna come back okay, because we just went
Speaker 2: off on a tangent, did we not? There you go
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