Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: I remember standing right across from me, wait smelling lost mine.
Speaker 2: I remember the old man.
Speaker 3: Next to me.
Speaker 2: Mommy mantra, Eric Ossardo did it again? KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: Yes Later with Mo Kelly.
Speaker 3: We're live on YouTube, iHeartRadio, app and Instagram and Michael Monks,
Speaker 3: kfi's own Michael Monks joins me right now to give
Speaker 3: us an update on Metro.
Speaker 2: Michael, how are you doing this evening?
Speaker 4: I'm better now that I've heard that little Bob Clay
Speaker 4: leaping into this place.
Speaker 2: It slaps, doesn't it? It slaps? It kind of does.
Speaker 3: All jokes aside, Metro is aus issue on this show.
Speaker 3: We know that a budget was approved today. What do
Speaker 3: we know about what's in the budget.
Speaker 4: Well, let me ask you, if you don't mind me
Speaker 4: turning the tables a little bit here. I know you've
Speaker 4: been a pretty staunch critic of Metro, and rightfully so
Speaker 4: in many many ways. If I told you Mo Kelly
Speaker 4: on Later you got nine point four billion dollars with Metro?
Speaker 4: What are your top three priorities?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: Safety number one. All jokes aside safety number one. When
Speaker 3: I say cleanliness, i'm talking about make it less unsanitary.
Speaker 3: That is a health issue as well for everyone. And
Speaker 3: I would say, as an extension of that, homelessness.
Speaker 4: No, absolutely, it's almost as if you wrote the memo yourself.
Speaker 4: And the La Metro Board of Directors today approved a
Speaker 4: nine point four billion dollars spending plan for the new
Speaker 4: fiscal year, which starts on July first.
Speaker 2: That's two percent more one.
Speaker 4: Hundred and eighty point nine million dollars more than they
Speaker 4: budgeted for this year. And some of the areas that
Speaker 4: are seeing more money this time around are in fact
Speaker 4: public safety, cleanliness, but also of course extending the lines.
Speaker 4: I was talking to Towala before I left the building
Speaker 4: and headed back down here to the KFI Worldwide headquarters
Speaker 4: downtown that he was miserable sitting in traffic for a
Speaker 4: couple of hours. Yes, we're all miserable sitting in traffic
Speaker 4: in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: And it's like, you.
Speaker 4: Know, if only the system were a little cleaner, felt
Speaker 4: a little safer, and reached more parts of the city,
Speaker 4: we'd be in business.
Speaker 3: Oh not only would we be in business, I would
Speaker 3: be on it and I would gladly write it because
Speaker 3: I know the potential of the system. But if you
Speaker 3: can't help me feel better about safety or lack thereof,
Speaker 3: if you can't somehow guarantee me. And I know it
Speaker 3: could be done, because I see the subway system in Washington, DC,
Speaker 3: for example. If you can't keep it clean, free of homelessness,
Speaker 3: and also somewhat safer, then I can't get on.
Speaker 2: But I know other cities have.
Speaker 3: Done it, far more important cities than Los Angeles, so
Speaker 3: I know they can do it absolutely.
Speaker 4: And it seems as though in a way, these Metro
Speaker 4: board members are getting the message, but they won't come
Speaker 4: out and say it the way you or even somebody
Speaker 4: who's I don't know nicer about the criticism. Perhaps I'm
Speaker 4: not saying that you're wrong, but you know, if you
Speaker 4: were approaching them in person and and just gave them
Speaker 4: some honest feedback as some constructive criticism, they're getting the message,
Speaker 4: but they're not saying exactly what the problems are. They
Speaker 4: tend to talk in what I would call activists speak right.
Speaker 4: They talk about care first, and that is I hear
Speaker 4: the term care first at a lot of government meetings
Speaker 4: in southern California, but especially at Metro, the La County
Speaker 4: Board of Supervisors, the City Council in Los Angeles, And
Speaker 4: I don't know what that means. I mean, I know
Speaker 4: there's a definition for it, but I don't think the
Speaker 4: public generally cares about that term. But that's what you
Speaker 4: when it comes to dealing with some of these vagrants,
Speaker 4: as we heard in the song Booping on the Metro
Speaker 4: that starts here. First, yeah, don't just kick them off
Speaker 4: and kick them out of the station and ban them
Speaker 4: for life. It's make sure that they're being connected to
Speaker 4: services and all that, and it's all very righteous. But
Speaker 4: at the same time, how many resources, how many dollars
Speaker 4: go towards addressing that issue rather than preventing it in
Speaker 4: the first place. And so we are seeing with this
Speaker 4: budget and increase in public safety funding while keeping in
Speaker 4: mind that this is an agency that has hired it's
Speaker 4: police chief now, or it's director of public safety as
Speaker 4: they might call him, but he's a police chief of
Speaker 4: this new internal police force that's supposed to be stood
Speaker 4: up by twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 2: But they're starting to do that.
Speaker 4: But in addition to that planning, they're expanding a lot
Speaker 4: of these additional safety measures they put in place. They're
Speaker 4: putting up taller faregates in places, they're doing weapons detection,
Speaker 4: They're trying to keep the bad guys off. They've also
Speaker 4: up the money for clinic cleaning. There's going to be
Speaker 4: about ten million dollars spent this fiscal year on sprucing
Speaker 4: up various train stations because some of them are just
Speaker 4: dank and kind of scary to go it.
Speaker 2: And if you don't want to poop on the.
Speaker 4: Metro, they're gonna put some bathrooms in some of these places.
Speaker 3: It's about time on board because I remember when I
Speaker 3: was riding the Metro, there was no place to go
Speaker 3: to the bathroom, and it wasn't like now in I
Speaker 3: use Washington, DC as an example because I rode the
Speaker 3: subway there for many many years, and I go back
Speaker 3: to DC every year, so I have a point of comparison.
Speaker 3: Most of the stations have a bathroom, and I know
Speaker 3: that's an added expense because you have to have it
Speaker 3: clean and so forth.
Speaker 2: But La Metro there are no.
Speaker 3: Bathrooms, and you're just kind of sol don't pun intended
Speaker 3: if you have to go to the bathroom. And I'm
Speaker 3: not surprised that you don't, that you don't have actually
Speaker 3: more homeless people defecating and urinating all over the place.
Speaker 3: But let me ask you this that would be a fear.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you a very very serious question. You've
Speaker 3: seen this budget and all the line items. Was there
Speaker 3: anything in there which would give you the indication that
Speaker 3: there is money set aside for a statue of me?
Speaker 4: They offered the public an opportunity over the previous months
Speaker 4: to submit some feedback on what you'd like to see,
Speaker 4: and I would like you to know that again on
Speaker 4: KFI letterhead, huh I submitted a request for this very
Speaker 4: line item and suggested that the Studio City location would
Speaker 4: be the best spot for you, whether we're going across
Speaker 4: to the theme park or heading down. I know you
Speaker 4: had some wild times in Studio City and when you
Speaker 4: were sowing your wild oats, but it did not make
Speaker 4: the cut. I'm afraid to say this time, but we'll
Speaker 4: keep bobbing. This is the thing which really really girds
Speaker 4: my loins. As they say, with Metro, we try to
Speaker 4: reach out to them. We try to have them on
Speaker 4: the show so they can explain their side of their incompetency.
Speaker 4: We try to bridge this gap of lack of communication.
Speaker 4: We try to ask them about what they're doing beyond
Speaker 4: what I think they're doing, so we can present a
Speaker 4: more complete picture of Metro and what may be going
Speaker 4: on behind the scenes that I don't know. I don't
Speaker 4: profess to know everything, but I try to offer a
Speaker 4: space where they have a voice here.
Speaker 2: And this is the thanks that I get.
Speaker 3: Absolutely nothing, not a statue, not a shout out, not
Speaker 3: an interview, nothing, not even like you.
Speaker 4: If you can't get a callback, you're definitely not gonna
Speaker 4: get a statue yet. But one of the things we've
Speaker 4: talked about this mo, I mean, you rode the Metro
Speaker 4: back in the day. I'm a user of it currently
Speaker 4: as frequently as I can. In spite of itself. It's
Speaker 4: it's frustrating because on paper it's mostly good. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is a city known for its car. It's not
Speaker 4: as good as it could be and maybe will be someday.
Speaker 4: Doesn't go to as many places as we need it to.
Speaker 4: But where it goes now, on paper, it's a decent system.
Speaker 4: I mean, you can I'm downtown right now. It could
Speaker 4: go to Long Beach, I can go up to a Zeus.
Speaker 4: I can go to Santa Monica, I can go to Pasadena,
Speaker 4: you know, and not have to worry about driving or
Speaker 4: parking and the traffic and all of that.
Speaker 3: It's much better than ten years ago. Michael, you are
Speaker 3: not here in so out of the California ten years ago.
Speaker 3: It's much better now as far as stations into places
Speaker 3: that it offers to take you than ten years ago.
Speaker 2: But it's gonna get better.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, there's a lot of allocations in this
Speaker 4: new budget. They are going to be continuing their expansion,
Speaker 4: and they've budgeted for some of the work that's already
Speaker 4: in progress the lax Metro transit system. There's going to
Speaker 4: be a light rail plan in the San Fernando Valley
Speaker 4: that's got a lot of money budgeted for it. I mean,
Speaker 4: they're trying it. And we know the d line is
Speaker 4: closed right now. It's the old Purple line that would
Speaker 4: run from downtown to Korea Town. It's closed until July
Speaker 4: because they're expanding it. I mean, within a couple of
Speaker 4: years we're going to be able to get on that
Speaker 4: thing and go all the way to Westwood from Union Station.
Speaker 4: That's good stuff, it is, but you really need these
Speaker 4: folks on the board to stop using that activist speak
Speaker 4: and come out and tell people who are hesitant or
Speaker 4: have had a bad experience on it and say they'll
Speaker 4: never get on it again, and say we've got a
Speaker 4: zero tolerance for the bad stuff that's been happening on
Speaker 4: this train. Forget the violence, you know, it's the unquantifiable stuff,
Speaker 4: the sitting next to you know, somebody who's having a breakdown,
Speaker 4: next to somebody doing drugs, next to somebody who's just
Speaker 4: generally making you scared, not because you're a racist or
Speaker 4: because you're an elitist, but because they're making strange.
Speaker 2: Noises and they're looking at you wrong.
Speaker 4: And until you can have a sense of security across
Speaker 4: this system, people are not going to get on it.
Speaker 4: And what sucks about that is it is our best
Speaker 4: answer right now that we have to combat this awful traffic.
Speaker 3: I would like Metro, and I know that they're listening
Speaker 3: because they listen to the show every single night, evidently
Speaker 3: because they've internalized everything I've said. I would like Metro
Speaker 3: to know that I'm the customer that they should be
Speaker 3: speaking to. What I mean is someone who wants to
Speaker 3: use Metro, who would benefit from using Metro. Who is
Speaker 3: willing ostensibly to get on Metro, but because of the
Speaker 3: perception of the crime, the homelessness, and the unsanitary conditions,
Speaker 3: I won't, but I would want to, and I'm willing to.
Speaker 3: But they're not speaking to writers like me or potential
Speaker 3: writers like me as it were. And I think if
Speaker 3: they can change how they present themselves to your point,
Speaker 3: the language that they use, the priorities that they state
Speaker 3: and acknowledge, the truths that we all can see plain
Speaker 3: a day, the perception of Metro I think would be
Speaker 3: considerably better.
Speaker 4: A lot of these folks need to confront their own biases.
Speaker 4: They've been biased towards a lot of that activist language.
Speaker 4: And until they can say that, maybe these approaches haven't worked,
Speaker 4: even if it's just superficial, it's not. But even if
Speaker 4: it is, even if it's just perception, their strategy has
Speaker 4: not worked. Now the writership has rebounded almost entirely from
Speaker 4: pre pandemic, but the track is better since then. I mean,
Speaker 4: it should be growing substantially. Again, it's our best answer
Speaker 4: right now to this not awful traffic we deal with,
Speaker 4: and why they don't champion it as such is just
Speaker 4: something I can't understand.
Speaker 3: There is a Metro stop park and ride less than
Speaker 3: a mile from my house.
Speaker 2: It would be in my best interest to ride Metro.
Speaker 3: And when I was living in Harbor City, I would
Speaker 3: take the Blue line to the Red Line and get
Speaker 3: off the Universal City and catch the one fifty eight bus,
Speaker 3: a one to fifty five bus from Universal City and
Speaker 3: stop right in front of KFI and iHeartMedia Studios. If
Speaker 3: they could ever clear that up, I would. I would
Speaker 3: love to do it again, because I'm even closer now.
Speaker 3: I would just take the Green line to the Red line.
Speaker 2: I would do it. You can take it all the
Speaker 2: way to airport now just about hello.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, Michael, if they get that statue up
Speaker 3: from me, I will.
Speaker 2: Go hard for Metro or the world mine. Michael Monks, KFI,
Speaker 2: thanks so much, always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty