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: I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. We got another hour together,
Speaker 2: reporting live from our studio here in Burbank. We want
Speaker 2: to hear from you. Open up the iHeartRadio app. Click
Speaker 2: on that talkback button. If you want to talk about
Speaker 2: the reparations report that came out this afternoon. We talked
Speaker 2: about it last hour, Or if you have any feelings
Speaker 2: about the potential for federal illegal immigration raids here in
Speaker 2: La as apparently forecasted in an article by the La Times,
Speaker 2: or what we're going to be talking about next, which
Speaker 2: is rebuilding the Palisades and Alta Dina and how challenging
Speaker 2: that's going to be just because of how difficult it
Speaker 2: is to build anything around here. First, I want to
Speaker 2: let you know, of course, Governor Gavin Newsom has enacted
Speaker 2: the new legislation to quote trump proof California. He says
Speaker 2: this bill will bolster funding for legal service programs or
Speaker 2: what he says are vital to safeguarding the civil rights
Speaker 2: of Californians. He wrote a letter to lawmakers and Sacramento
Speaker 2: saying that none of the funding in the bill is
Speaker 2: intended to be used for immigration related legal services for
Speaker 2: non citizens convicted of serious or violent felonies. The series
Speaker 2: of bills allocates twenty five million dollars to the California
Speaker 2: Department of Justice to support legal battles against President Trump
Speaker 2: and his policies. And then there's another twenty five million
Speaker 2: dollars designated to legal aid groups to assist immigrants who
Speaker 2: are facing potential deportation that has been signed into law
Speaker 2: as California tries to Trump proof itself. I bring that
Speaker 2: up here at the top of this segment because we're
Speaker 2: kind of in a position where we're in need of
Speaker 2: support from the federal government here in southern California because
Speaker 2: of the disastrous wildfires that ravaged multiple parts of Los
Speaker 2: Angeles County weeks ago. You know, you can still touch
Speaker 2: the burns, and so is this the right time for
Speaker 2: a little match between local state governments and the feds.
Speaker 2: Want's see how this plays out, because we know President Trump.
Speaker 2: You know, he's not a big fan of Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom's not a big fan of President Trump. But
Speaker 2: then here locally, who's the boss and what is their
Speaker 2: relationship going to be with President Trump in the federal government,
Speaker 2: Because they are going to need a lot of money
Speaker 2: to rebuild the Palisades and rebuild Altadna. But even if
Speaker 2: the money comes in, they were going to be immense
Speaker 2: challenges because there already are. Even before the fires rolled in,
Speaker 2: it was almost impossible to build anything. I was at
Speaker 2: a city council meeting this week, and one member of
Speaker 2: council explained it takes an average of eight hundred days
Speaker 2: to build a single family home in the city of
Speaker 2: La eight hundred days from permitting to building. Eight hundred days.
Speaker 2: Now that might be to build a single family home
Speaker 2: for somebody who already has a place to live, you know,
Speaker 2: somebody who's moving across town. We're talking about building homes
Speaker 2: where there are no homes anymore, people who do not
Speaker 2: have homes anymore. And so you're hearing from city officials
Speaker 2: and county officials about how much faster things.
Speaker 3: Are going to go. But do you believe that?
Speaker 2: And then some of these efforts would have the efforts
Speaker 2: I mean to speed things up could have bad consequences
Speaker 2: according to people who want to see better housing policy
Speaker 2: in the long run, or maybe some reform to the
Speaker 2: way we zone neighborhoods, and do you trust the local
Speaker 2: government to get that right. It's going to be a
Speaker 2: very interesting time to see how not just Alta Dinas rebuilt,
Speaker 2: not just the Palisades is rebuilt, but how local government
Speaker 2: changes in the city of La and the County of La.
Speaker 2: I've paid very close attention by attending nearly all of
Speaker 2: the local government meetings for the past year, and it
Speaker 2: has often surprised me about what they get excited about,
Speaker 2: where the priorities are. When you can see the challenges
Speaker 2: by just opening your eyes, you think, why an't they
Speaker 2: talking about this?
Speaker 3: Why are they talk about how dark it is at night?
Speaker 2: Why aren't they talking about how many homeless people that
Speaker 2: are standing outside of this business that can probably barely
Speaker 2: afford to pay its rent. But now there is a
Speaker 2: sense of urgency, at least they say, anyway to rebuild
Speaker 2: these two devastated neighborhoods where people's lives have been ruined.
Speaker 2: Mayor Bass has appointed a recovery cesar, Steve sober Off,
Speaker 2: a familiar name. He's being paid half a million dollars
Speaker 2: over the next three months, not a bad salary. Huh,
Speaker 2: that's not your tax dollars. Apparently charitable groups, the philanthropic community.
Speaker 2: As Mayor Bass puts, it will be covering the five
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars salary for Steve sober Off over the
Speaker 2: next three months. He's also got a consulting firm to
Speaker 2: come in and we're expecting that firm to put in
Speaker 2: a report.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just.
Speaker 2: Mayor Bass is where the bus bucks stop, she said
Speaker 2: so herself. But we've also got our recoveries are now
Speaker 2: at the county. Of course, we have the board of Supervisors.
Speaker 2: We have a supervisor who represents the Palisades, which is
Speaker 2: in the city of la and then we have a
Speaker 2: supervisor who represents Altadena, Katherine Barger. She's put together a
Speaker 2: commission as well to help the rebuilding of Alta Dina.
Speaker 2: She's going to chair that herself. So already it's kind
Speaker 2: of fractured, right, there's not a unified march towards rebuilding.
Speaker 2: Some people's focus might only be on Palisades. Some people's
Speaker 2: focus may only be on Alta Dina. Of course, these
Speaker 2: were very different communities in a lot of ways, but
Speaker 2: the seriousness of the destruction is exactly the same. The
Speaker 2: situation faced by the families and the businesses. That's all
Speaker 2: the same right now, So are we all marching in
Speaker 2: the same direction?
Speaker 3: Should we be?
Speaker 2: Give us a call way in iHeartRadio app. Click on
Speaker 2: the talkback button. We'll play some of your messages before
Speaker 2: nine o'clock and up next, we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: just how challenging it is to build anything in La
Speaker 2: or La County, and how some of these decisions could
Speaker 2: have long term consequences that folks aren't discussing enough. We'll
Speaker 2: talk to a guy who says the La County Board
Speaker 2: of Supervisor's recent resolution about asking the state to suspend
Speaker 2: various legal protections for property owners in burned areas should
Speaker 2: be a national scandal.
Speaker 3: We'll get to him next.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: I'm Michael Monks from KFI News with you until nine
Speaker 2: o'clock tonight. The recovery has begun here in La La
Speaker 2: County in the wake of the Palisades and Eton fire.
Speaker 2: Is in fact, the City of LA's new ad hoc
Speaker 2: committee from the City Council focused on Recovery in the
Speaker 2: Palisades has had its first official meeting, and I want
Speaker 2: to share a clip from a woman who spoke at
Speaker 2: this meeting because it indicates just how stressed these folks
Speaker 2: are and how emotional they are. Role if you don't
Speaker 2: mind playing that, we do.
Speaker 4: Not have time to negotiate with our insurance companies. I
Speaker 4: do not need to throw Steve sober Off under the bus.
Speaker 4: But at one of the meetings recently, he said we
Speaker 4: all should hire attorneys. You want seven thousand damage structures,
Speaker 4: hiring individual attorneys and bringing negligence claims which are very valid.
Speaker 4: You don't want that. This is an unprecedented time. Help
Speaker 4: us negotiate with the insurance companies to pay out at
Speaker 4: our policy levels. We are drowning in the minutia and
Speaker 4: the details. We don't have time to mourn the loss
Speaker 4: of our community, of our family, of our friends. I mean,
Speaker 4: these are this is our family, these are our people.
Speaker 4: I don't think people understand.
Speaker 2: So that was the first meeting, and the reference to
Speaker 2: Steve sober Off, of course, is that's the guy that
Speaker 2: Mayor bass Is appointed. As the recoveries are making half
Speaker 2: a million dollars over the next three months, all from
Speaker 2: philanthropic charitable donations to cover that immense salary. He's overseeing
Speaker 2: the rebuilding of the Palisades. We're joined live now by M.
Speaker 2: Nolan Gray, the Senior Director of Legislation and Research at
Speaker 2: California YIMBI common acronym for Yes in My Backyard. He's
Speaker 2: also the author of Arbitrary Lines, How Zoning Broke the
Speaker 2: American City and How to Fix It. Nolan, I'm so
Speaker 2: glad you could be back with us again.
Speaker 5: We thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So we heard the urgency in that woman's voice, and
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm getting mixed signals from government officials,
Speaker 2: from political commentators or civic leaders as well as residents.
Speaker 3: How fast should we go? How slow should we go?
Speaker 2: Whether it's reopening roads and letting people inspect or getting
Speaker 2: down the building stuff. Are we moving too fast? Are
Speaker 2: we moving too slow? Or is there a goldilocks pace
Speaker 2: we could find that is just right to get this going?
Speaker 5: You know, I think the city and the county of
Speaker 5: the whole is really in an impossible situation here. On
Speaker 5: the one hand, of course, they want to be in
Speaker 5: a situation where they can say to people who've lost
Speaker 5: their homes, hey, we're going to get you building as
Speaker 5: quickly as possible. On the other hand, there's going to
Speaker 5: be delays that the city and county do not control
Speaker 5: associated with insurance. And then they're also potentially broader structural
Speaker 5: changes that need to happen as part of this. You
Speaker 5: know that we know these communities were vulnerable in part
Speaker 5: to the fires because of broader issues with how Los
Speaker 5: Angeles is planned, and so those are sort of changes
Speaker 5: that are going to require long term adjustment. So, you know,
Speaker 5: I think it's a really, really impossible situation, and we're
Speaker 5: going to have to make some painful trade offs in
Speaker 5: the coming months.
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk to you about those how Los
Speaker 2: Angeles is planned, because you had an article, I mean, well,
Speaker 2: the flames were still burning. You had an article published
Speaker 2: by The Atlantic about how it was more than just wins,
Speaker 2: how it was more than just the brush. Its policies
Speaker 2: here in Los Angeles and help fuel those fires, And
Speaker 2: I do want to get into that with you. But first,
Speaker 2: we are dealing with the county government and we are
Speaker 2: dealing with the city government. Neither of them are celebrated
Speaker 2: for how quickly they are able to move things along
Speaker 2: for the average citizen. I heard a city council member
Speaker 2: just this week say it takes an average of eight
Speaker 2: hundred days to build a single family home in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: And so the city has now voted for a report
Speaker 2: because nothing ever happens vast, but they've asked for a
Speaker 2: report in thirty days to see if they can allow
Speaker 2: people like architects to self certify in order to speed
Speaker 2: up the permitting process a little bit. Do you anticipate
Speaker 2: that there will be permanent changes to the way the
Speaker 2: city and the county government deal with building things because
Speaker 2: of these fires.
Speaker 5: I think that's so essential. You know, Los Angeles went
Speaker 5: into this crisis being very very very slow on permitting,
Speaker 5: and that was already hurting us. You know, we came
Speaker 5: into this month, We came into January with a housing
Speaker 5: shortage of about a half a million units, right, and
Speaker 5: we come out of January with sixteen thousand homes destroyed.
Speaker 5: As you say, it already took months, sometimes years, just
Speaker 5: to get through the planning and the permitting process to
Speaker 5: build a home, to say nothing of actually getting the
Speaker 5: home built, eventually, getting an inspector out getting somebody into
Speaker 5: that home. We're just not going to be able to
Speaker 5: work on the same timelines that we were working on
Speaker 5: before the wildfires, and that's going to require some serious
Speaker 5: change in how we do permitting. I think self certification,
Speaker 5: letting licensed architect and engineers folks who are licensed by
Speaker 5: the state to do this work, letting themself certify, allowing
Speaker 5: applicants to hire licensed third party architects and engineers to
Speaker 5: review plans. I think that stuff is all incredibly reasonable.
Speaker 5: A lot of other states already do that. A lot
Speaker 5: of other countries already do that in many cases, you know,
Speaker 5: having the licensed professional, having the bonding and insurance requirements
Speaker 5: protect the consumer, and frankly, they're much better protected than
Speaker 5: having to wait for two years just to get a
Speaker 5: permit from the city or the county.
Speaker 2: The Board of Supervisors passed a series of resolutions a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago, and one of them asked the state
Speaker 2: to suspend some legal protections for property owners in the
Speaker 2: burned areas, which would include their right to build a
Speaker 2: duplex or an ADU, which I believe is accessory dwelling unit,
Speaker 2: and also to allow for reasonable permit timelines and more.
Speaker 2: You said on Twitter, I saw you say this this
Speaker 2: was a national scandal or should be a national scandal.
Speaker 2: What the board of supervisors has voted. They're doing this
Speaker 2: with what seems like the best of intentions, right to
Speaker 2: get building and to get people back into housing. There,
Speaker 2: what are we missing about what they're seeing and what
Speaker 2: you're observing.
Speaker 5: You know, under the current status quo policies and procedures.
Speaker 5: I understand they're looking at the situation. They're saying, there's
Speaker 5: no way we have the capacity to get these people
Speaker 5: building in the near term. And so what we're engaged
Speaker 5: in right now is the sort of arbitrage of or
Speaker 5: triage of Okay, well, let's say, okay, if you just
Speaker 5: rebuild the exact same home that existed before, we'll put
Speaker 5: you to the front of the line for permitting and
Speaker 5: don't on the one hanging Out's kind of reasonable. But
Speaker 5: there's two things that I think are really important to
Speaker 5: keep in mind here. One is a lot of these
Speaker 5: folks who want to rebuild. You know, you're saying to them, oh,
Speaker 5: you can only rebuild a home that's one hundred and
Speaker 5: ten percent the size of what existed before. So you
Speaker 5: can't build a larger home. You can't maybe add an
Speaker 5: extra bedroom or to your home and maybe take on
Speaker 5: neighbors or friends or family who are also displaced. You
Speaker 5: can't build an accessory dwelling unit Pursuato state law again
Speaker 5: housing your neighbors who are displaced. So that's one aspect
Speaker 5: of it. I think another aspect of it, a lot
Speaker 5: of these folks were uninsured, especially in Altadena, they were
Speaker 5: uninsured or underinsured, and they're not going to get a
Speaker 5: payout at any point unless the government ponies up money
Speaker 5: that we don't have right now. Realistically, the only way
Speaker 5: they're going to be made whole is if they can
Speaker 5: sell the land or work with a local developer who
Speaker 5: put a few units on that land and sell some
Speaker 5: of those units and get themselves a new home and
Speaker 5: get back some of the wealth that was lost. And
Speaker 5: the more we constrain the opportunities for those people, the
Speaker 5: more unlikely it is that they're going to a be
Speaker 5: able to return to their communities and be ever sort
Speaker 5: of recoup any of the wealth that was destroyed by
Speaker 5: the fire. And I think that's a really dangerous situation
Speaker 5: that we're walking into.
Speaker 2: We are looking at satellite images or if you are
Speaker 2: able to get into that neighborhood to see it for
Speaker 2: yourself from the street level. It's just devastating that basically
Speaker 2: all that's left is the land, and so how do
Speaker 2: we get folks to be able to maximize that land
Speaker 2: the best. Those are the questions that you seem to
Speaker 2: be raising, not just for their own personal wellbeing, but
Speaker 2: really to create the most housing that could be available
Speaker 2: to people that they also care about. I want to
Speaker 2: dive into that a little bit more. Coming out, we
Speaker 2: got to get to a quick news break. Stick with us.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. We're with you till
Speaker 2: nine o'clock tonight. We're talking about the painful process of
Speaker 2: rebuilding in the Palisades and in Alta Dina. Our guest
Speaker 2: right now is m Nolan Gray, the Senior Director of
Speaker 2: Legislation and Research at California YIMBI that means in my backyard,
Speaker 2: and the author of Arbitrary Lines. How zoning Broke the
Speaker 2: American City and How to fix it. Nolan before we
Speaker 2: went to break. I think I'm trying to understand some
Speaker 2: possible scenarios for folks who own the land that is
Speaker 2: left behind in this absolute carnage of these neighborhoods. Now,
Speaker 2: is there some sort of mechanism by which people could
Speaker 2: look at the land where their beautiful home once stood
Speaker 2: and say, I think I do want to do something
Speaker 2: different here. We mentioned before we went to break that
Speaker 2: it's faster to just go back down to the government
Speaker 2: office and say, yeah, we're rebuilding the exact same house
Speaker 2: as close to it as we can anyway to speed
Speaker 2: it up. But can they split those lots, build a
Speaker 2: couple of homes, a couple of accelerate accessory dwelling units
Speaker 2: and possibly have a better situation for themselves financially, so
Speaker 2: any returns they get from the insurance companies.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Over the last few years, the state legislature has
Speaker 5: passed a lot of laws that really strengthened the rights
Speaker 5: of owners to build a variety of different types of
Speaker 5: housing on their lots. So, of course, many folks in
Speaker 5: Alta Dunam Palisades might just want to go back and
Speaker 5: rebuild exactly what was there, or build something slightly larger.
Speaker 5: If they're rebuilding exactly what was there, it seems like
Speaker 5: the city and the county are putting them at the
Speaker 5: front of the line. If they want to build almost
Speaker 5: anything else, it seems like it's going to be a
Speaker 5: little bit tougher. But under state law, potentially they could
Speaker 5: add an accessory dwelling unit some people call it a
Speaker 5: granny flat or a casita, an additional unit. They could
Speaker 5: build a duplex, or split the lot and build two
Speaker 5: homes under a law called SB nine, or depending on
Speaker 5: the size of the lot, they could build a small
Speaker 5: townhouse or small lot subdivision cluster and potentially maybe live
Speaker 5: in one of the units and sell the other units off.
Speaker 5: So they have a lot of options. I think something
Speaker 5: that has been worrying is that the county requested that
Speaker 5: the state exempt the affected areas from a whole bunch
Speaker 5: of these laws on the idea of just trying to
Speaker 5: rebuild exactly what was there. Again. But the really important
Speaker 5: thing to keep in mind here is the best thing
Speaker 5: we can do for the affected family and households right
Speaker 5: now is to give them the most possible options.
Speaker 2: You've noted that some of the people who lost their homes.
Speaker 2: Maybe they've lived there a long time, maybe their mortgages
Speaker 2: had been paid off, and they didn't have insurance. So
Speaker 2: the only thing that's left is the value of that land.
Speaker 2: So what does suspending the state laws or requesting to
Speaker 2: suspend them anyway due to folks like that, Well, for.
Speaker 5: Folks who might completely reasonably say, hey, look, this was
Speaker 5: a traumatic event we just went through. We're going to
Speaker 5: sell the lot or give it to a family member
Speaker 5: or something of that nature and then move away. For
Speaker 5: those folks, right, but the most important thing is making
Speaker 5: sure that the land can be used for a variety
Speaker 5: of different things. And so of course, if you can
Speaker 5: sell the land on the premise that you can build
Speaker 5: a duplex on it with an accessory dwelling unit, or
Speaker 5: you could build four townhouses on it, that land is
Speaker 5: a lot more valuable than if you say to that family, hey,
Speaker 5: the only thing you can build on this lot is
Speaker 5: the exact same thing family home that was there before
Speaker 5: the fires. And so what you're essentially doing is you're
Speaker 5: just you're reducing the land wealth that a lot of
Speaker 5: these affected families have.
Speaker 2: You wrote in the Atlantic while the fires were still raging,
Speaker 2: I mean this was published on January eleventh. Those flames
Speaker 2: were still hot in the policades in an Alta, Dina
Speaker 2: that there were policies in LA that helped fuel those fires.
Speaker 2: Well intentioned policies is what the headline says. And you
Speaker 2: wrote that the real story of the wildfires isn't about
Speaker 2: malice or incompetence, It's about well intentioned policies with unintended consequences.
Speaker 3: What can you tell us about that?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, you know, And as I was writing that, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, like a lot of Los Angeles there was
Speaker 5: alerts going out of hey, you need to be ready
Speaker 5: to get out. Briefly, the part of West LA I
Speaker 5: was in had a potential evacuation order or evacuation notice,
Speaker 5: so very real for me, and I think a lot
Speaker 5: of Angelina's, you know. I think part of what I
Speaker 5: was hoping to just clarify is, Hey, this is it
Speaker 5: was a long road to get to a point like this,
Speaker 5: and if we don't take this moment to seriously reflect
Speaker 5: that how we got here, we're going to continue to
Speaker 5: make the same mistakes. I think something that we've done
Speaker 5: over the last fifty years in California and especially here
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles is we've pushed and pulled people into
Speaker 5: unsafe areas and not made the investments needed to mitigate
Speaker 5: that risk. On the one hand, right we had I
Speaker 5: think politically very wise decisions to restrict insurance premiums and
Speaker 5: areas that were at long term risk of fires. Understandably,
Speaker 5: nobody likes paying a higher premium, but those premiums are
Speaker 5: communicating risk and potentially providing motivation to take fire abatement actions,
Speaker 5: And we kind of hid the risk from generations of
Speaker 5: California homeowners who might not have fully realized that these
Speaker 5: areas really were at risk of fire. So that's one
Speaker 5: thing we did. We artificially suppressed these sort of insurance
Speaker 5: premiums and and other sorts of measures that would have
Speaker 5: communicated risk and let people make smart decisions about the
Speaker 5: carry offs. The second thing we were doing is kind
Speaker 5: of pushing folks out into this out into these air is.
Speaker 5: This wasn't so much true in the Palisades or Altadena,
Speaker 5: but you know, the parts of Greater Los Angeles where
Speaker 5: we're building housing are the types of places that are
Speaker 5: exactly at risk of these types of events going forward.
Speaker 5: Out on the outer wildlife urban interface, wildland urban interface.
Speaker 5: And what we've essentially done is we've made it really, really,
Speaker 5: really hard to build housing and some of the safest
Speaker 5: areas of Greater Los Angeles, and we made it very
Speaker 5: easy to build housing in some of the most dangerous areas.
Speaker 5: And so, you know, if we want to sort of
Speaker 5: get ourselves back on a path to getting more Californians
Speaker 5: living in safer areas, we're going to have to reckon
Speaker 5: with these two policies.
Speaker 2: I'm sensing that there might be a shift in the
Speaker 2: government just broadly speaking.
Speaker 3: Right now.
Speaker 2: It's obviously still early. These wounds in Altadena, these wounds
Speaker 2: in the Palisades are still very fresh. But we saw
Speaker 2: a pretty intense argument at LA City Hall this week
Speaker 2: about freezing rents basically citywide in the wake of these fires.
Speaker 2: And it's a policy that might have garnered pretty quick
Speaker 2: support just generically from folks, but I've noted that there
Speaker 2: are elected members of city council who are saying to
Speaker 2: other members of council, don't use this tragedy to push
Speaker 2: your political agendas, when maybe a year ago that would
Speaker 2: have been all of their political agenda. And I'm wondering
Speaker 2: if we're going to see that at the county level
Speaker 2: as well. As I'm watching these events unfold. I present
Speaker 2: that to you because I'm wondering if that shift extends
Speaker 2: into the bureaucracy as well. You've noted that the next
Speaker 2: year is going to be extremely quote consequential for the
Speaker 2: future of housing affordability in California. I'm sensing a big
Speaker 2: change in elected governance. I'm wondering if there's going to
Speaker 2: be a change in bureaucratic governance. What do you mean
Speaker 2: about extremely consequential for the next year, because I'm feeling
Speaker 2: the same vibe.
Speaker 5: Well, we already had a debilitating housing shortage coming into
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five, and now we have tens of thousands
Speaker 5: of Angelino's who are out of a home, or many
Speaker 5: more tens of thousands of a Julino's who maybe were
Speaker 5: near the areas that were affected by that, and they're thinking, Hey,
Speaker 5: I want to move, I want to get somewhere that
Speaker 5: where this is not going to happen in the next
Speaker 5: ten years. You know, this is this is really important.
Speaker 5: Right again, Even coming into all of this crisis, we
Speaker 5: had a lot of Angelina spending more than the half
Speaker 5: of their income on rent. Young Angelinas have no path
Speaker 5: to home ownership. We've got tens of thousands of people
Speaker 5: living on the streets. There's going to be this surge
Speaker 5: and housing demand and safe areas, and unless we have
Speaker 5: a commensurate response, things are just going to get much
Speaker 5: much worse. And so I'm hoping to see more leadership
Speaker 5: at the top communicating to all parts, Hey, let's get
Speaker 5: these projects through. Let's get stuff bill in the near term.
Speaker 5: It's tricky, right do you freeze rents now during an emergency?
Speaker 5: I think, you know, I think there are arguments for
Speaker 5: both sides of that, but we have to be doing
Speaker 5: the sort of long term things, actually get the housing built.
Speaker 5: All of the problems that we had coming into the
Speaker 5: fires are just compounded. This was a generational disaster. It's
Speaker 5: the sort of thing that should be motivating big, deep conversations.
Speaker 5: And I know that, you know, folks are saying, hey,
Speaker 5: let's let's pause, let's let's you know, let's not talk
Speaker 5: about policy ideas while you know the meet and aftermath
Speaker 5: of this. This is precisely the leadership that the people
Speaker 5: who are affected actually need, and we need to be
Speaker 5: having a big picture conversation about how we not only
Speaker 5: help them rebuild and get housed and remain in LA
Speaker 5: if they want to remain in LA. But how do
Speaker 5: we avoid this from happening to hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 5: people in the next few years.
Speaker 2: Nolan Gray is the Senior Director of Legislation and Research
Speaker 2: at California Gimbie and the author of Arbitrary Lines. How
Speaker 2: Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It.
Speaker 2: M Nolan Gray Man, I can't think of anything better
Speaker 2: on a beautiful Saturday night in southern California than talking
Speaker 2: about zoning and housing policy. I'm so grateful that he
Speaker 2: came in and did it again with us, and hope
Speaker 2: we can reach out to you again soon.
Speaker 5: Thanks so much, my pleasure, talk to you soon.
Speaker 2: All right, up next, you know we're not out of
Speaker 2: the woods yet. When it comes to weather, we got
Speaker 2: another storm on the way. We're going to talk about
Speaker 2: that next.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty. We are live everywhere on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app. I'm Michael mun from k FI News here
Speaker 2: to finish up our two hours on Saturday night together.
Speaker 2: So grateful that you listened to us talk about the
Speaker 2: news that has gone down in the week leading up
Speaker 2: to this, and it's always my pleasure to bring you
Speaker 2: the news during the week along with the rest of
Speaker 2: our news team in talkcosts here at k f I.
Speaker 2: We also love hearing from you. Let's hear from Pete.
Speaker 2: He had something to say about Mayor Bass and the
Speaker 2: fire recovery.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Karen Bass claims she's gonna run investigation about the
Speaker 6: fire department about it was understaffed and didn't have the
Speaker 6: mechanics to deploy them as well as staffing. Well, she
Speaker 6: cut the funding and that's what the investigation go to show.
Speaker 6: Get your handcuffs ready.
Speaker 2: We always appreciate the feedback and yes, Mayor Bass was
Speaker 2: asked this week about why so many fire trucks and
Speaker 2: other emergency vehicles were sitting idle awaiting mechanical service, apparently
Speaker 2: as the fire in the Palisade started. She says that
Speaker 2: will be looked into by the Fire Commission first. She
Speaker 2: also says that the state will have some investigations as well,
Speaker 2: So there's going to be a lot to answer for
Speaker 2: leading up to the fires, what happened during the fires,
Speaker 2: and what is going to happen now that they are
Speaker 2: behind us, and we'll continue to cover that.
Speaker 3: Here at KFI. Don't forget.
Speaker 2: You can follow me on social media and the news
Speaker 2: that I'm covering for KFI. Mike monks La at Mike
Speaker 2: monks La. That's miicmnks La at Mike Monk's La. Something
Speaker 2: else that is coming to the Southland is another battle
Speaker 2: with rain, apparently, and this so called atmospheric river is
Speaker 2: a major one. We've been told to prepare for the worst.
Speaker 2: Can't catch your break now, can wait? They're calling us
Speaker 2: a major atmospheric river storm, strong enough to rival some
Speaker 2: of the extreme storms that are wallap southern California in
Speaker 2: recent winters. According to the La Times, they say Santa
Speaker 2: Barbara and San Luis Obispo could get the brunt of
Speaker 2: this thing, but it's also gonna hit La and Ventura Counties. Apparently,
Speaker 2: by the time it hits Orange County it will have
Speaker 2: weakened a little bit, but they're talking about some pretty
Speaker 2: serious rain. According to The Times, this storm, forecast to
Speaker 2: reach southern California sometime before Valentine's Day, is expected to
Speaker 2: be the strongest of the winter so far. That's according
Speaker 2: to the National Weather Service in Oxnard. We could see
Speaker 2: two to four inches of rain along the coast and
Speaker 2: in the valleys, four to eight inches or more in
Speaker 2: the mountains and the foothills. They say. The higher chance
Speaker 2: of that kind of rainfall is in Santa Barbara and
Speaker 2: San Luis Obispo counties, but a thirty percent chance in
Speaker 2: La and Ventura counties. The Weather Service also says this
Speaker 2: rainfall could be extreme along the lines of a powerful
Speaker 2: powerful storm from January of two years ago which forced
Speaker 2: mass evacuations of Montecito and other communities, So be prepared
Speaker 2: for some extreme weather that is on the way again
Speaker 2: next week. It looks like a lot of rainfall, could
Speaker 2: be a wet Valentine's Day as well, And of course
Speaker 2: we've got these burn areas that are vulnerable to mudslines
Speaker 2: and debris falls, so a lot of things to be
Speaker 2: on the lookout for. We definitely don't need any more
Speaker 2: disasters here. We haven't had a lot of rain, though
Speaker 2: we got a little bit this week, but it's been
Speaker 2: a pretty dry winter so far. Downtown La receiving just
Speaker 2: about two inches of rain since the water year began
Speaker 2: on October first, and almost all of that has been
Speaker 2: since late last month. Typically at this point in the year,
Speaker 2: we got almost eight inches in downtown ally, so not
Speaker 2: a lot, not a lot. Yes, there is a big
Speaker 2: football game tomorrow as well. I know you're excited about it,
Speaker 2: even if your team is not in it. But Raoul Cortes,
Speaker 2: our board operator, our technical producer, his team isn't it?
Speaker 3: Kansas City Chiefs fan, he's got a shirt on. Are
Speaker 3: you bored with this?
Speaker 2: I mean, is it?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Donald Trump likes to tell you're gonna be so tired
Speaker 2: of winning? Are you tired of winning? I'm tired of
Speaker 2: you winning. I know you are.
Speaker 7: I know everybody is.
Speaker 3: Uh No, I'm not tired. Of course.
Speaker 7: We are witnessing greatness either way, honestly, because I am
Speaker 7: a Jalen Hurts fan as well. So it's kind of
Speaker 7: like when he was with Bama. I really thought he
Speaker 7: was going to be like a big phenomenon. And look
Speaker 7: he's at the super Bowl twice. So both guys are amazing.
Speaker 7: We're witnessing greatness. Let's watch do the Chiefs win again tomorrow?
Speaker 7: I will say, yes, of course they will. What do
Speaker 7: you do for Super Bowl Sunday? I mean, is it
Speaker 7: a big deal for you? Is it a big to
Speaker 7: do or are you a guy who needs to watch
Speaker 7: it alone?
Speaker 3: I watch it alone.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I was gonna watch it with my family,
Speaker 7: but they changed the plans on me today and expected
Speaker 7: me to go with that, and I'm not going with that.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna watch it alone.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Is your whole family chiefs fans somehow?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 7: No, only only the people that are from Missouri.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's your connection to is you've got a Missouri clan?
Speaker 7: Yeah. My stepdad and his family, they were his family.
Speaker 7: He was a Rams guy, but his family is from
Speaker 7: Springfield and they taught me football when I was like eighteen,
Speaker 7: I didn't care. I was a music guy and I
Speaker 7: didn't care about football. And they were like, what, let's
Speaker 7: we'll tell you about this guy named Derek Thomas, and
Speaker 7: let's tell you about this guy and Willie like this.
Speaker 3: It just explained everything to me.
Speaker 7: And that's how I learned about football because the other
Speaker 7: side of the family was Raider fans, and they never
Speaker 7: explained anything. They were just like, we're Raider fans. And
Speaker 7: I'm like, why why are we Raider fans?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 3: Oh well, we just are.
Speaker 7: No, I don't think so. So when I was taught football.
Speaker 7: I was taught by Chiefs fans, and that's why I'm
Speaker 7: a Chief fan.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, we I hope you're smiling tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I guess. I mean, I got no dog in that fight.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I'll be doing. I always do
Speaker 2: grocery shopping on Sundays anyway, And I'm not like anti football.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the Super Bowl as much as any red
Speaker 2: blooded American. But I love going out while everyone's watching
Speaker 2: the super Bowl because there is nothing else. There's no
Speaker 2: one around. I have the whole grocery store of myself.
Speaker 2: I can sniff everything, I can taste it all. No
Speaker 2: one's looking.
Speaker 7: Now. Wait, wait, wait, though you know a little bit
Speaker 7: for Kelsey, he's from your home area, right.
Speaker 2: I mean you know he's got University of Cincinnati connections.
Speaker 2: You know when you're from the Kentucky side of the
Speaker 2: CINCINNTI metro. Though that doesn't mean anything to you. You
Speaker 2: know your team's are either you know, NKU Northern Kentucky
Speaker 2: or UK University of Kentucky, and you know just don't
Speaker 2: care about that. But you know, I wish them all
Speaker 2: the best. I hope everyone has a good time. I
Speaker 2: hope both teams have a good time, and I know
Speaker 2: that I hope everybody listening has a good time as well.
Speaker 2: Be safe out there, don't eat too much, definitely don't
Speaker 2: drink too much, especially if you are driving.
Speaker 3: And I look forward to the commercials myself. Thanks for
Speaker 3: tuning in again.
Speaker 2: Always enjoy being with you on Saturday nights from seven
Speaker 2: to nine.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 2: I am Michael Monks from KFI News. We'll be back
Speaker 2: again next week. We'll have a special two hours on
Speaker 2: the fires, the cleanup effort, the experience of folks who
Speaker 2: survived it, and what comes next. So for our producer
Speaker 2: Matthew Toffler and our technical producer Rauel Cortes. Again, I'm
Speaker 2: Michael Monks. Follow us online at Mike Monks LA, m
Speaker 2: I CMO nks LA, and we'll see you back here
Speaker 2: all week doing the news and back here next week
Speaker 2: doing the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty on demand