Mayor Bass Dodging DC Hearing (09/08)

0:00This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human. Can't find am 640 you're listening to the John Cobalt podcast on the I heart radio. Can't find am 640 live everywhere on the I heart radio app. It's the John Cobalt show. And it's the second hour. We're on three to six after six o'clock John Cobalt show on demand on the I heart app. You know what you missed if you're just joining us. I'm not going to tell you. I'll tell you Steve Hilton was on with us about 330. So we had a we had a nice little meeting with him and you can hear it on the podcast. Our number two when it gets released after six o'clock Steve Hilton running for governor against the missing invisible. Imaginary. I'm going to tell you how to get out of here. This is Sarah. Now let's go on. Turn next guest Nick Gerda is coming on next. Been on with us a few times with L A S dot com.

1:02And they are connected with the public radio. And he has had several stories. Exclusive stories in the past couple of weeks regarding all the homeless spending that's produced. Nothing in terms of reducing homelessness or helping those people. And some of his work was used by the congressman Tim Birchett in his request that Karen bass come to Washington and testify before Birchett's committee on what the hell happened to all this money, including the federal money that Birchett is interested in. Let's get Nick Gerda on Nick. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me on again. So some of your some of the stories you've done were highlighted by Birchett's committee in their request for bass to testify. So that's right. Yeah, we had done some reporting last year about the chief homeless services official at loss of the homeless services agency in L.A.

2:02How sure signature had appeared on a 2.1 million dollar contract. Between the government agency and her husband's employer, and which raised a lot of conflict of interest questions. So we reported on that and that got cited in this letter from the congressional subcommittee that asked bass to show up at a hearing next week. Bass's response. She or her staff claims, look, she's only one of 10 commissioners really doesn't have that much influence, but she points five of the 10, including herself. And that Alicia Adams-Kellum, who was caught sending $2 billion to her husband's nonprofit. Well, she's a close friend of Karen bass. So it's inconceivable that she doesn't have much influence over what loss is doing. Yeah, well, we know that the influence does extend beyond just being one member of the 10 member commission. I mean, she, as you mentioned, she appoints half of the commission.

3:03She could remove her appointees. And she's also, you know, the chief executive at the city and departments that report to her are funding loss. And so she does a lot of power in as a funder of loss and what happens with city dollars. And so we've discovered records that show that she was giving directives to LASA about hiring Alicia Adams-Kellum as a consultant for $40,000 a month at one point. This is all behind, you know, outside public view. She's also ordered LASA to award contracts to certain vendors outside of public view. So there is some direct influence she has. But, you know, new development just in the last few days. I think it was actually an interview she did on, might have done on KFI or radio station. She's announced that she plans to step down from the loss of commission that she appointed herself to about three years ago. And she decided, you know, not having time for it. This is on the heels of my colleague Aaron Trink at LASA doing some analysis that found, and reporting this out publicly a couple of weeks ago, that Mayor Bass has missed more than half of the meetings of loss of governing commission in her time on that commission, which is a much poorer attendance record.

4:17And so, she's announced that she will be stepping down from that commission, but that does not. You know, she will continue to be appointing and able to remove half the commission. And she also has a lot of influence over the city dollars that flow into that agency, which is the largest funder now of LASA. I think about $300 million a year, city dollars goes through LASA after the county pulled out citing accountability concerns. Right, but the county pulling out of LASA all that's left is the city. And what's the city city's the bulk of it and then there's some federal of course and and state dollars right right and the feds have pulled out too. Yeah, the feds the fed suspended, but they got sort of overturned at least for now by a federal judge David O'Carner who said that loss may be dysfunctional. He's very critical of LASA, but that the feds pulled the plug too quickly and he was concerned about people being affected who are receiving services, but there's still a lot to be worked out.

5:19The feds say that they plan to pursue legal avenues to continue to their their their suspension. So, so I mean between the feds, the county, best trying to distance herself now. Is there any way to kill this thing? Well, you know, someone asked me recently when when would what would look like for loss of the dead? I said, well, if there's no funding going through it, that would be, you know, that would be kind of what it would look like. It's all ultimately up to the funders and what happens with the money. Do they continue to send it there and the city in a city of LA city council three years ago, they were presented with information from LASA officials that on the mayor's signature homelessness program inside safe. The data was so bad and unreliable. The city would not know if they were paying for empty motel rooms in that program and accounts of members were, you know, they said they were, you know, upset by this. Like one one of them called an Ameri go round get me off this merry go round from hell. But one of them pointed out three years ago that the city council had had threatened to leave LASA multiple times before, but it never really taken the steps of coming up with what a plan would look like to have someone else oversee it.

6:29And then just starting to look at that now, but it's been many years of them threatening that, but not really putting any teeth behind it. Nick, I know you can only report what you know for sure, but most normal people are really puzzled by this because it seems that a number of these public officials are in public agreement that this LASA thing is a disaster filled with waste and corruption. And it's certainly not working. You just got to use your eyes for that. So most people listening are thinking, so what what is it take here? What what's the what's the other story that we're not seeing? Yes, it's a good question. It's something that folks, you know, at LASA close to LASA and that federal judge I just mentioned David O'Carter has been studying this for quite a while and has a lot of a lot of concern. But they've a lot of people described is that LASA is a convenient punching bag for the elected officials to deflect, you know, blame that or criticism or concern that comes their way and instead point the finger at LASA and lament at, you know, failures and oversight at LASA and it sort of can create this, you know, this appearance of distance between the elected officials and the management, but you know, at the end of the day, the elected officials are choosing to continue to send money there.

7:45And have not until recently have not really seriously explored what alternatives could look like in a just in April, the city council in LASA was told that they did not have the city of LASA, which has the largest unsheltered homeless population in the country, did not have a single city official dedicated to homelessness policy in house. This way you said serious and that it would be that's yeah, that was said at the end of just this April and that it would take a year and a half for the city to stand up its own department if the city wanted to directly oversee the dollars, but if the city oversees the dollars directly that also creates a direct line of sort of a count of more visible accountability to the elected officials at the city. And you know, we continue to uncover all kinds of, you know, problems and, and just function and failing to get into the moment, a couple of your recent stories that you've uncovered when we come back and you hang around another second. Absolutely. All right, we talking to Nick Gerda with LAS dot com, who's done a tremendous amount of work unraveling the big loss of beast and all the money that is wasted.

8:55And to no seeming benefit to the city or the county. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM 640. Can't buy AM 640 live everywhere on the I heart radio. I have John Cobalt show we continue with Nick Gerda from LAS dot com. He does a lot of great investigative work on all the money being wasted in stolen. Specifically with LAS the LA homeless services authority, which was a joint city and county agency. Now the county has has pulled out Nick talk about Justin Zalasa. That's how you say his name. He is was on the governing commission and he was was involved in. I use the chair of the three member audit committee. That's right. He's got to talk about what he started finding out and then what happened to him.

10:01Yes, the Justin Zalasa. He was appointed to the LAS the commission by supervisor Catherine Barger County supervisor, Catherine Barger. And since he arrived there, he's been very, you know, proactive in trying to understand where the oversight has been falling apart. And he. You know, it's frequently gone out firsthand to see things for himself. He visited a camping site that LAS was funding at a city parking lot. It was meant to be for our house folks. And he discovered that LAS was for more than a year had been paying for twice a nonprofit to serve twice as many camping spots, but then actually existed at the site. That's the situation that that federal judge I just I mentioned earlier David O'Carter later described as obvious fraud in the eyes of the judge. So Slasa found that he also had really pushed LAS to do more audits and really review how, how it's procedures and practices are where there's problems there that might lead to miss spending or underspending of dollars.

11:03And he was facing a lot of a lot of pushback in his in his work there. So he was doing that. He was the chair of the audit committee and just last was last week of the week before. There were a week before last in a pointy of mayor bath recommended removing the slas as chair of that audit committee. So it's essentially demoted. And as a sort of tradition at loss, the rest of the law for commission deferred to this bass appointee, the chair of the loss of commission to and you know, they approved demoting. Slasa and he was disappointed by this. He was, you know, had a plan to continue pursuing fixing the oversight issues there. And we've gotten no answers from mayor bass or her appointee about why this recommendation was done to remove him. They just said the appointee Stephanie Graves said just that it's her. Grogative her decision making powers change and recommend nobody explains everything. This seems to be very common, especially with things Karen bass is involved in.

12:07Carried bass will explain this Stephanie Graves will explain this on the surface here. It looks like Justin Slasa was finding some of the some of the nasty stuff where the money was disappearing. And he shut down. I will say about Justin. He was approaching it. He's been approaching it from a standpoint of what he described just trying to improve loss. He says that the public whether you're homeless or you're living in a house, the public deserves excellence in the oversight of these taxpayer dollars. And so he tried to approach it from that positive life. Well, who can force Karen bass or this Stephanie Graves to tell the truth to explain this. This is a tremendous amount of money. And he's he's on to something. He's on to a lot here. Well, knowing Justin, you know, he he posts about his work on LinkedIn and and speaks up, you know, from time to time he's certainly not not shy about speaking up about things he sees. So I would I would anticipate he'll continue to try and raise awareness, but he will no longer be able to set the agenda for the audit committee that is tasked with overseeing the internal audit staff that they try to examine and and fix these kinds of problems.

13:23Something the attorney general ought to be investigating. You know, that's for others to decide, but could he know what he would he have the power would it be within his jurisdiction? Yeah, the California Attorney General has authority to investigate any well any criminal activity that is not being investigated locally. That's generally the power they have. And there's certainly been, you know, high profile instance recently of criminal. And the charges standing from law for funding, which we can get into at a moment. All right. I could talk to you for a long time, but we're out of time. I appreciate you coming on Nick Gerde LIS dot com go to LIS dot com and go find everything that Nick writes on this homeless situation because these articles are quite extensive. There's a lot of detail and there's a lot of bad news in these articles, but it seems like these internal investigations just stop dead when somebody finds something they're reassigned.

14:32Thank you for coming on with us. Thank you so much for having me. All right, Nick Gerde. Well, when we come back, I also have any array of entertaining audio clips of Gavin Newsom. We've got to do a spin through them because you know, he's not going to be around all that wanted to get around. Or maybe he will be maybe he'd become president for eight years. Maybe for the next 10 years. We'll have Gavin Newsom between the campaign and two terms in office. Think about that. Maybe between now and what would be 2036? Yeah. Why? You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640. Yeah, fun. AM640 live everywhere on the I heart radio app. John Cobalt show. We're on every day from three until six and after six o'clock. John Cobalt show on demand on the I heart app.

15:34Coming up right after five o'clock after Denver's news, it looks like three of the jurors are speaking out who wanted who wanted to let Lindsey Clancy get away with murdering her three children. Three women. Three headaches from the look of looks of it. Anyway, the local NBC affiliate channel 10 in Boston has a story on them. There's done interviews and we're going to play because I want to hear what they have to say, but just glancing at the video and say, hey, hey, we got to get rid of this jury system. And we'll talk about that after five o'clock. Now we've got some Gavin Newsom clips. Because so much happens. Life spins by quickly. I don't want to lose these moments. Because I think he's going to wipe out pretty early in his campaign. And then he'll be gone forever. Gavin Newsom has been campaigning in South Carolina. He's already got he's already got journalists like starting to cheerlead for him.

16:39Because he appeared at, you know, some local. I don't know auditorium. Some, some, you know, recreational center where they put out folding chairs. And there was one reporter. I saw him on a political panel and passing the saw it and he goes, well, you know, they have to put out more chairs for him. He was getting such a crowd. It's like, okay. They had 50 chairs. They needed 55. Well, they're trying to try to sell him as a big hit in South Carolina. Because South Carolina is the first primary on the Democratic side. Here's a clip of him criticizing. He's going full bore for the socialist DSA vote. He's campaigning in South Carolina. Listen to this. Cut to. And closing I and then I also not just fighting to save our democracy. You also recognizing that in order to save our democracy, we have to democratize our economy as well.

17:45That this is just no longer working capitalism as we know it. It's not working. Not a $7.25 minimum wage in South Carolina. It's not. It's not 10% of people on two thirds of all the wealth, 93% of the stock market. Now a Trump thinks it's the entire economy's stock market. That's great for 10% of folks that don't 93% of the equity. What about the rest of us? The rest of us. Did you catch that? I caught that. Very good. The rest of us. Susan Shelley. We had on the other day if he's she's the Congress with the Southern California news group and she put in quotes us. His second home, Gated Mansion is on the market for seven and a half million dollars. Sure, that's a lot, but if you need a wine seller that holds 5,000 bottles, that's the price. He's not one of us.

18:46No, his net worth is about 20 million dollars, but he'll go to South Carolina and talk about the the economy is not working for us. And he acts like he doesn't have money in the stock market. He acts like he's not part of that top 10%. He is so incredibly unrelentingly phony. Just admit you're a rich guy. That's what Susan Shelley points out that Trump is wealthy, but he never pretends not to be. Newsom is always trying to pretend. Oh, you know, I grew up in his way. It was pretty rough. No, it was not pretty rough. Your father was the legal counsel and general fixer for the Gettys family. One of the original billionaire families in America, like Gettioil. I probably a lot of people don't even know what Gettioil is.

19:49They're so stupid or ignorant. And he, Gavin Newsom has this multi million dollar set of businesses. He started up 11 businesses. Ten of them were financed by the Gettys family. Ten. His wineries, his restaurants, his vineyards, and all the other related companies. Ten out of 11 financed by one of the biggest billionaire families of the 20th century. But before there were before billionaires became fashionable where that when they were rare, they were billionaires. I see here. He went on a podcast hosted by Amna Nawaz. I don't know what that was. I have to look it up. She anchors the PBS news hour. That's a big crowd. Newsom was asked, oh, you have to listen to this. It actually works a little bit better if you could see the video because his, I'll explain his facial expressions, but listen to it first.

20:57And it's about whether he would still do his podcast if elected president. Governor Newsom, you're very comfortable in this format. I should say it's almost like you have your own podcast show. I know, but not everyone loves my guests. Would you keep the podcast if you were president? Oh, that's interesting. As president, a presidential podcast. That's kind of a little different, a little different than a fire side chat. It's kind of a modern. Is that a good idea? I'm sitting back. I'm thinking. I'm thinking about what I would, what I wear. Was it a sweater? Is it more relaxing approachable? I just, I feel my physiology changed. How's he going to do his hair? Oh, I imagine that was the next question. She sounds like a fan girl, doesn't she? Nice, nice neutral journalist there. Oh, would you still do your podcast if you're the president? You're just so comfortable in it. You have to see his body language. He like puts his hands out and brings them to his chest like me. President? That's president. Why? I never thought of that. Oh, that's so flattering. Oh, well, thank you.

22:03Me as president. What would I wear? Would I wear a sweater? Would I just go nude? The way I used to run around with all the office girls when I was bare. Boy, that's two gagers. Wait, we got a third. Newsom talking to Amna Nawaz about running against, I guess far left candidates. You'll understand this. We're in against the green party. I ran against the green party. It sounded the exact same platform 20 years ago. Maybe it's because I'm from the Bay Area. Maybe it's because of California. And I think it's healthy. I just think it's, I'm not consumed by this. I don't think there's a great. I just, I think it's that natural. It's the how it's reflected in your kitchen. And just aspects and component parts of our party that we've always had. And it's a healthy dialectic within the party.

23:05What was that word that started with the sea? Okay. Kucinich. He was a socialist mayor of Cleveland back 40, 50 years ago. Yeah. Like that was Kamala Harris there. It was just a bunch of sounds he started to make. Why did you play back that last 20 seconds or so again? The answer to that last question. Let's tell incoherency is the green party. It's I ran against the green party. It sounded the exact same platform 20 years ago. Maybe it's because I'm from the Bay Area. Maybe it's because of California. And I think it's healthy. I just think it's, I'm not consumed by this. I don't think there's a great. I just, I think it's that natural. It's the how it's reflected in the kitchen. And just aspects and component parts of our party that we've always had. And it's a healthy dialectic within the party. Somebody looked it up and I double looked it up to make sure he barely beat the green party candidate when he ran for 20 years ago.

24:05It was 52 47. A green party candidate almost beat him as mayor because people in Sanford, a lot of people Sanford Cisco couldn't stand him and they saw through him even way back then. Then someone else on the internet, I think a guy named calls himself maze. He periodically releases. Oh, it's like classic wise that Newsom is told when he does is he makes montages. And in this you'll hear a montage of Newsom lying saying that no one in his office uses the term Latin X. He's never heard of it. And followed by clips of him previously using the term Latin X in public statements. So plate cut number three. Now one person ever in my office has ever used the word Latin X. So could we find the put that to bad? Yeah, what did that even know more Latin X? Everybody just didn't even know where it came from. I'm like, what do people talk about? I'm not careful. This has been on the Latin X community. Latin X community politicians that are banning not assault rifles, but the word Latin X.

25:09Nothing. I just like more than the politician that is sits there and lies to you. And we all just said they're all in our eyes going give me a break. That's a great montage. Incredibly full of it. So anyway, look up the clips. They're all of your social media that he did with the omnut. No, why's because you you have to see him when she mentions a presidential podcast and he puts his hands to his chest me. President. Also, when he's given the green party answer, he starts waving his hands up and down, like going up and down an ocean wave. He's got a lot of strange body language quirks and ticks. We'll talk more. We come back. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640. More stimulating talk radio. John Cobalt show.

26:09And we're on from three to six. Moist line 877 moist 86 from Friday, which is going to come up fast this week 877 moist 86. It's a short week. Now I said we're going to have a we're going to listen to the clip of the Lindsey Clancy jurors who voted to let her get away with the murder of her three kids. That is coming up in the five o'clock hour. But first, we're going to talk with animal activists Joey Tuchio right after five about an attack on animal shelter employees here in L.A. To give you an idea what went on, we're going to play this story by KTLA Channel five reporter John Fennoglio. These photos show the aftermath of a violent attack inside the North Central Animal Services Center. Police were called here Friday afternoon after reports of a man attacking staffers and volunteers inside. There's a woman that was beat up staples in her head. Her arm is broken.

27:09Animal advocate Joey Tuchio says he was told the confrontation started when a man came to get his dog. You just get out of jail. So he wanted his dog back. The dog was getting fixed first. He didn't want to get his dog fixed, but he had to. There was somebody a staff member in the lobby texting on his phone. The guy thought that he was videotaping him. It was completely unrelated. The guy lost his mind. He forced the staff member to get on his knees, plead for his life while screaming biblical verses. He then broke into the vet, broke down the glass door, knocked the receptionist out, broke a vet's arm, removed his dog that wasn't even cleared for a delete yet. Ran down the street, dropped the dog on the freeway, went to a train station, tried to kill himself. One person was taken to the hospital. There's a busy asses office confirming staff from the Western University veterinary clinic who work at the shelter were injured. Also saying the suspect will be held accountable. She said the suspect was later apprehended. Tuchio says the city must do more to protect shelter staff who are already understrain from understaffing and animal overcrowding.

28:14The city needs to provide arm security here 24 hours a day, and especially when staff members are here. Arm security, arm security in every shelter period. The mayor's office says security is now at the shelter and middle health resources have been offered to staff. But Tuchio says the security is only temporary. This is one of the most beloved shelters in Los Angeles. These people, staff members, volunteers work tirelessly to help these dogs. And the fact that now they're too scared to even come back to work is disgusting. Nithya Rahman and Karen Bass has made such a big deal about animal welfare. And for the next four years, whoever wins, this will be a priority. Now it's our time to act. All right, so there is a security guard here tonight. It's unclear if that is a temporary or permanent post. The mayor's office says none of the animals were harmed during this attack. But what about the dog that was on the freeway? That was the last thing that was mentioned about the dog. No. Well, Joey's coming on.

29:15You ask him that question. I will. I will definitely feel fear to jump in. I don't know if Joey comes on. Okay. Because I know all this stuff means a lot to you. Yeah, I know. It's it's crazy. And I have so much in front of me here that I'm not going to get to. And there's so much we've done already. There are so many things that have gone haywire. And no one is addressing any of this or even trying to address it anymore. And it's a really weird place to be. We will talk more about this, try to tie all this together. When we come back, Debra Mark is live in the KFI 24 hour newsroom. You've been listening to the John Cobalt show podcast. You can always hear the show live on KFI AM640 from three to six PM every Monday through Friday. And of course, any time on demand on the I heart radio. KFI AM640. More stimulating talk.