This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI AM six forty the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
A couple weeks ago, we told you about Virginia Jeffrey. This was probably the most prominent victim of Jeffrey Epstein.
She was in an accident.
She'd posted a picture on social media last month of a bruised up face, said she was in the hospital and said she'd been hit by a bus and had four days to live. Committed suicide Friday, forty one years old. Body found late Friday night by family. Sparks a major investigation into the scene. They gathered evidence for twelve hours at the suspected suicide, and they said it could take two years for a coroner's report to officially file a report on how it is that she'd died.
We mentioned this as it has been unfolding. Workers cut from the La city budget. It is way in the red, and we mentioned that the animal services was going to receive of substantial cuts and I thought, oh boy, here we go. There's going to be a lot of fervor and uproar over this plan. The second of two opportunities for the public to share their thoughts. As it said, so politely, so is going to come at City Hall today.
Michael Monks joins us.
He is on top of all things Los Angeles, all the goings on, especially downtown. Michael, what can we envision for today, especially after what we saw on Friday?
One hundred and twenty positions lost in the Animal Services Department under this proposal. That's a department that's already been struggling with capacity of animals. They're packed to the gills with cats and dogs, trying to do everything they can to get folks to adopt. But to lose thirty two percent of its workforce really would not be a benefit to the struggles that they're having. So it would go from a workforce of three hundred and seventy eight people
to two hundred and fifty eight people. And that is just one department that is bleeding out employees in this mare Bass budget proposal. On Friday, the public got their first chance to weigh in the City Council was having their monthly meeting and Vannis.
They do this once a month now.
They go to the City Hall on van Nis and that also happened to coincide with the first public hearing, and that was packed. I mean, just like the animal shelters, people busting at the seams to get in. There were so crowded, in fact, that when some people would finish talking, the Budget Committee chair Katie Arrislovsky would say, if you've talked and you don't mind, would you please leave so that we have seats available to the people who want to come out. All in all, they got about two
hundred public comments, and people are upset. As you can imagine, this is a significant reduction in the La City workforce. And people are concerned about the animal Department, they're concerned about the streets department. The police department is losing positions also,
not sworn officers, but hundreds of civilian workers. And you heard some commenters say, well that work will still need to be done, and that might mean sworn officers pivoting to these other positions, and that costs more because they're paid more. It might be over time and you might not see a net positive as it relates to the finances because of that.
I mean, off the air, you said very creatively and succinctly, La is screwed.
That were broken.
I mean this process that we're in seems to consistently show up every year couple of years when the budget comes around, everybody looks at each other and scratches their head and goes.
I don't know what we're gonna do. What are we going to do? Last year, the writing was already on the wall.
They cut a bunch of vacant positions, because even departments that have positions that are not filled, they still get the funding for those positions in anticipation that somebody will fill them. Instead, they cut thousands of those positions and use that money, took the money from the department and put it back into the general fund.
It wasn't enough.
So this year we're talking about flesh and blood people on top of more vacant positions being slash. So here is a city that already knew it was in a bad position last year, did not take drastic actions beyond the vacant cuts to position.
Themselves to be healthier this time around.
In fact, it's a worse and the news got worse on Saturday when the S and P decided to lower the city's credit rating by a point, which.
I missed that that's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
And that means it's harder to borrow, it's more expensive to borrow, and this is a city that is borrowing. They're talking about borrowing money to cover the cost of the legal settlements that they've been facing. There's a special kind of municipal bond.
Because they're just settling everything everything.
And there are hundreds of millions over budget for that, the legal settlement.
And everybody knows they're settling everything, which is why they're following claims.
Yeah, and this was already happening back in the fall. I've reported on this in the fall, Like this seems excessive a lot of times. Even when I first started here and first started going to city council meetings, there would just be a regular meeting and then they'd run through about ten settlements and I kind of write them all down, like the numbers.
Like that adds up to like six million dollars.
Here's something about lawyers.
If they notice the city settling everything, they're going to jump on that gravy train and they have enough.
And it is very seldom that you hear the city clerk say that the city attorney has reckoned then did rejecting the settlement. Often, Yeah, no, it happens, but very rare.
So one jury I sat on was a case where the city did decide to fight and they ended up on the hook for thirteen and a half million dollars.
And that's why you find them settling so often, because a lot of these cases, it's not like they're illegitimate cases. They sound strange in the categories that they're titled. Trip and fall, trip and fall, tripple. Come on, somebody fell and now you owe them five hundred thousand dollars.
Yeah.
Really, they might have been swallowed up by a terrible infrastructure of a light pole might have fallen on them.
It's it's not good stuff out.
There, Michael. Can you hold on for another segment?
If I don't have a choice, I guess, Oh you always?
It is Monday for crying out.
Let me see Jesus is still walking around all.
Was always a pleasure to be with you guys, and I would love to stay as long as you'll have one.
We haven't gotten to ascension Thursday yet? Is it a Thursday?
I don't know what. Google.
Weren't you in the Catholic school system longer than I was before I was asked to leave.
How long were you doing How long did you do it?
Almost the end of fourth grade?
They're like, you might do better in the public school for four years kindergarten too, So almost five full years.
Okay, so I was there third to eighth grades of five.
We're thrill ding dong here, real dig dog.
Well, the Clippers are in Denver tonight tomorrow night, so we'll talk about the Clippers Nuggets series when we come back.
Hot, hot Catholic talk. Eagles wings Baby, let's go.
Oh that's a banger.
Oh, I know one bread, one body, So well, let's not shut the door on that love.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Michael Monks is with us from KFI News. He stays on top of all the things going on in downtown LA. They're easy to not pay attention to. But if we don't pay attention, then the crooks get to their crookery, don't they. Right now, there are a lot of job cuts for Los Angeles. I was wondering if there was any shades of in the public comment what's going on in the national level in terms of the federal agencies being gutted and if there's any fingers pointing at LA city leaders.
You know, in conjunction with that.
It's a pretty consistent theme that there are folks who believe that there's something shady going on at city Hall, but some of the folks that say that the most aren't necessarily reliable narrators. The most common refrain you hear about the state of the national economy and the federal government comes from mayorbas herself, because that seems to be where she's placing the bulk of the blame for the city's finances, particularly over the weekend when the S and
P lord the city's credit rating. It's you know, we're facing economic headwinds, and we may face some challenges with federal money coming from Trump's animosity towards sanctuary cities like Los Angeles, something that also escalated today. So that's something to keep an eye on. And she also talks about a structural imbalance. Didn't elaborate on what that means exactly, but she been trying to fix it, she says, for the twenty seven months that she's been in office.
I mean too much management to top heavy.
That's what I can assume, you know, from an engineering perspective, but we might not know because engineers are also being cut from the city department. One hundred and twenty five City engineers are on the chopping block for this also hundreds of jobs transportation, hundreds of jobs. We already talked about animal services five hundred and sixty six in city planning.
Well, that imbalance, I mean, it says here that despite all of the cuts that you're talking about, the proposed budget is still an eight percent more than eight percent increase over the plan for the spending plan from last year because part of what.
They want to do is ramp up their their reserve fund. The reserve fund is sort of like a rainy day fund. You like to know that you've got some money tucked away in case the poop hits the fan. Right Well, it has, and it has all the school year, and so they've been dipping into that. The city likes to keep that number at about five percent of its total budget. If it dips below two point three percent, they have to declare a fiscal emergency, and they're knocking on the
door of that. So the reason that you're seeing more money go in to just prop that up is to make them feel better you know, when you're out spending something, but you know you've got ten grand and the bank that you can tap into. If this purchase is more than you bargain for, you feel a little bit more comfortable about it. But you have to have a plan to replenish that that savings account.
Because in the event that they did do, like you said, this fiscal emergency that comes with a whole nother level of probably credit downgrades from credit rating agencies and things like that.
It seems that this is going to get worse. Now.
The optimistic tone that the mayor has struck is that she doesn't want to see these layoffs happen at all, that perhaps Sacramento will come through and somehow bail out and the laughter isn't without merit. I mean, I think the way I try to think about this is picture yourself as an adult. You've got yourself in a situation. You've overspent and you're running out of money, and if you don't figure something out, you might be in default. You might have to sell your furniture, but you're going
to ask mom and dad for the money. If mom and dad have the money, they might be willing to give it to you.
Or loan it to you.
We're going to say, manage your own budget, you dumb ass, and then slap you across the face.
Because if I do this for you, then your brother San Francisco, your sister San Diego, they might come crawling to us next.
I mean, all the other kids we screwed up raising are going to need money as well.
I do want to add context what you said earlier.
President Trump is supposed to sign an executive order today to direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to identify cities and states that are not complying with federal immigration laws, basically a list of sanctuary cities in order to One of the things that he's that he campaigned on was withholding federal moneys from those municipalities, and a federal court.
Told him he can't do that last week. So he's obviously got a weird relationship with the courts right now. Anyway, under statement, so this executive order seems to just ignore any warnings about the federal funding. This isn't directly related to federal funding necessarily, but he's also willing to put people in handcuffs, So we'll have to see how this.
Plays out, and not in the recreational sense, no, no, not for fun, more actual jail.
So you know, the city's relationship with federal government is not going to improve anytime soon, it doesn't look like. So they won't get a bail out from the Feds, that's for certain. Whether they get one from mommy and Daddy and Sacramento, we'll just have to see the meeting on Thursday that the mayor had up in Sacramento, multiple meetings. She did point out there are a lot of lawmakers
from La County who might be sympathetic. They do make up an inordinate amount of the total population of the Assembly.
But she didn't get to meet with the governor, you know.
And I didn't hear a lot of champion for this cause at the state Capitol.
Well, she certainly has connections. That's where she uh breads her butter. So we'll we'll have to wait and see butters her bread. I don't know how she does it specifically.
What did I say, bread's her butter?
Yeah?
I mean maybe she just takes a thing up, do you really bread and slaps it on the Take the bread and butter for the bread. I eat it for the butter. The bread is just a vehicle for the butter depends on the bread.
You can't just go into the into the into the refrigerator and just scoop yourself up with your hand some butter and eat it.
You got to put it on.
I bet you could. Yeah, I bet you're gonna do it this afternoon.
I told you how my parents would often find me as a child with just a cube of butter in my hand.
Yep. Okay, my goodness, there's a public hearing today.
There was just a bit of bow on this before you guys, get back to your butter. The city council back down town, they will have more public comments today. They'll also hear from civilian labor unions and the neighborhood councils. And there are hearings throughout the next two weeks, so we'll hear off from all the departments, their concerns and all that coming up. V.
Michael Monks, thank you, Thank you.
Better than a stick of butter.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
It's just something that maybe we could work towards this week.
Okay, well, Friday, I will be on the edge of my seat.
Your license plate numbers are changing here in California. The state is running out of its current combination of license plate numbers and letters, so they've come up with a new plate sequence for newly registered vehicles starting next.
Year instead of the one that everybody's probably accustomed to, a number three letters and then three numbers. That's the way we've been doing it since nineteen eighty, starting with the one AAA zero zero zero, the latest sequence expected to end sometime next year with that final plate. When you go through all of the iterations, which is nine zzz nine nine, that's funny.
You would open up your mail and you get your license plate, and you open it up and says nine zzz nine nine nine.
I'd be like, oh, that's not good. I don't know what that is, but that's not good.
So what they're going to do is it's going the next sequence will be three numerals followed by three letters in one numeral, so like three four or five XYZ two. I think this screws with a lot of people, you do, Yeah, people that are used to a certain sequence, you know. You know, we talked about the spectrum, and certain people like things done a certain way change when it comes to license plates ruffle some feathers.
I when I saw this this morning, I just was amazed at how many vehicles are are purchased, how many new I mean, that's the mind blowing thing to me is Yeah, I know, there's forty million people ish that live in the state of California and you figure what, I don't know, twenty million of them own vehicles, of some at least one. But the turnover on that is so ridiculous that you go through. I mean, that's a couple million numbers that are possible with just those seven numbers.
Well, now, the reason this news is hitting is because you look at the numbers people are buying based on the tariff situation, not knowing the uncertainty of what the tariff situation will mean for car parts and purchases moving forward. In the first quarter of this year, compared with last year, new vehicle registrations are up more than eight percent, which is not insignificant. That is a surge and new vehicle purchases as we wait to hear what the implementation of these new tariffs will mean.
And that's before we get into the When the tariffs were put in so April.
May I mean we're going to see a lot of a lot more purchases.
Yeah.
Did I just say that like somebody's mother?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, yeap, y'all'll be there, but you tell Margie, I'll be there at four.
Yeah.
Boy, Well, you know what, Just let it happen. Let it happen. Just lean into the slide.
King's lost to the Oilers last night four to three, So they even that series of two games?
Apiece.
Lakers lost to the Timberwolves one sixteen to one, thirteen jor did they trail in that series three to one? Twins beat the Angels five nothing. Angels actually have a day off. They'll be in Seattle tomorrow. Dodgers beat the Pirates ninety two. So the Marlins come to town tonight. You bet, y'all, yeap four o'clock, Margie, I'll be there.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
The NFL Draft went down, and if you're a casual NFL fan like most people are, you're probably not paying too much attention, especially on years where you're not seeing massive names.
Go I remember the year. I think it is the gear that.
I moved to LA and want to say two thousand and five when it was like Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, I want to say that was that year. I could be wrong on that. No, Philip Rivers was before then, wasn't he? I don't know anyway. You know, when you've got like big three quarterbacks or things like that, you know, and you you hear a lot about the draft.
There's a lot of hype.
Big names, if it's a family name or what have you. But this year's draft, it was kind of like, nah, sure, if you're a college football fanatic or if you are into the draft in the NFL season more than the casual observer, you're gonna pay attention. And the name that everyone seemed to be talking about going into this one was Deion Sanders's son. This was his son that he coached there at Colorado to great success. They retired his number there at number two at that stadium.
And when you ever you have.
A successful a father who played successfully in the NFL the way Dion did, of course your name's.
Going to be talked about it.
They're going to watch you grow up, they're going to watch you at every stage of your game. You are the second coming, whether you like it or not. They're going to watch you in pee wee. They're going to watch you in middle school, in high school and through all the camps and everything.
And that's how this kid was watched. And uh, and he is great.
But I hadn't spent much time except for this weekend, listening to his interviews because when we spoke about the draft, we thought, after reading what the analyst said, that he was going to go from three to thirty three, anywhere from the top three pick to thirty three. And as the weekend progressed, and he falls out of the first round in the second round and what the heck is going on there? Finally gets picked up by Cleveland what in the fifth round round? And wow, what a weird
quarterback room that is. Not to get into the weeds, but bizarre.
Especially considering he was the second quarterback that they chose.
He had the option to pick him in the third round and they didn't.
So a lot of talk was about this isn't about football, because he is a very gifted athlete.
He's a wonderful athlete.
He's got the pedigree and he's got the physique, and he's got the arm and all the things, all the intangibles, but he also has the attitude of a kid raised with money, raised with a superstar father. Y'all know Dion's attitude. You don't have to be a hardcore football fan to remember Dion Sanders and his presence.
Good words.
And that is speaking volumes.
The way that he approached interviews, and I think that the reason we're talking about too is I think there's something to be learned from this, no matter what you do in life.
He went into those interviews.
By all accounts now that I've listened to of people in the know, he went into those interviews not caring what the person on the other side of the desk thought of him. He is so self assured and self confident. He did not care what the coaches or the gms, or whoever was on the other side of the desk.
He didn't care what they thought of him. And it's very important to an employer or a boss that you care what they think, that you acknowledge what they think, that you want to do well for them for sure, for the team, for your business, for the company, for the client, whatever, but that it makes a working relationship, work to the point of success.
If you do care what your boss.
Thinks of your performance or or your process, depending on what you do, it counts.
Yeah.
They have to believe that you're going to give it all for the team that you're being chosen for. And for a lot of those guys, especially if it's in the first round. I mean, the first couple are not really a surprise. Most of the time we kind of figure out who they're going to go to. But let's say you're picked, I don't know, middle of the first round, you're not quite sure which team is going to pick you, and you end up playing for the Carolina Panthers. Whatever
you're from, you're from California, it doesn't matter. I mean, you've made it to the upper echelon of your field of play to even be drafted by an NFL team, and that team wants to know you're going to be in it to where with pride. The Carolina Panthers, jersey or whoever it is.
Have to come with some humility in the NFL because you're I was going to just say a bad word, your crap. Even the best quarterbacks in the history of the league are crap.
Well out of the gate.
And think about this.
If he's drafted, I think one hundred and forty three people were chosen before him in the draft. Time will erase from memory one hundred and forty of those probably. I mean when we think back on those huge drafts. I mean you mentioned Philip Rivers drafted in two thousand and four. He's one of a couple of names in that draft that anybody remembers. And I mean, Shador Sanders has every opportunity, as we've seen with other people drafted late.
Joe Montana wasn't drafted filled the third round I think when he was drafted, and again, but he's one of those names that comes up from obscurity. Tom Brady was another guy who wasn't drafted very high. Even Rock Perty, the current quarterback for the San Francisco forty nine, was the absolute last guy in the draft. And he's going to be remembered as a great well as a pretty good quarterback at least to start.
And then the other thing was this was a kid who had a draft room created for him.
He paid or dad paid or whatever.
To have that draft room that just said legendary emblazoned on all the walls.
To me, it was listening to him in those interviews.
It was distraction, distraction, distraction, that's not what you need. Lack of humility and distractions not what you need. That's not what teams want. And football ability be damned was
the message. There was a video NFL Memes had posted it over the weekend, and it's a take of him and cam Ward, who went number one in the draft, and they're on a field and they're screen around, practicing or whatever, and shad Or Sanders says, hey, let's drop a song together, and cam Ward says, no, I play football. And he's like, oh, come on, come on, let's let's do this. And he's like, I play football. That's what
I do. I play football. When they google me, I wanted to say cam Ward, National Football League, American football player, that's what I want. And that's why he was drafted number one because they want a one track mind.
You bring distractions, you bring the LeVar Ball attitude into It's my three sons were going to those three kids were going to dominate the NBA and they yeah, didn't.
So anyway, all right.
Swamp watch when we come back. You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
You can always hear us live on KFIAM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app