Michael Monks: Homelessness Oversight Committee

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 of stories who were following President Trump expected to sign an executive order probably this hour to close the Education Department. He's going to hold an event at the White House today and of course Education Secretary Linda McMahon will be there. It does take congressional approval, so we'll see if he can get that.

We're asking you, and now that Southwest has canceled their free checked bags racket, what did you pack in your free bag for Southwest? Maybe you chose Southwest because you could pack that for free. Was it a turkey? Was it a tire rim? Was it a child?

I just want to point out I told you about a couple of them that we've gotten.

The bar is high.

Don't come to us with like I packed an empty box of wheedies, right, No, no, no, no.

I packed my Chick fil a.

There are some significantly important international laws that may have been broken. That's what I want.

That's exactly the kind of feedback that I'm looking for. Gary.

I understand it's hard for you to hide your disdain for the World Series champion LA Dodgers. But baseball season started this week.

Pal Go Dodgers.

Gary led the show with the Dodgers game on Monday, Like that was his idea to start talking about the Dodgers beating the Cubs in Tokyo. He's not hiding the fact that he supports your Los Angeles Dodgers. He's a Giants fan, but he doesn't hate the Dodgers.

But if you're also not a Dodgers fan and you're not a Cubs fan, the season starts next Thursday, Right, that's a that's not a just a thing.

Opening days different for a lot of people.

It brings a lot of different emotions.

It sure does.

Sometimes it brings the immediate sense of dread that you're never going to win anything again.

Well, you shouldn't have been feeling that way for a while.

I will say they've looked great during the spring, have the Giants. But that's spring training and nobody cares.

Michael Monk says, join us from KFI News, and it looks like suddenly people locally are saying, we're not doing this homelessness thing right. People have given us boat tons of cash and we're still effing it up. Wow, a little self awareness in government is wild, and so I'm immediately thinking that that's not what this is.

Michael, tell me what.

I'll tell you why. You're exactly right.

It is a little self awareness on the city's part here because it's different than the county. The county has also recently said, Oops, this isn't going well. We should try a different approach after multiple skating audits have revealed we don't really know how this money is being spent. We're not even properly accounting for it. We don't know how much has been spent. We don't know what the

We don't let people name drop other shows.

I'm Sergy.

And I'm a tramp from wayback, So I just bounce around all of the shows. Wherever you you're showing up and I'm here to polease Maryland and a Kennedy pool exactly. So anyway, so the city now is like, hey, yeah, it's true, we don't have any oversight. In fact, Councilman Nythia Rahman said, we have nobody at city Hall who is overseeing where these funds are going, how they're spending, and we should probably have that person here. And so that's what they've moved to do is to have a

The more bureaucracy.

It's literally called a bureau. They're not even hiding it.

This is insane, you know.

I want to say it was twenty fourteen when we signed that county measure. It was a bond measure for homelessness.

Is that what?

Yeah?

Thank you?

And I think it was twenty fourteen. It's anyway, it was an s ton of money. And what happened was there was too many cooks in the kitchen and they essentially said that where they got together city and county think think about the bureau at City Hall, but a bigger room. And they all got together for like a week to figure out how to spend all this money.

What are the expectations, you know, obviously, if you're a voter says yeah, we'll pay a little bit more this time around because you're going to fix it, right, the expectation is there will not be homeless camps near my kid's school. There are expectations that there will not be mentally ill, drug addicted people walking across the five and creating a dangerous situation for drivers on their way to work so they can pay these higher taxes. Yeah, that's

And here's the deal. Here's where it gets harrier.

And I think the reason that you're seeing a little more action for both the county and a little action from the city this week. In a week or so week and a half, our sales tax is going up in Los Angeles County. We voted for this again because we want to put six hundred million other billion dollars every year into supporting homeless program.

Can you stick with us for another segment?

I mean, the Louisville game is on, but we have it on the telly. It's right there on Fine. I'm they're ahead and tell Cobalt.

I did too, So I think it's still the first period's halftime.

That would be really quick if it was. Yea, it is, yeah, sure starts at noon East.

I was watching.

I haven't been closely watching it.

It is halftime, yeah, yeah, wow.

I'm glad we we got that all squared.

Away by fifteen. Was down by fifteen to Creighton.

You have them in the Elite eight.

Yeah, from Kentucky. You know, I know, I know what.

You know?

What year do you think?

It's been a long time since Louis has been in the You're not thought narratives of March madness.

I've been on the narrative and they've got a great narrative. Gary Well, I.

Do love betting on a narrative, which is my problem.

You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.

China has done it again, provoking international outrage. They executed four Canadian nationals on drug related offenses. Now, Canada's Foreign Affairs minister has said that she and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had asked for clemency for these for these four men, these four dual citizens of China and Canada after they were implicated in these alleged crimes. Beijing came back and said, we put to death drug criminals, and

Oh I've never heard that before.

Well, you spent a lot of time in Canada.

Canada, they refer to your rear end as your moose.

No, they refer to a moose as a moose. Ah, everybody in Canada has a moose.

I don't know why I felt like you needed to stem it up your That's a better question, isn't it.

A family led group advocating for the release of the Menendez brothers has rallied outside the CCB this morning.

That'll do it.

They said that.

Nathan Hoffman's ignoring the good work that they've done in prison. Explain, you can do all the work you want un till you've got a moose in your ass, but you killed people and it's hard for the justice system to get over that.

Okay, now you're completely muddling my words.

You put your fancy passports in the moose, right, not a moose in your butt?

Right?

Okay?

Sorry, Michael, I appreciate that you're here, and I will try to maintain.

I haven't been the original, while I will be going this weekend. This is I need community service. I need to be showered in the holy water.

Back to a church.

I might need to be washed in the blood.

Well, we were talking about the City of LA now creating a Homeless Oversight Bureau because that's the way we'll solve homelessness. There's more people on it to try to keep an eye on all of our money.

Yeah, as more money is coming in for it because of the sales tax. And I should also note that we're putting more money into these homeless programs while the City of Los Angeles is now admitted more clearly than ever that they don't have any money. It's a situation that's only gotten worse all year long. Been harping on this since last fall, and I cannot believe that there hasn't been like an emergency press conference to say, like this is our plan.

This No one's paying attention, everyone's on TikTok.

It started with like over a couple hundred million short in a city this large and a budget this large. You think that's bad, but that can be fixed that can be. It will move some money around, we'll change some things. But just yesterday the city administrator told the City Council for the next budget, we think there's going to be a billion dollar short a billion billion dollars of an eight billion dollar budget. So that's a significant amount.

Course correct in the response from the mayor.

So far as we have previewed what our plan is, and it's basically the first page of a PowerPoint. We should reduce spending, we should not spend so much on legal settlements, but no details. And so the lack of urgency in both this financial crisis that the city now finally admits out in the open, and to the lack of urgency with getting homeless people off of the street and out of your neighborhoods and out of your business.

Getting the money from that they got the money from in prior years.

What they say is that revenues are down across the board in a variety of ways. That includes property tax, sales tax, business tax, the hotel tax.

Why because we're taxed crazy and like your point that sales tax is going to be going up.

Sales tax is going up to fund the homeless programs and the and the whole county. But in the county opery they say that, and that's included of course LA obviously a big part of the La county. But they're not having the transactions that they had that they had budgeted for.

It isn't that does not add up to a billion dollars though.

Well, you know what does is when you budget each year to anticipate a certain amount of lawsuits that you will have to settle just by nature of being the government. You know, some people are gonna fall on the sidewalk, you know, the police are probably going to do something wrong, and you're gonna have to write a check. They budget for that every year. There are hundreds of millions of

So the word has gotten out that the city settles everything. So file the lawsuits and you'll end up with a settlement.

And all year long they note these little problems that they have, and they form these committees or ask for staff reports on various little issues like maybe we should sell some property, or maybe we should figure out a way to fight the lawsuits.

A little more out a waste of time.

But that's it.

We're now the new budget is supposed to come out from the mayor next month. Yeah, and now we're facing And that's what I mean about urgency. I'm just shocked to the lack of urgency in this never never.

It kicked the can down the road.

So shocking.

You know.

I come from a city of forty three thousand strong in Kentucky and we had a financial crisis fifteen years ago because two large employers left.

They just sold the city off to Indiana.

We should that was my suggestion, like, let's go in Ohio. We're connected by bridge to Cincinnati. We could have just become ohioan we're union anyway, you.

Know, let's do it.

We were not part of the Confederacy, the good part and instead the city leadership like went around the whole city. They did a budget road show to explain like, this is the problem, this is how we're going to fix it, and within the next year all your sidewalks are going to be fixed. We just have to get through this. I haven't heard that here. What did so what did they do in Kentucky? Yeah, they made some tough decisions.

And this is stuff that this city is going to happen to about these stuff, Yeah, I mean.

There are a lot of pay raises on the horizon, there are union contracts to consider, there are legal settlements that need to be dealt with the.

Host I was just going to say, we, I mean, the time, the time element is here. There is time for us to get this on the right track. But it takes more than just beloviation from city hall in terms of putting the making those hard decisions.

That's right, and it's what you see with the homeless stuff. Just to kind of intertwine these things. Last year in the homeless account. It's true, for the first time in six years they saw a decline. It was very modest, it was very small. And instead of like attacking that like you go up a point, let's let's lay it on them thick and get aggressive. I mean, you continue to see press releases about, well, we housed thirty six people, right, seventy five thousand people in the county without a how.

I did want to point out because I saw this quote.

Niffia Rahman, one of the city council members, described that this homelessness bureau that they're talking about would be quote lightweight and fiscally responsible. When is the last time any government bureaucratic agency has been described as or or I should say, has fulfilled its description of being lightweight and fiscally responsible, especially when the plan appears to be to bring in professionals that already exist and just kind of

Michael, always great to have you in here. We appreciate it.

Enjoy your most have fun.

Sorry for being offensive.

Let us know what it is that you crazy stuff that you have packed into your what.

I kind of feel like Michael's been here long to where I can be offensive and it's okay.

He's clearly not offended. Right, you can go a lot farther maybe next time. Okay, let us know the craziest thing that you put in your carry on bags or checked bags. We don't care. Craziest stuff that you've gotten away with. There's good ones, there are, there's really incredible ones. People are a whole lot more conniving than I would have given them credit for.

So excited.

But when we come back, we'll talk about what's going on. The La Times had to pull a video of a guy who was in Japan for the Dodgers games against the Cubs. Why they pulled this video? Stop with the pearl clutching people.

Good lord, you're.

Listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.

A couple stories who were following senior military officers from around Europe and beyond our meeting in the UK today, just outside London, trying to flesh out plans for an international peacekeeping force for Ukraine. UK's Prime Minister Care Starmer says this coalition would be led by Britain and France. They're moving into an operational phase, but at this point they said they don't know how many countries would be willing to send troops and even if there will be

It still remains to be seen when that's going to take effect.

Probably coming to a movie theater near you.

Is this story that we kind of forgot about the family of that former Boeing quality control manager who killed himself after being questioned for days by Boeing lawyers for whistleblowing.

His family suing the company.

His family has fow the wrongful death lawsuits that Boeing subjected him to a harassment campaign. They tried to discredit him humiliate him after he reported defects in the company's jumbo jets. He shot and killed himself in March of last year after several days of questioning.

Well, there was a cascade of backlash, if you want to call it that. The La Times has pulled down an Instagram reels video that showed one of their journalists their video journalists perusing some of the concession items inside the Tokyo Dome. Obviously, the fascination that the Japanese have with Japanese baseball players playing in America, the Dodgers Cubs two game series that took place, it was high level information. I mean they were infatuated. Japan went crazy last week.

So if you go to different stadiums, I do you know that every stadium has their own thing when it comes to food, concessions and things like that. It's kind of one of the fun things. What does this stadium have? And you can imagine or even if you're an international traveler, what kind of food does this place have. It's just

And so he did what you would expect.

He did as first time in Japan, Tokyo at a game and he went and he's like, what's this and how did they use it?

How do you use these chopsticks? I guess I just stab things.

And that's what everyone thinks when they're using chopsticks for the first time. It's not a racist thing, it's just a different thing. And they were lit up on social media. Is this a joke? This guy doesn't even know what he's doing. He's making fun of fish being sold the game. Doesn't he know that's a delicacy? Blah blah blah. Come on, lighten up, give me a break.

I mean, I don't use me to use the term because you just talked about the fish. But part of what makes this, what would have made it entertaining, is the fish out of water element that this guy has.

Never been to Japan. He's never been to a baseball game in Japan.

That's what makes it funny.

But I'm sure he's been to dozens of games at Dodger Stadium, so he knows the he knows the traditional fair And how is it different? Would I eat? Whatdn't I eat? One of the things that he was going to eat or that was offered to him or was available, I should say, was an octopus dumpling?

And he was like no, and everyone's like, of course it would for a number of reasons. Maybe he read Beautiful Magnificent Creatures or whatever the octopus book is that I recently read and doesn't want to eat an octopus. Maybe that's why he said absolutely not. But the fact that he's now racist in the La Times is racist.

For him failing to grasp or want all.

Of the stadium foods in a foreign country is insane. I'm sure there are people that come to this country and they go to a ballgame and they're like.

A hot what's a hot? What do I eat this with mustard?

Like?

Right?

I mean, that's part of the joy of visiting different cultures in different places, and the fact that you don't stumble through it.

It's the fact that you do.

Stumble through it is not racist. It's part of accepting different things.

There's been a well documented history of Japanese players coming to the United States and playing in Major League Baseball. And when I was in Seattle, Ichiro Suzuki came to play for the Mariners and was a phenomenon and it was eat It was easy for people from Japan to fly to Seattle to watch a game and turn around

That's what they do now. For shohe Atani in La there's travel packages.

So we would talk about what these people were experiencing. They'd never been to the United States before, they didn't know what hot dogs were. They would never eat garlic fries or I mean whatever, it's not it's not offensive. I mean it's okay to say no thank you to whatever you're going to, whatever's offered to you. They didn't walk around and you know, act arrogant about America does it better?

Japan? Does it better?

Like it was one not it.

It's just different, and you're sometimes you go to different countries and whatever is very popular there, you don't. I don't want to eat pigs feet, Okay, yeah, I'm in China. Cool, I'm absorbing the culture. I don't want pigs feet, and I'm making this up. I don't even know if that's a thing, but you know what I mean, like different delicacies. I'm sure, like you said, many people don't want well, we're peddling here.

The irony of it is the one hundred and sixty something negative comments on the La Times instagram reel probably would have generated so much more attention to the La Times instagram reel than anything else has in the history of the La Times instagram reel.

It's just silly. I mean, I thought it would be. That was a fun feature story. That's a feature story. Anybody would assign any reporter who is going to those games, go check out the stadium food, how it's different, be an ass be funny, just really you know, fun with it? Is it in your yes, sit in your ignorance when it comes to what kind of food you're gonna be? And that's what it seems like it happened. And now it's racist. Come on, get out of here.

It's not one of those arrogant CNN documentaries with the Stanley Tucci or Eva Longoria or something.

Anthony Boordine or Anthony Board parts unknown. Yes, I will eat this soul.

That has just been scrubbed from a foot and put a little bit of fish caviar on top of the the flakes that came from the heel of this child. Yum, Yeah, girl, yeah, you're racist.

Sorry, Yeah, will continue.

You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is praising Cotter for helping, and I'm assuming that's how we're saying that now if we ever really come down on the how to cut her, I say Cutter YEA for help in the United States secure the release of an American that had been held by the Taliban for more than a couple of years. George Glesman will be reunited with his wife. He's an

Southwest and their free bag hack is over.

They're getting rid of your free checked bag.

And there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about things that people have packed in that check bag taking advantage of Southwest kindness by things by packing things like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Tire rims. Kitchen sinks in one.

Situation, literally kitchen sinks.

So we asked you, what have you gotten away with?

What have you hey Joe and san Clemente.

Yeah, I carried my son's pellet gun in my carry on at John Wayne Airport once accidentally obviously shut down the whole tsa. All the sheriffs come running. It was a big deal.

Wow.

I actually ended up making it onto my plane after begging and pleading and being told that a pellict gun is considered a firearm. But the looks on those people's faces when I boarded their plane again priceless.

That's pretty good. Oh that one didn't sound very good. It was her husband's ashes.

Yeah, I can see that.

Would you put your not that I'm not casting any sort of judgment. Would you put your wife's ashes in your carry on?

Or would I check them or you check them? I don't know if they would allow me to do it in my carry on. Sure you can't. I don't think you can.

We can't. Somebody might know the answer to that. I don't. I don't.

Why wouldn't you be able to Why wouldn't I be able to just ashes. You can put them on your lap. I'd carry mine in my purse.

That's a big urn. There's a lot of ash No.

I mean some of them, Like my mother in law's ashes are in a box like this big.

It's really all her. She wasn't a big lady. She wasn't no Hey, Gary and Shannon.

I was coming back from Canada and my mother had given me a brown bear rug like complete with the six inch claws and the whole thing. I put that in my checked baggage inside.

Of a ninety like in a suit bag.

I also have a box of quilts I got pulled aside. They opened up the box of quilts, so there's nothing.

They let me go.

There's a win.

Yeah, Oh, Canada has up.

I love how she got crazy with her quilts. A couple things. The number of people who talk to us when they're at a turn because I can hear their blinker is a lot, or they've pulled over or they've pulled over.

How about that?

Very safe?

This very safe and responsible. The other thing is the bear. The bear rug had six claws, six inch claws. Oh I thought she said six claws, and I started going into my bear anatomy brain and I did not find six claws in there.

Should be on the first page of that bear anatomy, right, I was very confused.

Wine Gary and Shannon John down in Orange County. It wasn't an airline bag. It was one of my bags coming back from a cruise to Mexico. I was eighteen years old, with my family and family friend and some other friends.

I ended up spending quite a bit of money.

On M eighty's and one thousands and one hundred words and everything else.

It's illegal.

Packed it in my bag.

Someone told me they might search it, so I put a bunch of dirty clothes on top of it. Went through security, told him its dirty clothes, No problem.

Jean, That's so gross, but smart.

That is an interesting tip.

When I flew into Haiti a couple of times, you know, just for fun, they go through just about everybody's bag.

And because everything is so pristine and perfect, perfect.

I don't know what they were looking for or what they think I'm going to bring in that doesn't already exist.

Right.

The truth of it is is they they'll find electronics or something and they'll go you know what, it's probably illegal for you to have this, I should take.

It something like that.

Sure, if you hide it in a tampon box, they won't touch it.

I've noticed that with the football games. If you hide vodka and a tampon container, yep, you're good.

And the wordest thing I ever traveled with was a bed of nails because we used it with our extreme team. If you remember who I am there and coming out of Kenya one time, as I went in and it was in a regular Santsinai suitcase, both sides and I had guns drawn on me because they thought it was something weird, like maybe a bomb, because it was like hundreds of nails through boards. And that was probably the strangest thing I've ever traveled with.

So there you go. Where was that show Kenya Kenya?

Is he saying he was part of like Extreme Makeover or something?

No?

No, I think it was a demonstration team of.

Some kind, like I lie on a bed of nails and don't get punk out.

Icyy I see Hey, Gary and Shannon Patrician and San Pedro love your guys' show. You're knocking it out of the park as always, Thank you. I remember coming back from Hawaii as a kid like six or seven years old, and my parents got busted at Lax were smuggling in pineapples and coconuts from over there. Keep it going, love.

You guys, have a great day.

Bye.

Yeah.

Fruit so very odd you get popped for an apple sometimes?

Can't you get pineapple?

I mean, I know, yes, I know it's not the same, but you can get pineapple here.

Why I run the risk.

I don't think they thought that there was a law against that.

Yeah.

I packed a disassembled Chevy automobile transmission into my two bags, and then I took the case and wrapped it up in a big old piece of cardboard and set it on top of the two check bags and sent that all in. Once the case was wrapped, it kind of looked like a gigantic turkey. But it went through and now I have a transmission that's.

Just heavy at that point. That's the other part about it. We'll revisit.

So if you if you had crazy things that you have checked in your bags, taken on an airplane, et cetera, let us know what they were.

Use the talkback feature on the iHeart app.

We have a fascinating community here on the Gary and Shannon Show. A lot of crazy people got ash. We didn't get to the dead.

Oh did joean me to play that one? Yeah? All right, I think this is the coup de gral.

I hesitate to say this, but I have an acquaintance that brought their dead baby back from a South American country because it was too difficult to process the situation in the regular way.

That had to be before they were regularly x raying bags.

Has anyone ever referred to a dead baby as the coudi gras is my question?

You only hear it on this show.

You only hear it here.

If you missed any part.

Of the show, go check out the podcast. When you open the iHeartRadio app. Just type in Gary and Shannon. You'll see all the podcasts or anywhere you find your podcast. That's where you're going to find our show. We'll be back right after this. You've been listening to the Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.