Major Problems in Macarthur Park and the Mission

And we continue at two five in the afternoon on The John Phillips Show, broadcasting live from Cairo Radio in Seattle, Washington. Mister Randy Waggings in Culver City.

I'm so glad you said radio because some people are going to have listen and think that you're doing the show from Egypt.

You know what's funny. My friend Valentina posts on Facebook about three hundred times a day, and for whatever reason, she tags me in every single one of those posts. And she's in Istanbul, Turkey right now. And I received a number of messages this morning from people who thought I was in Turkey with her. I guess it's a possibility. I've been on vacation for a week. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is telephone number one.

Many of home are.

Members of street gangs that are based outside of the country. Anyone who lives in Los Angeles, has lived in Los Angeles or been to that part of Los Angeles understands that MacArthur Park is not exactly the park from Mary Poppins. It's the place you go to to buy something illegal. Well, when Galvenussiman Company decided that they were going to draw a line in the sand and fight the federal government on the deportations, they tried to characterize MacArthur Park as

And MacArthur Park is now losing bus benches because people are using them not to wait for the bus, but to smoke math.

You don't say for more on this, We.

Got a Fox eleven and the wonderful Matthew Seedorf bus.

Stop bench is removed to MacArthur Park. After residents say homeless people were using it to sleep and do drugs, a small part of a much bigger crisis gripping the area. Fox seven's Matthew Seedorf walked one of the most troubled stretches in a story you'll see only on Fox eleven.

We're on another location tonight just for safety reasons.

Of course, he can't actually do the live hit at night at MacArthur Park. The insurance for Fox eleven isn't that good.

We're on another location tonight and just for safety reasons. Start contrast to what's going on just a few miles away, the volatile sights and sounds of MacArthur Park. We're just walking down this sidewalk and spark tension without ward.

Whoa that escalated very quickly? See or if you're a braver man than I, this man.

In broad daylight beat to the ground.

How do we not have I know, l a PDA stretch, But how do you not just have the police department patrolling that park on a daily basis? Because if you just did the Daniel Lurry strategy of find out who has an active warrant, it would be every resident of the park.

I realize our union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, is a very weak union. But how can they allow any of our members to go down to that park on the clock.

It probably advised him against it.

This man in broad daylight beat to the ground what's known as the fetinal fold, impossible to miss.

I saw one of those when I was in San Francisco, And by the way I walked around San Francisco did not see a tent. I wasn't in the ten Deloino or the mission. But for the most part, the city outside of the bad neighborhoods is looking a lot better. That being said, I walked around on a Sunday morning in knob Hill. It was the first time I saw somebody fentanyl folded up close. They look like they're in

It is wild the.

Miss, the open drug use in plain sight and needles scattered all over.

They' never gonna fix the problem.

Day with violent venom victim looking.

Look at them. Hey, that's some alliteration right there. He could do the news on Channel seven.

Violent venom, victim.

Look at venom, looking look into v vocabulary.

It described how morono and seek.

For William Howard Crumody's staying safe means staying ready.

You gotta talk back, you can go talk back rough.

He believes a drug epidemic has tightened its grip on the area.

You see what I thought.

Homelessness is down and crime is down, and uh nope, Park is still a nightmare.

Huh Yeah. The marriage just told us she's doing little bang up job.

You see them nod now, And I think that that's going to be a stain.

On the Olympics and the World Cup that's coming here. The drug problems.

About a week ago, federal agents swarmed in DA officers raiding businesses part of the massive drug operation. Then days later LAPD here for more arrest seizing fetanyl pills and cash. Despite everything going on in this area, the bus stop right here at six and Alli Verna was taken away. Apparently the homeless were using it as a shelter.

So now have you actually live in that neighborhood and you're dependent on the bus, You have to stand in the sunshine.

Many people sleep in there, jing drugs there sat especially for.

Me when I was about six.

By now where a bench used to be, Angela Robinson now waits for the bus, standing six months pregnant. It a bench now missing. In a community desperate for relief, looking and despite recent arround, many say, when the sun goes down, the problems come right back.

Yep.

If she's six months pregnant, she could not raise that kid in that neighborhood.

Have you noticed a difference since then, No, because the same rants come out at night. A spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass tells us one bench was removed for maintenance, another for public safety reasons.

That we have to remove the bus bench. It's not safe to have one. This isn't even we can't have nice things. This is we can't have the most basic things.

They say, this is one small example of the mayor's broad and comprehensive approach to finally improving public safety.

MacArthur Park. No, think about that for a second.

The mayor had to remove a bench for public safety reasons.

It's a great park. Take your kids this weekend.

They say.

This is one small example of the mayor's broad and comprehensive approach to finally improving public safety. MacArthur Park a problem that's been decades in the making. Matthew Sedo reporting Fox eleven News.

Yeah, this is Karen Bass's re election strategy. By the way, every problem in LA has been a big problem for forty years. I'm just starting to change it for the better.

You know who one of the people was who came out and said that that's a great park where people take their families for picnics and people lie on the grass.

In the on the weekends. Who was that?

That was Eric Swollwell. I guess you should consider the sores. So that's what's going on in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, they're having very similar problems in the Mission District in San Francisco. Since luriy is cracking down on the Tenderloin and since Lurie is cracking down on SOMA, the open air drug market is migrating to the Mission and business owners are not happy about it. For more, here's KTVU Fox two in the Bay First.

Growing frustration for small business owners in San Francisco's Mission District as they continue to work around issues surrounding their community.

Open air drug use strug dealing A lot of your.

Nation like uh I guess they're well hydrated.

Open air drug use strug dealing a lot of your nation, like the side of our building, which is our side entrance, just basically unusable.

Tonight's small business owners in San Francisco's Mission districts say they are fed up with worsening drug use, encampment, fires, and crime taking over their streets and sidewalks. Good Evening on this Friday night.

I'm Greg Lee and I'm Christina Rendon.

They say, it's like almost the strategy as well. We can keep most of the city clean, but we have to push the entire problem to one neighborhood, and this year that neighborhood is the Mission Edits anything goes.

Good Evening on this Friday night.

I'm Greg Lee and I'm Christina Rendon. They say, as the city clears major hotspots, the problems are being pushed into their small community. Ktv's Betty You joins us in studio with.

The story, Betty, Christina, we saw it firsthand tonight in this pocket of the Mission, open drug use in broad daylight, people passed out on sidewalks, and frustrated business owners who say conditions have spiraled in recent months. On side streets tucked behind Valencia. Small business owners say they've reached a breaking point.

This is by the way near where they put that insane bike lane where it was the center of the road and they took away all the parking and all the businesses were about to go out of business. The reverse course on that. But then they brought in all the drug addicts.

Well, if you're going to ride a bike through.

All of that, maybe we now know why Lance Armstrong juiced up.

You'd need to be on Royds to take these people on.

They shared video burn debris from frequent and camp and fires, open drug use and trash sidewalks just steps from storefronts, scenes they say have become part of their daily reality.

Oh my god, it has gone worse lately in the last few months. Has been extremely out of control. It feels more violent. There's you see open drug dealing, you see dog fighting, people injecting and people passing out.

Daniel Agenow opened as used to.

Just be a tenderloin. Things move to the mission people. They have dog fights down there too. Oh it's skid row they do as well.

What is Michael Vick homeless?

Daniel Agenow opened his chiropractic clinic in twenty nineteen. Now, he says safety concerns sometimes force him to close early.

I have to clean it up around here. The smells always lingers.

He arrives early every Maybe I know the election's almost over, but may we get Katie up there to a video?

You can small, hey, that could be the next rite of passage after the Tiawana River.

He arrives early every morning to clean up outside his business. Other owners say they keep their doors closed during the day.

I worked so hard to get to where I am, and then I get patients saying it's hard for me to walk here anymore too, because I feel unsafe. It breaks my heart. It's out of my control. I love San Francisco. I moved here from Ethiopia.

About a dozen business Yeah, it's not a good look when you came here from Ethiopia and you're disgusted.

Oh my.

A dozen business owners on Clinton Park and Stevenson Street have joined together, asking city leaders and SFPD for more patrols and long term solutions. Race Cooper owns SF Square Gym.

As cleanup crews were cleaning maybe Soma area, a lot of different people started moving into this area, and what happened from there is that drug dealers started moving as well, and then there started to be the cycle of criminality that started happening.

So, yeah, start enforcing the hondos, which is what they call the honda and drug dealers, they're going to start moving to another neighborhood. And wherever the hondos go, that's where the zombies go to get their fix.

You see, this is why the system needs to work in tandem with one another, because just because the mayor won't put up with it or tells the police department not to put up with it, the DA has to be on board, the juries have to be on board, the judges have to be on board, and everyone just has to decide that they're not going to put up with this anymore. If there's one element of the system that consistently drops the ball, you're never going to fix the problem.

You're just going to move it.

And then they're starting to be the cycle of criminality that start happening. So I've seen not all instances of arson where cars have exploded. I've seen instances of knife fights that are on the street.

How long has this knife fights? What is this?

The Michael Jackson beat it video. I wouldn't if there's any crutch grabbing too.

How long has this been here?

This broken glass has probably been here for the last two weeks.

Business owners point to this vacant property and alcoves they say have become magnets for vandalism and drug activity.

I want to see support for the fact that there's a bunch of small business owners that have been trying every avenue they can, you know, with the Mayor's office, SFGIDE, community meetings, small business liaisons and everything. Times out we get ghosted and nothing happens.

It's aggravating to be doing this for this long, like for two years to go by, for me being here and still not being heard. But I'm willing to work with them and trying to find a solution because we care so much about this street and for all the businesses that are here.

And business owners really wanted to emphasize that they love San Francisco. They want to be a part of the solution. But they say enforcement alone isn't enough. They're calling for faster police response times, more consistent patrols, and long term action to keep this neighborhood inviting and safe.

Greg Yeah, real concerns from all those neighbors tonight, Betty, you thank you.

You know they keep pushing the problem westward. It's going to the castro next.

You notice none of those people said what we need is more safety ambassadors. If only we had more social workers, this wouldn't be a problem.

Oh, San Francisco's past that, la We're still into that. San Francisco rejected that when they decided that London Breed was not getting a four year extension.

Wow, this is really nice.

And Karen Bass is still talking about the alternatives to policing.

Alternative crisis response, social workers, mental health workers.

Nine to one two.

What evidence exists out there that says that any of that works.

Well, we know from London Breed's case it doesn't.

People have been stabbed, earpen out to me, they've been shot, they've been attacked, and they still show up every single day as an alternative to policing for this community.

Jer I wonder why she lost.

Eight hundred two two two five two two two is a telephone number? What eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com and Randy, I know the end of the show is quickly approaching. If you want to continue listening to us after we sign off at three, that's easy to do.

All you gotta do is search for the John Phillips Show wherever you get your podcasts, and that could be in several different places like the Apple podcast app, iHeart Spotify, search for the John Phillips Show, hit subscribe. You can download all the episodes. You can do a Google on the YouTube. You can get the free at KABC app. You can get the free at KSFO app. You can

Math and We're gonna be live on Election.

Night on Tuesday, June second, two weeks from tomorrow, John and I are coming back for a special live event. It is happening from seven to nine pm on KABC, KSFO, and KMJ, all three stations at the same time.

The polls close at eight o'clock.

Will be there from seven to nine giving you all the election results that will actually have when the polls close.

So tune into us on election night. Let's go to Mark in San Francisco. Mark Low, Oh, hi.

I really like your show. I got a question about the governor's race a couple weeks ago, and I haven't voted yet. I'm holding out. A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking of doing what you were talking about, the Bianco strategy of trying to get two Republicans in. Now, the polls have closed in the last few days and it looks like Steier, the Sarah, and Hilton are very closely clustered near the top. So I'm wondering, and Bianca

No, just wonder what you think, because if you look at the poll that you just referenced, and you add up Hilton's numbers with Bianco's numbers, you get thirty percent. As of right now, Republicans are making up thirty seven percent of the electorate, and that's not counting any of the nonpartisans who typically vote Republican.

And according to.

Other polls, Republicans the candidates were doing quite well with the independence. So I do not think the pie is at thirty percent for Republican candidates. I think the pie is much higher than that. And if it's much higher than that, there's no risk or minimal risk. I guess I should say eight hundred two two two five two two two is a telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two two two. Here with an update the Tiajuana River, mister Randy Wang.

They fixed a ruptured sewer that was leaking a bunch of sewage into the Tiawana River.

You can smell right here.

When I flag these stories, I know it doesn't matter what's going on in the news. If there's a Tijuana River Valley story, John's gonna want to cover it for the sole reason of playing that drop. You know, we spend so much time talking about the Tiajuana River. I think you and I should buy a boat for more on the never ending crisis going on in the Tijuana River Valley. Here is NBC seven in San Diego.

Emergency repairs on a crosswater wastewater pipeline. They are now complete. Late Thursday, a leak in Tewana triggered increased sewage flows to the wastewater plant in the South Bay. NBC seven's MG Perez reports from the area hit hardest by pass pollution and the ongoing problems.

Abigail Castillo chops fresh fruit every weekend here at her pop up stand at the entrance to the Tijuana River Valley Regional Park. It's a hotspot for hikers to refresh themselves with a juicy fruit cup unless the stench of raw sewage ruins appetites and the atmosphere.

What hiker out there goes? You know? What? What do you say?

We head down to the Tiajuana River and do a hike there and then celebrate with some papaya.

Oh.

No ramos.

These pictures were provided by Mexican water authorities and show repairs Friday to stop leaks in the parallel gravity line, the huge pipes that carry wastewater through Tijuana. Leaks and breaks and backed up raw sewage have flowed into the river here and onto the Pacific Ocean for decades.

Oh boy, so I guess fixing this is progress.

Besides polluting water here in the Tijuana River Valley, the sewage stinks polluting the air too with hypen.

And we do have evidence.

You can smell it right here.

Oh yeah, she's our resident scientist.

With hydrid And of course she wasn't the only one who decided to have a little stint in the river.

And you can literally see it, smell it, and feel it. Don't touch it.

With hydrogen sulfide that smells like rotten eggs, something residents here are very familiar with. Not good for someone just trying to breathe.

Well, And the hydrogen sulfide not only does it smell awful, but every single one of those residents talks about migraines and nose bleeds. They're being actively poisoned. At what point do you leave?

Who wants to live around that stens with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, as you get cancer.

This is a graph created by the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District. Readings take an hourly last week for hydrogen sulfide levels spiking Monday and Wednesday, even before the latest Tijuana pipeline leak. This was a surf rider cleanup day for volunteers combing nearby Imperial Beach. A group of coworkers from Enterprise Bank and Trust come at least once a month to pick up trash and anything swept into the frequent sewage flows from Mexico.

That sure sounds like cruel and unusual punishment for a bank employee.

Yeah, if someone asked me to spend my Saturday doing that, I'm washing my hair.

I just feel like, if you know, we don't come out and help the community, then I feel that it'll just get worse.

We as a younger generation, we.

Like to come out and enjoy the views, enjoy the beach, you know, But unfortunately we just can't do that if you know, we have these problems.

So there you go, a little bit of progress as they cleaned up a ruptured sewer pipe that was dumping even more raw sewage into the Tijuana River Valley.

You can small right here.

Okay, We'll wait. Two beats, three beats, four beats, five beats. In an unrelated story, Randy, you have a Katie Porter update for US. Katie Portter is still running for governor, and she sat down with ABC seven in the bay. Why are we doing this story back to back with the other one? I think you know why?

All right back here at home, we're counting down to the June primary. Just eighteen days now from the election. On June second, Californians will choose their top two picks to replace termed out governor Newsom aby Cy.

Seven Eyewitness news political reporter Monica Madden is catching up with candidates in these final weeks and spoke one on one with former Orange County Congresswoman Katie Porter. Still think it's important to give voters something.

No, we're doing high pitch, Oh yeah, little girl voice hello.

A little different then?

Oh?

Absolutely think it's important to give voters some choice here.

In this crowded race for governor. Former Orange County Congresswoman Katie Porter believes voters are still looking for detailed policy plans.

You have, have you met California voters Gavin Newsome get elected twice and being a recall on detailed policy plans.

No, I don't know enough to give you any good information, but good luck finding someone who does.

Voters are still looking for detailed policy plans. You have several proposals for how to make the cost of living better for Californians, one of them being free childcare, free college tuition at state universities, and then eliminating the state income tax for families that are making under one hundred thousand dollars.

What's yours?

That's the idea that she openly says, I ripped off from Steve Hilton.

And by the way, did you see that there's only two of them that won't sit down with Ashley Zavalla and Katie Borter is one of them.

What is that about? I don't know.

I mean, of all the interviews you're going to do in election season, and it'll probably be the toughest. And you know that every single time she asks a candidate that final question of how would you grade Gavin Newsom, and they all answer it terribly. It goes viral, like Tom Steyer saying, I haven't followed it closely.

I think this is Katie Porter's staff. They're trying to protect her by keeping her away from reporters who might trigger her because they can't have any more meltdowns between now and the election. So that's the reason Katie Porter is not sitting down with Ashley Zavalla. What's the reason that Antonio Vira Goso won't do it.

I don't know.

He doesn't have enough campaign money for a ticket on Southwest.

It is either that or maybe he's trying to control himself because he has the hots for another reporter.

Well, she's a good looking woman.

Tacks for families that are making under one hundred thousand dollars, what's your plan for how to pay for those things?

I would pay for it by doing for corporations in California, what we ask families to do, what we ask workers to do, which is, in our higher earning years, when we earn a little bit more, we pay a little bit higher tax rate. And I think that's a fair thing.

It is an interesting place to be in in the state of California where several of the people who are running for governor are running on the platform of I will raise more taxes.

Don't forget.

Gavin Newsom was not quoted, but it was reported in that CNN article that his criticism of Katie Porter was if she were to be elected, all of the business would move out of California.

We pay a little bit higher tax rate, and I think that's a fair thing to ask corporations to do too.

The Democrat.

The budget is three hundred and fifty billion dollars. It was two hundred billion dollars seven years ago. But yes, we need even more money.

Two, the Democrat, making the case that she has the most thought out proposed.

Nobody said that my idea to pay for it is a bad idea. These are actual things that give California families more money in their pocket. So when we hear candidates say things like when I'm governor, you'll have healthcare, like.

That's a shot at baccarreea.

Like how and at what price point? So I'm really focused on very concrete policies.

Porter also pushing back on criticism about her temperament after a video of her beating a staffer resurfaced earlier in the campaign.

Do you think that there's a you hear that now she's like going all in on the conspiracy theory that it was styr that found that video.

Okay, but wasn't the stire aid that found the video an aid that used to work for Katie Porter too, Yes, get out of my shot.

After a video of her beating a staffer resurfaced earlier in the campaign. Do you think that there's a double standard here.

Temperament is a word that you mostly hear used for show dogs and race sources and women candidates.

Well, how about the rajaholic bipolar ones.

I mean, to be fair, you don't hear a lot of criticism of Chad Bianco's temperament when he's raging out at the debates.

Well, there's a difference between getting a little hated in a debate where the whole point of the debate is to get everyone's blood pressure up and snapping at someone who works for you when you're cutting a video for your party's nominee.

Sorry for the noise, I'm cutting carrots. Most importantly, when it happened years ago with that staffer. That's who I owed the apology to, when I made it five years ago, to that staffer, And that's what really matters to me. That's the mark of my character, and I think that's what.

The mark of the beast of these moments. Johnny. She's not gonna be around much longer. Oh no, she's going away.

If you're gonna need a fix, you're gonna have to go enroll at UCI.

I think she's gonna run for office for all of eternity.

You think she's just gonna be one of those Yeah, I don't think she's going away. And you know what, she has the ability to raise a ton of money because she built up a fundraising list be rating all of those CEOs with the whiteboard. So who knows. I mean, just think about this.

If Rob Bonta had run for governor, he would have gotten crushed. But had he run for governor, that seat would have opened up. My guess is Katie Porter would have run for attorney general instead of governor, and she would have won because she would have been able to raise a lot more money than some random assemblyman.

But at this point, if she doesn't, and it's not looking like it's going to happen, she ran for Senate laws, she ran for governor and lost. Do you go to a step down or do you go even further? And you're like, screw it? Katie Porter for president?

No?

What I think she does if she when she loses this time around, Bonta will be termed out as attorney general. That seat will open up. I think she runs for attorney general four years from now.

That's the mark of my character, and I think that's what we ought to be talking about, is what is the character of each of these candidates.

On the future of California. Porter says she believes AI can be an opportunity if leaders handle it correctly.

But AI also has the potential to fuel tremendous investment in California.

So I have done it's pretty much keeping the entire economy propped up right now.

Oh yeah.

I have done battle with large and powerful interests before, with some of the you know, the most wealthy and well connected in the world, and come on as a winner. And I think that's what it's going to take to steer California in a way that makes things like AI positive.

Monicam mat In ABC seven Eyewitness.

News, there's the latest on Katie Porters candidate for governor, a campaign that will most likely end in two weeks.

Eight hundred two two two five two two two is telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you want to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. All right, We have more sound of La Mayor Karen Bass's disaster of a performance with ABC seven.

Let's hear what she has to say about the competition.

Why do you think someone like reality TV star Spencer Pratt is doing well in this race?

Oh, I think he's tapping into the anger frustration that people have. I think he's doing that, But I think we're a celebrity driven culture. The fact of the matter is, though, is that I've been on the job addressing the concerns of Angelino's.

Which ones you burned down? The town.

Street lights? Street lights has been a major challenge for years and years. We just kept replacing copper lights, even though we knew the copper would be stolen.

And so this isn't a good argument.

No, I love the fact that she's unwilling to arrest people for stealing the copper wire. So let's just switch to solar, so there's nothing valuable for them to steal.

And so I rolled out establishing and installing sixty thousand copper lights. As a matter of fact, I'll be doing that later on today. So why would we continue to replace copper with copper solar? We meet our environmental goals. Plus there's nothing to seat deal.

We're and she's charging homeowners a property is to a tax assessment to do it because we're broke.

That's a feather in her cab.

We're installing these lights several hundred over each month.

Do you think that Spencer Pratt knows what it takes to run the.

Second largest He has a clue?

Do you?

Okay, we know you don't what exactly has all of this experience got nuts.

A clue about what how to run the nation's second largest city.

And why then, why are some Democrats supporting him?

Well, I mean, we'll see the election is you know, ends on June second.

We will see.

But I will tell you that we started a job. I want to be able to finish this job because we should not have street homelessness in the nation second largest city.

It went up. You've made it worse.

We made some bad decisions a couple of decades ago. Those need to be rectified.

We need And what she's talking about is when we locked everybody up. That's the bad decisions.

When we locked people up, they weren't living on the streets doing meth out in front of us.

We made some bad decisions a couple of decades ago. Those need to be rectified. We need to get people off the street, and I know how to do that.

We have, No, you don't. It hasn't worked. It's been a complete failure. You only addressed a small portion of the population. And even the people that you did shove in the motel, forty percent of them went back to the street.

That is a failure.

You know, there are elections where they're just ideological differences. And I would never vote for a particular candidate, but I could see how other people could. At this point, even if you're a left winger, she's demonstrated that she's totally incompetent and she's going to make you live in filth. Why in the world would anyone vote for four more years of that.

I couldn't agree with you more and I we know how to do that. We have been doing that.

There's an idea that's been floated about homelessness, and Spencer Pradd actually mentioned this at a fundraiser recently, that he plans to build a massive campus for the homeless on the outskirts of LA where he would move all the homeless that would be funded by a billionaire.

Is that a good idea.

Well, anyway, let me just say that.

No, she doesn't want to take that idea, which is one of those things where people always wonder, why can't you centralize the problem and put it somewhere where it's away from our eyes.

Well, that won't work.

Either these people need to be in prison or they need to be in the funny form one of those two places. If you stick them out in the middle of the desert, you're just going to have a massive problem out in the middle of the desert, and they're going to leave breadcrumbs and find their way home.