In this episode of the California Underground Podcast, hosts Phil and Camille discuss significant issues in California politics, focusing on San Diego's budget crisis under Mayor Todd Gloria, the implications of budget cuts on community services, and the ongoing corruption within LA's Homeless Services Authority. T
Are you a Californian who feels isolated and alone in your political views in a deep blue state? Feel like you can’t talk about insane taxes, an overbearing government, and radical social experiments without getting a side eye? Then join us on the California Underground Podcast, the most trusted podcast on all things California politics.
Original air date 5.13.25
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to California Politics Podcast
03:25 Cringe Moment of the Week: Bernie Sanders
06:28 San Diego's Budget Deficit and Todd Gloria's Proposal
09:37 La Jolla's Secession Attempt and Its Implications
13:30 Public Services Cuts: Libraries and Arts Programs
15:23 Community Reactions to Budget Cuts
18:19 The Impact of Political Promises on City Budgets
21:29 Monopolies in City Services: Trash Collection and More
24:17 Controversial Spending: Rainbow Flag Project
27:30 Conclusion and Future Implications
36:46 Budget Shortfalls and City Projects
41:47 Public Servants and Salary Cuts
45:10 Local Elections Matter
46:51 Corruption in LA's Homeless Services
59:35 Government Connections and Accountability
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00:00:06
If you're a California conservative, A libertarian, A
00:00:09
moderate Democrat, believe in common sense, or just the sane
00:00:12
person, this is the political podcast for you.
00:00:15
It's the California Underground podcast.
00:00:27
What's going on everybody? Thanks for tuning into another
00:00:29
episode of the California Underground podcast, the most
00:00:32
trusted podcast for all things California politics.
00:00:35
I'm your host Phil, and as always with me, my trusted Co
00:00:37
host, the best, the fastest researcher in the West.
00:00:40
Camille, how are you doing tonight?
00:00:42
Good, you know, Life, life, life.
00:00:46
How are you life? Good.
00:00:49
Yes, that was my profound thought.
00:00:51
No, no other comment besides good.
00:00:54
Things are good, weather's good, everything's good.
00:00:58
Tonight we have a two big stories that we're going to talk
00:01:03
about, so they're going to take up pretty much all the show.
00:01:06
We still have a cringe moment that we're going to get to,
00:01:08
maybe a little old at this point, but we're we're gonna
00:01:11
talk about it anyway because this is a weekly show.
00:01:13
We sometimes don't get to do jump on all these cringe moments
00:01:17
as fast as we want to, but this one was way too good to pass up.
00:01:23
So 2 stories we're going to talk about tonight are Todd Gloria.
00:01:26
The mayor of San Diego has proposed a initial draft budget
00:01:30
for 2026. As if you don't know, San Diego
00:01:34
is facing a $258 million budget deficit for next year, which
00:01:39
actually pales in comparison to LA and San Francisco.
00:01:43
He's. Going to add that yes, like it's
00:01:46
a huge number, but like, hey, that he's doing way better than
00:01:49
Karen Bass. Yeah, I mean, I guess she's not
00:01:53
Karen Bass facing a billion dollars.
00:01:55
So good on talk, Gloria. We're going to talk a little bit
00:01:58
about that and then more news. Speaking of LA has come out in
00:02:03
regard to whistleblowers who have blown the lid on some.
00:02:06
I guess I don't know if it's corruption, you could say it's
00:02:08
incompetence, negligence, probably all the stuff that we
00:02:11
thought was happening behind the scenes.
00:02:14
So we're going to talk about that as well.
00:02:17
But as we like to do, we like to start off every show on like a
00:02:20
nice light moment. We're going to do a cringe
00:02:23
moment of the week. And this one involves the
00:02:26
progressive Prince himself, old Bernie Sanders, talking about
00:02:31
air travel. So we're going to talk about
00:02:33
that. But first, let's do our Stinger.
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Hold on. It's on your laptop and it's
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then therefore up here in this cloud that exist above us,
00:02:49
right? That's kind of fitting because
00:02:51
we're what we're going about to watch is about air travel.
00:02:54
So this was Bernie Sanders. But OK.
00:02:58
It's above us in the cloud. He's she's probably going to be
00:03:04
our next governor. So everyone brace up for that.
00:03:06
Stop it. Putting that juju out.
00:03:10
There I rebuke you. Everybody just prepare and get
00:03:14
used to Kamala talking like that about in California for the next
00:03:17
several years. People said that they wanted us
00:03:19
to be more positive and you literally just started out with
00:03:22
like the biggest negative that you could so.
00:03:25
Yeah, we were asking some lost. Everybody they're like, we want,
00:03:28
we want positive news, we want to help.
00:03:30
And you're just like just accept it.
00:03:32
Just sit back and just. No, Phil, we will not.
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Just accept the complete. I just we're, we're not going to
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take it. Yeah, it's part of our broadcast
00:03:43
channel on Instagram. If you're not a part of it, go
00:03:44
join it because we have some good conversations there and get
00:03:47
to chat with fans and stuff like that.
00:03:50
All right, so this is about good old Bernie Sanders talking about
00:03:53
air travel. He was on Fox News with Bret
00:03:56
Baier and he asked him a simple question about why he chooses
00:04:00
private jets over commercial if he's such a person of the
00:04:04
people, I guess you could say 5 rallies in a week.
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The only way you can get around to talk to 30 people think
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I'm going to be sitting on a waiting line at United waiting.
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You know what, 30 people are waiting.
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That's the only way you can get around.
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No apologies for that. That's what a campaign travel is
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about. We've done it in the past.
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We're going to do it in the future.
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Basically, he that was him saying, I'm not sorry, I take
00:04:29
private jets. What, you're mad at me because I
00:04:31
take private jets? Like this is what I'm supposed
00:04:33
to do as I'm doing campaign stops all around the world.
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And because he got caught, him and AOC got caught flying these
00:04:41
private jets all over the country.
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Which one is not good for the environment?
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If you're flying a private jet as opposed to commercial
00:04:49
airlines, you're creating more CO2.
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So point against you there. And it also doesn't look very
00:04:55
man of the people when you're flying around in private jets.
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So he got called out for that and Brett Baer asking the point
00:05:00
question. Why do you fly a private jet?
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Bernie Sanders goes, I'm not gonna wait in line at United at
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a terminal next to an Annie and or something like that with kids
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crying and all this stuff. I have places to go.
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How long did? You practice that.
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Put him on a log. I didn't practice that.
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I was just right off the couch. That's the Lady of Black
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podcast. That's great.
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That's really good. Thank you.
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But yes. Old Bernie, you know socialism
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for thee, but not for me. Well, as you said, it wasn't
00:05:33
very man of the people. It was, it was, it felt kind of
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condescending, like I felt like, like I, I don't fly often, but
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I, I'm, I fly united. I wait in line with 30
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people to go places and I suddenly I felt like belittled
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like like that wasn't good enough.
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And, and he's implying I'm better than you and it's you
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little people who aren't important and aren't doing
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important things. And so I of course I'm not going
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to come down and sit with you all while you just wait for your
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commercial flight. Like I did not watch that real,
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that real that video before I told you that I, I didn't see
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it. That was my first time seeing it
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just now. And that was rude.
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Like he was rude, but yes, don't lecture me on climate change and
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saving the environment and then go fly around on private jets
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like you're just an A hole. Not you, not you.
00:06:31
I, I think we all had an idea that Bernie Sanders was a
00:06:34
complete hypocrite on socialism when he's a guy who owns three
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houses and you know, he, he rails against the fact that he
00:06:43
wrote a book and he's made millions off that book and he
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loves capitalism when it works for him.
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But you know. And we're pro.
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Capitalism for everybody. Else so like I'm all for Bernie
00:06:53
making money. He wrote a book, it did well, he
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bought some homes. Great.
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I would also buy some homes. I I don't pretend like I
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wouldn't. I would own multiple homes if I
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could afford to own multiple homes.
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Just going to put that out there in case anyone wants to bend
00:07:08
with me so I can own multiple. I'm just kidding.
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No, I mean, I don't, I don't blame him for that.
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And he, he wrote a book, it sold and he made all this money and
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there was nothing wrong with that.
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But he does turn around and lecture people and.
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Yeah. So he's very defensive about it.
00:07:24
So cringe because, well, it's cringe because the fact that he
00:07:32
was so angry about it and so defensive over it.
00:07:34
So, but anyway, Bernie Sanders being upset about the fact that
00:07:41
he was asked why he takes a private jet.
00:07:45
All right, let's hop into our first topic because these are
00:07:47
going to be some big stories we got to get through tonight.
00:07:50
They're two big stories. Let's start off in my home city
00:07:54
of San Diego. Todd, Gloria, Mr. I don't know,
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I'm trying to think of a good nickname for him.
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Mr. never shows up when it matters now actually does have
00:08:06
to show up when it matters. If you if you don't know about
00:08:09
Todd Gloria, he's been flying under the radar and I think he
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wants to fly under the radar because he has aspirations
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obviously for higher office. What California Democrat doesn't
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have aspirations for No, no California Democrat is going to
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stop at the mayor of a big city and go.
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But that's it. I'm done.
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I've I've completed my job now that they think if I run for
00:08:30
governor, then I can maybe get the Senate like that.
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They're always Gavin Newsom is not unique in that sense, where
00:08:37
they're all trying to reach for the next brass.
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Yeah, and we know some Republicans like that too.
00:08:41
Just to be fair, it's. Not, you know, they're
00:08:43
Republicans like that who are on the way up or they, they're
00:08:46
always looking for the next. One are also in San Diego.
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Some of them also in San Diego. Funny.
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I'm not something, maybe it's something in the water.
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So he's never really once he got elected.
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This is his second term now. It's kind of been said that he
00:09:00
doesn't really take a lot of positions.
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He's not very controversial. He he's under the radar.
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I've talked to people in the know who are like, no, Todd
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Gloria never takes a position because he doesn't want it to
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come back and bite him later on down the road.
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But when the city is facing $258 million budget deficit, you as
00:09:22
the mayor are required by the city charter to actually propose
00:09:25
a budget. And that requires for Todd
00:09:28
Gloria to get his pencil and calculator out and actually
00:09:31
figure out, well, I don't know if he's actually figuring it
00:09:33
out. His team's figuring it out.
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Like how are they going to close the budget?
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So let's obviously his first draft.
00:09:43
So he released a initial draft, which we're going to discuss
00:09:46
tonight. Tomorrow probably when this goes
00:09:49
up on audio, there's going to be a new revised budget, which
00:09:54
we'll probably have more stuff to discuss.
00:09:56
But basically, let's just say his first budget did not go over
00:10:00
so well with the people because he had to make a lot of cuts to
00:10:03
make up for 258. So let's watch this video from
00:10:07
NBC7 talking about the people being upset about his budget
00:10:12
cuts. For more than 2 1/2 hours,
00:10:18
taxpayers gave San Diego City Council members a piece of their
00:10:21
mind over the city's proposed budget cuts.
00:10:24
There will be many. The city of San Diego is facing
00:10:26
a deficit of $258 and a lot of people are not happy
00:10:30
about potential cuts. Tonight they got one of their
00:10:33
first opportunities to let the budget review committee know
00:10:36
what exactly what is important to them.
00:10:38
NBC 7 Sir Maury Fleming has tonight's update.
00:10:42
Roughly 120 people signed up for public comment voicing their
00:10:45
concerns about the city of San Diego's proposed budget cuts.
00:10:48
Some of the major issues that they're concerned about trimming
00:10:51
funding to the arts, reducing library hours and merging a
00:10:54
police station. You can't keep telling this
00:10:57
police. With signs in hand, some with
00:10:59
kids in tow, parents like council members know they're not
00:11:02
happy about the mayor's proposed plan to merge Northwestern
00:11:06
Police Station in Carmel Valley with the Northeastern station
00:11:09
and Rancho Pinasquitos. I am scared to death of that
00:11:15
department being gone. Part of that cause for concern
00:11:18
sparked by this SWAT standoff in La Jolla late last month.
00:11:21
It triggered La Jolla High and other area schools to shelter in
00:11:24
place. The potential police station
00:11:27
merger means the Carmel Valley station would move 9 miles away,
00:11:30
a decision the city's own draft proposal admits could increase
00:11:34
response times, A big worry for people in the area who've been
00:11:38
victimized by crime. We had two people come on to our
00:11:43
property to burglarize our home. This was not the first time this
00:11:47
has happened, but they were brazenly taking their time.
00:11:52
With 39 schools served by the station, including three high
00:11:56
schools within 4 miles, it's a risk we cannot afford to take.
00:12:00
The merger would help the city of San Diego save an estimated
00:12:03
$1.7 million in its effort to make up a more than $250 million
00:12:08
budget shortfall cuts to recreation centers and reducing
00:12:12
library hours to five days a week also being proposed.
00:12:16
Youth programming is public safety.
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Having safe places for youth to go after school and on the
00:12:21
weekends is public safety. City Council needs to prioritize
00:12:25
youth in this budget by fully funding the Office of Child
00:12:27
Needs Success and restoring cuts to libraries.
00:12:29
The rec centers help create safety and connections within
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the community and this budget cut is working to break it down.
00:12:36
It is not fair to give a $36 million raise to fund police
00:12:38
officers and cut the youth for the betterment of our future.
00:12:42
The police department's budget is expected to increase more
00:12:44
than $29 million, most of that, according to the city's top
00:12:48
financial officer, for previously negotiated pension
00:12:51
payouts and salary raises. A small price to pay, some say,
00:12:55
for the safety of their kids and the community.
00:12:58
In an emergency, minutes and even seconds matter.
00:13:02
Closing the station would drastically increase response
00:13:05
times and put our most vulnerable, our students, at
00:13:08
risk. Our community pays significant
00:13:10
taxes with the expectation that we are funding public safety.
00:13:15
Council members will continue their budget review this entire
00:13:17
week. Public comment will be
00:13:19
available, but it will be topic specific at City Hall.
00:13:22
Omari Fleming, NBC 7. And the mayor is scheduled to
00:13:26
release his revised budget on May the 14th.
00:13:30
All right, so just as we were watching that, I went to
00:13:36
percentage calculator to figure that out. 1.7 million of $258
00:13:41
million is .65%. So I mean, you got to start
00:13:48
somewhere, right? I guess you have to start
00:13:50
somewhere. It all adds up at the end.
00:13:53
But it does seem like a lot of these measures are are tiny in a
00:13:56
sense. So there there is.
00:14:00
They did mention about La Jolla and I'd sent you an article
00:14:04
before which was interesting that here's another local topic
00:14:08
that's going on right now. La Jolla has, if you don't know
00:14:12
what La Jolla is, La Jolla is basically, let me know if this
00:14:17
makes sense. La Jolla is basically the
00:14:20
Beverly Hills of San Diego. Is that a good way to describe
00:14:23
it? It's like, it's like the
00:14:26
bourgeois. Or like it's, yeah, it's a
00:14:30
smaller section. I mean, I don't live there, but,
00:14:33
you know, I have a lot of background in, in La Jolla due
00:14:36
to family. Yeah, So and, and you guys who,
00:14:42
so we're talking about this city of San Diego, not the county.
00:14:46
So just want to make sure anyone listening understands that
00:14:48
clarification. And San Diego city is quite
00:14:51
large. So La Jolla is more north of
00:14:53
when people think of like San Diego and the Assam district in
00:14:56
downtown San Diego, La Jolla is more north and it is the bougie,
00:15:01
very bougie area. Very bougie.
00:15:03
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:05
Like, think of, I think Mitt Romney lived in La Jolla.
00:15:08
I don't know if he still does, but at one point, Mitt Romney
00:15:11
had a house in La Jolla. They actually spotted him after
00:15:14
he lost to Obama in 2012. They spotted him at a gas
00:15:17
station at La Jolla and he supposedly had a house with.
00:15:19
Like either their gas is extra. No, I'm just kidding.
00:15:23
Special special gas in La Jolla. But they had La Jolla had
00:15:27
started a petition that they are going to basically secede from
00:15:33
the city of San Diego. Now, as you can imagine, La
00:15:36
Jolla has a lot of rich people. So when you're facing a budget
00:15:40
deficit, the idea of La Jolla getting out of San Diego City
00:15:44
and you're losing that tax base, not a good thing for the city of
00:15:48
San Diego. Something happened with the
00:15:51
signatures. There was like not quite enough.
00:15:54
And then they were like, Nah, we'll give you more time to get
00:15:56
the signatures. So the city of San Diego is now
00:15:59
wasting resources on suing to make sure that the city of La
00:16:04
Jolla can't move forward with their petition for secession out
00:16:08
of San Diego. So that's another example.
00:16:11
Every, every city in California that is facing a budget deficit
00:16:15
is also suing somebody. Like they just decided that's a
00:16:18
great use of money. We can't afford to pay our
00:16:20
employees or to clean up our streets, but let's sue.
00:16:24
Right. Let's sue so that we we don't
00:16:27
lose this beautiful tax base of people.
00:16:30
And that's one of the reasons not to get off topic.
00:16:33
If you know La Jolla, obviously a very nice area, very rich
00:16:39
area, very bougie area. They obviously believe they
00:16:43
could survive on their own. They don't need San Diego.
00:16:46
It's not like they're getting a benefit from San Diego.
00:16:48
Like they could easily support with their tax dollars, fire
00:16:51
department, first responders, police, all that stuff.
00:16:56
So to them they're like, well, we can do it on our own, we
00:16:59
don't need you. And San Diego's like, well, we
00:17:01
do need you because we need your tax dollars and we're faced you
00:17:04
basically keep the city running. Two things from that video.
00:17:10
We're going to discuss it a little bit more.
00:17:13
The biggest thing that came out of this budget that I think
00:17:15
people are really kind of upset about, and I'm actually upset
00:17:18
about it as well because there's a number of things that Todd
00:17:23
Gloria probably could have gone after, but instead he first went
00:17:26
after closing libraries 2 days a week to only five days a week.
00:17:31
He also shut down or is proposing to shut down a whole
00:17:35
bunch of arts programs. So to me, this is maybe this is
00:17:43
my tinfoil hat right now when you are proposing to punish
00:17:47
citizens for, you know, you're going to punish citizens by
00:17:54
reducing library hours, cutting arts, stuff that people really
00:17:58
enjoy. I think Todd Gloria on this
00:18:03
first draft is punishing the people of San Diego for not
00:18:07
passing Measure E. Now, if you don't remember what
00:18:09
Measure E was, Measure E was they were going to raise the
00:18:12
sales tax here in San Diego by like .5% didn't pass.
00:18:18
And they were counting on that tax revenue to come in.
00:18:21
They had made projections like we're going to keep spending
00:18:24
because we know we're going to get this tax coming in and
00:18:27
people are going to vote for it. It's San Diego, it's California,
00:18:29
of course, and it didn't pass. And I think they were absolutely
00:18:32
shocked that it didn't pass. So now it's it, it feels like
00:18:37
Todd Gloria is not like rooting out abuse or fraud or waste or
00:18:41
anything like that. You know, maybe make the
00:18:43
government a little bit more efficient.
00:18:44
He's taking away the things that people enjoy.
00:18:47
It's almost like, well, you were supposed to vote for this
00:18:51
peasants, and now you didn't and you're not giving us more tax
00:18:54
money. So therefore I'm going to take
00:18:56
away all the nice stuff. That's my tinfoil hat theory
00:18:59
about that. What do you?
00:19:01
Think Well, no, actually, when you sent me that article and I,
00:19:04
I was reading through it, that was actually my initial response
00:19:06
to that is that these are the programs that we put taxes in
00:19:10
into, you know, like, so we, we're supposed to get something
00:19:14
back from this. And I, I know it like in my own
00:19:20
city, certainly I have taken advantage of a lot of those
00:19:22
programs and, and parks, they're talking about not closing parks,
00:19:28
but are they, they want to close some bathrooms at parks and
00:19:31
beaches and even I think some of the janitorial type stuff
00:19:35
they're cutting back on. And it's like, no, those are,
00:19:39
those are what we want with our taxes.
00:19:41
We want to enjoy nice parks. We want to enjoy the programs
00:19:44
that the community puts on and the arts and the libraries,
00:19:48
which of course, I think you and I, we're both readers, we're in
00:19:51
agreeance that public libraries are great.
00:19:54
Like, yes, we, we support that. We want that.
00:19:58
We not only like do we enjoy them, but I don't like my kid.
00:20:02
My daughter walks to the library like three days a week and she'd
00:20:05
probably walk to the library every day if she could.
00:20:07
She loves going to the library. And I believe libraries
00:20:12
generally are not open on Sundays.
00:20:14
But I had sent you that tweet that I went and found where a
00:20:17
big deal of his back in 2021 after COVID was putting funding
00:20:21
back into reopening the libraries and expanding the
00:20:24
hours. And now all of a sudden that's
00:20:27
not a priority and he wants to take it away.
00:20:29
And it's like, I'm like, what are you?
00:20:31
What are you doing here, Todd? Gloria?
00:20:32
And then I want to go back to the police station thing because
00:20:36
again, San Diego is a very large city and I and I think even like
00:20:41
mileage wise with La Jolla at the top north and like, it's
00:20:45
like it's a long ways down to the actual like where you live
00:20:51
in the city of San Diego. You know, there's, there's a lot
00:20:54
of actual land, if you will, between La Jolla, which is La
00:20:59
Jolla the most northern part of the city of San Diego, or is
00:21:02
there? No, I.
00:21:06
Kearney Mesa. Or Mira Mesa, I think that that
00:21:09
is farther. That's like above Miramar, which
00:21:14
is where they filmed Top Gun. Yeah, I think mirror Mira Mesa
00:21:19
is still sandy city of San Diego.
00:21:21
The city of San Diego is weird. Like if you look at a map, it
00:21:24
like branches out and then like curves and then it like reaches
00:21:29
out. Yeah, it's a tree like.
00:21:32
It's it's very odd. Like in one second you're like,
00:21:34
oh, I'm I'm in this city, like not still part of San Diego.
00:21:39
So it is. It's kind of odd to like there's
00:21:41
Lemon Grove and but that's besides the point.
00:21:44
So geographically, yeah, from like point A of the city to
00:21:48
point B of the city, the police station merging, that didn't
00:21:52
make sense to me. Again, I don't live there, but I
00:21:55
know you guys are kind of experiencing some.
00:21:58
Like there was obviously a lot of the illegal immigration,
00:22:01
there's a lot of homelessness and then some crime has gone up.
00:22:04
And so it did seem like merging the police stations was not a
00:22:08
wise decision in, in my opinion. Because then like they mentioned
00:22:13
there, it's like 9 miles away And, and then of course there's
00:22:16
traffic. It's California, 9 miles is
00:22:19
that's a lot for, you know, emergency responders.
00:22:24
So that didn't make sense to me. Before, before we hopped on, I
00:22:29
was telling you a story how in in front of our house, true
00:22:34
story. This just happened yesterday.
00:22:35
Speaking of first responders and reaction time and how fast they
00:22:38
can respond. There was a scream outside.
00:22:43
I look at my wife and go, what was that?
00:22:45
And I look outside and there's a bunch of people screaming and
00:22:48
fighting. Two guys were beating up on
00:22:49
another guy and some girl was screaming.
00:22:51
She was all like battered up and bloody.
00:22:53
And all these people were calling and I called, I called
00:22:56
911 so that their their thing must have been like blowing up.
00:23:01
And I, I understand that they have to get all the information
00:23:05
before like they send any officers because you're not
00:23:08
sending officers that you're not going to send them blind into
00:23:14
these situations. I get that.
00:23:16
But even like close in the heart of city to San Diego, they still
00:23:22
didn't catch them because they got away before they could get
00:23:25
there. So by the time like people
00:23:28
called and said, hey, like this is happening and you imagine
00:23:31
there's police like up and down in our neighborhood all the
00:23:34
time, they still couldn't catch them fast enough.
00:23:36
So to your .9 miles away, imagine you're 911, you're
00:23:40
calling 9 miles away. They're not getting there for 5
00:23:45
minutes. If they're flying maybe at 5
00:23:48
minute, you know, they got to drive safe too.
00:23:50
They're, they can drive really quickly, but they can't drive
00:23:53
recklessly. So, and also I point about
00:23:58
public libraries. I'm a big fan of public
00:23:59
libraries. I just took out a graphic novel,
00:24:02
a Batman graphic novel, because I'd never read it before.
00:24:04
So I was like, I'm going to check this out.
00:24:06
My wife looked at me the other day.
00:24:07
She goes, are you reading a comic book?
00:24:09
And I said, no, it's a graphic novel.
00:24:12
There's a difference. Had all this information before
00:24:14
I married you. What's happening?
00:24:17
Julian And you're like, are you reading a comic book?
00:24:19
I'm like, no, it's a graphic novel.
00:24:23
There's totally a big difference.
00:24:25
It's like whatever, just reading Batman graphic novel.
00:24:30
Yeah, it it it does feel like they are punishing us for not
00:24:36
passing because it was that. I think the county also didn't
00:24:39
get their sales tax increase. Several cities did not get the
00:24:43
sales tax increase that they were expecting.
00:24:45
But San Diego most specifically didn't get measuries.
00:24:47
So they were expecting. They were banking on that, that
00:24:50
they was going to cover. Mind you, I know I've said this
00:24:54
before, but it's so worth repeating.
00:24:56
When you see these propositions or these measures come out and
00:25:00
they always couch it in, we need this money for first responders,
00:25:05
or we need it for infrastructure, or we need it
00:25:09
for puppy dogs or something like that.
00:25:11
It's always, they always couch it in these sympathetic things.
00:25:15
But then when you read the fine print, you really dive into it.
00:25:19
It became very clear that Measure E was going to go in the
00:25:21
general fund and it was going to cover all those losses that they
00:25:25
were expecting. And then maybe some of it would
00:25:28
go to infrastructure. But it was never promised that
00:25:30
it was going to go to infrastructure.
00:25:31
It wasn't put in like a specific thing.
00:25:33
So they were totally. Bankrupt and then you're like,
00:25:37
when you get to it, it's like 2% will go to some
00:25:42
Superintendent of public schools or something, you know, just.
00:25:47
Someone had asked in the chat, why are many cities in
00:25:49
California suffering with these budget cuts and are losing vital
00:25:52
city services? I I respond in the chat, too
00:25:55
many political promises they can't pay for.
00:25:58
I that is, I think the reason I think that there is sort of you
00:26:03
keep, you keep promising more and more and more and eventually
00:26:08
the check comes due. Like every politician who comes
00:26:11
through says, we're going to do this, We're going to do XY and
00:26:13
Z, We're going to promise this, We're going to give this free
00:26:15
service away. We're going to give this sooner
00:26:17
or later, it's going to catch up to you.
00:26:19
And tax revenues in cities are very dependent on like tourism
00:26:25
and ebbs and flows of the economy.
00:26:29
So if the economy kind of slows down a little bit, tax revenues
00:26:33
don't keep up. Same thing with the state.
00:26:37
When you over promise and then you have to pay for everything
00:26:41
on top of it, this is what happens.
00:26:44
And and you you get these budgets that are bloated.
00:26:46
No one wants to cut anything because in California's
00:26:50
politics, when you're a Democrat, you don't want to cut
00:26:53
anything because somebody loves that program and cutting that
00:26:56
one program will get you bad press.
00:26:59
Right. Yeah.
00:27:02
So. My simplified answer is just the
00:27:04
government has just become too big.
00:27:06
And once things are too big, it's hard to rein it back in.
00:27:10
And, and yeah, it's like, like I know you and I, we just want
00:27:13
like, the simplified things. Please, please have, you know,
00:27:17
clean sidewalks and the roads are paved and we can go to our
00:27:21
Public Library six days a week. And if we call the police, they
00:27:24
can be here in a few minutes, you know, like.
00:27:28
But there is, it just seems like, like you said, everything
00:27:31
is just like, we're going to give you sunshine and rainbows
00:27:34
and perfect weather and puppy dogs for everybody.
00:27:36
Even if you're allergic, we're ours are allergy free.
00:27:39
Like, you know, and you're like, oh, yay.
00:27:41
And everyone votes for that. And then and then all of a
00:27:44
sudden you're like, where's my allergy friendly puppy dog?
00:27:47
And they're like, oh, sorry, that doesn't fit to the budget,
00:27:50
but. Passed.
00:27:51
This new measure. We promise we'll get you the
00:27:54
puppy dog. Just pass this new measure.
00:27:58
And then and then you don't. And they're like, well, not only
00:28:00
do you not get a puppy dog, but you don't get safety either.
00:28:03
Nope, we're going to take away everything.
00:28:05
Stupid peasants. That is my you've hit on the
00:28:10
heart of my political theory, which I I dubbed The Dirty
00:28:14
parking meter theory. And one day I'll go into detail
00:28:17
about what The Dirty parking meter theory is, but it's this
00:28:20
minarchist idea. New word, new vocab word for
00:28:24
people listening. A minarchist is somebody who
00:28:27
believes they're not an anarchist.
00:28:28
They don't believe in the abolishment of government.
00:28:31
They believe government should be super, super small to the
00:28:33
absolute essentials. So that is what a minarchist
00:28:37
believes. So fun fact for the day, there
00:28:41
are some other things like you brought up.
00:28:43
The new thing is paid parking at Balboa Park.
00:28:46
As long as I lived here, there has never been a charge to park
00:28:50
at Balboa Park. Balboa Park is sort of like San
00:28:54
Diego Central Park. Beautiful park, beautiful
00:28:57
buildings, lots of history museums.
00:29:00
It is. It's really the crown jewel of
00:29:03
San Diego, I guess you could say.
00:29:04
It's just really, really well done.
00:29:06
I thought that was La Jolla. I'm just kidding.
00:29:08
I'm sorry. What?
00:29:09
They call. La Jolla means the jewel.
00:29:12
So the jewel, but they call Balboa the crown jewel.
00:29:15
OK, OK. Of San Diego.
00:29:19
I think it was built during the World's Fair 1905.
00:29:23
Right. It was supposed to be a
00:29:24
temporary thing and then it was so appreciated and a joy that
00:29:27
they left it up permanently. Yeah, it's really nice what they
00:29:31
did. And there's beautiful museums
00:29:33
which are really affordable. Sometimes they're free, like on
00:29:35
Tuesdays for people in the. So that's an example like these
00:29:39
services that we as taxpayers, we pay for and we go, we get to
00:29:43
enjoy this like we live here, we pay these taxes, we get to go to
00:29:45
Balboa Park and enjoy this stuff.
00:29:48
Now they're going to start charging people or they're,
00:29:50
they're throwing out the idea of charging people at Balboa Park,
00:29:53
which is ridiculous because you can go to Balboa Park and walk
00:29:56
around, go to museums, there's some places to go get something
00:30:00
to eat. And, and you could spend like
00:30:02
four or five hours easily at Balboa Park.
00:30:04
And now you're going to probably limit people to two hours like
00:30:08
it's going to, I don't know, it's going to reduce the amount
00:30:11
of people probably showing up to Balboa Park, which doesn't help
00:30:13
the vendors in Balboa Park. So that's another example of
00:30:18
them punishing us for not passing measure.
00:30:20
Well, and that's such a tourist location, you know, like
00:30:24
everybody in my local Facebook group, Hey, I'm going to spend
00:30:27
the weekend in San Diego. What do you suggest?
00:30:30
And and #1 is always definitely Balboa Park, but just now know
00:30:35
that you need to pay for parking.
00:30:37
So after that cost into your trip.
00:30:39
Yeah, just bring a lot of quarters, although they take
00:30:42
Apple Pay now, so as long as you have.
00:30:45
Your phone probably only take you, you probably can't do
00:30:47
quarters anymore. You probably have to like and
00:30:50
then it's probably a minimum. I don't even know because we
00:30:52
just paid for working there, not go park.
00:30:55
But in San Diego last weekend, I don't even know what it was.
00:30:58
I it was cold and it was drizzly and I stayed in the car while my
00:31:01
husband ran to the meter and did that.
00:31:03
So. You're like, I have no idea.
00:31:05
I have no idea what it was. It could have been 100 bucks to.
00:31:08
Park, it could have been 100 bucks, although if it was he
00:31:10
would have complained so I would have heard about it.
00:31:13
Now the other thing that they're planning on to close the budget
00:31:18
gap, charge more for trash collection, which is a common
00:31:22
theme amongst other California cities.
00:31:24
I know LA is also proposing the same thing as they're going to
00:31:27
charge more. I don't know how these contracts
00:31:29
work that they figure we're just going to make more money by
00:31:33
charging more for the city to come pick up your garbage.
00:31:37
Like that seems like such an odd thing to be like, well, what are
00:31:40
you going to do? You got to throw out your
00:31:42
garbage, so you got to pay more. It's kind of like a mafia tactic
00:31:47
of like, well, what are you going to do?
00:31:48
You're not going to take your garbage to the dump or they
00:31:50
could charge you anyway. I mean, it's the same trucks,
00:31:54
the same routes doing the same thing, but they're like that.
00:31:57
Now it's we're going to hike it up by 25% so we can make more
00:32:00
money. That to me is such an odd like
00:32:04
arrangement. You know this.
00:32:06
Not to get too off topic here, but you know how we complain
00:32:09
about like the monopoly of the power companies, PG and ESUG&E,
00:32:13
Edison, they're all the same company and we don't have other
00:32:17
options. Like you, you don't have another
00:32:19
power company option. You, you're with SDG and E, and
00:32:22
that's your only option. I'm with Edison, but they're
00:32:25
all, they're all under PG&E, whatever it's called.
00:32:28
Yeah, whatever. It's all the same company, trash
00:32:31
truck companies, They have separate companies, but the city
00:32:34
contracts with them and you don't have an option like you
00:32:37
just said. Like what are you going to do?
00:32:38
Like you can only use whatever company they've decided to
00:32:43
contract with. And then they get so weird with
00:32:46
the contracts and the contracts are really long term.
00:32:49
They're like 8 to 10 years somebody, then 20.
00:32:52
And then the way the wording is, it's almost like the city
00:32:55
doesn't even have an option at the end to explore other
00:32:58
contracts. It's it's really bizarre.
00:33:01
And so I don't know who your trash company is, but you you're
00:33:05
stuck with, you know, I don't know, is it Waste Management
00:33:09
Republic? OK, so like you're stuck with
00:33:11
the Republic regardless of what Republic decides to do with like
00:33:16
raise their rates, get their new trucks or whatever.
00:33:18
I know they're introducing electric vehicles.
00:33:21
And apparently one was here last week and then it broke down
00:33:23
because it couldn't last long enough electricity wise for all
00:33:27
the power that goes into what a trash truck does.
00:33:30
But anyway, it's almost like they're monopolizing the trash
00:33:33
truck thing like they have with the power companies.
00:33:36
And so, yeah, like you said, what are you going to do?
00:33:39
Just not pay your trash? Go to the dump?
00:33:40
No, you, you're stuck with that now.
00:33:44
Do you guys? Because I thought I saw this on
00:33:46
Instagram in San Diego. Are I?
00:33:50
You're a renter, so you don't necessarily see the property
00:33:54
taxes, but I thought property taxes covered waste pickup.
00:33:58
Is that not? Do you know anything about that?
00:34:04
I don't know. Yeah, I, I it's not on, not a
00:34:07
monthly thing I have to worry about.
00:34:09
That's the landlord has to worry.
00:34:10
Well, are you paying a trash fee in addition to that?
00:34:14
No, I mean our our rent just covers all this.
00:34:17
So probably. It's up to the landlord.
00:34:19
So then I, I anyone in the chat, if you, if you know, I could
00:34:22
have sworn I read this on like an Instagram argument thread
00:34:26
that you know, the, the price is going up, but it's covered under
00:34:30
property taxes. Therefore the homeowner would,
00:34:33
you know, cover that or pass that on to you.
00:34:35
But some people are saying like my rent doesn't include that and
00:34:38
yet it's being paid for under property taxes.
00:34:41
So OK. The only thing about trash
00:34:44
companies is the unions, which have incredible power.
00:34:50
This just happened a couple years ago where they wanted to
00:34:52
negotiate new contracts and they say, well, we're going to go on
00:34:55
strike and no one's going to get any garbage picked up.
00:34:58
And it's kind of a hard position to look at the whole city and
00:35:01
there's no garbage being picked up and the whole city smells
00:35:03
like garbage. So Monopoly works both ways.
00:35:07
It works for the city and then it also works for the trash
00:35:09
company because then they can turn around and go, well, pay us
00:35:13
more money. So, yeah.
00:35:16
So in other news about the budget, we were talking about
00:35:21
how they cut or they're trying to compact those two police
00:35:24
stations, which is 1.7 million. Some things that are not getting
00:35:29
cut. Interestingly enough, and I know
00:35:32
I've brought this up before, but there is a project going on in
00:35:36
Hillcrest, San Diego where I basically call it they are
00:35:41
repaving, painting over it with a rainbow flag and adding a
00:35:45
playground, all for the low, low price of $30 million.
00:35:52
How big is this painting? It's this.
00:35:55
It's two blocks. Oh, it's two blocks.
00:35:59
See, now this is where they could actually utilize public
00:36:01
schools seniors. High school seniors are required
00:36:06
to have a certain amount of volunteer hours.
00:36:09
Well, I can't think of these high school seniors out there
00:36:11
to, for free, get their volunteer hours that are
00:36:15
required to graduate and they just start painting sections.
00:36:21
And then it could be like, I helped paint this road and you'd
00:36:25
have a legacy on that road. And maybe they can even kind of
00:36:27
like, you know, like they'd get their pink rectangle square, but
00:36:31
they get to add little, you know, little customized designs,
00:36:37
little smiley faces and add their signature.
00:36:40
And but they also get their volunteer hours and the city
00:36:42
saves a ton of money. Do they just not think about
00:36:44
these things? No, they, they just figure tax
00:36:48
revenues will always go up. So that's one issue I have is
00:36:52
that they didn't cancel that knowing that there was going to
00:36:55
be a budget shortfall. They didn't cancel that.
00:36:58
And I had to look into like, can you cancel these projects?
00:37:02
It's a little bit wonky. Like it depends on like the
00:37:05
actual contract and how the city can get out of it, whether it's
00:37:08
convenience, whether they file bankruptcy, which they're not
00:37:11
filing for bankruptcy if there's no funds.
00:37:14
Like I would say there probably is no funds for a $30 million
00:37:18
project where you're paving and repainting the roads and adding
00:37:21
a playground. I love that they can get those
00:37:25
roads repaved but not not the others.
00:37:28
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's literally just they're repaving
00:37:31
the roads and and adding a paint scheme to it and a playground
00:37:35
and that's going to be the Hillcrest Promenade.
00:37:37
So that's going to be $30 million.
00:37:39
I would think any construction company could probably do that
00:37:42
for like $2. But what do I know?
00:37:44
I'm not contracted. Well, let's talk about because
00:37:47
for real, you got now a public playground.
00:37:50
There's got to be insurance on that because Kid Falls breaks
00:37:56
their arm. The city's going to get sued, so
00:37:58
there's there's a whole other cost built into that.
00:38:02
Right. That is.
00:38:05
Counterpoint, can kids even get to it?
00:38:08
Because it will likely be taken over by homeless people so it's
00:38:15
gonna make a great homeless encampment when it's opened.
00:38:18
It's. Gonna be very pretty and
00:38:20
artistic and colorful. It'll be a very pretty and
00:38:22
artistic outdoor homeless encampment.
00:38:26
Salaries. A lot of people are asking, hey
00:38:29
you guys got us into this mess, why don't you put some skin in
00:38:33
the game? We're all sacrificing libraries
00:38:35
and Balboa and arts programs. Todd Gloria earns $244.00 a
00:38:44
year. That is actually more than Gavin
00:38:48
Newsom who only makes 242 thousand $295 per year.
00:38:56
San Diego City Council members each bring home $185.00 more
00:39:05
than congressional representatives who only bring
00:39:07
in, and I say only poor things, $174.
00:39:15
So the question is, why not cut some of those salaries and chip
00:39:19
back in? Why not?
00:39:21
Why not do the brave thing? Why not all of us sacrifice?
00:39:24
If we're all sacrificing, why is it you're only taking away the
00:39:28
stuff the citizens genuinely joy, like fire pits?
00:39:31
That's the new thing too. They want to get rid of fire
00:39:33
pits. They want to cut fire pits
00:39:35
because that will save $100 a year.
00:39:39
And they want to cut the bathrooms at the beaches because
00:39:43
that will save $1 million a year, and they want to.
00:39:47
Except that it's going to double the cost of needing to clean up
00:39:51
when the kids human feces. Yes, the homeless people and the
00:39:55
children that really need a bathroom.
00:39:57
Yep. So instead of, you know, cutting
00:40:00
those things, or if we're all going to cut, why don't they cut
00:40:03
their own salaries? Clearly not.
00:40:06
Important, Yes. Do you know what I think about
00:40:09
that? We, we have said this so many
00:40:11
times. Everyone deserves to live to
00:40:15
earn a fair wage. Like I am not opposed to or
00:40:19
paid, you know, the, the government employees having a
00:40:22
salary. There's there's nothing wrong
00:40:24
with that, but they claim to be like public servants.
00:40:28
And now I know that everyone doesn't follow this belief, but
00:40:32
we believe like, you know, you get in and you make some
00:40:35
political changes and you move on.
00:40:38
And then we don't, we're not really all for career
00:40:41
politicians. I think that if we started
00:40:44
lowering a lot of these salaries, then it would really
00:40:48
weed out the people who, who are just in it for the, the benefits
00:40:53
and where they can take advantage of things.
00:40:56
And it we would see like true public servants who are like,
00:40:59
I'm not here for the salary, for the wages.
00:41:01
I'm here because I want to make an actual difference in my city,
00:41:05
county, assembly, district, yada yada yada.
00:41:09
Yeah, you know well. That I, I, I agree and I think,
00:41:13
you know, it should be a real public servant type of salary
00:41:17
and for people like the legislature, maybe make you part
00:41:22
time. I don't know.
00:41:23
You don't need. To Yeah, so isn't isn't City
00:41:25
Council and mayor positions part time?
00:41:28
Not San Diego, I think. It's not San Diego, OK?
00:41:30
I believe in my city they are. Yeah, I don't think it's.
00:41:34
I think it's a full time gig here too, like the City Council.
00:41:38
They're all full time, huge city.
00:41:39
I mean, we got to like you are. Yeah.
00:41:43
Both geographically and population wise.
00:41:47
All right, final thought, because we got to get on to the
00:41:49
next topic. I'm going to stand on my soapbox
00:41:53
here and I'm going to say it again and going to keep saying
00:41:57
this until I'm blue in the face. I should have wore my Local
00:42:00
elections matter. Sure, local elections matter
00:42:04
because they directly impact your daily life and you have to
00:42:10
pay attention to what is going on in local politics.
00:42:14
So we are texting back and forth and I wanted to make this point
00:42:18
because this is the response when Trump, President Trump in
00:42:26
DC, proposes that he is going to make some cuts to the federal
00:42:32
budget. Now, not everything in the
00:42:34
federal budget has to do with what's going to happen to you in
00:42:37
your daily life or San Diego. But this picture right here is
00:42:44
what shows up when there is a rumor or that there is a
00:42:50
proposal that President Trump is going to cut the budget, the
00:42:54
federal budget. Now when Todd Gloria is out
00:43:00
there saying. This is some people are
00:43:02
listening to this on audio. Please describe what you just
00:43:05
showed on screen. Sorry, the picture is of a
00:43:08
protest. That was back in April.
00:43:12
Thousands of people marched through downtown.
00:43:14
They marched from waterfront to the Gaslamp bearing signs and
00:43:17
flags basically saying step down Trump.
00:43:19
Hands off my HRTO hormone replacement therapy.
00:43:24
That's OK. Why the federal government's
00:43:26
funding? That I don't know.
00:43:27
So it was a protest to federal budget cuts.
00:43:31
Right. Yeah, because they were going in
00:43:33
and proposing all these cuts. But to my point, Todd Gloria is
00:43:40
slashing, cutting all these services that we've listed,
00:43:42
libraries, arts, Balboa restrooms at, you know, at the
00:43:48
beach, all these different things.
00:43:50
They want to charge you to, to go to Balboa Park now and park
00:43:54
at Balboa Park. Nobody's protesting.
00:43:58
There's no thousands of protesters.
00:44:00
There's nobody out in the streets talking about, you know,
00:44:03
Todd Gloria, how dare you take away all this stuff that we pay
00:44:06
for. And that's disappointing.
00:44:09
That's disappointing me because that is directly affecting your
00:44:12
daily life. And most people don't care and
00:44:16
they'll just brush it off. But something happening 3000
00:44:19
miles away for a federal budget that probably has little to
00:44:22
nothing to do with your daily life causes thousands of people
00:44:27
to show up in the streets. So I'm just saying y'all need to
00:44:32
get your priorities straight because what Todd Glory is doing
00:44:35
at City Hall right now, cutting and slashing all these services
00:44:38
for Sandy Hagen's that we pay for, that we like to enjoy.
00:44:43
No protest. Nope, no St. wide protest.
00:44:45
Nobody's you know, protesting all the way up to City Hall in
00:44:49
downtown. No one getting mad at Todd
00:44:52
Gloria. So that's my final thought on
00:44:55
this whole budget thing. That's me getting off my
00:44:57
soapbox. Local elections matter folks,
00:45:00
pay attention. Any thoughts?
00:45:04
I agree, I know we need to get on to the next subject so we can
00:45:08
move on. Wholehearted grants it's.
00:45:12
More local elections got two more local elections.
00:45:15
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So go to stopbox.com/california Underground for your discount
00:46:22
and let's get back to the show. Speaking of local elections, be
00:46:28
careful who you vote for because they might bring their friends
00:46:31
into the government with them. So LA is I want to give them
00:46:37
props for doing an amazing job really covering this story
00:46:43
really hard. Like they are not giving up on
00:46:45
this story. They were the ones who first
00:46:46
like broke this story. We've covered this story.
00:46:48
We did a whole episode on this story.
00:46:51
This came out couple days ago. Whistleblowers say L as top
00:46:54
homeless official hired unqualified friends, tried to
00:46:57
destroy public records. So Valicia Adams Colum, if
00:47:02
that's how you say her name, she was the CEO of the Los Angeles
00:47:05
Homeless Services Authority, LAHSA.
00:47:10
Still always a mouthful. No, you still you got it good.
00:47:14
I'm getting I'm getting better. First time we covered the story,
00:47:16
I could not get that out. There was all this controversy,
00:47:20
little back story, there's all this controversy of she
00:47:22
couldn't. There was an audit ordered.
00:47:24
They couldn't figure out where the money went.
00:47:25
Millions of dollars were wasted. Contractors are being paid all
00:47:28
different amounts. Basically, for a lack of a
00:47:32
better term, is a complete shit show of like, where did the
00:47:34
money go? So after that and all the
00:47:37
pressure came out and the federal judge basically said you
00:47:40
guys got to figure this out or I'm going to get involved and
00:47:43
I'm taking over. She stepped down.
00:47:46
He got too much. I that I'm glad she stepped
00:47:50
down, but I seriously think is more is going to come out or
00:47:54
she's there's more that's hidden.
00:47:57
And so that's why she was like, I need to get out of the
00:47:59
spotlight real fast. Yeah, I think she thinks if I
00:48:03
just get out of here, like nothing will happen to me.
00:48:09
But LAist is not going to let them forget.
00:48:13
So LAist had been requesting more information from LEHSA.
00:48:19
They kept and kept on them, kept persisting.
00:48:24
And this article goes on to say the letters were written by an
00:48:29
attorney on behalf of two former LA Homeless Service Authority
00:48:32
employees who allege they were wrongfully fired for speaking up
00:48:36
against wrongdoing by Adams Kellum, the CEO.
00:48:39
Written claims such as these are a required step before filing a
00:48:43
lawsuit against a local government in California.
00:48:47
LAHSA arranged for $800 to be paid to the whistleblowers,
00:48:54
former Chief Financial Administrative Officer Christina
00:48:57
Dixon and former top IT and data official Emily Vaughn Henry, to
00:49:01
settle the claims before they became public lawsuits.
00:49:05
The settlement amount is equivalent to what it costs to
00:49:08
shelter as many as 40 unhoused people for a year, according to
00:49:13
a recent audit summary of shelter costs.
00:49:16
So basically they were trying to pay them off to shut them up
00:49:20
right away. Reminder Karen Bass just went to
00:49:23
Sacramento begging for a couple billion dollars because the but
00:49:28
$800 to pay off people for silence.
00:49:32
Yep, almost $1 to pay off people.
00:49:34
She went to Sacramento begging for 2 billion and we're still
00:49:39
speculating. Why is she asking for 2 billion
00:49:41
if her budget deficit's only 1 billion?
00:49:44
And I think you made the point of like, I think it's going to
00:49:46
get much worse before it gets better.
00:49:50
So what did these whistleblowers allege in the newly disclosed
00:49:55
letters? The whistleblowers alleged that
00:49:58
Adams Kellum pushed out experienced staff to hire
00:50:01
unqualified friends and former subordinates from her previous
00:50:04
job into high level, high salary LAHSA roles.
00:50:08
So basically she brought in all her friends and they were not
00:50:12
qualified to be as a part of this agency.
00:50:16
So again, be careful who you vote for because they put in
00:50:18
their their buddies. LALHSA official repeatedly
00:50:23
withheld accurate data about Mayor Karen Bass signature
00:50:26
homeless program inside safe quote because Adams Callum did
00:50:31
not want Mayor Bass to look bad. End Quote.
00:50:35
Vaughn Henry's claim letter says that Adams Kellum retaliated
00:50:38
against her for, quote, not being willing to hide the number
00:50:43
of clients being served by inside safe.
00:50:46
End Quote. I keep sighing, this isn't
00:50:52
because this is like a a local, you know, matter.
00:50:55
But we also saw the Democrats do this like Joe Biden's fine, he's
00:51:00
wonderful. He's as good as he's ever was.
00:51:03
And like they all, you know, and I'm not saying she's in in
00:51:07
decline, but Karen Vass clearly is not doing what's best for the
00:51:11
city and everyone around her is trying to cover for her.
00:51:15
And and then instead, everyone else is getting in trouble, such
00:51:18
as the Fire Chief who was fired, you know, and, and who knows if
00:51:25
he deserved that? Another thing that that came
00:51:30
out, Adams Kellum, this is one of my favorites.
00:51:33
Adams Kellum engaged in, quote, inappropriate and unethical
00:51:37
behavior at a conference in Washington, DC.
00:51:41
Vaughn Henry reported the behavior to Human Resources
00:51:44
around August 2023. According to her claim.
00:51:47
Adams Kellum subsequently retaliated against Vaughn Henry
00:51:50
for reporting the incident, according to the claim letter.
00:51:53
The apparent description of Adams Kellum's alleged
00:51:56
misbehavior at the conference was redacted by LAHSA's
00:51:59
attorneys, which a public records attorney says is
00:52:02
unlawful. We have a right to know why they
00:52:07
brought this up. What was she doing?
00:52:09
And finally, Adams Kellum wanted to spend public money on an open
00:52:13
bar at LAHSA's holiday party and responded angrily when told that
00:52:20
would be an improper use of taxpayer dollars and create
00:52:23
legal liability for LAHSA. Adams Kellum then allegedly
00:52:27
suggested a vendor pay for the alcohol.
00:52:30
When told that would be a conflict of interest, Adams
00:52:32
Kellum allegedly got angry again.
00:52:38
I. You have no words.
00:52:40
You're. Just like I actually have no
00:52:42
words. I have faults.
00:52:45
I don't. I'm not a big drinker by any
00:52:47
means. And sure, like a holiday party
00:52:50
with an open bar sounds fun like yay, but I but reading it as
00:52:57
like the holiday party for the homeless, the LAHSA, which what
00:53:04
is that the Los Angeles homeless?
00:53:06
What? Services Authority.
00:53:08
That just sounds grotesque. It just sounds wrong, like I
00:53:12
realize they're not getting together to celebrate
00:53:14
homelessness, but it does sound like we're having holiday
00:53:18
celebration party of homelessness.
00:53:21
Let's have an open bar. And and again, I know that's not
00:53:25
how it is, but radiant when you just like read it like that.
00:53:28
That's just what I hear. And I'm like, here's to homeless
00:53:33
people. Like what?
00:53:34
What? It came off to me as like, you
00:53:39
know, she got her her cue from like Bernie Sanders of like, you
00:53:43
know, use taxpayer money to pay for a holiday party.
00:53:46
You don't have to pay for anything.
00:53:48
What you want me to pay like out of my pocket for like an open
00:53:51
bar? I'm not doing that.
00:53:53
I don't have time for that. It just feels like first I'm
00:53:58
glad they somebody stopped her and stepped in and was like,
00:54:02
can't do this. And then she was like, oh, I
00:54:03
have a vendor pay for her, like can't do that either.
00:54:06
That's like a gift. Like that's a conflict of
00:54:08
interest. Mind you, just as a reminder,
00:54:13
this was the same lady who, quote, mistakenly signed three
00:54:20
checks totaling over $2 to her husband's nonprofit.
00:54:26
So. To.
00:54:28
Give you context. Yeah, she, she doesn't see a
00:54:33
problem with using taxpayer dollars for a holiday party.
00:54:36
You know, what's the big deal? You know, my, my husband needs
00:54:39
$2 to his nonprofit. Don't worry about it.
00:54:44
Arco goes on to say once litigation is commenced, we
00:54:46
intend to take thorough and exhaustive discovery and depose
00:54:49
each of the employees, managers and officers who witnessed,
00:54:53
encouraged, condoned and turned a blind eye to the unlawful acts
00:54:57
of the LEHSA. Adams calm and elected officials
00:55:01
have an authority over LEHSA. The the letter state.
00:55:04
There's already a high level of public immediate interest in the
00:55:08
recent terminations at LAHSA and a public lawsuit would
00:55:11
undoubtedly have far reaching repercussions for many city and
00:55:15
county officials. I think, and I think you've said
00:55:18
this as well, I think this goes way deeper and I think Karen
00:55:25
Bass is going to get swept up in this.
00:55:28
I think this, this is a whole mess of one giant slush fund of
00:55:33
money. And it's it's going to be bad.
00:55:37
Like I think it's going to get worse.
00:55:39
And there's really going to be bad information about how bad
00:55:42
this whole program was run. And be sort of emblematic of of
00:55:46
the whole homeless industrial complex here in California,
00:55:50
which is everyone makes a ton of money off homeless spending and
00:55:54
homelessness never gets better. Why?
00:55:56
Because you can throw parties, holiday parties with taxpayer
00:55:59
funds and give your husband. But it's not with an open bar at
00:56:03
least. Not with an open bar.
00:56:05
Now they've got some boundaries. That brave individual who
00:56:08
stepped in, God bless you. But it.
00:56:12
Like, go ahead. No, I just think, OK, again, I'm
00:56:18
always like, why don't they come up with these creative ideas of
00:56:20
like, OK, so have the holiday party.
00:56:22
I I feel like that's fair. Company parties, they're still
00:56:26
employees, whatever, you know, have their holiday party, maybe
00:56:28
don't have an open bar, have a bar and have a certain
00:56:32
percentage of the sales go back into the LAHSA funding.
00:56:39
And then and so you're like doing a good deed by drinking.
00:56:43
See, the problem is you're thinking too logically of like,
00:56:47
how can I help the government not spend?
00:56:50
Money, which that's all kind of I don't want to help the
00:56:53
government. You're trying to think like, oh,
00:56:56
what if we got volunteers to paint the road instead of paying
00:57:00
this construction company $30 million to paint the road?
00:57:04
No, because because they think we're just going to keep
00:57:07
spending the money. LA has requested copies of the
00:57:10
emails Adams Colt allegedly wanted deleted.
00:57:14
Adams columns administration did not respond for 11 days before
00:57:17
saying they needed an additional 2 weeks to answer whether they
00:57:20
exist because they need to consult with a separate unnamed
00:57:23
agency interested in the records request.
00:57:27
All right, this last part I think really blew me away.
00:57:32
So when I say we started this whole section about you got to
00:57:38
be careful who you vote for because they always bring in
00:57:40
their buddies. This is proof that when you
00:57:46
elect someone, they're going to bring their buddies, qualified
00:57:49
or not. So Karen Bass and Gruel Wendy
00:57:54
Gruel, who was the LAHSA Commission appointee, have
00:58:01
spoken highly of Adams column in recent weeks, including after
00:58:05
the $800 payouts were approved over the misconduct
00:58:08
claims with no public indication of an investigation into them.
00:58:11
So even after the hush money came out, they still had nice
00:58:15
things to say. In fact, it seems like Gruel
00:58:19
tracked down Adams Kellum to try and get her to be the CEO.
00:58:25
Bass's family has known Adams Kellum for years.
00:58:29
Bass's daughter, Yvette Lechuga, started working for Adams Kellum
00:58:34
at Saint Joseph's Center during the coronavirus pandemic,
00:58:37
according to LA Times, Adams Kellum was an advisor for the
00:58:41
mayor's transition team in late 2022, and early in her
00:58:45
administration, Bass directed LAHSA to hire Adams Kellum at a
00:58:49
$10 per week consultant to the mayor on the Inside Safe
00:58:54
program, which Adams Kellum helped design ahead of Adams
00:58:57
Kellum becoming LAHS as CEO. This is like incest.
00:59:02
It's government incest. Yeah, I mean, it's it's really
00:59:06
disgusting. But if this is what happens in
00:59:09
local politics and people, guys, you got to pay attention because
00:59:13
this literally you, you know, people don't pay attention.
00:59:17
They just vote and they just go, I'm just going to pick whoever,
00:59:19
whatever who's who's running for president.
00:59:21
That's what. And you don't pay attention.
00:59:24
And Rick Caruso lost by Like not saying Rick Cruso would be 100%
00:59:30
better. Rick Cruso lost by.
00:59:33
OK this is going to bug me. Tell me, do you have any
00:59:38
thoughts on that last part about Bass and Callum while I look up?
00:59:41
What was the election difference between?
00:59:45
Well, as I said, it feels like government incest at this point,
00:59:48
but I don't think there's anything wrong with bringing in
00:59:51
friends and colleagues if you know that they did a a really
00:59:56
good job. Like if you worked with them
00:59:57
before and you saw that they're qualified for a specific
01:00:00
position, the 10 KA month consulting or a week consulting,
01:00:05
that's also another disgusting waste use of taxpayer dollars.
01:00:11
Ridiculous. They're just bleeding money for,
01:00:15
for who knows what. And then they have to go to
01:00:16
Sacramento and beg for a billion, $2 billion because
01:00:21
there's they can't budget in the first place.
01:00:24
And then I guess it feels like which this would just be another
01:00:28
government employee. But don't we have like
01:00:32
accountants and stuff that could work for the mayor?
01:00:34
Because I don't expect a mayor or governor or anything to know
01:00:39
everything. But we expect that we're we're
01:00:42
electing somebody good who will then work with the people that
01:00:44
know how to handle these departments.
01:00:46
And the budget is like the biggest 1.
01:00:49
And so wouldn't you want like to bring in somebody who actually
01:00:54
has handled large budgets like would why are we not doing that?
01:00:58
Because we're bringing them the friends who are unqualified, I
01:01:01
guess. Friends who hired her daughter
01:01:04
for something. Yeah.
01:01:06
It was actually a little bit bigger than it is. 53.1 to 46.9%
01:01:10
was the difference between Bass and Caruso.
01:01:12
I thought it was a lot closer. I think it was close all the way
01:01:15
up until the end. I guess they found the votes
01:01:16
that they need to get her across the finish line.
01:01:19
But yeah, you bring up a good point, which is like going back
01:01:23
to the beginning of this episode when we're talking about Todd
01:01:25
Glory and how all these Democrats are always reaching
01:01:29
for the next brass ring. They're always trying to make
01:01:31
their way up the political ladder.
01:01:34
Wouldn't you want to bring in the best people to make your you
01:01:39
look good so that you can move up the ladder?
01:01:42
Like, why? Why would you not go, OK, I'm
01:01:44
going to get the best of the best to do this so that I can be
01:01:48
the one who solved homelessness in California.
01:01:51
Right, because nobody ever thinks of those positions.
01:01:54
They just see what the mayor or the, you know who the governor,
01:01:59
they're not giving credit to the behind the scenes people.
01:02:02
So yes. If she had like hired someone
01:02:05
who knew what she was doing and they solved homelessness or
01:02:09
greatly reduced homelessness, people would be like, wow, look
01:02:12
at what Karen Bastett, she cleaned up this the streets Ally
01:02:15
is much better now. But instead now you have this
01:02:19
huge, huge scandal on your hands because you brought in friends,
01:02:23
which is just kind of I don't know.
01:02:26
It's kind of stupid really. I guess.
01:02:29
Did they think in today's day and age with like Internet and
01:02:32
everything that's out there in social media, like this stuff
01:02:34
was not going to get out? Like did they think they could
01:02:37
just keep it under wraps? I guess Adam's Callum thought
01:02:40
she could get a lot of these emails deleted.
01:02:43
Like, she was trying to get emails deleted that made Karen
01:02:45
Bass look bad. And like, it's, it's just
01:02:48
really, I mean, forget the fact that nobody talks about the
01:02:52
wildfires anymore. That was only three months ago.
01:02:55
Three or four months ago. We're talking about wildfires in
01:02:57
LA that wiped out 40% of the city and how badly that was
01:03:02
handled by Karen Bass. Now you have this big scandal
01:03:05
going on. I think there already is a
01:03:08
petition to get her recalled started, isn't there?
01:03:11
There's an official. Yeah.
01:03:12
I haven't followed up on that, so I don't know where that went,
01:03:14
but there something was approved with the Secretary of State.
01:03:19
Yeah, they're collecting signatures to recall Karen Bass.
01:03:21
So I mean, at this point it's like, I don't know what else
01:03:27
evidence people in LA need. Like for her to be recalled.
01:03:31
She's done a absolutely disgusting, horrible job in LA
01:03:35
and just drove that city into the ground.
01:03:38
Not that I was a big fan of LA in general.
01:03:42
Sorry. The San Diego LA rival is is
01:03:45
still alive. I've I've adopted it.
01:03:47
No offense to anybody in Lai, just I think San Diego is better
01:03:52
anyway. Somebody had brought up in the
01:03:54
chat, if you audit the department every year, it would
01:03:57
still cost less than what they pilfered, right?
01:04:01
I think it would still be cheaper to hire an agency to
01:04:04
come in and audit this department every single year
01:04:07
than how much money they've probably wasted.
01:04:09
So I think maybe, maybe in the long run, all these agencies
01:04:14
should be audited by independent companies or agencies to see
01:04:18
what's going on and then produce the findings to everybody to
01:04:21
figure out. It would still be cheaper than
01:04:23
the amount of waste that they go through.
01:04:27
Any final thoughts on LAHSA corruption and overall
01:04:34
negligence? I have a final thought on
01:04:36
something else, so if you want to have final thoughts on.
01:04:39
This. No, that was my final thought.
01:04:41
Yeah. OK.
01:04:42
So I just want to throw this out there, which is is not on topic,
01:04:46
but yet it is Historically, Gavin Newsom has done a state of
01:04:50
the state every year. Last year's was delayed until
01:04:53
March. And of course we know he filmed
01:04:55
it privately and then like, you know, put it up.
01:04:58
So far, I haven't heard anything this year.
01:05:00
And I no one's really talking about the fact that there's
01:05:04
there's nothing yet. And I find that interesting
01:05:07
because we knew last year if he had nothing to brag about
01:05:11
regarding the state of California.
01:05:12
And so of course he waited until June, recorded it privately and
01:05:17
released it. And then, you know, when I
01:05:18
bought something else, But now it's like he thinks you're just
01:05:21
way worse. And I he's not, not that he's
01:05:25
hiding, but he is like, there's no state of the state so far.
01:05:29
Because what I, I think I want to ask Rock to like write if, if
01:05:35
Gavin Newsom did an honest state of the state about California,
01:05:38
what would it say? Like I need to like write me a
01:05:40
script. Because that would actually be
01:05:43
really funny. What would what would AI come up
01:05:47
with in terms of a Gavin Newsom state of the state speech?
01:05:52
Yeah, So I'm sure I'll write one for you.
01:05:55
So now he, he doesn't seem to like to do state of the state
01:05:59
speeches when things are going really poorly.
01:06:03
So not to put this out there as well.
01:06:05
I know I've already put it out there in the universe that
01:06:08
Kamala Harris wants to run for governor of California, but God
01:06:11
forbid Gavin Newsom gets elected to president.
01:06:13
Does he know he does have to give a state of the union every
01:06:16
single year? Like that's required like, or
01:06:19
does he think he can just not give a state of the union every
01:06:22
year and just when things are bad?
01:06:24
So far he has managed to get re elected while not doing a lot of
01:06:30
the things that he's supposed to do as a governor, so why would
01:06:34
you think presidential is any different?
01:06:37
I mean, six years in, he's finally decided to tell cities
01:06:41
like, hey, you, you guys got to step it up.
01:06:44
You got to ban those homeless encampments, you know, make me
01:06:47
look better. What are you doing?
01:06:48
Come on, make me look better so I can run for president 2028.
01:06:52
I only took him six years, but he he got there eventually.
01:06:55
Give him some credit. So.
01:06:58
That's quicker than the 20 years of promising to fix
01:07:02
homelessness, so. Right, it's been 20 years. 2004
01:07:06
was when he was elected mayor of San Francisco.
01:07:09
Seems like a long time ago a young up and coming Gavin Newsom
01:07:13
was elected mayor of San Francisco.
01:07:16
What a what a weird world George Bush was.
01:07:19
George W Bush was re elected. So what a weird world back in
01:07:24
2004. Dick Cheney.
01:07:27
What was that album American Idiot by Green Day 2004?
01:07:32
Is it? It's crazy.
01:07:33
I think that was 21 years ago. Wow, thanks for making me feel
01:07:36
really old. Yeah, well, sorry.
01:07:41
Anyway, on that cheery note, any other thoughts before we wrap up
01:07:45
for the evening? No, I don't want to hear you
01:07:47
talking about who else is going to be elected.
01:07:49
So I need to end this podcast, you know?
01:07:53
No, I don't have any other thoughts.
01:07:56
OK, All right, as we end every episode, thanks for tuning in.
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01:08:18
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01:08:22
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01:08:26
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01:08:43
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