In this episode of the California Underground Podcast, host Phil discusses the end of Kamala Harris's political career, Gavin Newsom's controversial redistricting plans, the San Diego 101 Ash Street controversy, and the potential for LA voters to veto the 2028 Olympics. The conversation highlights the political landscape in California, including issues of corruption, public opinion, and the implications of political maneuvering.
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Original air date 8.5.25
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00:00:00
Kamala Harris's political career is over, Gavin Newsom is still
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pushing to remove your representatives by redrawing the
00:00:07
lines in California, and the LA Olympics in 2028 might be vetoed
00:00:13
by voter backlash. All that and more coming up on
00:00:15
this episode of the California Underground podcast, Starting
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Right. Now.
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What's going on everybody? Thanks for tuning in to another
00:00:38
episode of the California Underground podcast, the most
00:00:40
trusted podcast for all things California politics.
00:00:43
I'm your host, Phil. We have a ton of stories to get
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to tonight including Kamala Harris political career.
00:00:49
Is. Over Gavin Newsom is trying to
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steal your representative by redrawing lines and pushing for
00:00:56
a special election coming up in just a couple of months.
00:00:59
San Diego has entered another bad real estate deal when it
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comes to One O 1 Ash Tree. And finally, the LA Olympics
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might be vetoed by voters and their backlash over venues.
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So before we get started, if you haven't already, make sure you
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like, share, subscribe, or view all that stuff.
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It helps spread the show and helps people find out more about
00:01:19
us. Let's get into our first topic
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of the night, America. We may have just been unburdened
00:01:28
by what has been. Kamala Harris's political career
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is over. Yes, Kamala Harris.
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Who was vice president? US senator, attorney general?
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All of those things, all those accomplishments will probably go
00:01:43
off to be a footnote in history. Someone who lost to Donald
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Trump, who ran for about 107 days for president of the United
00:01:51
States. Her political career.
00:01:53
Is effectively over as of this past week.
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If you didn't hear the news, she did turn down or decline running
00:02:01
in the governor race for California.
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So thank goodness to all of us here in California that Kamala
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Harris will not be running for governor of California.
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But more importantly, I think this shows that her political
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career is basically done. And we're going to get into
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that. They asked President Trump his
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thoughts on the fact that Kamala Harris didn't want to run in the
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California gubernatorial race. And here's his thoughts.
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Or not You. You, Mr. President.
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Kamala Harris, as you know, is not running for governor of
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California. She's not going to do it.
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What do you see in her political future, Sir?
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Well, she can't speak, she can't talk, she can't do an interview.
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I thought it was a very strange campaign that we had.
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But you know, I had two of them. We were up by like this massive
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number of points on Biden and they said, let's change to
00:02:58
Kamala. Nobody who knew who Kamala was.
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Nobody knew her last name, Harris.
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They said we're going to get Vice President Harris.
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Everyone said, who the hell is Harris?
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They only knew her by the first name.
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But no, I thought she was a terrible candidate.
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Look, don't forget she didn't really get the nomination.
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I mean, that whole nomination was strange.
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She was the first one out. You know, she took a good, a
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good amount of points with her when she announced, but nobody
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knew her. And once they got to know her,
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they, they, she dropped out very shortly after she started and
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she started with a pretty good, you know, and she was like in
00:03:31
second or third place, but I don't know.
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I mean, she, she, I, I wouldn't call her a skilled politician,
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would you? She's also.
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Coming out with a book and he plans to buy it.
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I don't know. Yeah, I think I'm going to buy
00:03:47
it. I'd love to see it now.
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I love to see President Trump reading Kamala Harris's book
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like on Air Force One. This is false.
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I don't remember this. This isn't true.
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Nope, this is a lie. I know I'd find it.
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Look, I find everything in politics interesting.
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I sort of enjoy politics. She wasn't a skilled person.
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You know, you have skilled politicians, really skilled
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politicians and then you have the some that aren't.
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And she was put in a very tough position.
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I think she did have a six week honeymoon.
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They were told me the pros said, you know what, she's going to
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have a six week and she did. She was like untouchable in
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terms of everybody thought great, but she didn't do any
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interviews or anything, which was strange, not even friendly
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interviews with friendly reporters like her right there,
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really friendly reporter. And and you know what happened?
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People said what's wrong with her?
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Why isn't she doing? She made a mistake.
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She should have done interviews. She she didn't run a great
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campaign, but we beat Biden and then we had to beat, nobody's
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beaten 2. I had to beat 2.
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That's like Dana White. The great Dana White has a fight
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and he has a fighter that's getting the hell knocked out of
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and they say, well, let's take him out and put somebody else
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in. Didn't seem fair to me at the
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time. But where are we?
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We're in the White House. So I mean, you know, so it
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worked out. Very serious question.
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Now, Mr. President. I mean, it's, it's harsh to say
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that Kamala Harris was not a skilled politician.
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I mean, she was attorney general and then she was US senator and
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then she became vice president. So I don't you know, it might be
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a little. Harsh to say that she's not a
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skilled politician and that she's not a good speaker.
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I mean that that might be going a little too far.
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My mother used to. She would give us a hard time
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sometimes and she would say to us, I don't know what's wrong
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with you young people. You think you just fell out of a
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coconut tree. You exist in the context of all
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in which you live and what came before you, so all of this is
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part of the work of this group. OK, duly noted.
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Well, the reason I say that her career is basically over is
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because this was really I think her last shot to run for
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something that she probably would have had a good chance of
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winning, as scary as that is. Kamala Harris had a good chance
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of winning is California governor.
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She was polling ahead of everyone else, a lot of the
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Democrats, mostly because of name recognition.
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I mean if you ask people who are running for governor right now
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as Democrats, most people wouldn't be able to give you
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more than one or two names. The fact there's like 6 already
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who are running shows you that. It's a crowded.
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Field and Kamala Harris was the one with the most name
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recognition. She was pulling ahead just based
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on that name recognition, but I think other numbers were showing
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her that these these numbers were not going to play out
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favorably to her. So a lot of people were
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speculating. She turned down the run for
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California governor because she was pivoting to 2028 and she
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wanted to go back and run for the White House.
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However, that's not good news for Kamala Harris either.
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So what you see here are poll numbers for Kamala Harris.
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Her approval ratings, if you can see on March 1st it says 35.1%
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and then as of August 4th, 21.1%.
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So she has dropped precipitously in her approval rating.
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She has continued to take nosedive after nosedive after
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nosedive. She's just not popular anymore.
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There are other. Democratic candidates in 2028,
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Yes. One of them we know is Gavin
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Newsom comes from our state, Pete Buttigieg.
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There's other Democrats who are rising.
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Alexandria, Ocasio Cortez. They're all rising.
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And being a little bit more popular and or a lot more
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popular than Kamala Harris. So now that she's.
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Turned down running for governor of California and 2028 looks
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like it's a long shot because she's completely unpopular
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amongst her own Democrats. There is really nowhere else for
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her to go. I mean, that's basically it.
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You were vice president. There's really nowhere else to
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go unless you want to run and be a House representative or
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something like that. But most of the time, you don't
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go down in politics. You try and get up to the next
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rung. So that's why I say the outlook
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does not look good for Kamala Harris right now.
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Now, she talked about this book. She talked on Stephen Colbert, a
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show that's getting cancelled. So two people talking about how
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their careers are basically over Stephen Colbert and Kamala
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Harris, whose careers are basically coming to an end.
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She talked about this. Book that she came out with 107
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days or is publishing and her. Old.
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Running mate and her old boss. Well, at least the camp behind
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her old boss. I shouldn't say he because I
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don't know if he knows what's going on.
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They came out a little. Forceful about what might be in
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that book. And they came.
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Out and said from the Biden camp.
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This is from Mark Halperin who has his own podcast that says
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quote. If the Biden.
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People feel threatened. You will hear stories about
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Kamala Harris as vice president that will not make her look
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good, Halperin urged. It's not like they're at war
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currently, but I'm telling you, if Joe Biden feels threatened,
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if his people feel threatened by her.
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This is going to escalate in a big way, he added.
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Halperin further asserted that the Biden inner circle pulled
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out all the stops. Quote In trying to help her to
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do the job of vice president, they gave her every opportunity,
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and they found that in some. Instance that she has screwed up
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or emphasized so Biden camp not holding back.
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I bet it's more like Jill Biden is actually the one who's
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threatening Kamala Harris if she has bad stuff to say about Joe
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Biden in her new book. So she's burned all bridges.
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California governor is not going to happen.
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She's she's not running for that.
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She can't run for president 2028.
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She's immensely unpopular even in her own party.
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She might be burning bridges with her old boss Joe Biden.
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So where does Kamala Harris go from here?
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I actually don't have an answer. I don't know where Kamala Harris
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goes from here. I guess she just becomes like
00:09:57
another Hillary Clinton where she does speeches and stuff like
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that. There was this article.
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I want to take this back to California and the gubernatorial
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race that is happening. This is from the San Francisco
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Chronicle, who you would think the San Francisco Chronicle, She
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was from San Francisco. She was the District Attorney in
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San Francisco for a while. They were pretty harsh on her
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and they said Kamala Harris isn't the only one who should
00:10:20
drop out of the California governor's race.
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Harris's Wednesday decision, which caps months of Wilshire
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won't chase speculation, means the long list of ambitious
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politicians angry for California's top job won't have
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to campaign against one of the most well known Democrats in the
00:10:34
country. Polling data published earlier
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this month suggests that she would have been California's top
00:10:38
choice if she threw her hat in the ring.
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Goes on to say, for many politicians, the prospect of an
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all but guaranteed electoral win is irresistible.
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Historically, this has meant that even arcane, unglamorous
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roles such as that of California insurance commissioner are
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highly sought after not necessarily because of the job
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itself, but because they've seen as safe vehicles for political
00:11:00
posturing and stepping stones to higher office.
00:11:04
And there's a couple of those right now here in California.
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Ricardo Lara, I think is 1, an insurance commissioner who I
00:11:09
don't think he really cares about being insurance
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commissioner. He just thinks it's something he
00:11:13
could move up the the rungs for. Goes on to say.
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California can't afford to treat its governorship as a mere
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launching pad for higher office. And that's why it would have
00:11:23
been a mistake for Harris to run.
00:11:24
Her focus was never going to be fully on California.
00:11:27
It was always going to be on the white.
00:11:28
House, huh? That sounds familiar.
00:11:30
I wonder. I wonder who that reminds you
00:11:33
of. Ultimately, the job of leading
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California is too complicated and consequential for its chief
00:11:38
executive to be consumed. By other ambitions, we're
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already dealing with the fallout of a governor who's mentally
00:11:44
checking himself out of California and into the White
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House. We all know which one applies to
00:11:48
new SIM In a May survey, a solid 54% of Californians said the
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governor is more focused on his own presidential prospects than
00:11:55
on fixing the problem in the state he leads.
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While voters may desire Democrats who can fight back,
00:12:00
they also want Democrats who can competently perform the job
00:12:03
they're elected to do. Consider the Chronicle's July
00:12:06
poll, which found that half of San Francisco's wanted Mayor
00:12:08
Daniel Laurie to remain focused on addressing local issues,
00:12:12
compared to 29%. Who wanted him to help lead the
00:12:16
national resistance? So there is sort of AI guess you
00:12:23
could say a little turn here in California because of the
00:12:26
problems that we have between homelessness and crime and
00:12:28
unaffordability in the housing and energy and all that stuff.
00:12:31
And it can go on and on and on that even Democrats here in
00:12:34
California aren't. That.
00:12:38
Enthused about you using the California governor's mansion as
00:12:42
a way to springboard your way into the White House?
00:12:45
They actually want someone who can fix problems.
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I know that's shocking that you want to elect politicians and
00:12:50
governors who are actually going to, I don't know, help fix
00:12:52
problems. And Gavin Newsom hasn't done
00:12:53
that. A lot of people think that he,
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you know, that poll shows 54% of people think that he hasn't done
00:12:59
that. We know he's all focused on
00:13:02
running for the White House, even though as much as he tries
00:13:04
to say he's not running for the White House.
00:13:06
And I think this hurts one particular politician, which has
00:13:09
got to be Katie Porter, who in most of her initial ads and in
00:13:13
most of their initial press releases and video she's put
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out, most of them are about her battling Trump.
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And if the voters here in California are saying, look, we
00:13:22
want you to focus on local issues, not just be the Trump
00:13:27
resistance because that's not as important to us.
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Look, you being Trump resistance doesn't put food on the table.
00:13:32
Help me buy a house. Help me put, you know, gas in my
00:13:35
car. That might be a problem for some
00:13:38
Democrats who are solely, solely focused on just being the
00:13:42
resistance for President Trump, just like Katie Porter is right
00:13:45
now. But where does that leave Kamala
00:13:46
Harris? It basically leaves her as an
00:13:51
irrelevant figure in politics as of this point.
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She had her time. She's vice president.
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She's not going to be governor of California.
00:14:00
And I think. Like, much like Hillary Clinton,
00:14:01
she's probably going to go off to get paid huge sums of money
00:14:05
to give speeches. Or maybe she won't get paid huge
00:14:07
sums of money to give speeches because we've seen her speeches
00:14:09
before. But regardless, she will be that
00:14:12
figure like Hillary Clinton, who will go around, give speeches,
00:14:14
give her thoughts on some things, and try to, as she says,
00:14:17
change things from the outside. But effectively, I can say this
00:14:21
with all confidence, I think Kamala Harris's entire political
00:14:25
career is over as of last week. So let me know in the comments.
00:14:28
Do you think that this is the end of Kamala Harris and her
00:14:31
political career and we'll never see her run for anything ever
00:14:35
again? All right.
00:14:39
Welcome, everybody in the chat. I want to thank everyone who is
00:14:41
tuning in. Live wherever you are, whether
00:14:45
you're on YouTube, Instagram, all those places.
00:14:49
It seems like it's pretty active right now.
00:14:52
Is Joe still around? I don't.
00:14:54
Know where Joe is? Probably sitting on a beach in
00:14:56
Delaware. Someone.
00:14:58
Somewhere. No one wants to hear about her
00:15:01
Venn diagrams ever again in the history.
00:15:06
Yeah, so I her speeches are always witchcraft.
00:15:10
Vodka school of BS. So I'm taking him from the chat
00:15:15
people. We're not fans of Kamala Harris.
00:15:17
Is that what is that what we're getting here is that they're not
00:15:19
fans of Kamala Harris. All right, let's get to our next
00:15:23
story. Of the night.
00:15:28
The fight continues and the threats continue of Gavin Newsom
00:15:32
redrawing all the Congressional District lines here in
00:15:35
California to jam pack more Democrats into Congress, taking
00:15:38
away your representatives, all because of what is happening in
00:15:42
Texas. Is it all political?
00:15:44
Posturing. Or is there a case here to be
00:15:47
made about redrawing congressional lines?
00:15:50
Let's get into that story right now.
00:15:52
Texas Democrats have temporarily prevented their state's House of
00:15:56
Representatives from redrawing their congressional map.
00:15:59
They left the state to block a vote on the Republican LED
00:16:02
redistricting plan. Today, the Texas State House
00:16:05
approved a motion to issue civil arrest warrants for those
00:16:08
Democrats who skipped the special session.
00:16:11
So this means they could be tracked down and returned by
00:16:14
warrant. California's Democratic leaders
00:16:17
and state lawmakers are quickly moving to change the maps here
00:16:20
to try to send more Democrats to Congress.
00:16:22
Yeah, this all happening now as one local Republican congressman
00:16:25
is attempting to stop both Texas and California from doing any of
00:16:29
this. And Ashley Zaval is here right
00:16:31
now with an update on the debate that's breaking out here in
00:16:33
California. GOLSTON as Texas Democrats are
00:16:36
holed up in other states now, California Democrats are plowing
00:16:40
ahead with their plan to try to redraw congressional lines if
00:16:43
Texas ends up passing their new maps.
00:16:45
California leaders want voters this November to upend the
00:16:49
state's independent redistricting process and allow
00:16:52
the state's Democratic state lawmakers to draw lines for the
00:16:55
first time in two decades. Voters took away that power back
00:16:59
in 2008. It's to be seen how transparent
00:17:02
this process will be in California.
00:17:04
And while the ball is basically entirely in the California
00:17:07
Legislature's court, the governor is doing all of the
00:17:10
talking. This small plane flew over
00:17:16
Sacramento Monday with this message.
00:17:18
Mess with Texas. Whatever they are doing will be
00:17:21
neutered here in the state of California.
00:17:23
Governor Gavin Newsom gathering up support among Democrats in
00:17:26
Congress and at the state Capitol to do just that.
00:17:29
But California Democratic legislative leaders are not
00:17:32
ready to talk about it on camera just yet.
00:17:35
Assembly Speaker Robert Revis, State Senate Pro Tem Mike
00:17:37
McGuire, the elections committee chairs, State Senator Sabrina
00:17:40
Cervantes and Assembly Member GAIL Pellerin denied repeated
00:17:44
requests for interviews over the last several days.
00:17:47
But sources tell Casey. Probably because they're still
00:17:50
playing out the politics of this.
00:17:53
That's my guess is that they are not rushing to Gavin Newsome
00:17:56
side on this because they're still waiting to see where is
00:18:01
this going to land with the people of California.
00:18:05
Three following late closed door meetings in the state Senate and
00:18:08
Assembly Sunday night, Democratic state lawmakers
00:18:11
appear ready to back the governor.
00:18:13
He's directing them to quickly draw maps and write a November
00:18:16
ballot initiative within a matter of days when they get
00:18:19
back to Sacramento later this month.
00:18:21
The governor says this is all in response to President Trump.
00:18:24
We're not drawing lines to draw lines.
00:18:26
We're holding the line on democracy, on the rule of law,
00:18:31
coequal branches of government, popular sovereignty.
00:18:34
I don't love what's happening in Texas either.
00:18:36
Republican Congressman Kevin Kiley on Monday announced he's
00:18:39
introducing a bill in Washington, DC to prohibit mid
00:18:42
decade redistricting like this nationwide.
00:18:45
It would invalidate maps drawn between now and 20-30.
00:18:49
That includes Texas and California.
00:18:51
That's why I've introduced a bill that applies to every state
00:18:55
and is designed, whether it's a red state or a blue state, to
00:18:57
just bring some sanity to the situation here.
00:19:00
Say let's take a deep breath, let's get on with the things.
00:19:03
Does that really matter to the country, rather than spending
00:19:06
all of this time and attention and money on redistricting when
00:19:10
it's not supposed to be happening?
00:19:12
I will agree with Kevin Kiley there.
00:19:14
I think this whole mid decade redistricting does kind of open
00:19:20
a can of worms that we're seeing right now.
00:19:23
I'm not a fan of it. I think look, it happens every
00:19:25
10 years. We have to see what the census
00:19:27
says. That's that's how it's been
00:19:29
done. I understand that there is an
00:19:31
argument that Texas has gained so many more citizens that they
00:19:34
want to account for that. But otherwise, we are getting
00:19:40
into this kind of back and forth issue of, well, if you're going
00:19:44
to redistrict, then we're going to redistrict and then every
00:19:47
year people are just going to be redistricting is going to get
00:19:49
out of hand. This is maps are ready for
00:19:51
votes. Critics have said they were
00:19:53
drawn in a backroom, proposed within days and not given enough
00:19:56
time for public comment. I asked the governor how, on
00:19:58
such a tight timeline, it would be any different in California.
00:20:02
How can you guarantee the process here won't be exactly
00:20:05
the same as it was in that state?
00:20:07
One has nothing to do with the other.
00:20:09
Forgive me. The ultimate test of
00:20:12
transparency is what's in the voting pamphlet.
00:20:16
The ultimate test of transparency is what voters will
00:20:20
decide on full light of day, completely public.
00:20:25
They will have the opportunity to review those maps.
00:20:28
They'll have ample opportunity to do just that, and it will be
00:20:31
in their ballot box and they'll make that determination.
00:20:34
That is, in stark contrast, California law.
00:20:40
So hypothetically, if I've never seen this before, if the
00:20:44
election is. They actually send you the
00:20:47
proposed maps. Of what it's going to look like
00:20:50
before and after. In a state where 50.
00:20:53
Percent of the voters are Democrats.
00:20:57
What do you think the chances are that they're going to look
00:21:00
at one map and see that it got bluer than the other map and not
00:21:03
go yeah, absolutely. I'm going to check this box
00:21:06
because I like bluer maps, then I like red maps, so.
00:21:11
That already is deceptive in the sense that it's people are just
00:21:13
going to vote because they want more Democrats and it's just a
00:21:16
win for their political party. So deceptive.
00:21:21
Sure, it's going to be out in front.
00:21:23
I've never seen what this election is going to look like.
00:21:25
I've never seen them going to actually send out any sort of
00:21:29
map of what it's going to look like.
00:21:30
We're going to get into the language in a little bit right
00:21:32
after this clip. Returned to Sacramento on August
00:21:35
18th. I'm hearing talk already that
00:21:37
their debate and their votes on this would be wrapped up by the
00:21:41
end of that week, basically August 22nd, so that the
00:21:44
Secretary of State can get going on that November 4th special
00:21:48
election. Yeah, tight timeline, yeah.
00:21:49
Yeah. And we heard him talk about the
00:21:51
voting pamphlets. So you were the first report
00:21:53
about the polling and the possible ballot question that
00:21:56
the governor might be using here.
00:21:58
So what they provided to lawmakers.
00:22:00
So what are you hearing about? That right at this point, my
00:22:03
sources shared screenshots of that polling that showed 52% of
00:22:08
California voters would approve of the ballot measure to approve
00:22:11
the maps and temporarily change the redistricting process based
00:22:15
on the way the governors team has the question written, which
00:22:18
what we have seen before getting to the maps and the change
00:22:21
immediately declares support for the independent redistricting
00:22:25
process. Critics say that this may be,
00:22:28
it's probably already confusing to you.
00:22:30
It may be confusing to voters. You can see that question in
00:22:33
polling on our website right now on this web story.
00:22:36
We should point out, as of this hour, Democratic state lawmakers
00:22:40
have not seen maps yet. The governor claims he has not
00:22:43
yet seen maps, but I am hearing that California congressional
00:22:46
Democrats and consultants have been working on those maps for
00:22:49
the last few days. There was talk that they may be
00:22:51
finalized by tonight. I know that there's talk that
00:22:54
some Democrats would like to eliminate 5 Republicans from
00:22:57
California's congressional delegation.
00:22:59
Others would like 7. All of this is being discussed
00:23:02
in real time. We will keep you updated.
00:23:04
And as they're also trying to see exactly what's going on in
00:23:07
Texas and trying to balance that exactly, it's really yeah, yeah.
00:23:10
And potentially other states. True.
00:23:12
Yeah, Ashley, thank you. Crazy takes the independent
00:23:17
Commission about a year or so to come out with these maps when
00:23:22
they're redrawing these districts, because it takes a
00:23:23
lot of time to figure out sort of the demographics and the
00:23:26
population. And there's a lot of rules with
00:23:28
what you have to do when you draw a district to make sure
00:23:30
it's fair. Somehow congressional leaders
00:23:33
and their consultants, that's the word that really sticks out
00:23:36
to me as consultants somehow have already drafted up these
00:23:40
maps and are ready to go as of yesterday.
00:23:42
Like they're already ready to go.
00:23:44
We got the maps, we're ready to go.
00:23:45
So I guess in a couple days of what it took them, you know, it
00:23:49
takes a normal independent Commission over a year.
00:23:53
Now all of a sudden, these consultants have it ready in
00:23:55
just a matter of days. I mean, granted, let's just be
00:23:58
honest here, These districts that they're drawing are
00:24:00
favorable to Democrats because they're trying to eliminate
00:24:03
Republicans. So that makes it easy.
00:24:06
If you're kind of throwing that out the window in the 14th
00:24:08
Amendment and all of that, the equal protection clause, then
00:24:11
sure, I guess it's easy to draw maps that favor you all day
00:24:14
long. You don't have to worry about
00:24:15
all that stuff. But I did put on the screen
00:24:18
right here. So this is what she was talking
00:24:20
about. 52% of those are polling voted yes, 41% no, and 71% seven
00:24:26
one 7% undecided. So the proposed ballot
00:24:30
initiative would say retains California's citizens
00:24:35
Redistricting Commission, declares state policy supporting
00:24:37
use of Fair, nonpartisan redistricting Commission
00:24:40
nationwide. Adopts new California
00:24:42
congressional districts passed by the Legislature for use in
00:24:45
congressional elections through 2030.
00:24:48
Retains California's original Congressional District maps if
00:24:51
Texas or other states also retain their original district
00:24:55
maps. There's a couple things I want
00:24:56
to break down here really quickly.
00:25:00
First off, the 52% that they're talking about right now, that's
00:25:04
52% right out the gate. Now that's 52% before they even
00:25:09
see the language, before people get really confused about this,
00:25:11
before attack ads, and there's probably going to be 10s of.
00:25:14
Millions of dollars. Going into this and there's
00:25:16
this, you know, a famous celebrity who's jumping into
00:25:19
this. We're going to get to in a
00:25:20
second. Who will be?
00:25:21
Spearheading the opposition that's really close kind of
00:25:27
margin of error if 52% if you think that's overwhelming
00:25:31
support for. This by all means, go ahead and
00:25:33
think this is overwhelming support, but 52% is not
00:25:36
overwhelming support. And they haven't even seen the
00:25:38
language, they haven't seen the maps, they haven't seen the
00:25:40
attack ads, they haven't seen sort of opposition campaigns.
00:25:43
Of what they're going to do. That is a very, very close
00:25:46
margin. But I guess, you know, to people
00:25:47
like Gavin Newsom, he takes that as overwhelming support.
00:25:50
Californians overwhelmingly support this special election
00:25:54
and they want to do this and they want to redraw all the
00:25:56
district lines. The other thing about this is he
00:25:59
talked about, well, they'll see it in the ballot language.
00:26:03
Notice who was standing right next to Gavin Newsom during that
00:26:06
video. Right.
00:26:08
Notice who was staying next to him, That's Attorney General Rob
00:26:11
Bonta. Attorney General Rob Bonta is
00:26:13
also a Trump resistance guy. Completely, all in on the whole,
00:26:17
Trump resistance is spending 10s of millions of dollars of
00:26:20
taxpayer money to fight Trump and file all these lawsuits.
00:26:23
Most of them, they seem to get either dropped or a jurisdiction
00:26:27
or stuff like that. They don't really get out of the
00:26:29
starting gate. But regardless, the attorney
00:26:31
general has a big role to play in drafting the language and the
00:26:35
title of ballot propositions. Which can make it confusing for
00:26:39
voters. We've seen it before in the past
00:26:41
when the attorney general writes things a certain way.
00:26:44
Kamala Harris was actually guilty of this with Prop 47,
00:26:48
where she said is the Safer Neighborhoods Act.
00:26:50
And in reality, Prop 47 ushered in.
00:26:52
Way more crime, the explosion of petty theft and crime here in
00:26:55
California. A lot of reclassification of
00:26:58
violent crimes down to misdemeanors.
00:27:01
So attorney generals have this incredible power to write and
00:27:06
deceive the voters with these ballot propositions, which is
00:27:09
why we here on this show like to kind of sit down and go over all
00:27:12
the propositions and talk about them, but it is very confusing.
00:27:17
So when they say based. On the language they know.
00:27:19
If we draft this a certain way that will make it look to all
00:27:24
these Democratic voters that this is a Trump resistance
00:27:26
thing. There's a good chance there's.
00:27:28
Going to be a lot of people who support this.
00:27:30
And they're not really going to know what this means or what
00:27:32
this means as a whole or what big picture this really means.
00:27:35
And another thing I want to talk about with this special
00:27:38
election, there are estimates already of how much this special
00:27:42
election is going to cost to run a special election off year like
00:27:47
this. It is not cheap.
00:27:49
Let's go back. To 2021 as comparison when it
00:27:53
was the recall of Gavin Newsom. That was around $250 million to
00:27:57
run the special election of the recall of Gavin Newsom.
00:28:01
So they're estimating that to to conduct this whole special
00:28:05
election, it's going to be about 250, maybe $280 million to run
00:28:11
this special election. And I want to bring this up
00:28:14
because there are a lot of people back in the day when it
00:28:17
was the recall talking about what a colossal waste of money
00:28:21
this was. And I scoured the old interwebs
00:28:25
and I found posts like this, like someone like this saying
00:28:29
Mrs. Betty Bauer saying I don't want to hear from Republicans
00:28:32
about how Democrats waste money. California's fake recall
00:28:34
attempted power grabs circus cost taxpayers $215 million.
00:28:39
And the fake recounts, the placate crybaby sore loser
00:28:42
Donald's little feelings cost millions too.
00:28:45
Or a tweet like this. For people who claim to care
00:28:48
about saving the government money, California Republicans
00:28:50
made the state spend a ton of money on a recall that is on the
00:28:53
way to massive reaffirmation of Gavin Newsom's leadership, or
00:28:58
this one. This California recall election
00:29:01
is ridiculous. Conservative candidates and
00:29:04
their supporters complain about high taxes, but they are wasting
00:29:06
California's money on an unnecessary recall election.
00:29:09
The cost is. Estimated by officials to be
00:29:11
nearly $280 million. And then finally CNN piled on as
00:29:15
well. A $276 million waste.
00:29:18
California Democrats seek changes to the recall process
00:29:21
after Gavin Newsom's landslide victory.
00:29:25
So. I don't want to hear it from
00:29:28
people who were on the other side and now want to do this
00:29:31
special election because it sticks the thumb in the eye of
00:29:34
President Trump and Republicans. Because this is a $215 million
00:29:40
taxpayer funded vanity project for Gavin Newsom.
00:29:45
All right, let's just put it out there.
00:29:47
This is a $215 million taxpayer funded presidential campaign ad
00:29:55
for Gavin Newsom. That's.
00:29:56
All this is. This is him posturing himself
00:29:59
for 2028 so that he can go out there in the primaries and he
00:30:03
can be one of the only people says, well, I stood up to Trump
00:30:06
and I did this and I fought back against Trump.
00:30:08
That's what this is. So if you're fine with using
00:30:12
hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funded money or
00:30:15
taxpayer money to fund this vanity project and what is
00:30:20
basically going to be a presidential campaign ad for
00:30:24
Gavin Newsom, then I don't want to hear it about the recall
00:30:26
election because you got yours. You, we got ours, whatever.
00:30:33
But that's what this is going to be.
00:30:34
Let's get down to the bottom of it.
00:30:35
This is all this is going to be. This is not really about
00:30:39
redrawing congressional districts because it's fair or
00:30:42
it's democracy or stuff like that.
00:30:44
No, it's they're rigging the system to jam more Democrats
00:30:47
into Congress. And it's also a big vanity
00:30:50
project for Gavin. Newsom so he can have a little
00:30:51
chip on his shoulder. And the other thing about the
00:30:54
difference between the recall and now is the recall was
00:30:59
started by the people of California.
00:31:02
Like it or not, it is a right granted under the California
00:31:06
Constitution. It is something that is given to
00:31:10
U.S. citizens as a right under the California Constitution.
00:31:14
Recalls, Reformation, stuff like that, referendums, those are
00:31:18
things that the California citizens are granted and
00:31:20
protected. As a right under the California
00:31:22
Constitution. It you may not like it, but
00:31:25
citizens organized. They did the work, they got it
00:31:28
done, they got the signatures and they made it happen.
00:31:30
It was a bottom up special election.
00:31:33
This is a top down special election.
00:31:36
This is Gavin Newsom looking at this opportunity and trying to
00:31:40
shove it down the throats of California citizens and making
00:31:42
us pay. For this ridiculous political
00:31:44
posturing to happen in just a couple of months just so he can
00:31:48
score some political points, That's all this is.
00:31:51
So to me, there's a big difference of a special
00:31:54
election. If it cost $250 million and the
00:31:56
citizens of California started it and did it, then that's their
00:32:00
right to do so. But if Gavin Newsom is doing
00:32:03
this and wasting taxpayer money and time so that he can use it
00:32:07
just for his own political gain, there is a huge difference
00:32:11
between those two things right there.
00:32:13
And I think that is a crucial point that people have to
00:32:15
realize is that one was bottom up by the people of California
00:32:20
exercising their constitutional rights under the California
00:32:22
Constitution, and the other is. Just a egomaniac, you know,
00:32:29
psychopath, sociopath who wants to use this for his presidential
00:32:33
ambitions. Now I did bring up there is
00:32:35
going to be 1 celebrity, one former politician in California
00:32:39
who is going to be spearheading all of this if this actually
00:32:43
goes through. The old governator, Arnold
00:32:48
Schwarzenegger, is ready to fight Newsome on redistricting.
00:32:53
Schwarzenegger says, quote, he calls gerrymandering evil, and
00:32:55
he means that he thinks it's truly evil for politicians to
00:32:58
take power from people. Said the Schwarzenegger
00:33:01
spokesperson. He's opposed to what Texas is
00:33:03
doing. He's opposed to the idea that
00:33:04
California race to the bottom to do the same thing.
00:33:08
Now the fight has returned to his home state as Newsom aims to
00:33:10
redraw California's U.S. House maps.
00:33:12
Since such a move would undo the constitutional language added by
00:33:15
Schwarzenegger because he was a proponent of doing the
00:33:19
independent Commission back in 2008, this was something that
00:33:22
voters voted on. It would require voter approval.
00:33:25
Newsom said today he is very confident he can secure the 2/3
00:33:28
legislative supermajority he would need to put the question
00:33:31
on a November special election ballot.
00:33:34
So Schwarzenegger would be all in which politics, you know,
00:33:40
politics make strange bedfellows because on one hand, you're not
00:33:43
a fan of what Arnold Schwarzenegger said back during
00:33:46
COVID and screw your freedoms. But if he's going to shoot down
00:33:50
Gavin Newsom and his whole presidential, you know,
00:33:52
ambitions and stuff like that with this whole stunt, hey, who
00:33:55
am I to turn away any sort of help we can get so.
00:33:59
Let me know in the comments what you think about this enormous
00:34:03
waste of taxpayer money and time.
00:34:05
And is this just political posturing of Gavin Newsom and
00:34:09
using our taxpayer money to run this as a presidential campaign
00:34:13
ad for him? For 2028, so let me know in the
00:34:16
comments what you think. All right, let's see.
00:34:26
Let's check in on the comments how everyone's doing tonight.
00:34:31
He should have to do a petition and get 1.5 million signatures
00:34:33
just to put this on the ballot like we had to do to recall.
00:34:36
Yeah, why not? I mean, why is it different for
00:34:40
politicians like Gavin Newsom if he's the big supporter?
00:34:42
Of it, go ahead. You know, I don't think.
00:34:48
Newsom has the money for this. The state is broke.
00:34:52
Yeah, the state is broke. They they definitely, they're
00:34:57
definitely running out of money. They they run a budget deficit
00:35:00
every single year. We can't afford to implement
00:35:07
Prop 36, but we can afford that. Excellent point.
00:35:10
Isn't that what they said? They only threw a couple
00:35:12
$1 at Prop 36 because they said well, we don't, it's
00:35:17
just not in the budget this year.
00:35:18
We just don't have the money for Prop 36.
00:35:20
But special election to redraw districts go right ahead. 200
00:35:26
and 52180, three, $100 million, whatever.
00:35:28
That's what that's what Prop 36 was asking for was around 300,
00:35:32
four, $100 million to actually get that over the hump and
00:35:35
actually implement all the things that I don't know voters
00:35:37
voted on. But he wants to do this special
00:35:40
election. And that's just the special
00:35:42
election. So that's not even like the
00:35:44
results of it. Like just to run the election is
00:35:46
going to be 250, probably $300 million.
00:35:49
So that's what's crazy about this.
00:35:53
It's going to cost that money regardless of if it gets voted
00:35:56
up or it gets voted down, so. All right, let's get to our next
00:36:04
story. In what has become a physical
00:36:11
embodiment of political corruption and incompetence, San
00:36:17
Diego City Council entered a deal a unanimous.
00:36:20
Deal for one O 1 Ash Street in downtown San Diego.
00:36:25
Let's get into that story. A major step toward offloading
00:36:30
the asbestos laden One O 1 Ash St. building downtown and turn
00:36:33
it into affordable housing. CBS 8's Alex Cheney joins us
00:36:37
live with what happened in council chambers late this
00:36:40
afternoon. Alex.
00:36:42
Yeah, Carla, within the last 30 minutes, I'd say the City
00:36:45
Council unanimously, unanimously approved the building project at
00:36:49
One O 1 Ash St. They'll now be turned into
00:36:52
hundreds of affordable housing units, but not without some
00:36:55
controversy. A new lease agreement will begin
00:36:59
a new chapter for the infamous One O 1 Ash St. building
00:37:02
downtown. It's a 21 story building
00:37:05
originally built in 1968 and occupied by Sempra from 2017
00:37:10
through 2019. The city was conducting a
00:37:12
massive renovation and disturbed the asbestos they had to vacate.
00:37:17
At that time, the city was in a lease to own agreement with the
00:37:19
owner, Cestera. After years of litigation, the
00:37:22
city agreed to buy out the lease for $86 million in 2022.
00:37:28
The opponents of the lease say the city didn't do its due
00:37:30
diligence. It seems like you learn nothing
00:37:33
from the past. Prior failure to demand a
00:37:35
building inspection allowed an asbestos laden boondoggle to
00:37:39
become a city asset. The developer, One O 1 Ash
00:37:42
Venture, plans to repurpose the building into 247 affordable
00:37:47
housing units, a mix of studios 1-2 and three bedroom units,
00:37:52
also retail and childcare space. Because this project has a
00:37:56
one-on-one ash label on it and that there will be cameras here.
00:38:00
They are here to oppose because they're constantly rooting
00:38:03
against the city and quite frankly don't ever want to see
00:38:08
us move forward. The leads for this?
00:38:11
Sean ELO Rivera might be one of the most condescending
00:38:17
politicians I'm aware of in California.
00:38:21
There's a lot of condescending politicians in California, but
00:38:24
there for someone who is just a City Council president, he's got
00:38:29
a lot of gall to talk down to citizens the way he does.
00:38:33
He talks like a tough guy. He talks like a tough guy, like
00:38:35
he knows what he's doing or whatever.
00:38:37
But for him to kind of chastise concerned citizens who were
00:38:42
like, wait a second, what's this deal you're entering into for
00:38:45
101 Ash St. Now if let me give you a little
00:38:47
background. About 101 Ash St.
00:38:50
It's basically it's where City Hall is in San Diego.
00:38:54
So when you go to San Diego, I know a lot of people think it's
00:38:56
that nice, big, beautiful building right there on the
00:38:58
harbor. That's actually the county
00:38:59
building. That's different than City Hall.
00:39:01
City Hall is farther in downtown.
00:39:03
So it's this big sort of brutalist, ugly building that's
00:39:06
been there since the 60s. It's been plagued with problems,
00:39:10
which we're going to get into, and they can't figure out what
00:39:13
to do with it and why they're spending so much money on it.
00:39:15
So Shawnee Lo Rivera is saying, ah, you're just all here because
00:39:19
you hate change. That's the whole thing.
00:39:20
You hate change. Well, I mean, if change, change
00:39:24
isn't always necessarily good, you could be changing and
00:39:27
approving a bad deal. So God forbid citizens show up
00:39:32
and have any sort of concerns about this.
00:39:36
Would be $45.6 million paid over 60 years, with base rent
00:39:41
starting at $15 per year. The developer says it will cost
00:39:45
about $40 million to clean the building of asbestos.
00:39:49
The funding for the roughly $267 million project is expected to
00:39:53
come partially from city loans and historic tax credits.
00:40:00
The development team now taking over the lease wants
00:40:02
construction to start by this coming spring.
00:40:05
Reporting live from the City Council chambers, I'm Alex
00:40:08
Cheney, CBS 8. So I want to break down a couple
00:40:13
of the numbers here on One O 1 Ash St.
00:40:14
And again, this is a building that has been plagued with issue
00:40:18
and corruption basically since the city has taken it over.
00:40:21
It used to be it was SDG and E, then it was Sempra, then it was
00:40:25
now it's the city. Who bought it?
00:40:28
The 101 ash tree was it's not going to be.
00:40:31
So this whole project is not going to be directly funded.
00:40:32
I want to get that right out of the way.
00:40:34
It's not going to be directly funded with taxpayer money.
00:40:37
That doesn't mean that taxpayers won't be on the hook somehow.
00:40:41
So what they're doing is they're entering into this 60 year
00:40:43
ground lease with MK. MRK Partners and Create Dev, and
00:40:47
we're going to get into those shady businesses in just a
00:40:51
couple minutes. They will be gain funding and
00:40:55
they're going to get competitive federal and state tax credits.
00:40:58
Or remember, a tax credit means they're not collecting taxes on
00:41:01
something. So where do they pick up the
00:41:03
slack in SAN? Diego and the state are already
00:41:06
in budget deficits. You know, 280, three, $100
00:41:08
million budget deficit here in San Diego alone.
00:41:12
There's housing affordable. Housing tax credits, the city is
00:41:17
providing a $46.5 million seller's note.
00:41:21
So we are giving money to them in form of a seller's note, a
00:41:25
loan based on a building's value with a 4% interest, which the
00:41:28
developers will only have to start repaying around year 15.
00:41:34
Is that what they're expecting is how long it's going to take
00:41:36
for them to actually do anything with this building?
00:41:38
Is it going to take 15 years to do?
00:41:39
That's a long. Runway to figure out how to
00:41:41
change what's going on in 101 Ash Tree.
00:41:44
At this point, it's almost like you should just kind of tear it
00:41:46
down. It's just such a an enormous
00:41:48
disaster. The city will be receiving 50%
00:41:52
of rental proceeds minus expenses, generating an
00:41:54
estimated 90 million. Dollars over the lease term,
00:41:57
remember that's 60 million over, that's 90 million / 60 years.
00:42:01
That's the lease term. So another thing, after
00:42:06
possession in 2017, a $32 million renovation began which
00:42:11
found out and they disturbed a whole bunch of asbestos and then
00:42:14
there was a lawsuit because they were exposed to.
00:42:16
Asbestos, It has been remained vacant ever since, costing
00:42:20
taxpayers about $6575 daily, 252.55 million annually for
00:42:27
maintenance. Another thing regarding
00:42:30
political corruption, a city real estate advisor, Jason
00:42:33
Hughes, who was found to have earned 9.4 million without
00:42:35
disclosing his role in the renovation, pled guilty to a
00:42:39
misdemeanor conflict of interest charge and repaying had to repay
00:42:43
the funds. Now I want to go back to this
00:42:46
MRK and create Dev. As I said, if this is not the
00:42:50
physical embodiment of political corruption, incompetence here in
00:42:54
San Diego, this might be the absolute perfect example right
00:42:58
here. So City Council hands over Ash
00:43:02
Tree. This is from OB Rag.
00:43:03
It's a small online news site, Ocean Beach.
00:43:07
That's a small neighborhood, a beach community here in San
00:43:10
Diego. So City Council hands over Ash
00:43:12
St. Tower to development team of
00:43:14
Kelly Moden, who happens to be the chair of this San Diego
00:43:18
Planning Commission. So she's involved in politics
00:43:21
and government. Oh, and she happens to be the
00:43:23
president of MRK and create Dev LLC who just got this enormous
00:43:29
contract. So on July 19th, under vote by
00:43:33
the San Diego City Council, a unanimous 1 crystallized the
00:43:36
city handing over described it as asbestos plague office tower
00:43:41
one O 1 Ash St. for 60 year lease to a development team
00:43:44
headed by none other than Kelly Modem, the chair of the city.
00:43:48
Not only is she on it, she's the chair of the city's Planning
00:43:51
Commission. She heads MRK partners and
00:43:54
create dev LLC mode and gushed quote.
00:43:58
Today's council approval gives us the green light to transform
00:44:01
a city owned liability into a legacy.
00:44:04
We are honored to have the trust and confidence of the San Diego
00:44:07
City. Council as we turn our attention
00:44:09
to meeting September state and federal affordable housing
00:44:12
deadlines which will keep our timeline and financing moving
00:44:14
forward, the. Report goes on to say Mowden
00:44:18
stands to collect a portion of the $32.7 million developer fee.
00:44:24
The fee is calculated using a state formula for the Low Income
00:44:27
Housing Credit Tax program, which allows the developer to
00:44:29
take home 15% of the eligible basis.
00:44:32
Eligible basis is the total amount of project cost eligible
00:44:35
for generating tax credits. The development team will pocket
00:44:38
nearly 3.8 million. Upfront and collect the rest
00:44:41
when the project is refinanced. Quote, the chairperson of the
00:44:45
city Planning Commission is perpetuating a fraud on the
00:44:47
people of San Diego. She has a prohibited financial
00:44:50
interest. Micah Gary, who is a lawyer
00:44:52
here. I'm going to have to go back
00:44:54
into court because this is fraud.
00:44:56
And then the San Diego's Ethics Commission shockingly said
00:45:01
there's no conflict of interest because the project did not go
00:45:03
before the Planning Commission. I mean, I don't know how you
00:45:09
don't look at that and go someone who's on the Planning
00:45:11
Commission, who's involved in government also is the president
00:45:15
of these construction companies that just happened to get this
00:45:19
huge contract for a big building.
00:45:21
She's going to pocket millions of dollars.
00:45:24
No one thinks that's fishy at all.
00:45:28
No one thinks that's crazy. And then you have people like
00:45:31
Sean ELO Rivera have the gall to talk down to citizens who are
00:45:34
concerned about this deal. For him to act like he's this
00:45:37
big tough guy and chastise citizens for exercising their
00:45:40
right to free speech for him, they just hate change.
00:45:43
That's why they're here. That's what they talked down
00:45:47
about that we're not allowed to be concerned about why we're
00:45:50
handing out these nice little contracts to people who are
00:45:52
involved in San Diego government and just as sort of another this
00:45:55
is her LinkedIn Kelly mode and president and create development
00:45:59
city of San Diego. She puts it right there.
00:46:00
City of San Diego planning commissioner UCSD lecturer so
00:46:06
you one O 1 Ash St. San Diego politics.
00:46:10
This is the problem when it's a 100% Democrat City Council and
00:46:13
there's no one to check each other.
00:46:15
Todd, Gloria obviously has no gall to stand up to this or call
00:46:19
this out. Sean ELO Rivera has the gall to.
00:46:22
Caught talk down to citizens who are concerned about this, but
00:46:25
this is just sort of a small microcosm at the San Diego level
00:46:30
of political corruption and competence.
00:46:32
First, they were incompetent in buying the building and managing
00:46:35
it and maintaining the building. They couldn't figure out how to
00:46:37
do what they had to do with this building.
00:46:39
And now they're handing it over to a development company and a
00:46:42
construction company that has connections to the San Diego
00:46:45
city government. And everyone shrugs their
00:46:47
shoulders and goes, this is fine.
00:46:49
This is not corruption at all in San Diego city governance.
00:46:52
So let me know in the comments what you think.
00:46:55
Do you think this is absolute corruption on the part of the
00:46:57
San Diego City Council and the city government that they're
00:46:59
just handing this huge project over and someone who's involved
00:47:02
in government set to make millions and millions of
00:47:04
dollars? I don't know.
00:47:06
I think it's kind of a conflict of interest that you're even on
00:47:08
the Planning Commission when you own 2 development companies.
00:47:10
But what do I know? I guess they know better than
00:47:13
me. According to Sean Vilo Rivera, I
00:47:15
just hate change. All right, let's see.
00:47:24
Hello, everybody. Thanks for tuning in.
00:47:30
Someone said I used. To work there, full of asbestos,
00:47:33
deep pockets and no change. Yep, I I've heard about it ever
00:47:38
since I've I've moved to San Diego, but it's all I've you.
00:47:41
You bring up One O 1 Ash St. and it's like it.
00:47:44
It becomes like this whole controversial thing about One O
00:47:47
1 Ash St. and it is controversial, as you can see.
00:47:49
There's a lot of things going on with one O 1 Ash St.
00:47:52
All right, last story of the night and then I'll finish up
00:47:58
with your chat. So if you have any questions or
00:48:00
kind of, you know, kind of questions you want to talk about
00:48:02
California politics and. Get into that.
00:48:04
In the chat in a second. SO LA voters might veto the 2028
00:48:13
Olympics in Los Angeles based on a ballot measure that's coming
00:48:16
up for a vote. I want to bring up this story.
00:48:20
This is from the LA Times. So proposed ballot measure could
00:48:24
force a citywide vote on LA 2028 Olympic venues.
00:48:29
City officials fear the proposal if it reaches the ballot and
00:48:31
voters approve it. Wood Forest elections on
00:48:33
several. 2028 Olympic venues. LA is playing to host the 2028
00:48:38
Olympic and Paralympic Games, was already facing a thorny set
00:48:41
of challenges, including the scramble to secure lucrative
00:48:44
sponsorships in the search for buses to shuttle athletes and
00:48:47
spectators across the region. Now, organizers could soon be
00:48:51
faced with yet another threat, a proposed ballot measure that,
00:48:53
according to city officials, could force at least 5 Olympic
00:48:56
venues to go before voters for approval.
00:48:59
Unite HERE Local 11, which represents hotel and restaurant
00:49:02
workers, filed paperwork in June for a ballot measure requiring
00:49:05
LA voters to sign off on the development or expansion of
00:49:09
major event centers such as sports arenas, concert halls,
00:49:12
hotels and convention facilities.
00:49:14
The measure takes aim not just at permanent projects but also
00:49:17
temporary structures, including those that add more than 50
00:49:20
square feet of space or 1000 seats.
00:49:23
Quote. The proposed measure would make
00:49:24
vital projects essential for our city in these games potentially
00:49:27
impossible to complete, Cricker Cricker Ryan said in a statement
00:49:32
to the Times. It would also require costly
00:49:34
special elections before even relatively small projects could
00:49:37
begin. Unite HERE has built a proposal
00:49:40
as one of the responses to a business group that is seeking
00:49:42
to overturn the so-called Olympic wage passed by the City
00:49:45
Council in May, which hikes the minimum wage for hotel and
00:49:48
airport workers up to $30.00 an hour in 2020.
00:49:53
Eight, $30.00 an hour for hotel and airport workers in Los
00:49:59
Angeles by 2028, if you have no idea what that's going to do to
00:50:04
business overall for Los Angeles, forget the Olympic
00:50:08
because you'll have a bump for the Olympics if it actually goes
00:50:11
through and it isn't a complete calamity.
00:50:15
But what happens after the Olympics are over and all these
00:50:17
hotel stuff to pay everyone $30.00 an hour or airport has to
00:50:20
pay everyone $30.00 an hour? It's not going to go well.
00:50:23
That's what I can tell you right now, $30.00 an hour isn't
00:50:27
astronomically high minimum wage, so the voters should have
00:50:31
been given the opportunity to decide whether LA should host
00:50:33
the Olympics from the very beginning, said Eric Sheehan
00:50:36
spoke Servicing for No Olympics, which opposes the 2028 Games.
00:50:39
Nevertheless, she and voiced little enthusiasm.
00:50:41
For the Union. Proposal, saying it doesn't go
00:50:43
far enough. What would be stronger would be
00:50:46
the chance for Angelenos to vote on whether or not we want the
00:50:49
Olympics at all, he said. So this proposal, if it goes
00:50:54
before the voters, has to approve all these different
00:50:56
venues that are going to be happening in preparation for the
00:50:59
2020 Olympics or 2028 Olympics. And if voting, if they vote a
00:51:05
lot of this down, it might be impossible to actually host the
00:51:09
Olympics in Los Angeles. I did want to take a quick look
00:51:12
at a video from this No Olympics because they lay out sort of.
00:51:16
The. Myths that are surrounding it,
00:51:18
why they sell the Olympics, why city should have the Olympics.
00:51:22
But I want to take a quick look at this clip from No Olympics.
00:51:26
The LA 2028 Organizing Committee wants you to think that another
00:51:30
Olympic Games will be good for the city of LA, but
00:51:33
unfortunately, their argument rests on some shaky myths about
00:51:36
Los Angeles and its relationship to the Olympics.
00:51:39
Myth #1 The 1984 Olympics were successful.
00:51:43
No, the 84 games LED directly to the militarization of the LAPDLA
00:51:49
Police Chief Darrell Gates oversaw the jailing of thousands
00:51:53
of young Black and Latin X-Men in the infamous Olympic Game
00:51:56
sweeps. Gates also sent the LA SWAT team
00:51:59
to Israel and West Berlin for special training.
00:52:02
Myth #2 The Olympics would give LA much needed transit
00:52:06
expansion. No LA will expand transit no
00:52:10
matter what. Through the funds raised from
00:52:12
Measure M and federal grants, only two projects will be
00:52:16
accelerated for the Olympics, the Purple Line to Westwood and
00:52:19
the LAX Connector. Projects like the Vermont
00:52:22
Corridor Rapid Transit Line, which serves S LA, won't be
00:52:25
prioritized even though it is the second busiest corridor in
00:52:29
all of LA County. Myth #3 The LA Olympics are low
00:52:33
risk No, they're a high risk for human rights violations as the
00:52:38
games will be designated a national special security event,
00:52:42
putting the LAPD under the jurisdiction of the Department
00:52:45
of Homeland Security and limiting many of our
00:52:47
constitutional rights. They're also well.
00:52:50
We can't have that. We can't have, you know,
00:52:54
anything related to President Trump.
00:52:55
We can't have that. Risk financially On average, the
00:52:59
Olympics goes over budget by 156%.
00:53:03
Myth #4 88% of people in Los Angeles support the bid.
00:53:08
No, that figure comes from a single poll taken in early 2016.
00:53:13
Almost two years ago, a similar poll taken before the 1984 Games
00:53:18
showed 70% supported the bid in general, but that number drops
00:53:22
to 35% if taxpayers had to share the cost.
00:53:26
LA residents have not been polled yet about the taxpayer
00:53:29
guarantee or any other specific aspects of the bid.
00:53:33
Myth #5 Angelenos won't fight back because they're not
00:53:37
politically active. No Los Angeles has a rich
00:53:41
history of political activism and resistance.
00:53:45
As we just saw about a month ago, they are very politically
00:53:50
active, almost to the point of overactive and destructive.
00:53:55
Home to the Chiconics movement and.
00:53:57
Chiconics Chiconics Movement gives you an idea of who's
00:54:02
running this organization. The Japanese American
00:54:05
reparations movement among countless other struggles.
00:54:09
And the work continues today as Angelinos are fighting for rent
00:54:13
control, accountability and transparency in local politics,
00:54:17
infrastructure in working class communities, immigrants rights,
00:54:21
climate justice, decriminalization of poverty,
00:54:24
and justice for all people. So don't let the LA 2028
00:54:28
organizing committee fool you. The Olympics were a humans
00:54:32
rights disaster in 84 and if we give up the right to our city to
00:54:36
corrupt oligarchs and politicians, history will repeat
00:54:39
itself. So tell your neighbors and join
00:54:43
us. All right, there's some of the
00:54:49
myths. Someone in the chat that I never
00:54:53
heard called that before. I've never heard the term
00:54:55
Chiconex. That's a new one for me.
00:55:00
So those are some of the myths about sort of the how they sell
00:55:04
the Olympics and it's not always a win win for the entire city.
00:55:08
I had to look it up and I had to do some research and I was
00:55:11
wondering if there was ever any city that had the, if there's
00:55:15
sort of a precedent for an A city to lose the Olympics.
00:55:19
Like they were deemed to get the Olympics or supposed to host the
00:55:21
Olympics and then they lost it because of certain things.
00:55:25
I took out all the ones that had to do with like World War One
00:55:29
and World War 2 because a lot of them had to do with like they
00:55:31
were being hosted in Europe and it's World War One.
00:55:33
Then it was World War Two. There was another one that was
00:55:35
like around 1940 in Japan. There was a lot of issues there
00:55:38
with the Chinese, American, Chinese and Japanese battles
00:55:42
going back and forth. And then they were supposed to
00:55:44
be Moscow, which was the cold. War.
00:55:45
So take those out, because that's war.
00:55:48
I wanted to see if there was any place that had ever lost it
00:55:53
because of any sort of internal strife or the city couldn't
00:55:58
handle it, and it turns out there was.
00:56:01
In 1976, the Denver. Denver was supposed to be
00:56:07
hosting the 1976 Olympics. So they In 1970, the
00:56:12
International Olympic Committee chose Denver to be the host of
00:56:15
the Winter Olympic Games initial Colorado sites chosen were the
00:56:20
games, including University of Denver, Denver, Mount Park, blah
00:56:23
blah blah. On November 7th, 1972, Colorado
00:56:26
voters, concerned about the financial burden and
00:56:28
environmental impact of the Olympic Games on their state,
00:56:31
rejected a $5 bond issue that would fund the event.
00:56:35
Shortly thereafter, Innsbruck, Austria replaced Denver as the.
00:56:39
Host of the 1976 Winter Olympics, so.
00:56:44
There you have it. There is an example of what
00:56:47
happens if voters get involved and all of a sudden say, whoa,
00:56:50
hold on a SEC, we don't approve this.
00:56:53
We don't approve you building this or building that or using
00:56:56
taxpayer money or whatever that we have to do and put up with
00:56:58
all this and make it impossible for them to actually host the
00:57:02
Olympic Games. So when I say that LA voters
00:57:07
could actually veto the LA Olympics, there is a possibility
00:57:11
that LA voters could do this. And I think there is more of a
00:57:16
possibility, especially now when you think of what's going on
00:57:20
with Karen Bass and the wildfires and homelessness and
00:57:23
all of this stuff that's happening in Los Angeles.
00:57:26
You kind of sit back and wonder, are they going to punish their
00:57:29
administration and City Hall and Karen Bass for how badly they've
00:57:34
managed Los Angeles, especially this ballot measure coming up
00:57:37
soon. Does it show that voters might
00:57:40
punish her and say, you're not going to get the Olympics, You
00:57:42
can't handle the wildfires, you can't handle homelessness, you
00:57:45
can't handle crime, you can't handle all this stuff.
00:57:48
Yet you want us to bail you out on the Olympics and give you all
00:57:50
of this stuff just so you can host the Olympics here in 2028?
00:57:55
I think there is a real possibility that voters could
00:57:57
punish Karen Bass and the rest of City Hall up in Los Angeles
00:58:02
and make it impossible that they don't have the Olympics in Los
00:58:08
Angeles in 2028. So let me know your thoughts in
00:58:11
the comments. Do you think that there is a
00:58:13
possibility that voters in LA actually veto the Olympics by
00:58:18
making it nearly impossible to host the Olympics in Los
00:58:21
Angeles? Let me know your thoughts in the
00:58:23
comments, OK, Last round we got a couple minutes left.
00:58:32
Thanks everyone for tuning in live wherever you are, YouTube,
00:58:36
Instagram, rumble, Twitch, anywhere.
00:58:39
Oh, there was that was the other point about that Kelly mode in
00:58:42
is that as of this year, she couldn't even keep her company
00:58:45
up to date. So and this is who they're
00:58:48
awarding big contracts to as someone who couldn't even keep a
00:58:51
company current. Excuse me.
00:58:58
All right, thank you everyone for tuning in wherever you are
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