myBurbank Talks
The Week That Was and That Will Be - August 28
Can the Burbank City Council take on the colossal task of handling the Request for Proposal for the Burbank Center Stage? Join us as we question the repercussions of their decision and scrutinize the involvement of Rark and Rec. in the city's multitude of projects. Wondering how the City Manager is orchestrating this symphony? So are we! Let’s also take a moment to acknowledge the Council’s commendable progress in establishing a bond with the community and fostering modern thinking, a refreshing upgrade from past councils.
The California Supreme Court ruling has undoubtedly stirred the pot and we are here to provide the much-needed clarity. We delve into the potential implications for the council and the beautiful city of Santa Monica. Expect to be overwhelmed by the lack of public input on the matter. Want a break from the intense discussions? We have you covered with a segment on community events like the Magnolia Park Merchants' Food Truck Friday and the Home LA food distribution event, where joy and essential items are being distributed to hundreds of families.
The pandemic has turned our lives upside down, especially for local businesses in Burbank. We discuss the struggles local restaurants are facing, their desperate attempts to stay open longer, and how hiring has become a challenge in these unprecedented times. The episode closes with a discussion on the importance of staying aware of your environment, changes in the Fire Department, and the significance of Community Development Block Grant funds. We then wrap up the episode with a heartfelt acknowledgment of our sponsors and a reminder to stay safe and support local businesses during the Labor Day weekend. Let's face it: our local businesses need all the support they can get!
Can the Burbank City Council take on the colossal task of handling the Request for Proposal for the Burbank Center Stage? Join us as we question the repercussions of their decision and scrutinize the involvement of Rark and Rec. in the city's multitude of projects. Wondering how the City Manager is orchestrating this symphony? So are we! Let’s also take a moment to acknowledge the Council’s commendable progress in establishing a bond with the community and fostering modern thinking, a refreshing upgrade from past councils.
The California Supreme Court ruling has undoubtedly stirred the pot and we are here to provide the much-needed clarity. We delve into the potential implications for the council and the beautiful city of Santa Monica. Expect to be overwhelmed by the lack of public input on the matter. Want a break from the intense discussions? We have you covered with a segment on community events like the Magnolia Park Merchants' Food Truck Friday and the Home LA food distribution event, where joy and essential items are being distributed to hundreds of families.
The pandemic has turned our lives upside down, especially for local businesses in Burbank. We discuss the struggles local restaurants are facing, their desperate attempts to stay open longer, and how hiring has become a challenge in these unprecedented times. The episode closes with a discussion on the importance of staying aware of your environment, changes in the Fire Department, and the significance of Community Development Block Grant funds. We then wrap up the episode with a heartfelt acknowledgment of our sponsors and a reminder to stay safe and support local businesses during the Labor Day weekend. Let's face it: our local businesses need all the support they can get!
from deep in the Burbank Media District. It's time for another edition of my Burbank Talks, presented by the staff of my Burbank. Now let's see what's on today's agenda as we join our program.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody. Craig Sherwood here with you once again, along with, of course, the F-Mote Ross Benson.
Speaker 3:Hi there.
Speaker 2:Well, here we go it's been a week. It's been a week.
Speaker 3:You know, I guess I haven't been in the studio in a week.
Speaker 2:No, but I have.
Speaker 3:I bet you have.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I feel like I live here sometimes. Okay, well, let's take a look see at the week that was. It looks like, you know, once again the week before Labor Day. You know the week's leaving Labor Day is a little less hectic than usual, so not as much as it usually is. But enough to talk about here. Let's go back to last Tuesday's council meeting.
Speaker 3:Was it rain in last Tuesday? Okay?
Speaker 2:No, I think that was the weekend. Was it the weekend? No, it was the weekend. Cats and dogs living as one.
Speaker 3:Well, all I know is I'm losing weeks here.
Speaker 2:Well, I agree. Back to the council meeting. The only major item was the RFP, and the RFP stands for Request for Proposal, and that's about the Burbank Center stage, which of course, we all know is the colony theater, and the council basically has decided that they are going to now take the matter up for themselves and they're going to come up with their own questions and do their own interviews in an open public meeting and they're going to decide who the best tenant for the for the Burbank Center stage I was also known as a colony theater will be. And I think that's a real good decision and what's gonna responsible decision.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I kind of paid attention to that meeting. It was a full house and it was a hot topic. But you know, there were a lot of speakers and I gotta say our former mayor, good friend of ours, marsha, almost got up and spoke and said you guys don't have all the facts here. How can you make a decision?
Speaker 2:Good point.
Speaker 3:And I believe it was council member Mullins that basically went with that theory that after hearing both sides talk all the input, they didn't have a fair what's in front of them on what to do, and that's been the screwy, screwy thing of this whole process.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean I blame Park and Rick, I really do. I think they've dropped the ball on this completely. I think they've had a, the situation where they're they're not over their heads, but they're just there's there's too many fish in the ocean for them, you know. I mean, look at Park and Rick, they have the golf course, they've got the tennis center, they've got the hockey rink over at the quick green. Yeah, they've got. Now they got the animal shelter and they got the starlight bowl and they got Burbank Center stage and that, and I'm sure they have more than that too, and and maybe they had just have too much, you know, maybe you know they need to have dedicated people who are always on these things. That said, you know, coming up and say, oh, we got to worry about this.
Speaker 3:Now somebody go do that for us, you know well, they said at that meeting and it kind of blew me away they had one guy doing it, but they.
Speaker 2:But then the golf course came up and he had to go work, run the golf course right the person that just blows me away.
Speaker 3:That okay. So we have an emergency at the golf course. They take one person move. They said they moved his office to the golf course. I'm sorry you can't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time.
Speaker 2:I understand what we have, nobody else that we have how many assistant directors. They're paying a hundred thousand dollars a year and there's nobody else who can say, okay, I've got, you know, I'll take that on, you know. I mean, I just, I'm sorry, I just it just doesn't sound like a good excuse and they didn't go over the proposals four or five years ago and awarded to the colony back then. And I see, well, that wasn't really an RFP, well, you had a contract with him. You know we did a new contract. Why? Why is that not a good enough situation? There's a lot of you know.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say I'm very happy with the council. I really think our council now is more in tune with the people. Our councils in the past, I think our passes before were bureaucratic and and just you know, they didn't really understand the pulse of the city and the pulse of the people. They just, you know, kind of so sorry, the same people over and over again really, and I got the same opinions over and over from people. I think they're a lot more in tune now. They're a lot more modern thinking and you know they're trying to do the right thing, I think well, I agree they.
Speaker 3:I will say that when councilmember Mullins brought up how they should move forward, I'm sorry to say everything falls on our city manager. Our parks department is a division of the city, right like public works. I like the police department, the fire department, finance. Was our city manager aware of all the, as Mike Nolan would say? You know I won't say it you say it for a PG show you know, it just kind of gets me how that whole process worked and it didn't, and I think you're right it didn't work.
Speaker 2:And maybe he's not, because who knows what kind of reports he gets in the staff meetings. Yeah, if you're, if you're not doing your job very well, you're gonna come here to your boss and say you know we can't drop the ball in this. But just so you know, yeah, we're dropping the ball in this, they're not gonna say anything to you, know, to the, and how's the same manager supposed to know there's a problem until this office and I'm sure he's a little bit embarrassed by it too, because he doesn't want problems in the city, he wants to see you run smoothly. You know we got enough things to worry about, more or less, and things like this coming up. But you know this and the renters and everything else there's a lot of things going on right now yeah, and on this one you know it.
Speaker 3:Just the process that they're gonna go through, they're gonna open it up and they're gonna you, like you said, they're gonna set questions for each. You know what do you call them proponent. I'm not putting an applicant, applicant and then they're gonna have them either, you know, sit outside while the other one answers it and, I think, doing it out in the public how they've decided to do it absolutely.
Speaker 2:I, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, is that gonna be a long meeting? And yeah, yeah but you know what.
Speaker 2:But here's also a thing too after Tuesdays meeting they're having another meeting until September 12th and we'll talk about that in a second, about the Wednesday meeting. But you know what, if we have these meetings going to one in the morning or mid, we need why not have? You know, I'm not sure how it happens. I'm not sure that means code, does it? Maybe the mayor calls it? I'm sure that's probably had the pet. No, you know it has. The mayor would say we're gonna have a special meeting. But maybe they had to add a meeting here and there to cover things like this and have a dedicated meeting to this process only.
Speaker 2:I thought that's what they decided they were gonna do, because I thought Nikki Perez said we need a meeting, that we have this item only well, yeah, but I, I hope that's, you know, that's in the plans, because that's what they need to do, and I just think you know if you need to call special meetings, they need to call special meetings, right? I just think you know there's no me for three weeks and we'll get our next item too. Then I think it's gonna be something that you know. But and to finish up this subject here, good for the council and you know, whoever they decide, at least we'll all understand why. Now and I'd like everybody to read at least a predestined story our associate editor, she wrote once again an amazing follow-up piece about the entire meeting and what happened and some comments from people and everything else, but still no comments from YMCA. They still not, and that bothers me that. Why aren't they talking about this publicly?
Speaker 3:well, you notice, at the meeting they did not listen to know how our city council works. They had a ton of people in there. They all signed to speak at the first door.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the first door it's very clear not this, not when the item came up.
Speaker 3:So when the item came up and the council that already listened to the consent agenda and everything else. Then they open up the hearing.
Speaker 2:Nobody from the YMCA could speak because they all spoke prior well, the funny part also was that there is a mayor called Mr Greenpeace or Mr Green well, that's one of the answers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but he didn't use his name. He kept calling him by his organization, so it was. It was, you know, probably not as respectful as it could be, but I was kind of comical and I think he was doing it in. You know, he asked the guy to come up and talk because the guy didn't come up during the presentation and I thought, you know, once again, good, you know, I mean that's what we need, we need to find out, and you're not gonna find out by my silence well, and also listening to the why they did speak during first orals and they have some very, very intelligent people at the Y and run the wine.
Speaker 3:They got up and spoke very eloquently. You could tell they've, you know, taken their courses in, you know so forth. But, like said wrapping this up, I'm glad it'll go back and the council will make the decision and make a public front of everybody and so and we'll let everybody know when that's gonna happen in advance.
Speaker 2:And you know you should tune in. I mean, is it exciting television? No, but you know, if you're involved in your city you want to know what's going on here. You should pay attention to things now. Let's talk about paying attention to things the next. The next day, they did have a special meeting of the council because of, once again, council districts they did yeah, they did when that was on Wednesday come on, where was?
Speaker 2:I, you were. You were sleeping, but you woke up in time for the end of the vote anyhow. Um, so basically they had another meeting and all the asking me this maybe makes them the recommendations decide some stuff and it was bad timing. It was bad timing because the city of Santa Monica filed lawsuits and it got into a Pella court and then now to the California Supreme Court, and they weren't due to make the decision until the next day.
Speaker 2:So I'm thinking to myself, knowing that it was going to come out on Thursday, why either a did they not have the meeting after it came out on Thursday or Friday, or you need a couple days to digest it and have the meeting on Monday and be able to use that as part of their criteria. Well, no, they kept saying. Well, we don't know what they're going to say, we don't know what they're going to say, we can't make a decision because we don't know what they're going to say. Is Santa Monica going to win, is the people in Santa Monica who's going to win and what's the decision going to be? So the decision was not to make a decision and once again bring it back on September 12th agenda, because guess what? December 12th probably doesn't have enough stuff on the agenda anyway. And my point once again why, if you had a special meeting for this, why not have a special meeting again?
Speaker 3:You know, talking about that, I will agree. I will say back to you know the, the colony or the theater may have so much going on prior to the actual agenda starting presentations. It was over an hour and a half of presentations before they got to the official city.
Speaker 2:That's a good point, because there's so and I get it. We want to. We want to recognize groups and people and individuals, and all Absolutely. And you know who was our man who passed away Our fundraising Roy, roy Wigan. Roy Wigan, very well done. I'm not, I'm not going to say that they shouldn't be doing that stuff, but you're right, if you want to do that stuff, then why not do it before you go to closed session? Right, you know, if closed session starts at you know, let's say, six o'clock, but why not do your presentations at five o'clock? Six o'clock to close session, seven o'clock or, I'm sorry, four o'clock to your presentations? Five o'clock, private session. Six o'clock starts your meeting with your agenda.
Speaker 3:Because I was told that the council chambers was filled to capacity for the stuff before they don't. You know it, just how they, they all, and we're I'm finding they're doing more presentations and I know that's a mayor's prerogative but it takes so much time. You know they want to make all. I think there were four presentations. What's the memorial?
Speaker 2:And, of course, the key to the city. And what exactly is that key open?
Speaker 3:I'm afraid to say, maybe what you might have to do is story hardware.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's the, maybe it's that mystery room on top of City Hall. They used to have the radio tower. You know you got to probably open something.
Speaker 3:So with the Supreme Court decision, which, what happened, was Santa Monica loss, well, no, no, santa didn't lose.
Speaker 2:They can't rule in the way of one party. But they said we're sending the case back to appeal court to have a further ruling done first. So basically I think I have it here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, two of our show notes right.
Speaker 2:The California Supreme Court sided with the Pico neighborhood Association against the city Santa Monica. So yes, I guess they did against Santa Monica. But it is challenge to Santa Monica's at large system of electing its counsel. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Court of Appeals for an analysis of the issues consistent with their ruling. So they're trying to say, ok, why did you rule that way? And then we can come back and talk to you. The court reversed a ruling by lower courts that had favored the city of Santa Monica, but the justice specifically said they were not picking a winner. So they didn't really pick a winner in the case. Instead, the case should be reheard, reevaluated under different criteria. So what does that mean? But what is that for Burbank? What's the? What does that mean? You know?
Speaker 3:the sad thing is, I think we all realize council districts are coming. They're going to divide up our city.
Speaker 2:Either not a lot of any say so in it.
Speaker 3:Well, but we're first, we're second, we're two voices, and you know what?
Speaker 2:I think the voices reason sometimes.
Speaker 3:It really kind of gets me Half of the people in this town. If you ask about council districts, they're going to go. What are you talking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's that's. The council chambers were packed the other night and nobody there at all. Hardly for the council district meeting. You know, it was just you know it was crickets.
Speaker 3:Nobody spoke. Nobody spoke on it. Oh, maybe we have one, one of the.
Speaker 2:And here's the things they still decide. They still going to have to decide OK, how many districts are going to be? Will it be a full time mayor? Um, are you switched to districts? Um, from what I understand the To change it. There's certain things we can do without changing the charter. But actually to have the districts we have to change the charter. But we can have five districts without a charter amendment. So then you have to have a charter amendment to have Districts. You know as many as you want. So there are certain things that are trying to get around in a charter amendment. I could understand.
Speaker 3:But it doesn't Correct me if I'm wrong. They still haven't figured out who's going to be counting the votes for them.
Speaker 2:Well, that's no. That's a whole other subject too. They talked about ranked choice money. You know our podcast was six months ago and he was very much. I can't remember his name, but I have a huge proponent of ranked choice voting and he's upset that they never had brought it up.
Speaker 2:Well, now they're bringing it up, and one of the things on the agenda was let's send a request to LA County to see can you guys put together a ranked choice voting system to count votes for us? And the result of the vote was we're going to hold off after the March election to ask them. So it was three to one with family. I don't know who she's saying no, we're not going to. You know she voted no, but she wanted, she wanted to ask them right away, and so you get to process in motion. So the rest of the council kind of wants to wait till after March and I guess, to figure out is this going to be on the ballot or not. If it's going to be on the ballot, then how is it going to do on the election day and then we can decide if we're going to do ranked choice voting or not.
Speaker 3:So now correct me again if I'm wrong set up to do the voting, the voting and the tallying and all that. Is it a cost like a million dollars?
Speaker 2:I don't think it's cost that much. We should find out. That's a good question. I'm really not sure, because we pay the county.
Speaker 3:Right, we pay the county. Right we used to do it ourselves Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we used to do ourselves here, you know, and the clerk would run the election and then, you know, had the projector out in a I remember a city hall and they'd come on and write down the votes and we'd all sit out there and see the new vote counts.
Speaker 3:I remember when we were in a group called neighborhood radio watch. We had CVs and where the council members lived we would have somebody at their house. The tally, because back then they didn't had nowhere to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:But it's going to get a ton of money Either way you look at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you're right, they're going to have to decide and I'm going to tell you right now if it comes down to voting for charter amendment, to have districts or not. And this ruling if I was a little bit, I'm saying no, no districts. I want, without a doubt, I want no districts. And I'm going to say we need to fight it no matter what. But if it had this ruling, come down and stand like we're latched outright. I'm thinking, ok, well, if we do it, it's going to cost us millions of dollars and we're probably and is that the best for our city? But without a clear decision and the fact that we have some similarities with some differences, until I have, until the state says exactly, the state Supreme Court says exactly what they're going to do, I'm saying we fight this. And if it does wind up costing us some money in court, then that's what you're talking about changing the way of life in Burbank for generations to come.
Speaker 2:And one of my look at the problems in LA right now, in their districts how many other people are going to jail right now, like I got sentenced today for three years or something? And so we're going to have a decision, we're going to have districts and in the districts you know District One and District. You know they're going to have a project in District One or something and the guy in District One says this guy is District Two and Three. If you vote for me on this project, I'll vote for you on that project. And all of a sudden we're going to start making back room deals.
Speaker 2:Now I'm not saying that this council is going to do that in any way. I think we have a good council, but you know what, down the line, five years now, 10 years, 20 years from now, it might become political machines and political machines are going to run this, are going to run the each district and to me it's corruption, possible corruption. It's, you know, back room deals. You know we have five people sitting on that dios up there and all five responsible, every citizen of Burbank. It's a whole different, whole different deal for me.
Speaker 3:I agree, and, like I said, I said to me it's dividing our community up. The school district, I'm told, already has their districts formed. They're ready to go march.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I guess it might be nice if they haven't said a word on the media about it. Well, I haven't said to anybody.
Speaker 1:No, it's, it's it's a secret school district.
Speaker 2:We never know what goes on in that, behind their closed doors there.
Speaker 3:You know I've talked to people and it's not real public. You know you could ask teachers to work in the district and have no clue that the school district is dividing.
Speaker 2:Why, do you think, ten out of 19 principles left? There's all lack of communication. It wasn't money, it wasn't, you know, working, it was just they were just fed up with the administration and you know. And now, if they promote from within their superintendent, what's going to change?
Speaker 3:I don't want to get into that because I agree.
Speaker 2:It's a whole different subject, but I just think they need to be more transparent in a lot of things they do. It's parent transparent.
Speaker 3:Okay, like our city is Moving on to Friday. Yeah, it's been wonderful last week this food truck Wow it's. That's easy for you to say huh. And I got my false teeth in Food truck Friday. Ah boy, that one.
Speaker 2:FTF.
Speaker 3:Yeah, watch it, ftf. Well, I'll tell you it was very successful. See you next time. There was a ribbon cutting before fruit tech Friday.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right. Run out groove records over on at 3607 Magnolia.
Speaker 3:Yep, they're kind of around the corner on Cordova Great turnout. I mean, betty, porto was there.
Speaker 2:Interesting how records now come back into our.
Speaker 3:Well right, there is a video VHS store.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:It does VHS there on Magnolia. Jeff who owns run about our run out groove records is on the Cordova side. He's got vinyl in there. He's got some record players in there.
Speaker 2:You buy a record because I say what do you buy a record? But you know it's like where do you go to buy a radio? Even Can't go to radio shack.
Speaker 3:No, yeah.
Speaker 2:I got everything ready. Or say you sold radios.
Speaker 3:But he, Jeff Ferguson, is the one that brought back food truck Fridays. He opened his business down there. He heard from a lot of the new merchants that are along Magnolia that you know we've got to bring it back. They had over 21 food trucks along the Boulevard. I was there for the ribbon cutting and then I drove up Magnolia. There were a ton of people out walking.
Speaker 2:I saw, you know, Devin Haranda did a little video and talk to him and in the video and what was going on.
Speaker 3:So I saw that she was a cute little YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she said can I do a little video? I said, sure, go ahead. And then she did a very nice job with it. It's very professional, yeah, so she did the editing. She did everything with it. We didn't do a thing to help her. Oh, she did it all. So I was very impressed with it.
Speaker 3:Oh, not bad and, like I said, she did a good job with that Friday night food truck. Friday was successful. Jeff, is you know the company that comes and cleans up and picks up and all the little things that go in? Explain?
Speaker 2:the benefit of food truck Friday. It's just not to have to have food trucks go out there. What, what? Why is it for Magnolia Park? Why is it a good thing? What's the whole reason behind it?
Speaker 3:All the small, a lot of those shops. How it started many, many years ago for women that own dress shops, apparel shops, it was done on the last Friday of the month because they weren't making their rent on the first of the month. So they brought in some food trucks. They were making money on the last Friday of the month they were able, they were able, to make their rent. Well, that had worked for a long time. It grew. Ashley Erickson had taken it over. It had turned into a ladies and gents night out. It went from Hollywood Way all the way up to Florence 3040 trucks. It was a big thing going on and then COVID hit A lot of trucks went out of business and it costs money.
Speaker 2:A lot of everyone out of business.
Speaker 3:Well, it costs a lot of money to put the event on. You got to have police protection, got to have trash pickup permits, so we couldn't Magnolia Park I sit on the Magnolia Park board the board member.
Speaker 2:We couldn't afford it, so Jeff went and if you bring in so many trucks, it'll pay for the event and there's a lot of people pay the trucks, they pay a percentage back to Magnolia Park and that's the money that then pays for the, you know, for the trash pickup, for police presence, for all those things you know.
Speaker 3:Plus, we have some sponsors. Not all the food trucks, we'd like to get a couple more food trucks but those sponsors help pay for the event and you can't do it in the cold winter. Magnolia Park merchants used to do it all throughout the year. Well, you find it starts getting old, it's probably over spring, summertime or even a fall event too. So now it's only going to be through October.
Speaker 2:And of course, November is the big holiday in the park. Holiday in the park.
Speaker 3:So that's where you'll again food truck Friday night. He has a list that goes out. You can go on the website Magnolia Park merchants the website and find out what food trucks are there. He's got a great mix of food trucks. I'll tell you from you know ice cream and cookies to lasagna, latino. Wait, where is this at? This is all the different food trucks.
Speaker 2:I'll give you the different trucks, okay.
Speaker 3:So there's a great mix of food trucks now and you know it's, we're right, it's changing and there's a lot of young people. I find between that early hour of you know, around six o'clock, you find a ton of people pushing their kids card, their dogs are walking with them, you know and the businesses. The purpose is to bring out people to go into the businesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's exactly it's community. It's community, it's unique to Burbank, yep. So, moving on to next day, on last weekend you attended an event for Home LA. They had a food distribution at the parking lot next to the Johnson Center and, from what we heard, it's sort of over 300 families, lots of food, oatmeal, cooking oils sand foods pancake mixes and so you were there and you know, give us a little rundown on it.
Speaker 3:Well, they had. Oh, I don't know how many trucks brought food. It was subsidized by Southern California gas, if I recall they were Well, the gas prices were there.
Speaker 2:I think Godly did then.
Speaker 3:I think we have a check. I ran the story in my Burbank and there's a check of $175,000.
Speaker 2:Oh, good for that.
Speaker 3:All the food. They didn't want to turn anybody away. There's a lot of people in Burbank hurting oh absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's not a premier airwarding.
Speaker 3:And so they. They served. It was set up Home LA got a nonprofit in town. Gain credit union helped. They had 15 or so employees there Noon Rotary, morning, sunshine Rotary. There were organizations there to help and what they did you know, we have the morning Rotary, we have the noon Rotary.
Speaker 2:Right, we have a supper Rotary. Now.
Speaker 3:I don't think so.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:But I tell you the bags that they filled, and they people got not just one bag put in their car, they got two or three bags. I mean peaches, spaghetti sauce, cooking oil, pancake mix, cereal syrup, oatmeal, bottles of ketchup, bottles of honey, um cans of tuna, cans of chicken breast, a pound of rice, boxes of ramen, um cans of refining. You got a ton of stuff.
Speaker 3:Right, and didn't you tell you there was like um cars, just you know down the street to get in and it was with bark down to Olive all the way past Virginia. They served in two hours. They took care of 300 cars. Nobody left without. They took everybody in line. It was such um. The turnover was real quick. Home LA is going to do it again during the holiday season.
Speaker 2:Well, that people don't advance 10. We're going to do it also because I'm sure they will.
Speaker 3:Well, they found the location is real good because there's no ball games at that early hour between eight and 10. So they had the full use of that lot and, like I said, they had the food was amazing that they would give you. And, like I said, I saw a lot of people some studio workers, you know driving up. Those are the people that you know. You pay two $300 worth of groceries and those people are getting money now.
Speaker 2:And I don't care what they say about studio workers who are not on strike but are being affected by the strike. The other ones hurting right now because they didn't. They didn't vote for this, they didn't ask to go out and they don't get a benefit of a new contract when it, you know, when it comes out, they're going to go to help and get back and do their job again.
Speaker 3:Well, they do. You know, I, you know, I noticed I looked on some of our old stories during COVID we had listed some of the restaurants that were there, hours and so forth. We might think about combining putting that list together, because there's several restaurants here in Burbank that if you are a union member or you have any ID showing that you work in production, they will give you a discount on your food and that's it.
Speaker 2:I mean just having a union card for writers or actors. That's nice. But then all the other jobs. You know the prop houses and places, so you can prove you're working, to think. I think you know that you should take care of them also.
Speaker 3:I think it's Tequila's was doing it. I know Hill Street Cafe. I believe I just saw a couple of the others in town.
Speaker 2:Well, why don't we say if you're a restaurant and you're going to provide a discount to industry people right now during the strikes, Let us know and we'll. We will put a list together for.
Speaker 3:Right now, you know, and as we see on the news, I don't think this strike's going to end tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Probably not.
Speaker 2:Also on the weekend we had a story about, we had one of our readers contact us and said we have had a peeping Tom suspect come to our house twice now, in July and August, and they had, you know, still pictures of him they sent to us and said you know, we want to get the word out that this guy's around here looking in people's windows and I guess they have a daughter and he'd come around in the middle of the night and look inside her window while she was sleeping and thank goodness it didn't bother, she didn't wake up or anything else.
Speaker 2:And the first night they didn't realize that it happened because they had their phone on silent and you weren't getting notifications in the middle of the night. But after that first night they up their security cameras, everything else. And this time, when he showed up at three weeks later, well, they were warned right away and they scared him off. But so we contacted Burbank police and they said oh yeah, we're looking for him, we want the public's help. And I get like well, why didn't she let us know in advance then?
Speaker 3:I read that and I read that the police department replied to you that they're investigating it. I'm sorry this is now the second case that. Why aren't they, being you know, coming out and saying we had the incident at the bookstore? Yeah why all we got was one line from Burbank police we're not going to talk about it anymore. And then it was a big Glendale thing. Yeah, okay, now we have this one and the response that we get from the police are we're investigating.
Speaker 2:And we didn't know. If the resident didn't contact us, nobody would have known about it. Yeah, because she wasn't getting, I guess, any satisfaction. She goes. I want people to know about this. And you know why, wouldn't it? The police said yes, we want the public's help in finding him. Well, how are you asking the public to help you?
Speaker 3:Well, the other question that I want to bring up here, greg, is I heard last week after the police commission meeting that this new task force that LA and LA County put together Glendale PD, burbank is. Have we heard anything? Not a word that they're involved in this they talked about it at the press conference.
Speaker 2:And we have our Macy's here and our other high end department stores or anything else.
Speaker 3:I know people that are scared to death to go to the mall.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah, not a word about you know we're involved in this and we're taking precautions. I mean, I don't think we've gotten. The only reason we've gotten from burring police is we're going to have a DUI checkpoint, and that's because they have to put it out, I think, by law.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, we won't tell you where it is, but we're going to have one, yeah.
Speaker 3:Kind of just gets me that.
Speaker 2:And of course you know here it is Monday and we got no releasing how the checkpoint go. Did they arrest anybody, did they?
Speaker 3:have it.
Speaker 2:I don't even know if they had it.
Speaker 3:Either do I.
Speaker 2:So I mean it's kind of disturbing. But so people know this happened, I think in the I can't remember exactly 600 or 800 block of Kenwood and I did not use the family's name or their exact address because I thought for privacy they shouldn't be put out. But in that area I know your son's got young daughters too. You know, and I'm sure he's now. He knows about it.
Speaker 3:If you notice what the gentleman said when he wrote to you that they had a motion light, the camera they put up was with a motion light. My son's house he does have a camera with a motion light. You walk anywhere off the sidewalk that light goes on.
Speaker 2:Live in color baby.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, he has a camera at the point on his driveway, on his front porch. I just you know there's cameras available. $35 now, wave. I think there's ways.
Speaker 2:Well, we have. I have ring cameras here besides my home security system and every time it motions, it saves it. It saves you the cloud, and you go look later and it's a pretty clear picture.
Speaker 3:Well, they're getting better. That was a problem that this gentleman I noticed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're very, you know you couldn't make somebody out. It was more of an infrared type picture than it was, you know so, and there was no light on it, but I still put the pictures on the things, just in case.
Speaker 3:People need to be aware. You know what goes on outside of your house and this guy kind of creepy, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, here it is kind of a bobbin's look. Not that we can't hear burring police anymore, is we used to hear the stuff. You know a lot goes on between midnight and six. You know a lot goes on, and now we have no idea anymore what's going on. You know who knows what's going on in this city anymore, and that to me is disturbing by itself. With the fact, transparency is now gone out the window.
Speaker 3:Well and think you're right, things can go on now. If there was OK yesterday at Delamo Mall or days ago, would we ever know? You know, if things go on in our city, will we ever be told you know or find out about it so the community can know? We're banks of tight community, you know, and that's how you keep it safe.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a real media blackout now, so it's really not a. It's not a good situation, not when people need to be informed.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Well, with that, we're going to take a quick break here and we will be right back with you.
Speaker 1:Say you're broke. How would you like your business advertised in this very spot? My Burbank Talks is looking for local businesses interested in a 30 second spot to appear in our podcasts. If you're interested, please email advertising at my Burbankcom and we'll be glad to discuss all the exciting possibilities with you. Now back to our podcast.
Speaker 2:OK, everybody, we're back with you, and now for the week that will be, which is the week that is currently going on. To start with Ross, they've done it again. We've had this week. Not a lot going on this week, really.
Speaker 3:That because Labor Day. Well, you got to get ready for it, I guess.
Speaker 2:so You've got to clean the barbecue. There's three meetings this week. Three meetings and one on one, tuesday, is called dark. The city council is not going to meet on Tuesday.
Speaker 3:You know, I think that's an official meeting now, Dark meeting dark meeting dark meeting.
Speaker 2:Well, you know it's funny, there's an action agenda that says dark meeting. It says you know not going to have a meeting. It's kind of funny to have an agenda out or nothing. But that's who knows. That's probably brown act stuff Brown act.
Speaker 3:So, we have a, we have a button for that, for the brown act.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know, maybe a button for it Okay.
Speaker 2:Anyhow. So there's two meetings going to be held that were held tonight, that's it. There's two weeks and they're going to have both held tonight, and they're both at the same time. So why? Why couldn't we have one meeting on Wednesday, wednesday night? So if someone to go to both meetings, they could know you, you got to pick your media if you want to go see meetings. So I don't understand the philosophy between. You know, seven meetings last week, three meetings this week, but only two being held at the same exact time Doesn't make sense to me. Once again, who's talking to who? Where's transparency in the city? As far as you know, people want to be involved in things. I don't know. It's that we had the planning commission met at six o'clock and they had heard about a. They had a public hearing on a on a zone text amendment to modify the existing development standards for accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units. So that's kind of um, you know, just talking about ADUs and stuff, like you know you know I want to.
Speaker 3:I want to interject something here. There was a fire in town today, I believe up in the 2000 block in Kenwood, kenwood, yes. And I heard them get on scene and they had smoke visible. They had, they had a house.
Speaker 2:It was an attic fire yeah.
Speaker 3:But then there was an ADU behind that was involved in fire. You know, you think about people building ADUs. You drive down the street, you can't tell there's ADUs in people's backyards. So the fire department gets on scene. You see some smoke. You go in the first house. You got an ADU burning in the back. I mean, it just kind of gets me that the firemen are now supposed to have ESP and know what's in people's backyards because people can build them. Yeah, how well they know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point, that's a real good point. Oh, the Community Development Goals Committee out of meeting.
Speaker 3:What's that? What's that?
Speaker 2:Known as Um a CDBG, A CDBG.
Speaker 3:A good friend, glenn Duke. May he rest in peace. He loved working on that committee and he always would say CDBG and everybody would say what a CBGG you mean.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's really. Probably he could pronounce it faster than anybody else. So, and their whole meeting is about programs for the fiscal year 23, 24 and an upcoming schedule for fiscal year 24, 25. So so it just didn't really stay on the agenda. But the you know it's a very limited presentation on the agenda.
Speaker 3:So you know what? I think I should probably explain. Cdbg stands for Community Development Block Grants. These are federal funds that are given to each city. Burbank has a committee that decides where those funds go. So if you didn't know what as I said it fast CDBG meant was Community Development Block Grants.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. It seems like the same organizations all get them every year, the same grants and the same thing.
Speaker 3:And it's pretty well broken down, yeah.
Speaker 2:It goes to.
Speaker 3:it goes to the resources, it's not you know well, it was also anti cap ramps in parts of the city that need to be replaced. Stuff like that, the things that the federal government puts money aside for.
Speaker 2:Well, tuesday, that being tomorrow or who knows what day is when you're watching there, listening this later it's supposed to be if I want to hear hot hot hot and I did put hot hot hot. It says use the cooling centers. But we never got any kind of a notice from the city saying where if there were cooling centers or where there would be. But I know in the past they've used the Williamson Library and I also just suggested go go see a week, a weekday movie at AMC, their air conditioning theaters and the price of tickets went back from $4 to $200.
Speaker 3:But there are, you got the libraries. We're Bank Town Center air conditioning blowing in that place all the time. I bet they would. So security. People would love to see new faces, but tomorrow, and it's you know, we put it down. If you have a relative or a neighbor that is climbing up there, they might not be able to pay their power bill, so they turned it off. Tomorrow's not the day to turn it off. Check on your elderly, check on your neighbor and for yourself, I highly say, besides that, stay well hydrated.
Speaker 2:Well, the library weather center hit 100 today at 1238. So, and usually it's the hardest, times are usually three or four o'clock so, and that's supposed to be hotter tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Hotter tomorrow.
Speaker 2:It's going to be. It's going to be roasting out there. They've on gas and roast and scramble your eggs in the sidewalk, on the hood of your car.
Speaker 3:Whenever, when people have tried that it's going to be toasty, it's, I believe. There's weather alerts. Heat alerts have been put out. I know LACity has put stuff out about their cooling centers Again. I have been a victim of Dehydration more than once. It happened to us right here at the studio a couple weeks ago. I was out covering in a story and I was out in the heat without a hat on for over an hour. I didn't replenish my water and I got. Greg wasn't sure if I was gonna sign out.
Speaker 2:Give you water or just hose you down?
Speaker 3:or call 911. And if you talk to people at the hospital and you can't think straight when your body is just so wet and You're you know you can't understand things. Probably dehydration happened to Jay Leno a couple years ago, parted him off to the hospital and Found out two days later it was dehydration.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you a little secret that might help people. Your body only has so much energy in it. Of course you know, and you put food in to recharge your better batteries and all that. But if your eyes start to get sore, that's when you've hit the 75% mark, because your eyes take more energy than any other part of your body. So when your eyes start getting sore, that means you're trying to run out of energy. And that's my bit, my baseball days why I'll wear sunglasses. There's a better you're outside where sunglasses, because without sunglasses your eyes use a lot more energy. So by having sunglasses on, it helps protect your picture eyes you know your vision, everything, but it also helps your body energy in the long run too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, it's those little warnings. Just take note and God forbid you not leave your dog or your kids in a car and let them cook to death literally.
Speaker 2:And it happens every year.
Speaker 3:Oh, we hear call. We used to hear calls all the time. Cars in a parking lot. I just was running in for something and then you get, you run into the store and you don't realize you run into an old neighbor and you're talking for 20 minutes while your dog is in a car. That's 150 degrees.
Speaker 2:I like the people want to leave their car running and to get something they forget, and I'm gonna steal their car with their kid inside it, you know, don't? I mean not, not funny, because it happens. I mean, yeah, this is real life people. You know there, there are bad people out there looking for opportunities.
Speaker 3:Opportunity, better believe it.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's move to. Um, let's move to Friday. Not a lot. We I said this is a very quiet week as the holiday approaches. This on Friday, we're going to have a what he called it say. Well, it's a change a command, yes, in the fire department, where our current fire chief, eric Garcia, is going to bid adieu and they're gonna welcome Danny Alvarez, who just was the chief at Santa Monica, now coming to Burbank as of September 1st coming back to Burbank.
Speaker 2:Yeah, coming back to Burbank and they're gonna have a ceremony at fire station 11 on the apparatus floor. I'm sure you're gonna be there to. I am to chronicle it and See what goes on.
Speaker 3:So boy I. I have to add another number to how many chiefs I've answered to Since I started shooting, but Danny is familiar with the Burbank fire department. He's been here before, and when they placed Chief Garcia in the place of he's seven years ago, seven or eight years ago, it was up between Eric Garcia and Danny Alvarez. They both had the same amount of Education merits. Well, at that time the city manager chose Eric Garcia. Danny was the Deputy chief. Well, danny found a better job at the time. He wanted to be chief, so he went to Santa Monica. They have, I think, one less station than Burbank things were there nine months to yeah, he was, but Coming back to Burbank.
Speaker 3:So the only thing there's a the last class. He probably won't know them that well, you know. But it's okay, because I see these guys and I don't know him.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm around yeah, but weren't you there when he was a rookie coming in?
Speaker 3:I was. I have pictures of Danny being, you know, all these chiefs. That's what gets me. You know, I've been doing this for 50 years and, yeah, when he was a rookie. So he'll be taking the reins as of September 1st and so forth.
Speaker 2:Well, my first suggestion is figure out a way to get a fourth paramedic unit in Burbank.
Speaker 3:That's my yesterday no. I wait what? Burbank was all busy and they were rolling.
Speaker 2:Oh well, that happens all the time they're going Glendale or Pasadena paramedics in a burbank because they're just well.
Speaker 3:The other problem is, as they call it, wall time. When they take somebody into a hospital now and there's no beds, those paramedics are tied up, yes, and they don't realize you got an emergency call. You can't say well, we don't.
Speaker 2:It's like roll, they do and they're hearing the calls go out and saying we need to get out here and go to that, but they can't, they're stuck. You know You're talking about a heart attack somewhere and you're rolling an RA from Pasadena. Oh yeah, that's. That's a 20 minute trip and yeah, you only have a engine company who's close by but they don't have what a paramedic unit has with it, you know, and the equipment and the drugs and everything else.
Speaker 3:Well, all Burbank engines now, besides the guys, have an EMT status. They've all been paramedics on those rinks, so they know a little more now and they can start.
Speaker 2:That's a job that's just extremely honorable. I'm very, I'm very Raised all those people I think it is having need them in a while or at all, but I'm sure that day will come and You're in their hands, and why don't you?
Speaker 2:you might as well plug At EMS program that you're a member of that's true I'm, as I've been a member of the EMS program in Burbank for easily 15 years, maybe 20 years, and my dad had to one time. You know, before he passed he had to go to the hospital and and They'd transported him. And it was funny because I actually got a bill for $1,200 and I went up to the department and I said Wait, why did I get a bill here when I'm in your private and I think I think it was, I Want to see maybe more catches? At the time we said let me have that. You went and said it's taking care of, don't worry about it, it's in the system.
Speaker 2:I never saw another bill again, but it's five dollars a month. For five dollars a month Everybody in your household. It's covered on any Burbank paramedic hall. I do say Burbank paramedic hall. If you're in LA You're still at their mercy. But if they come to your house in Burbank and have to transport, I mean the minimum amount you I think is around 1500 now. Oh yeah, and you know they charge more if they turn the siren on to take you to the hospital. And they have to turn the sirens on now because they have to get you there quicker so they become available sooner for another call. So it's a vicious circle, but it's something that it's a good program for five dollars I mean really $60 a year and you can.
Speaker 3:You can sign up with your water and power bill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not your water and power bill every month.
Speaker 3:It's just flawless.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I highly recommend it. It's something that it's a great program Burbank.
Speaker 3:And there's another celebration.
Speaker 2:There is.
Speaker 3:Friday.
Speaker 2:Burbank high is having a birthday and for once you can say that you were not at the first one. Burbank high is turning 115 years old.
Speaker 3:Happy birthday. I have a special anniversary party.
Speaker 2:I Guess to the special guest is gonna be the class of eight of 1967's Anson Williams, who we all know from happy days, and he was a Burbank high graduate, I guess I in 67. So I think that, wait, I don't think 67, is that 60 something?
Speaker 3:correct, wait, my sister was 63.
Speaker 2:Ron is Ron is 72. Yeah, so I'm not sure. Maybe that was he five years older than Ron, I guess, or that's what they told me the person that text me.
Speaker 3:They have a lot going on.
Speaker 2:I thought he was younger, I could see 77, but you know what, maybe somebody got it's either 67, 77 or who knows. But but he is a graduate of Burbank, high Wasn't happy days and then, I guess, has a nice little career besides that, you know.
Speaker 3:Well, they got a lot going on. They got the whole. The football game is Ed Burbank high. Yeah, normally you know they do it at Memorial Stadium that night they're doing it at Burbank high. There's activities around the campus. I believe each year is going to be representative represented and Lots of activities and so forth. We might have somebody be able to cover that besides their sports guys.
Speaker 2:Oh, we'll take a look at that. Um, don't forget, we have the hot day, labor Day weekend coming up and thank goodness, the temperatures will probably go down a little bit for that. So we're gonna have a Better. You know a little bit, you got sight and do some things. But it's funny is back in the day, that was always the last weekend before school would start and now it was three weeks in the school. I feel bad for those kids in hundred degree classrooms. We're back there. We didn't have air conditioning. You know that's we had back then. They don't have now smog days, oh yeah you can see the Burbank Hills.
Speaker 2:I would sit, I would sit out there, stevenson elementary school, on the, on the, on the, the asphalt, you know the playground, you couldn't see the hills, you couldn't see it, it's just gray. And he didn't eat anything twice about it. Yeah, that's what we were all breathing in back then. So that smog did. You had to stay inside and everything else, and you know it's all improved, you know you also remember Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 3:What telephone was always there?
Speaker 2:There's always a Jerry Lewis telethon for years for him. Yeah.
Speaker 3:No, and they when he passed away.
Speaker 2:Things change you know what we'd all watch. It be no why? Because there was no cable TV and and Screaming services back then. You know right, and it's just like an middle of the day on a Monday, there's nothing to watch. That's right. So you always watch that for some reason.
Speaker 3:Yep. He raised a lot of money for MDA and I know they still probably could use donations.
Speaker 2:I know People that have muscle muscular dystrophy, so Well, we don't have a Ross's rant this week because he, ross, is actually actually content in his life, which I don't believe that, but he wants us all to believe that. But I'm gonna give you a gripe. I've got a gripe and and my gripe is very simple, and once I say what the gripe is, you're going to agree when are all the 24-hour restaurants in verbank? We have lost the ability to eat, basically after 10 o'clock at night, and To me that's a huge. I mean, you know, you are both late night per, you know, because a lot of things go on at nighttime and even after our show, we record our show and it's free to listening live. You know, it's, it's um, right now, it's what? 10, 46 pm, you know.
Speaker 2:So we would usually go out and get to, you know, and the only option we have in the city of Burbank is Denny's by the airport, that's it. So Coral cafe not 24 hours anymore. Obs, obs, not 24 hours anymore. Franks, frank's not 24, dive in open, but there's no, there's nowhere in Burbank to eat at night, late night. And what about the people who do work until Midnight or one o'clock, and they, you know, and they need to go out and and before. It was funny because Even the people that would the bars close at two. So I know Bob's, in some restaurants Between 1, 30 and 3 they'd always be busy with the bar crowded, you know left the bars at you know, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, where they go. Now everybody's, they have to leave the city and you eat somewhere else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and, and personally I I don't like leaving Burbank, but to you know, I know COVID changed a lot of things, but there used to be production companies that work 24 hours. You know they don't just work nine to five anymore. That's a field and there's different things in this city that do operate 24 hours.
Speaker 2:I mean I guess I get a small town where there's a small town and you know Sidewalks all closed, you know eight o'clock at night and everybody's at home and you know sitting by their fire and you know whatever they do. But we're in Burbank here, where the media capital when movies and everything else. We're people now going to spend their. You know you gotta get out of movie at 10 o'clock. Where are you gonna go spends your money now? Well, I have to go to Glendale, have to go to a North Hollywood, have to go somewhere else and spend my money at night. So I Understand the reasons, you know. I mean residents are there to make money. They're not a public service.
Speaker 2:But my advice today in these restaurants is Be open later because there's a lot. If you're the only only game in town, people are going to show up. You know, close, close at 2 am, close at 3 am or send and and be closed until 11 the next day. That's fine, but there's nowhere to eat and I gotta tell ya, denny's it's all. I mean, it's all right, but it's not really where I want to go and it's not. You know I do like to spend my money with a local business. You know where it's gonna help a local person, you know, then he's a corporation well, when we've gone there, we've seen a homeless person Living out the front door.
Speaker 3:Inside there's a guy that sleeps in the back booth. It looks like he's taking up residency there.
Speaker 2:And what would you? What do we see last week there? What? What left his little tinkler?
Speaker 3:inside. Oh yeah, a guy walks in with the dog and he dog, he's on the Corner of the counter and nobody knew about it.
Speaker 2:If you would have said something to the, to the guy he goes really yeah, look down there, it's. It's. Unless you, unless you have a yellow food coloring on the ground down there, then. So that's, that's. My gripe is the fact that we've lost all of our. You know, I talked to the People coral. I said you know, I, yeah, I've got certain rules.
Speaker 2:I never go to a restaurant the last hour it's open Because I think the number one All the waiters and waitresses are trying to do their side work to get out of there on time because they don't get paid. It wasn't rest, you know when they close, so they're busy doing their side work and they're not busy worrying about you. The cooks are getting things cleaned up in the kitchen and Whatever's that laying around there's. Gonna use it quickly. I think there's a lot of you know I Just don't like the last hour restaurants open. I just think it's. You know it's. It's more of a calamity the same. No, it's a calamity, is what it is. You know and you're you're, you're just a victim of the calamity and it's nobody doing it on purpose, just the way is. You know, if you paid waiters and waitresses an extra half hour after the place was closed to do their work. It wouldn't happen, but they don't do that yeah it's no fun going in when they're vacuuming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the floor where, when you're eating the bottles up and they're, you know, yeah, all that stuff going on. So, but I have talked to you, I talked to the people of Coral this you know, we really don't make a lot of money all night and besides that, we're actually having trouble hiring people To work. I Get that, I get that. I get that. You know, that's our new society now, but I Don't know, I don't know what the solution is, but it's just. I'm saying this to if you have a restaurant out there, think about being the only the only game in town, because it kind of gets me.
Speaker 3:You know all these office buildings that are in the media district. I Wonder, you know a lot of those people are going over to the Warner Brothers property, the buildings that they built. What are they going to do? Because not everybody Wants to work in an office anymore. I wonder if some of these high rises you're going to see turn into residential and then, if you do, or people are going to want to eat.
Speaker 2:Well past Riverside, we hit that area. We have a 24 restaurants in a three block area with four different coffee houses. So I don't think it's a. I don't think it's going to situation where you can't Out there. And how many is going to two years from now? I mean, it's still being business.
Speaker 3:Well, you know we are. I have put together a list and we're going to have a special podcast back in the day back in the day and I compiled this list over a hundred different restaurants that have come and gone in Burbank.
Speaker 2:Some are very well known and some of you are favorites. Yeah and they still didn't. They didn't make it. Sometimes I think people retired that's because I just went out of business. You know, I mean not enough public support talks about it today gourmet 88.
Speaker 3:Yesterday there was their last day, 27th. The guys decided to retire the owner. They also got a rent increase. You know, at least you know.
Speaker 2:So he decided we're gonna look at that, because there's also somebody on uh, we have a new book people were looking at and she said there's a restaurant on Alameda, I guess, across from the trader joes, a little pizza place, and he's being kind of forced out by high rent now too. So I'm thinking myself. You know we're worried about and rightfully so, we're worried about residents being forced out with high rents and renovations and all these things. But what about our small business owners who are now being told your rent's high? You know we had that problem Magnolia Park for a while. We're raising the rents to these, these businesses, these mom-pop businesses, and they said we don't make enough to pay that ranch. You know we don't. We don't work to put food on your table, we work just to survive, survive.
Speaker 3:Well, you think about it, that's a lot of cup of coffees to pay rent, you know, and and some of the other things it's you know it's funny.
Speaker 2:I, years ago I always wondered how many you know. You had the Xerox places everywhere. You wanted to Xerox here I I mean a copy. Xerox is a trade name but I don't talk about so. You wanted a Xerox or something. You wanted a copy of a you know whatever. It was four or five pages. You'd go into a place and it was five cents a copy and you'd make your five copies, three, ten copies, and be 50 cents or dollar, and I used to wonder how many copies you have to sell in a day To you know a, pay your rent, pay your utilities, pay your employees and then still make money. And guess what? How many copy places you see? Nowadays? You don't see many.
Speaker 3:Well, also back in the day here in Burbank I happen to know probably a half a dozen printing places. They used to print scripts. Yeah so they made their money on production companies bringing in their scripts and they would have to have them done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two or three cents a page, and it was, yeah, at least that all the time. But now, now.
Speaker 3:I Doesn't.
Speaker 2:I think my dad used to go to pretty shalton have type setting done. Well, you go to. I remember back there's gordon rousson burrows and you had to set type with the little um, led things and and and put them into a line of type. Yeah, so you know people are.
Speaker 3:I'll go before that. How are we that old? Over at jordan, add frank Pellegrino. Mr Pellegrino With his crew cut hair, black haircut and he was a pretty. I love going into the print shop that things smell I would inhale as much. But I remember doing all the tickets for the school productions and all that in print shop and then when we got to go to burrows, I love having print shop in that 500 and gordon rousson was, was, was a great guy.
Speaker 2:He really was. He just, you know, his philosophy was I'm down here, nobody knows the administration where I'm at. I'm hit at the end of the school. I'll just do my own thing. Yeah, and it's all good, you know so he rests in peace shops over at um at jordan.
Speaker 2:You know I was always looking to have chest of foods Yep, mr Food, and you used to get in trouble with him. He'd go your shorewood. Art by the fence, art by the fence, you know he was. He was, I guess, a german person and he had that german accent and he had a temper and on holler.
Speaker 3:I remember in in Drafting and yeah it's, they don't have those glasses anymore, it's unfortunate.
Speaker 2:It's unfortunate because You're auto shops. You're, I mean, who's gonna fix your car when it breaks down? Who's gonna fix, you know? Who's gonna come in and be your handyman to, to build a cabinet for you? Who's, you know, is that going to a Kia is not always the answer, you know, I mean. So I think that you know our schools are doing a disservice and not having more trade classes because not you know what, even if 60 to 70 percent of people go to college and of those, maybe 40 percent graduate from college, that still leaves 25 percent who never even go. And they need to get jobs and they need to have, and they may not want to Read a book or a punch, a computer, they may want to work with their hands and they want, you know, to get an internship somewhere and learn a trade. And we need those people, but we're not preparing those people for the workforce.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's unfortunate because you know, I remember I had Dave Goodlaw in auto shop and next door was Danny Gantz in an advanced auto. But I had Mr Goodlaw for years, good old Dave. I still this day Do things that he, if I have a problem with the car I take. And what did he teach you? You go look at a car hire. You know you spell things out Electrical. You know you start with your batter. I still go by all those things that I learned in high school.
Speaker 2:Good, valuable information. Well, that was my gripe is that we got off track, but still I'd like to see more restaurants, or any restaurant, being open to 24 hours in Burbank, or at least late at night. Um, we always want to hear your thoughts, so please leave us a comment or send us an email and We'll look it over and even talk about it, maybe so yeah, right, us.
Speaker 3:You know we have some great podcasts. If you go to my burbankcom or my Burbank talks, we, uh Devin, last week did a great podcast with Linda Murphy, who was an Olympic star. She taught here in Burbank.
Speaker 2:Olympic. Yeah, she's in the Olympics. Yeah, and help start women's sports here in Burbank. Um, that, that's a was a great podcast.
Speaker 3:Ashley Erickson has a couple of great ones, you know. So take a look and listen to our podcast, my Burbank.
Speaker 2:Absolutely easy for you to say Okay, you have to get all choked up by the Easy for you to say don't get all, you have to get all choked up about it. Okay, everybody, that's it for. Uh, another week of the week that was and, of course, the week that will be enjoy your uh labor day weekend.
Speaker 3:Be safe.
Speaker 2:And we will talk to you next week.
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