In our most recent podcast episode, we embark on a journey through Burbank's storied gastronomic landscape while grappling with the intricacies of local governance. Our hosts, Craig Sherwood and Ross Benson, guide us down the nostalgic lanes of the city's culinary heritage and challenge us to think critically about the hurdles faced by its governing bodies.
We start with a toast to Burbank's eateries, those hidden gems that have defined the local flavor for generations. From the aroma of freshly flipped pancakes at IHOP to the legendary burgers at Clint's, each name conjures up a cascade of memories and sensations that are uniquely Burbank. As we delve into the tales behind these culinary landmarks, we're reminded that every dish served is a chapter in the city's rich narrative. This gastronomic journey is not just about food; it's a celebration of the community and its enduring spirit.
Transitioning from the dinner table to the council chambers, our episode paints a vivid picture of the governance challenges confronting Burbank. We scrutinize the Police Commission's handling of encrypted radios, a decision raising concerns about public safety and transparency. The commission's perceived ineffectiveness becomes a point of contention, fueling a broader dialogue on the city's accountability to its citizens.
The complexities of governance extend to the recent City Council meetings, where the discussion ranges from business permits to the controversial Bus Rapid Transit system. The episodes are reflective of the impact such decisions have on the day-to-day lives of residents. As we analyze the City Council's actions, it becomes apparent that the intricacies of governance have real-world consequences, shaping the very fabric of the community.
Moreover, we invite listeners to contemplate Burbank's transportation network's future. With low bus ridership and high operational costs casting doubt on the current system's sustainability, the podcast ignites a conversation about potential alternatives. Could smaller buses or even charming trolleys be the solution? This debate on connectivity underscores the necessity of innovation in addressing the city's needs.
Our exploration doesn't stop at theoretical discussions; we also highlight opportunities for community engagement. The upcoming meeting on water usage rules serves as a reminder that civic participation is pivotal. It's through such platforms that residents can exert influence and steer the direction of local policies.
In conclusion, this episode is more than a mere auditory experience. It's an invitation to engage with Burbank's past, present, and future. By intertwining the savory tales of the city's eateries with the gritty realities of governance, we provide a comprehensive snapshot of life in Burbank. Join us as we continue to savor the flavors and navigate the challenges of our beloved city.
In our most recent podcast episode, we embark on a journey through Burbank's storied gastronomic landscape while grappling with the intricacies of local governance. Our hosts, Craig Sherwood and Ross Benson, guide us down the nostalgic lanes of the city's culinary heritage and challenge us to think critically about the hurdles faced by its governing bodies.
We start with a toast to Burbank's eateries, those hidden gems that have defined the local flavor for generations. From the aroma of freshly flipped pancakes at IHOP to the legendary burgers at Clint's, each name conjures up a cascade of memories and sensations that are uniquely Burbank. As we delve into the tales behind these culinary landmarks, we're reminded that every dish served is a chapter in the city's rich narrative. This gastronomic journey is not just about food; it's a celebration of the community and its enduring spirit.
Transitioning from the dinner table to the council chambers, our episode paints a vivid picture of the governance challenges confronting Burbank. We scrutinize the Police Commission's handling of encrypted radios, a decision raising concerns about public safety and transparency. The commission's perceived ineffectiveness becomes a point of contention, fueling a broader dialogue on the city's accountability to its citizens.
The complexities of governance extend to the recent City Council meetings, where the discussion ranges from business permits to the controversial Bus Rapid Transit system. The episodes are reflective of the impact such decisions have on the day-to-day lives of residents. As we analyze the City Council's actions, it becomes apparent that the intricacies of governance have real-world consequences, shaping the very fabric of the community.
Moreover, we invite listeners to contemplate Burbank's transportation network's future. With low bus ridership and high operational costs casting doubt on the current system's sustainability, the podcast ignites a conversation about potential alternatives. Could smaller buses or even charming trolleys be the solution? This debate on connectivity underscores the necessity of innovation in addressing the city's needs.
Our exploration doesn't stop at theoretical discussions; we also highlight opportunities for community engagement. The upcoming meeting on water usage rules serves as a reminder that civic participation is pivotal. It's through such platforms that residents can exert influence and steer the direction of local policies.
In conclusion, this episode is more than a mere auditory experience. It's an invitation to engage with Burbank's past, present, and future. By intertwining the savory tales of the city's eateries with the gritty realities of governance, we provide a comprehensive snapshot of life in Burbank. Join us as we continue to savor the flavors and navigate the challenges of our beloved city.
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. Hello Burbank, Greg Sherwood here, Not on camera. There we go Now. I'm on camera too. I like that Greg Sherwood here, along with, of course, the infamous Ross Benson.
Speaker 3:As I always say tally-ho, let's mow. It's the week that was the week that will be for March 25th, and I'm trying to do three things at once. I don't know if I can do this. You're going to do fine. Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1:So let's go down. We'll start off with our last week's winner. Our word of the week was police and seemed to be a very popular word. We had a lot of entries, but our winner was Mick Belker. So, mick, very appreciate you listening. You did not send your address in. So please send in your address so we can send you that $25 gift card to Hill Street Cafe and you can go get yourself a little bit of dinner one night, or lunch maybe, I wonder, or breakfast Easter's coming up, go up there for Easter, as I open on Easter, I would think, restaurants, you would think.
Speaker 1:Just check for it. You might get the card in time for Easter. I sent them out the day you sent me the address. Okay, also, last week we put out our first. You know, ross and I got together and you know we'd been talking and talking about this, about doing our, as Craig Durling used to call it. Every time we got into a subject he goes you guys are going down the rabbit hole again. Well, you know what we did it. We're doing a show, a series, called Down the Rabbit Hole and we're doing our first one on restaurants.
Speaker 2:In fact, here is the opening of it in case you want to take a little look at it here Down the screen there. It's time for another edition of Down the Rabbit Hole, where the staff of my Burbank Talks, discusses topics from Burbank's past or dives deep into the history of the city.
Speaker 1:Now let's see what's on the agenda today as we join our show. Hello, and there we go. So that's our Down the Rabbit Hole show. We did it on restaurants and we didn't know how far we would get, and we got through A through L on part one. That's why you'll see part one on there and it's on YouTube right now. You should check it out. Very popular too.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, we started A through L and I'm dumbfounded by the number of restaurants that we passed up.
Speaker 1:We missed a lot of restaurants. People, in a nice way, are letting us know and we want you to let us know, because we're going to do part two, which is restaurants from M through Z, and then we're going to do part three, the restaurants we missed.
Speaker 3:It was going to be longer than the other one for all we know I'll tell you you start thinking about restaurants that have come and gone in this city.
Speaker 1:Gotta, we've had a whole mess so and a lot of people you know had a restaurant that they really liked a lot. That maybe wasn't on our radar and but they remember me from growing up or something and uh, but it's a very popular series. Uh, we put a lot of work into it. Uh, if you watch the video, you'll see a lot of old restaurants on there. We found some old and stuff, even through a 1950s video on there which showed the old configuration of the Riverside-Alameda intersection all the way up through Bob's, ihop and King's Arms.
Speaker 3:That was a good one showing that video. You know, going through that list I could smell the restaurants. When we came up with a couple, like you know, or the salad bar marie calendars we haven't gotten to m's, but you know, you think of, you know the different. I hop, you walk in there and you smell pancakes, yeah, you know. Or you walk into certain places and you get hungry for that certain burger or whatever they had there.
Speaker 1:In fact, you found a great picture of Clint's, which will include probably our third show, as we go back and talk about that, you know. So you know that's probably the only picture existence of Clint's.
Speaker 3:That was an oldie and that was the second owner Clint. Yes, the first one. The guy was, he was pretty, wasn't very humorous?
Speaker 1:No, he wasn't. He was kind of, you know, a little chubby guy A little rough. Yeah, he was grumpy.
Speaker 3:You should have called it grumpy, not Clint's maybe, but he did know how to make a darn good burger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what. That's what counted, that's right. I wasn't going there first person, I was going there first burger, that's right.
Speaker 3:And there's, you know, different places around town. They had their different feel Like what was the one on? Hollywood Way oh there you go, how's the memory doing. It was where, next to Porto's now, the steak place. You walk in there and you can smell that char grill, you know, and it's just making me hungry. Let's move on.
Speaker 1:Let's move on. I was thinking that was something else. Okay, let's move on to last Tuesday.
Speaker 3:We actually you attended a ribbon cutting at Providence St Joseph Medical Center for their new urgent care. So yeah that you know they've been open since October, but they did the ribbon cutting this last week. I guess they wanted to get all the bugs worked out. This is right next to across the street or across the alleyway, because it's on St Joe's property of the ER and the purpose of the urgent care is there's so many people that go into the emergency ward for a splinter or a cut that just needs a lot, you know.
Speaker 1:And why wait four hours in an emergency waiting room when you can go into urgent care and it's a lot cheaper?
Speaker 3:A lot cheaper, and that's what I learned. Even though it says Providence St Joe's, it's run by FACI Medical Group, not Providence, but that is a division of Providence now, I guess. So they had a ribbon cutting, the mayor was there and a lot of Providence now, I guess. So they had a ribbon cutting, the mayor was there and a lot of officials they had some great snacks.
Speaker 1:We like snacks, always like snacks.
Speaker 3:They had the best bagels and a nice little display. A layout Got some tours, Maybe 30 or 40 people there at 8.30 in the morning.
Speaker 1:What's it like when there's one digit on the clock? I wouldn't.
Speaker 3:You know me, I'm up all night, yeah, but you have one digit on the clock all night too. So when I had to get up, get showered and shaved and comb my hair oh that's right, I got no hair to comb.
Speaker 1:So Well, and then that night there was a council meeting Not a whole lot going on. There was a, you know people were. I think the biggest thing on the agenda that really I paid attention to was they approved a five year economic development strategy plan and, of course, once again we had an outside firm do it and they sounded like they knew what they were doing. They knew the city. We would love to get a copy of that report because the council kept saying what a great paper. It was printed on a glossy, fancy paper and I guess if you give a company $50,000 to make a report, they're going to give you a fancy paper. So I'd love to see a copy. I watched it on the agenda on the website.
Speaker 1:I found, you know, and we touched on it last week shortly, but I found things on it. You know they want to support small businesses and they want to support you know things that you know and have a concierge system. And I'm thinking to myself yeah, you guys want to do that, but are you going to do it? Number one are you going to hire the people you need to hire to have them in place? And you know, as an example, you and I were both talking the other day. You know we're talking about restaurants. We're talking about the old Tin Horn Flats location which is going to be called Magnolia House now, once it's. But the guy bought it a year ago and he still can't get it open. Now how is that helping a small business in Burbank? You know he's been, I guess, fighting, you know all kinds of stuff on there and trying to get things through and inspections and whatever it is.
Speaker 3:Well, you kind of wonder, I know. You know it takes long to do inspections. Or do any work on the pizza place right down the street that opened down there. Or Bagel Boss. They said they were going to be open March. Now it's April. You kind of wonder. But it was a good read. It's a long read. People wonder what I do at night.
Speaker 3:I read that whole plan. It was very, very well written and you don't realize. Some of the things that they have in it is, you know, they think down the road. It's a five-year plan. Nobody knew the pandemic was going to hit us. But now you think of things that are being moved into Burbank the Warner Brothers 21st Century Project, all the people that will be in that building, the new.
Speaker 3:Or Bob Hope you know that just got approved. Thanks for the memories. Thanks for the memories. Exactly. We'll have to find Bob. It's funny you say that because I just found a picture Is Bob Hope? Bob Hope up at the Bowl at one of the shows up at the Bowl, mr Hope himself. So it's a good read. And if you wonder how well the city is kind of planned, you know mary hamzoian who runs our uh and she's the one that gave the report. Um, quite well written and you can learn a lot about our city and it's financially, or physically yeah, financially, uh, kind of laid out what they expect and it's just amazing. Bed tax there's a lot of beds, what did you call it? Butts and beds, butts and the beds.
Speaker 1:Well, that raises a lot of money? Yes, it does, and that's why they're very happy. A lot more hotel rooms on the horizon. In fact, we have the Cambria Hotel opening up the grand opening next week.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the project that we talked about, I think, last week behind the Marriott for a couple hundred rooms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 300 rooms or something like that.
Speaker 3:Those are butts in beds. Well, I have heard more than once that people prefer to stay in Burbank. The crime rate in Hollywood, the crime in, you know, la people like Burbank.
Speaker 1:You know, people just don't realize. They say, oh no, I want to stay in Hollywood. They don't realize that they don't really make many movies in Hollywood. Actually, the city of Hollywood it's more of a front. They make the movies here in Burbank. We are the media capital of the world. We are, and right next to Universal City, which is unincorporated, not a city, of course it's a city, but it's unincorporated. Los Angeles does not control Universal City, right, la County, la city right, la county, la county does.
Speaker 3:But in that report they talk about you know the, the amount of people that are coming out here to visit, yeah, well, the olympics coming four years. Well, it's funny you say that because my I was going to ask a couple of our council members when are we going to start talking about the olympics in four years? But in three and a half Are we doing anything special in Burbank for the Olympics? You know that's a good point.
Speaker 1:So, anyhow, they passed the plan. Everybody was happy. We want to see a copy of that nice glossy report so we can gaze at it. Wednesday, uh-oh, wednesday, uh-oh, the Uh-oh. The police commission met. Who? The police commission? Yes, this is my last time I'm going to get into the police commission, because you know what I've had it? I'm frustrated. It just doesn't do any good. Nobody cares, it's just a front for a PR wing of the police department. The city can say they have a police commission that does absolutely nothing. But they brought up on their agenda six months after it happened about encryption of the radios, and so it's important to us as news media. And so I wrote a letter to the commission and I go to send it on Monday Well, actually over the weekend, and I couldn't find anywhere to send it. So Monday morning I contacted the city clerk's office and I talked to Kim Clark. Kim, I can't find it, because you know you send an email to the council. There's an address and it goes to all the council members. Right, kim, I can't find an address to send this letter to the police commission and she goes oh no, you gotta send it to the liaison. I go. And who is that. Well, that's the police department and I'm going to myself. So I have a letter that's critical of the way the police department is doing their policy and I'm not going to send that letter to the police department, so they would give it to their commissioners. Well, I sent it.
Speaker 1:On Monday, I went and watched the meeting and, of course, they were as tweedledee and tweedledum as always. We talked about the subject and whatever the PD told them oh, that's okay, that's great, oh, yeah, yeah. And then they said at the end of the presentation they go for the record. We want you know, we want you to know that, uh, craig sherwood from my burbank sent in a, a letter, and about this subject. They go oh well, we never received that. They go yeah, well, we put it in your you know, we made some copies of it. It's out front and they go well, we can't comment on because none of us have read it.
Speaker 1:And I'm going so two days. They could. What'm going? So two days. They couldn't what. They couldn't email them the letter, they couldn't give them any kind of a package that had information in it. No, so the letter I wrote, meaningless, and they basically just once again where's the rug? Pick it up, throw it under the rug and it just everything's great now. So you know what I'm done. I complain constantly about that commission. I'm done complaining about it.
Speaker 1:I'm done talking about it, I've had it. You know what? Let them have their PR wing. You know, that's all it is. It's a PR wing for the police department. Whatever they say is hunky-dory and fantastic.
Speaker 3:Well, I watched the meeting also and I played it back once. What got me is you know, it was still brought up. Oh, and the fire department going to encryption? No, firefighters, they've learned you kill firefighters with radios that are on different channels and can't talk to people.
Speaker 1:They didn't say that. No, they didn't but that's the reason. No, they didn't say that. Yeah, that's the reason. They've learned you and I know that, but they didn't explain that to the commission.
Speaker 3:You know the other thing I would like to see. They really pointed oh, doj wrote us a letter. I want to see that letter. I wrote us a letter, I want to see that letter. I want to see a copy of a letter that they wrote saying you have to encrypt all your channels. Correct, they did that. Burbank has been encrypted for five to ten years.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so they didn't need to encrypt anything, but they're using that as an excuse.
Speaker 3:Well, and like I said, what we have learned, that you pointed it out if they have an emergency on one channel and another emergency goes out, they go to three and we can't hear what they're talking about. And what I've learned is listening to it. They go to three all the time and, by the way, all the parking control works on three, but we can't hear anything on three.
Speaker 1:The one thing I did say in the letter, which I really hope to God never happens, but I said you've got two major train tracks in Burbank, you've got two major freeways going through Burbank, you've got an airport in the city and you have two studios that could be targets. Lord knows, if something were to ever happen here, a plane crash or anything happen here in Burbank, how do you know that all these agencies can now talk to each other? You know, right now it's all great because nothing's ever happened. But wait till it happens and we'll see what I don't know. So I gotta say they did say that there is a senator, a California state senator, working on a bill to allow the news media to hear live broadcasts.
Speaker 3:So we will see how that passes through the he had written a bill before and it didn't pass and he's reworking it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm sure every police department was against it. The police department I don't care what they say about transparency. They love not telling you things. They love it. We sent an email in about a crime last week. Yeah, it was last week. We still haven't heard anything. Oh, detectives, we'll talk to the detectives and let you know later. What does that mean? We want to know now.
Speaker 3:Well, that's the thing People don't understand. News happens 24 hours a day. It used to be. The paper would come out at 5 o'clock.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So you had you know the whole next day to.
Speaker 1:Or the leader would come out once a week. Exactly, you'd have two or three days, and it wouldn't matter.
Speaker 3:We have people well. We have over 51,000 Twitter followers that want to know what's going on in Burbank. Now A good example the other night I cover the night shift for my Burbank and a UPS plane.
Speaker 1:I heard that on. I saw that on Twitter People were.
Speaker 3:Everybody was wondering what was going on with that Well, at four o'clock in the morning when you hear a jet up on the hill, it sounds like it's coming in your back door and out your front and I'm going who the heck was that? So I look on radar, flight radar and it's a heavy, an Airbus 300. Right, that missed approach.
Speaker 1:And basically aircraft come in across the Valley and land at the airport going West to east. Do you know what runway number that is? Offhand Runway 8. So they come in runway 8.
Speaker 3:That is what's known as the ILS instrument landing.
Speaker 1:They hook up to it Right and for some reason, whatever the situation is, if they've got a wind gust or whatever it is, they need to do a go around. Well, they throttle up and they run right over the airport, over. The situation is, if they've got a wind gust or whatever it is, they need to do a go-around. Well, they throttle up and they run right over the airport, over the runway, and go back up in the air and circle around. Well, when they do that, they're coming right over the hill area of Burbank, you know, over Glen Oaks and all that. Yeah, Especially that big UPS plane I can hear those.
Speaker 3:It's called a heavy that's why they are known as heavies when you listen to radar or watch radar. And he took off. He went over, you know, and went out over Calabasas again, right Lined up for ILS runway 8. Southern California approach told him, you're clear, for he said let's try this again Second time's a charm, but I'll tell you I was awake.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people on our Twitter said Well, especially if you're not used to hearing a jet engine, right, then all of a sudden you're hearing one. You're going, what's going on here? So, anyhow, yeah, that's yeah, but that's what we do. We listen to the radios, we're listening for everything that goes on, because you know what People have questions, people want to know what's going on in their neighborhood. People want to go to the city and they turn to us.
Speaker 3:And if we can't get information, that's why I listen to air frequency. The helicopters talk back and forth, the law enforcement, everybody transitions the I-5. The new ships start off at about 4 30. You I hear channel 4 going up, yeah, from whiteman, then channel 7 from van eyes. I watch them all you know, and they talk to the burbank tower. But I'll tell you there's you get lot more information. There's stuff going along the freeway, CHP are chasing people all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was on a pursuit the other day and I just said if you want to know where it is, look out your window and you'll see four or five helicopters above it.
Speaker 3:That crazy one. For what? Two hours, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:Chp's not encrypted? No, I guess not, right, we can hear them live that, wait, wait, you can see HP's not encrypted. No, I guess not, right, we can hear them live, that's right. And they go into LAPD and they're oh wait, lapd's not encrypted. Oh, okay, yeah, according to our commission, though, everybody except for four departments is encrypted. I guess it's only the four major departments that aren't encrypted.
Speaker 1:Well, last week you were telling me you were listening to one of the LAPD channels and it was. You heard SWAT calling it all out, the whole operation. You know it was funny. They were talking in the police commission meeting. They gave the report and they said they arrested somebody last month and they found that they had the scanner app in their phone. I go, well, what would they have done with that scanner app? Because you couldn't listen to anything, you couldn't listen to it. So just because you had the scanner app, because you couldn't listen to anything, you couldn't listen to it. So just because you have the scanner app, I mean they're trying to make it look like that was the whole reason. I mean they came with four circumstances in the last two years, I don't know. Okay, I'm done with the police commission. I'm done complaining about it. Good luck to all those people who serve on it, or all those people who are the yes men on it, and, uh, we'll go from there and then moving into, we had a real call yes, thursday.
Speaker 1:And of course, you know, once again, the reason that we I was able to hear this call was I'm listening on the fire radio and I hear um respond to vic roy park for a stabbing and they asked for two ras. You know rescue atmosphere, the paramedics, that's pretty. Roy Park for a stabbing and they asked for two RAs. Rescue admins, the paramedic squad.
Speaker 3:That's pretty unusual.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for a stabbing I'm going. Oh, what's going on. So I put a tweet out and I said but you have to wait 15 minutes for us to find out from police what happened. And 15 minutes later we heard that there was an officer working a detail in the area for a movie job, not an off-due. There was an officer working at Detail in the area for a movie job and I guess he saw some woman right here. She was naked, running down the street chasing a guy with a bloody knife who had multiple stab wounds in his back or something, and they wound up at Victoria Park.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as I went out there afterwards and watched some other news stations' aerial footage, she ran out of a house right across from the park. The funny thing is where he was working the movie job, they were shooting a scene of a stabbing. That's hilarious, you know just.
Speaker 1:But if you think about it, is that called art imitating life or life imitating art.
Speaker 3:That officer being there probably saved that man's life, because if you think about the delay and if Burbank paramedics were busy that hour they're usually quite busy, you know and that turned into a big. They arrested her for attempt murder.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure the DA probably gave her a ticket and said go home and don't do that again.
Speaker 3:You kind of wonder.
Speaker 1:That did not happen. She was.
Speaker 3:Well, but listen to the neighbors, they're just shocked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the man went in for surgery. Last I heard he was in serious but stable condition, going to survive. But holy cow. And that just shows you that you never know when it's going to happen or where it's going to happen. And we're talking this is probably what 1 o'clock in the afternoon or something, or 1130. I'm sorry, it's 1130 in the morning, so 1130 in the morning and somebody's chasing somebody down the street with a knife. It's not like at 2 in the morning. Things can happen whenever they happen.
Speaker 3:Well, and people don't. That's why I listen all night long. The same night, late in the morning, 3.30 in the morning, some guys tried to drive into Gun World. If you go by Gun World today, it's all boarded up and people are asking what happened.
Speaker 1:And I believe that we did send an email in to find out ourselves and we're told we don't know anything. Detectives are working on it. Now I I'm not sure how the public learns anything that way or what you know. All we want to know is you know, was anything stolen? Did they get?
Speaker 3:well, they never got in they they could not breach the place. It was a stolen car from downey. The ignition was punched. It was an Kia, excuse me, I don't know how anybody. Well, the two dummies that tried to do the burglary. They don't know that the city required Gun World to put bollards in front of all their stores. They say what a bollard is? It's a concrete pole that protects. Plus, they have a steel door. The place is pretty well armored, you know, but they couldn't get in.
Speaker 1:That's not the other, and that's one of the things they're going to pass with the new regulations is what kind of security they're going to do on the different gun stores. So hopefully they come up with something that's going to help you know all the gun stores and keep them from. You know, because that's how it is nowadays. You know, you steal a car, you find a business, you ram the car into the business, you steal all the stuff. You know what. It doesn't matter if you have a scanner up on your phone or not, you know. That has nothing to do with it. So you know crime still happens and, by the way, they did not present it.
Speaker 1:We asked the commission to ask the police what the crime stats were in the last six months since they went encrypted. And, of course, here I go again. There's that rabbit hole. Okay, friday, and once again, if you're checking out our different podcasts, my Burbank uses an accounting firm called CBIS Data Tax. Now, if you want to know what CBIS stands for, so do they, because they don't know either, don't you have to listen to the podcast?
Speaker 1:Listen to the podcast and she'll tell you the story. But it's interesting. They've been there for a long time but nobody can remember why it was called CBIS Data Tax. But there are accountants at my Burbank. It's a local Burbank firm.
Speaker 3:Well, right there at Hollywood Way in Alameda, I have driven by that building. In fact, I know somebody else that has two different offices in that building. I didn't know they were there. They've been in Burbank for many years it's 85, I think it was. You know, and how many times do you go through that intersection and you don't know?
Speaker 1:I know there's a farmer's guy, but they'll talk about, you know, because it's tax season and there's things you need to know about taxes, there's things you need to know what's going on, and it's a good, a good. Um, yeah, it's such a good podcast, you know, I recommend you use them if you need an accountant, but they talk about a lot of things, so give that a listen. Um, the Took Lake chamber of commerce, funny enough, had a mixer that same day in the same building that they, uh, the accounting firm has. So, um, that was a very busy place for them. I'll read the podcast here. But they went back to their office and went down to a couple, a couple of doors and there was a two-legged mixer and you went to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I covered that for the I shoot for the Toluca Lake Chamber and they had like 35 to 50 people in there. There was, you know, they have several rooms, there's an audio place upstairs and that's who hosted it, and they had some new members join.
Speaker 1:I like that the Tuka Lake Chamber comes to Burbank for their mixer.
Speaker 3:Well, that still covers part of the Tuka Lake.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, that's kind of it for last week. We're going to take a break here for a quick word.
Speaker 4:And we will be back with you in a couple minutes. We will help you get set up on podcast platforms and start a YouTube channel, and we can edit your productions to make you look and sound your very best. If you are interested, please drop us an email at studiorentalsatmyburbankcom. That's studiorentalsatmyburbankcom, and we will get back to you. Now back to our show.
Speaker 1:Okay, and we're back. Greg Sheward, here with you once again with Ross Benson does that mean today's Monday?
Speaker 1:all day and have it tonight. Let's get on with what's going on. So today the Planning Commission they met at 6 o'clock and one of the things they were going to do is talk about getting a conditional use permit, which I'm finding. Why would this place need a conditional use permit, but there's a pet grooming shop? It's a pet shop with grooming services that wants to go into 325 North 1st Street in the new development there, I guess the bottom floor is going to be retail, but they need a conditional use permit to put a pet store in there, which I'm thinking. You know, I'd rather see a conditional use permit for gun shops more than a pet store.
Speaker 3:But I think the conditional use permit because it is a grooming type underneath residential.
Speaker 1:So if a barbershop goes in there, they have to have a traditional use permit.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure what the requirement is. I'm definitely going to read the report and look at tonight's meeting when we I just found that was kind of strange and needed a. In fact, I'm curious how many people have driven down that street with those now retail places open across from Barney's Beanery I think it is Barney's Beanery, yep, and if you haven't driven down that block and a lot of people. I live on the hill. I come east and west, either go up Magnolia, go up Olive. What's the reason for?
Speaker 1:me. Well, if you want to go south, you might as well take First Street now, because you can't take San Fernando.
Speaker 3:Well, that's it. But there's a whole mess of businesses in those shops and that was the reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's good. That's part of our redevelopment down there. I'm sure they started bringing the units out too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, I've seen it. Wow, are they being occupied? I believe so because I see lights on at night.
Speaker 1:Well, sometimes lights are on in nobody's home. So they also had a request to get a conditional use permit under CUP to allow the sale of beer, wine and distilled spirits for off-site consumption. In other words, you can go in and buy them and on-site tastings at a Genie store. They're going to be located at 140 South Glen Oaks, that's there on the east side of the street between Olive and Angelino. It's a little building. Last I looked at it on Google Maps there was no business there, it was just a boarded up place. So maybe they're putting things together by now. Google Maps is sometimes very slow. In fact I did a Google Maps of the Warner Brothers Ranch and all the sets were still there, that's moving along.
Speaker 1:So hopefully they you know looks like they could if you live in that area can have a little, a little retail store there, which is nice. So Tuesday night tomorrow that would be tomorrow city council is going to meet again in the closed session. I find that in closed session I guess they've got some employment problems, because they have one case in the closed session. It is Argueta versus the city of Burbank, another one is Bernard versus the city of Burbank and a third one is Jesse Vasquez versus the city of Burbank. All about employment complaint cases.
Speaker 1:So what's that going to come? Oops, we'd like to know what went wrong and how much are we going to have to pay for that as citizens? Once again, they will not tell us. I guess we'll have to go find court records and find out ourselves. And they're going to have a talk about the Guardians of the Pines versus the city of Burbank. That's the group that sued the city to stop the removal of all the pine trees in Niagara. So I'm not sure. Once again, and I guarantee you they're going to say nothing to report.
Speaker 3:Well, they can't talk about it either.
Speaker 1:They're not going to make a decision. I'll give you an example Last week on the closed session was about the city attorney's contract. Right, no reportable action, but yet it's on the agenda this week. So they didn't come up with an agreement last week. Is it what they're going to do, how they're going to pay him? Is that they didn't agree to that last and closed session, you know. So something did happen in closed session. They just didn't. You know, I guess their definition of nothing happening, well, it's going to go on a future agenda, well, okay, but that's not. You know, you're supposed to see if the council took any action that night, and I guess they did. They approved, you know, they approved the city attorney's new contract for a 7% raise and I'm more than happy with that. He does a great job. I mean, I like our city attorney, I think he does a great job, but he's very protective. He's very protective.
Speaker 3:Well, I think now, with what I think he's encrypted, I think what they, you know how he doesn't have to report on stuff and say how they. I just don't understand.
Speaker 1:I don't get you know. It's like it's a well, here's a little game we have to play and we're going to play it Right right.
Speaker 1:Here's the. There's also another consent agenda. They're going to approve a right of entry agreement with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association to provide shuttle services at the downtown Burbank Metro Station, which is really nice. That means if you need to go to the Hollywood Bowl to see a show, you can park at the Burbank Metro Station downtown and there's going to be bus service to take you to the Hollywood Bowl. So you have to deal with all that traffic and all that waiting. And the nice thing about it is during the Hollywood Bowl season they're going to pay the city $4,500 a month to have the service there.
Speaker 3:So it's a win-win for everybody. They discussed this last year and they did it last year and it worked well. I remember parking in the zoo and getting on shuttles going to Hollywood Bowl.
Speaker 1:I once parked at the old Universal Studios. They built downstages there, correct, but now that's the best they can do. Nobody's going to use the MetroLink at night anyway, so why not? Okay? So the city council is also going to vote to approve a contract for the annual sidewalk repair, and we have a new feature this week on our show where we can actually show you the zones that they're going to do. So are we looking at them? We are, okay. So those are zones 15, 16, 17, 18. The Public Works Department puts different zones together in the city and I think these are the final zones, or maybe not. I'm not sure how high they go up to, but every year they use different zones and do repairs like sidewalk repairs in those zones, and next year they'll pick a different four or five zones.
Speaker 3:Well, it's funny you talk about that because driving here I I noticed I said to Matty wow, they're going to redo all these sidewalks because they were. There's red paint and yellow paint, so they are doing quite a bit of I guess that's CBDG funds, that they're probably from last year.
Speaker 1:Well see, that's part of your tax money. Repaving the roads and fixing sidewalks?
Speaker 3:Well that's what keeps Burbank still? That's where it was Magnolia, where they took out tons of trees. Yeah, almost all those sidewalks are getting now replaced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, they had to because those trees were bringing up the cement Yep Concrete. Here's one. Here we go. Look at this. The next thing on the agenda is they're going to actually fix the world's most dangerous elevator. But get this.
Speaker 1:The elevator on the Oliver Road Pass, serving the Metrolink station, is 26 years old and, it says, one of the most heavily used within the city's elevator system inventory. So it's got a steel frame and all this stuff. So they need to fix the elevators. They're going to do here. They're going to, you know, reglaze the waterproofing elements that are deteriorated and no longer watertight. It says the system has reached the end of its useful life no kidding. No kidding, it requires modernization.
Speaker 1:So the project includes restoration of the elevator tower, waterproofing elements, building a stucco finish, a full roof removal and replacement, repairs and replacements to exterior tiles, stainless steel trim and other aesthetic improvements, as well as painting the one pedestrian stair tower to exterior tiles, stainless steel trim and other aesthetic improvements, as well as painting the one pedestrian stair tower. The work will start in May and be done by get this. It's going to take 11 months to do it, so it'll be done by April of 2025. And here's the kicker To fix the elevator or replace it is going to cost us, the good old taxpayers, $1,429,019. And that's far higher than the $900,000 they thought it was going to be and that's the lowest bid they could get so close to $1.5 million to fix the elevator at the Metrelink station.
Speaker 3:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:So they should put a sign on the front of the elevator, this elevator not saying out of service, this elevator out of date, Out of date 26 years, and the question is does that mean that elevator's going to be out of service for 11 months or is it still going to be usable while they're working on it? Because if it's out for 11 months, that means you've got to walk across the Olive Overpass and walk back under the bridge to get to the Metrolink station if you're coming from downtown Burbank.
Speaker 3:Unless they have you walk on the south side, and then there's that stairwell.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's a stairwell, yeah, but again for a handicapped person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those steps get real if you're going down, if you're on that wheelchair.
Speaker 1:You might have a four-wheel drive wheelchair. Yeah, exactly, oh, anyhow that, but at least that elevator is going to be fixed holy cow.
Speaker 3:You know what gets me about that. When you say you talk, they talk about the roof system. You remember with the police station, police and and fire headquarters right, how it leaked? Yes, because the roof was not done proper. Well, how?
Speaker 1:about how, about the fact they put? The windows in backwards, so just me gets hit it A city inspectors, let them put the windows in backwards at the police and fire headquarters. How much that costs to have that whole thing redone, because oh they went back. They sued that contract. Well, you know what? Those city inspectors who are stopping every business from opening up. If they would just have done their job properly there. I don't know if inspectors look that close at stuff.
Speaker 1:They sure do if you're a small business or if you're doing an ADU at your house.
Speaker 3:True.
Speaker 1:I had a friend who was putting an addition to his house and in his bathroom he had a electrical plug that was within six inches of where it should have been, toward water.
Speaker 3:They made him rip that whole wall out and change where the plug went well, that one I could understand, because some you have a kid in a bathtub and with a toy. Oh, let me plug it in.
Speaker 1:It was like it was five feet. It was five, four feet and a half inches and they went and hit and then there's six inches on it. It wasn't like it was right close to something, so it was just. I felt bad for the guy. They're also going to approve the city attorney's new contract. Joseph McDougal is going to get a 7% annual salary increase each year. They're not going to talk about it every year now. Every year he gets a 7% salary increase, but he's not allowed to get higher than the city managers pay, which I think makes sense. I mean, you know, city managers run the city.
Speaker 3:You know. But if you think about that and I remember when Amy was there they did a comparison of other cities Burbank, size Right, size Right Plus lawyers outside in the regular public, they're paid totally, I mean quite a bit less.
Speaker 1:Well, they need more lawyers too. I've got to tell you, you know, das make nothing. Maybe a DA should decide to get into city government instead. Now the big banana. Here comes the big banana now the big banana. Do we?
Speaker 3:have a graphic or a sound effect for a big banana.
Speaker 1:We probably should. I could have a Nope, that's all. You just have the gong.
Speaker 3:I think that one is perfect for getting everybody's attention because this one, this one, is amazing.
Speaker 1:Now, one thing a city council is supposed to do is protect the quality of life in a city and make the quality of life better for all citizens in the city, and they're going to be talking about what they call the BRT system, the bus rapid transit system that Metro wants to put in Burbank. They want to put a line in all the way from North Hollywood to Pasadena running through Burbank, and they really really want to take a lane of traffic away on Olive Avenue. In fact, once again, we've got our super-duper. We can show you a map of it. In fact, I'm not you a map of it. In fact, I'm not sure this map is showing very you can see, really you know the different routes they have on here, the different areas. Let me try to blow this up a little bit for you See if I can get this a little bit larger. If you are watching, at least you'll have an idea of what they're looking at here. So it wants to come off the freeway at Pass Avenue and then take that route and go up, and it has different routes on here too, which I'm trying to understand why the different routes are. But in one of these. They want you down Alameda, which I'm all for. Another one here is going to go right up Olive, right through the middle of the city. That means one lane of traffic, one empty lane for buses.
Speaker 1:Only now I wrote a little editorial. That's on our website and hopefully you would take a read of it. My take is this is that website and hopefully you would take a read of it. My take is this Is that I drove all of you want to throw something there on us.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, I see the footage and I drive that every day.
Speaker 1:I drove it the other day just to go. I drove it like 4.30 in the afternoon. I drove up Olive from going, just to go. I drove it at 4.30 in the afternoon. I drove up Olive from going eastbound and after I passed Buena Vista it started to really get thick. I think I stopped initially around Parrish with a signal at Verdugo and then the signal turned green and then I got up to about Orchard and had to stop again and wait for another signal and that was two lanes of traffic.
Speaker 3:Well, you know that was the error right there. See, it should have stopped at Keystone because you should have run into St Finbar and prayed you'd get the next mile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm going to tell you what If you put one lane in there, you're going to back traffic up, probably onto the barn bridge. I'm serious.
Speaker 3:Oh, I've driven Olive. When they do construction, yeah, and they shut down a lane, my Burbank might have to start doing traffic reports on what streets to go down. And here's the thing too.
Speaker 1:Who's going to want to drive down Olive in all that traffic to go use a business there? You know you got a business on Olive and all of a sudden now it's like I can't deal with it. I can't deal with all that traffic. I can't even get across the side streets. It's going to be chaos and this is what the city council has to decide on Tuesday night is do they want to have? Give Metro a lane Now? I don't want people to think I'm not for public transit and green energy and saving cars and everything else. That's not what we're discussing here. It's a quality of life issue and it's an unproven concept. I don't know how many people and I'm not sure how often the buses are going to run, if they're going to run every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes and a bus holds 40 or 50 people.
Speaker 3:I thought I read in the report 50 people.
Speaker 1:That's it, I thought.
Speaker 3:I read in the report every 15. 15. Okay.
Speaker 1:So if the bus is running at those times, that means it's a lot of empty thing. Now we're not against it, but you've got to show me that there's an interest in that route by riders. I say this You've got to show me that there's an interest in that route by riders. I say this you've got to fill a bus 75% full for it to be a proven concept. It's like a Burbank bus now and you've got two people in it. I mean, yeah, a Burbank bus can now use that route if they wanted to, with all two people in it.
Speaker 3:The Burbank limousine bus. As I understand, the fire department can use it for emergencies. Bicycles can use it. I did read in there somewhere that it's allowed for bicycles. But what gets me about that is this if they put that in, is it 24 hours, Meaning at 3 in the morning? Can you go in either lane or are you restricted to the one lane?
Speaker 1:still, I'll say it's about bicycles. We like bicycle lanes, but Verdugo has a dedicated bicycle lane. And let's say I said, how many bicycles do we really see on Verdugo? Not that many. We do see them occasionally, maybe one an hour.
Speaker 3:So it's not like Actually, when I lived at Frederick and Verdugo, I could look out my kitchen window and if I was up early enough there are between maybe 7 and 9, you see quite a few bicycles, people going to school and so forth, and in the afternoon you see it going the other way at 4 o'clock.
Speaker 1:Okay, but that's just those hours in there. I'm not saying, once again, not against bicycles, but there is bike lanes on Verdugo plus on Chandler. To me the bicycle lanes is not a big seller on the Olive Project, it's just the quality of life it's going to create. Burbank is a small city in a big metro area and Olive is our main street. It's our to create. Burbank is a small city in a big metro area and Olive is our main street. It's our main street in the city. In fact, when they put Burbank together and they started putting addresses out, if you really notice, every address that goes south of Olive is a south address. So South Parish, south Reese, whatever it is, every address on the north side of Olive is a north address. Olive separates north and south in the city of Burbank the way the I-5 freeway separates east and west, and that's our main street, that's our main drag in Burbank.
Speaker 1:Now you know I've been looking at this too and I'm thinking, okay, if it has to go off at Pass Avenue, why not go down Alameda? It's a residential area. It's got two lanes there. You can make one lane there into a bus lane Residential, so there's more people who have access to the bus that way. Make a left on Victory, go up to Olive, make the right on Olive. And here's where, once again, they want to have the bus stop at Olive and Lake for the Metrolink station. Why not have the bus go under the Olive overpass, let people off and instead of going back on the overpass up to Glen Oaks, go down Front Street down to Alameda. Make a left on Alameda, go up to Glen Oaks. That way I think it'd be a lot less impact and plus, you get a station at the Metrelink station too, a drop-off point at the Metrelink station.
Speaker 1:But this project, once again, they want to make it convenient for people. Then why is this project not going near Hollywood-Burbank Airport? Wouldn't that be a lot of people who need to take a bus to Pasadena and Glendale from the airport? Wouldn't that be a convenient thing for them? But I don't know how many people in North Hollywood need to go to Pasadena. I really don't. I just can't see that as a destination place.
Speaker 1:So I know that tomorrow at City Council, before the meeting, division, burbank is going to have a large protest out there trying to convince the City Council not to approve this. I've heard a couple now. Transportation Commission members are arranging a counter protest for the Council to support this, and that's fine. I have no problem with that. If they feel strongly about it, they should have it. Just because they're on a commission doesn't mean they shouldn't have an opinion. If they're residents of the city, absolutely they should have an opinion and be able to voice it.
Speaker 1:But I think this is going to be a huge hot topic tomorrow. I want to see how it goes and I'll tell you what. If you feel strongly about it, you can go to the council meeting and you can speak for three minutes during oral communications or watch the meeting at home, and they will open the phone lines to calls. Call in, let them know how you feel, because there needs to be a lot of support one way or another against this, and right now I have not heard much support in this whole thing. So, ross, what are your feelings and comments on this?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, if you're going to council tomorrow, I guarantee, because there's other hot things on the agenda you might not be able to get a seat in City Hall. They probably will put you in the rotunda and you know, because they limit and rotate you, they will will put you in the rotunda because they limit.
Speaker 1:They will call your name and give you time to come speak. They're not against people speaking.
Speaker 3:No, and people call in and so forth. It's a hot topic. I know all the businesses are going to be there. I mean, I've seen posts on social media. I've seen business owners ask for their customers to come support and let the council hear it. So tomorrow night's meeting, I have a feeling is going to be might be an all-nighter.
Speaker 1:You know they wanted Burbank. You know Burbank wanted them to say, okay, we're going to do this and you need to fix the yellow overpass for us and put a station up there so people can get to the Metrolink. And Metro says, no, we're not going to do that. And Metro also says you know, if we make improvements, if we judge that those parts of the pavement or whatever it is that we improve, need a new pavement or something anyway, well, we're going to ask you to pay us back. And it's like wait a second here.
Speaker 3:Did you read the agreement with the council that wording if the city objects to this or that or doesn't do this or that, if you don't turn your eggs over the right way, they can stop everything.
Speaker 1:Are they going to blackmail us? Okay, guess what? You get no more buses in the city of Burbank. Are they going to blackmail us with our tax money that we pay our half-cent sales tax on on different elections that we voted for, that you know? That's how this is funded. Metro is our tax money, through sales tax, that we have a right to.
Speaker 3:So my other question to that is and I know I've posed it to you if this doesn't work, will they go back to how it is today? Oops, sorry, well, it's only paint.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's only paint. So I say two things. Number one if you really want to do this, let's do two things. Number one and, by the way, they never have done a traffic count of how much traffic is on Olive, which I think is criminal in itself. They should have a traffic count of how many cars traverse Olive, both east and west, on a daily basis, even on an hourly basis. Okay, that should be, but that's not in their study whatsoever. But I say this Okay, that should be, but that's not in their study whatsoever. But I say this Number one if you're going to do this, let's make sure the buses are 75% full and you show that for two straight months or three straight months, the buses are going to be 75% full.
Speaker 1:Number two another thing we could try is let's rope off temporarily with cones or whatever, one lane for a week. Just use cones and close one lane of traffic for a week and see what happens. See what happens with traffic and if it becomes a cluster mess, then we need to once again. That's not the project we need. There's a lot of other streets in Burbank that can go down, going down all of our most heavily used street, our main street, and closing off lane of traffic all the way to Glen Oaks. I just, I'm sorry, I don't see it. If they want to have a mixed flow, where they put their buses along with traffic, fine, but until then I can't see dedicating an entire lane of traffic for something that's not proven in any way yet.
Speaker 3:At least that's my well, instead of pet peeve, that is a good rant, but it's also what's happening. We have gotten a ton of people that have commented to us. We've had letters to the editor. I've shot it. You know, for us long time, people that live here, you use all of it as a maiden thoroughfare we're not scared about change, we're not scared about the future.
Speaker 1:We're just saying this is not a good idea right now until you have Olive is a maiden thoroughfare. We're not scared about change, we're not scared about the future. We're just saying this is not a good idea right now until you have you know. If you were saying, look, we have buses and buses just full of people who just can't get through, Okay, I get it, you know. If they say, you know we're going to put a monorail system in through your city, Okay, I get it, you know, or something you know what's transportation going to be in 10 years? We don't know If we ever got those damn flying cars they promised us back in the 60s. It might even be a situation now.
Speaker 3:George Chesson, don't we have do-do-do-do? No, that's another one. Okay, but now is that for east and west bound or just for east bound? Oh, both ways. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:Hey, you have one lane of traffic and one lane is buses on each side, and then if you want to get to a business, you got to go across the bus lane and park at the curb and hopefully you can. I don't know, I don't get it. Burbank doesn't need this. This is not helping Burbank and Burbank citizens in any way. You know, I can't see how many people in Burbank need to travel to North Hollywood on this thing, even how many people in Burbank need to travel to Pasadena on a daily basis. You know, we get. We have 100,000 people in Burbank and that number goes up to about 240,000 every workday. That's that high, wow. So that's a lot of people in Burbank and that's a lot of cars in Burbank. So, once again, no traffic studies were done or anything.
Speaker 1:Okay, city Council, we're watching Calls in your court, remember? Quality of life is what you ran on. So think about how Burbank citizens want that. Well, let's move on. So that's the council meeting. Let's move on to Wednesday. The Burbank Cultural Arts Commission, the Beautification Subcommittee, is going to meet at 11 o'clock in the morning at the community services building and they're going to talk about Phase 7 of the Utility Box program. It's a very good program they run and Burbank has a box that we sponsored Hollywood Way in Magnolia. We go by and take a selfie with it.
Speaker 3:Southeast corner. And it does say you know, and I noticed, somebody graffitied it again. You're kidding. I'll have to call and see if they can get it. They'll fix it.
Speaker 1:Right by Crumble Cookies. Right yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3:Good reason for somebody to stop there. That or they could try the new pizza place right there. Yeah, that's open.
Speaker 1:That didn't take long to open, did it? No, it was a place before. The Senior Citizens Board is going to get together and meet at 1 o'clock at, not the Johnson Center, but the Tuttle Senior Center. Tuttle Senior Center, of course, is on Ontario Street between Victory and Pacific. It's right by where the fire department's training tower is and the baseball field there and all that and the hockey stadium and the whole thing. So, uh, tell us, there doesn't get a lot of love, but they're going to get the other going to talk about the programs that are offered there and everything else, and uh, it's a nice little center right there, but I don't know.
Speaker 3:You know a lot of people don't realize that. Uh, it gets used by people in that neighborhood quite a bit Right. But I remember we did some event years ago and we used that center.
Speaker 1:I think it was an election, no no, we used to use it with the fire department when they did their training or their yeah, with the Rescue exercises, right, and then they'd all go over there for lunch, right? Yeah, I remember doing that, yeah, it was a nice little facility, yep. And the Transportation Commission. So you get three meetings. That's okay, because all three meetings are different times, so you can go meet in the meeting, and the third one being the Transportation Commission, they're going to meet at 5 pm at the California Community Services Building. And here comes another one for you. Here comes another one for you, which I'm a little bit. I was very surprised when I started seeing this. We're going to talk about the, of course, the Burbank bus Ross. What's that mean?
Speaker 3:The Burbank bus. That is the word of the week.
Speaker 1:Word of the week and the word of the week, burbank bus. That is actually one word. Burbank bus is one word, although if you give us two words we'll still take it. So if you send an email to contest at myburbankcom and in the subject line you put Burbank Bus, what can they win?
Speaker 3:Ross, they can win a dinner or a gift certificate actually to Hill Street Cafe, and for that we'll also include them in something else I'm not sure what yet, but maybe our newsletter or something, but they'll get a certificate. All you got to do is mail MyBurbankTalks no, no, contest, contest, that's right At MyBburbankcom, and we will get you your gift card. And what was the word again, ross, it was Burbank Buzz. Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope we milked that cow for a while.
Speaker 3:Huh, okay so Just remember, the wheels on the bus go round and round.
Speaker 1:They're getting a report on this and I started looking at what they have Now. The city of Burbank, they say, expects to receive $7.4 million, which is mostly a half cent in sales tax money for their system, their transportation system, and that includes the Burbank bus system, fixed route, senior and disabled transit, a first street class, four bike lane which they're putting in and various street and bridge improvements throughout the city. The total budget for 23-24, fiscal year, which is July through June, is $9,990,000. So $10 million is the annual budget. That's a lot of money.
Speaker 1:Now they broke down the numbers and in fact we got our new fancy system here once again and let's zoom this up a little bit. And they show the ridership of Burbank Bus on here and you'll see that they have the pink route, the orange route and of course the green route is gone. No more green route. So the only other here is the pink and the orange routes and it shows total ridership between the two. So basically what they have here is the pink route averages 326 riders per day. I broke it down, I looked at the number for the month and then I divided it by 30 and it comes out to 326 a day. The orange line 160 per day. So basically that's less than 500 people a day, according to their figures, that take Burbank Bus. Now I got to tell you, when I look at Burbank Bus, whenever I see a Burbank Bus, they run every 15 minutes. I call them not Burbank Bus, burbank Limousines, because they're only carrying usually one person, maybe two. So I just don't see that as a incentive to.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, why do we have to bring you know what else? That bothers me, not my rant, but close to it. Ross and I have known each other for longer than the sun has come up, I think Anyhow years ago he goes. Why do we have this bus? Why don't we put trolleys in? And we could go, put trolleys in and run them up Magnolia and up Olive or Burbank up to the airport. We could run it in all kinds of different trolleys in different areas. And what we could do is we could go to our studios, because we're the media capital of the world, and we could say, hey, cartoon Network, why don't you make us a SpongeBob trolley? Hey, warner Brothers, why don't you make us a Superman trolley? Hey, disney, why don't you make us a Bugs Bunny trolley? And so on and so on. And I think these trolleys not only would get a lot more usage, but it'd. I think these trolleys not only would get a lot more usage but maybe a tourist attraction. People would want to come all over and say, hey, I got to ride a SpongeBob trolley or I got to run the Mickey Mouse trolley and do selfies and promote the city and everything else. And somehow one of our city council members that you had dinner with one time, bob Frutos, who we liked Bob, but he started talking to the council about it. Now the council says it was his idea. Well, council, it was not his idea. Ross was on him over and over and over him Years ago.
Speaker 1:Look at these Burbank buses we have now. Look how big they are. Why not have? If you want to continue the brewing bus route, then why don't you use smaller buses? Maybe they should hold 20 people instead of 50 people, because you don't have 50 people riding this bus. I don't need you to fill a bus up with 20 seats in it. I think it's time to rethink that and put the bus program in half and let's start adding trolleys, and if you start having the studios, sponsor a trolley once again. We're the media capital of the world.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what my thinking was. There was. We are the media capital of the world. We also have probably one of the biggest car converter people West Coast Customs housed right here in Burbank. Take an idea from Warner Brothers, like you said Roadrunner or Daffy Duck, they have a Cartoon Network or SpongeBob, nickelodeon and get a what are they running now? Natural gas or one of those and convert it. Get the money that we're dumping into this bus. Make our own buses, vehicles.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, I do have a sound effect. For a start, I forgot to put on here's our. There we go, there goes that bus, there goes that Burbank bus. But I think you know, if anything you know uses the buses that we use for senior pickup pretty much smaller buses Put those on the routes, maybe they'll be less expensive or whatever it is, run them less often. And let's um, let's figure that out, because I mean, I, just when I'm looking at the fact that we're going to spend, you know, five to seven million dollars on these buses and you know they say, well, you know it's money we're getting in from the county. Well, who funds the county? Don't you pay sales tax when you buy something at the store?
Speaker 3:Every time you go to any store, it's sales tax.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a half cent sales tax. That goes right to us for that.
Speaker 3:Didn't we do that a couple years ago? I mean, we've raised the amount of sales tax now.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Right over 10.
Speaker 1:We have Costco and all those places bringing a ton of money in.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's move on to when we're meeting. That night, too, water and Power is going to have a. It's not a meeting, it's a community meeting. I guess you would say Informational. Informational from 6.30 to 8 o'clock at the I keep wanting to say California at the community services building and having their final meeting to talk about changes to the rules for using water in Burbank. All residents and businesses are invited to voice their thoughts and give input. Now, in case you didn't know, right now we're on the stage. We're on only lets people water in the wintertime Saturdays only, and starting on April 1st, water in the wintertime Saturdays only, and starting on April 1st it goes to Tuesday and Saturday, twice a week. And, by the way, if you have your automatic sprinklers, shut them off this coming week. We're going to have a big rainstorm this coming weekend. You don't need to water while it's raining. Don't need to do it. You want to help save water? Okay, there you go. Turn them off for one week.
Speaker 3:Here you know but what I do see. People don't understand a lot of the city property Chandler Bike Path, the parks here in the media district, these flower beds, that's all. Recycled water, right? That's different than.
Speaker 1:Which does not apply to these rules and regulations, because it's recycled water.
Speaker 3:So people wonder why they water and it's raining out, and it's water that's recycled water, it's reused and in case you're wondering if you ever go around and you see hydrants that are painted purple.
Speaker 1:Purple is for the recycled water. It means recycled water, when blue means clean water. So that's how you can always tell the difference when you look at different plugs or anything else around the city. Okay, moving on, we move to Thursday. On Thursday, the Advisory Council on Disabilities is going to meet at 1.30 on Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. Um, wasn't there a TV show back in the day on channel 11 or something called zoom or something? Was that one? Uh?
Speaker 3:cartoon type.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good show or something, I don't know.
Speaker 3:We'll have to look that up on the red hole to show Uh and the I don't know.
Speaker 1:We'll have to look that up on the red hole to show. And the infrastructure oversight committee will meet at 6 o'clock and as of I wrote this up, they still had no agenda posted yet, but their agenda didn't need to be posted. I guess it was probably posted today. In fact I can check real fast because we have all this great technology now and the infrastructure board does have an agenda now and let's see what they're going to talk about here. They're going to talk about. They only have one thing on their meeting here and that's a proposed capital improvement project programs for 24-25 for the new fiscal year. So I'm sure that there's a ton of projects on there, which there always are. There's probably 60, 70 projects on there. You can go to the city's website and click on the infrastructure board and look at their agenda and look at all the projects going on. You will see that there are a lot of projects. I'm scrolling down right now and I'm seeing holy cow. We're talking a lot of projects, so, but that's good.
Speaker 1:The infrastructure board is basically some very smart people that the city council's appointed. A lot of them are experts in their fields and they really determine what needs to be fixed in Burbank, so they decide where the money should go and how much to be spent and all those things, and they do a pretty good job at it. So we like that. Well, I think I have nothing for Friday. In fact, I have a pretty open weekend next week too, so we're kind of down to just one thing, and that's one thing only, and of course that can only be. Ross's rant. Ross's rant. Ross's rant.
Speaker 2:I take a flame through to this place. Ross's Rant, ross's Rant, I'd take a flame through into this place.
Speaker 3:Me. What's up, doc? Wow, that must be for me Ross's Rant, that's it. Well, you know I it just gets me. I drive around this lovely community and why people think they can just get a new mattress and take their king-size mattress and throw it out on the sidewalk. Day alone I saw five. I pulled into Verdugo Park. Why would somebody take? Because illegal dumping. There's a mattress sitting next to the city trash dumpster.
Speaker 1:They put their Christmas tree there and they figure that's where the mattresses go to.
Speaker 3:You know San Fernando Road, you make that turn east in front of all the old Marlindo lanes. Always a mattress out there Going up Scott Road, you would think that if people are buying that many mattresses but I've seen trucks, you know, besides the city vehicles they take them and I guess they melt the metal down or whatever and they collect them, but it's an eyesore for our community. And then, well, tell people what they can do. All you got to do is that app on your phone my Burbank or not? My app on your phone 311? My Burbank or not. My Burbank, burbank 311.
Speaker 1:They wish they had the my Burbank name yeah.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:Glendale uses the my Glendale name.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they do. Yes. And the other rant that gets me is I'm noticing businesses are closing early now because nobody's in these office buildings. So restaurants close at 3 o'clock and I lately noticed several of them. Are we ever going to get back to these offices being fully staffed? That's what caused a couple of restaurants to go out. But you wonder, it just kind of gets me because you want to eat somewhere and you realize, oh, they're still on the COVID schedule.
Speaker 1:It's like Talleyrand they close after 3 to 5 or something 2 to 4, yeah, exactly. Something like that. They're closed for a couple hours in the afternoon. And once Warner Brothers built the Iceberg building. The two buildings on Alameda the big white building and the green building are pretty much empty now because all those people moved into the Iceberg building. So there's really, I believe that the white building that's there is still the tallest building in san francisco valley at least it was the 30 the concrete one is 39 3800 I'm thinking 30.
Speaker 1:No, I'm thinking the 3900 yeah, that is yeah.
Speaker 3:now I just saw the other day, oh, there's a guy that does a video around town and he was doing one near the triangle building and talking about the, the marquees. Those aren't warner brother buildings anymore, they're jeff worth buildings, so they're not occupied with Warner shows and so forth. But I'm told that Jeff Worth is working on putting something new up there. So those are my rants for the week. You know it's pet peeves that just kind of get me. I would love for our city to be clean and pretty and all that. When you see stuff like that mattresses you know if they were clean mattresses it'd be one thing. But man, oh, man Well that's it for me.
Speaker 1:That's it. Well, that's it for another week. Next Monday, we have a special announcement for everybody.
Speaker 3:Besides April Fool's Day. Well, yeah, no fooling.
Speaker 1:It's going to be somebody's birthday on Monday coming up. And also.
Speaker 3:I love birthdays.
Speaker 1:And also it becomes on. April 1st is the month that you can vote for my Burbank's best, and the ballots will be going up on Monday morning for that too. So Monday will be a big day for us and be a birthday celebration to talk about, and that's kind of about it. So it was nice of everybody to tune in. Sorry for our little break or whatever, but you know, hey, stuff happens.
Speaker 3:We had a couple of technical things going on.
Speaker 1:As they say, stuff happens.
Speaker 3:That's right, but we also had some new technology in use, yeah. We're trying to catch up to the city on their technology. Hopefully we'll see Mr Durling back soon.
Speaker 1:I wish we had Legend to work for us. You know, that's what I mean. If we had Legend. He doesn't even listen to this, though we were plugging Legend. He doesn't even listen to this, though we're plugging legend he doesn't even care, he's too busy. Yeah, he was just being a legend. Okay, that's it for Ross Benson.
Speaker 3:As they say, tally-ho, mally-mo Been a great show that was all, there you go.
Speaker 1:That even rhymed. Wow, this is Craig Sherwood saying goodbye. So long, and we'll talk to you next week.