myBurbank Talks
myBurbank Talks
The Week That Was and That Will Be - June 24
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Step back into the golden age of game shows with us as we reminisce about iconic moments from "Let's Make a Deal" and "Wheel of Fortune." Join Craig Sherwood, Ross Benson, and the returning Craig Durling as we celebrate the exciting news of Ryan Seacrest taking over hosting duties. We'll also share a hearty congratulations with Liz Kenny, our Hill Street Café gift card giveaway winner, and discuss the highlights of our recent "Ask the Mayor" show, including the Mayor's fascinating stories about his interactions with the First Lady of the United States.
In our vibrant community updates, we cover everything from nostalgic Prince Spaghetti commercials to the humorous side of the Mayor's tan lines. We recount the ribbon-cutting event at the Forward Fighting Club and suggest a fun twist on covering business closures. Our heartfelt tribute to Officer Tommy Pusl, a cherished Burbank figure, will pull at your heartstrings as we share memories of his impactful life and service. Plus, we announce Annie Markarian’s candidacy for the Burbank Board of Education Trustee Area 5 and navigate the new districting system for school board elections.
Stay tuned for the latest city council updates, including a new agreement with Disney for shuttle services, the Burbank Police Department’s adoption of body-worn cameras, and the implications of a proposed rent cap ordinance. We explore the whimsical arrival of the elephant parade in Burbank and significant changes within the Burbank Fire Department. Finally, we wrap up with essential summer safety tips to keep you and your loved ones safe during the hot weather. Don’t miss this episode brimming with humor, local insights, and community connections!
Burbank Talks
Speaker 1From 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 2Hello Burbank. Greg Shewitt here with you once again, along with, of course, ross Benson.
Speaker 3Hey, we're here for another show Tally-ho. Let's do a show, let's roll.
Speaker 2And making his return to the studio. Is there a drumroll? There is a drumroll for this, of course. There we go. Making his return to the studio is Craig.
Speaker 1Gerling. Hey everybody. Only because I locked myself out of my underground lair this afternoon.
Speaker 2There we go. Well, it's good to have you in the studio.
Speaker 3It's good to be back. I like the picture that's behind you too. There's no picture behind me this time, sorry.
Speaker 1People out there. If you prefer the picture, if you're watching the YouTube version of this, you can send me back to my bunker and we'll have a background picture, a different one, every time you let us know.
Speaker 2I can always chroma key into the one, into the black background there.
Speaker 1I could do the weather too. Oh, that's true, I could do the weather weather too.
Speaker 2Oh, that's true, you do the weather.
Speaker 1The occluded front arctic zephyr coming in from do you do a caramel? Wahoo I love caramel caramel on vanilla ice cream a caramel no, I thought that was salted caramel.
Speaker 2Oh caramel caramel by the sea, yeah you don't know what the caramel is?
Speaker 3huh oh, he's not that old, thank you okay, well, the caramelol merrill was.
Speaker 2It was a was on um, uh, let's make a deal. Yeah, and she used to always wave her hand and all those prizes. So people out.
Speaker 1Well, called the carol white's looking for a job now oh no, she's, she's sticking out, she's staying there.
Speaker 3Yeah, but I did not always so the wheel of fortune continues. Oh yeah, oh okay yeah, and did you hear who's going to host it? Not Chuck Woolery.
Speaker 2You know, I went to a taping of the Wheel of Fortune when Chuck Woolery was the host.
Speaker 1My grandmother loved Chuck Woolery.
Speaker 2Yeah, he was the host From his love connection days. The two and two days they taped here at NBC that's right and Hollywood Squares.
Speaker 1I did.
Speaker 2I made it to.
Speaker 1Wheel of Fortune. I went to Jeopardy. I went to a bunch of them over the years.
Speaker 3Well, here's one for you. Ryan Seacrest is going to do the hosting of that show.
Speaker 1Oh, and buried the lead here. Okay, pat.
Speaker 3Sajak Because he needs more work. Yeah, he doesn't work enough, yeah.
Speaker 1And pat say jack's daughter is one of the producers, I guess, on the show. Look at that.
Speaker 2Look at that. Well, let's get back to burbank.
Speaker 3Oh yeah well, it was kind of burbank.
Speaker 2Remember us, it was filmed here in burbank so who's walking around with a hill street?
Speaker 2uh cafe gift card last week, we we had a uh, a winner, of course. Well, of course we had a winner. We always have a winner, and and our winner was Liz Kenny. So, liz, you are the winner, and I do believe she sent in an address, gee. So I'm going to be sending out a $25 gift card to Hill Street Cafe to Liz, and we hope you enjoy it. Send us a picture of your order if you'd like, of your food.
Speaker 1Yeah, before you eat it, the before picture of your order Of your food. Yeah, before you eat it the before picture of your plate. But thanks for listening and thanks for submitting your answer too, and was the answer.
Speaker 3Am I correct to say artesian Artisan?
Speaker 1Artisan, now something the adjective is artisanal, but the person is an artisan, I believe.
Speaker 2Is an artist in.
Speaker 3Where was I?
Speaker 1I thought, it was a beer. This is one rare case where your thought process might actually make sense. It works in this one.
Speaker 2I thought it had to do with beer, artesian waters. No, that's Miller beer, it's the artesian waters of somewhere. Isn't that where it came from?
Speaker 1Well, we'll just. You guys need to stop drinking that, because there's something in that water.
Speaker 2Hey, I don't drink anymore. I don't drink any less either.
Speaker 1Well, thank you, liz, congratulations.
Speaker 2So, yeah, thank you, liz, I'll get a card to get out to you immediately, so we do appreciate it. So that, thank you, liz, that gift card is going to get out to you immediately. So we do appreciate it. So that brings us to the week that was, of course, last week. On Tuesday we recorded a new Ask the Mayor show. I got to tell you the truth, I was a little disappointed that we didn't get more questions. You know everybody wants to. You know, I call it the old bitch and moan session, you know? Oh, this is wrong. Okay, guess what. You called the old bitch and moan session? Oh, this is wrong. Okay, guess what. You can ask your questions, right, what is the question you want to ask? And we'll just use your first name, or no name, if you want, and ask a question that you'd want to have answered. And you know what? Not much response. Now, we only gave him one day to do because we kind of found out at the last second we were going to do the show.
Speaker 3That was a fantastic show. He it was. He got to go with flotus, which stands for I'm so good on these first lady of the united states for the fourth time and he shared about his experience being in the back of the bus right, we know anybody listening last week's show.
Speaker 1We heard all 12 minutes of you guys talking about what? Is the mayor hanging out with FLOTUS?
Speaker 2Well, you're talking about rent control. He talked about the homeless dumping situation. He talked about a lot of things.
Community Updates and Local Events
Speaker 1But here's the important thing People not sending in their questions. They don't need to wait until we ask them for questions for next month's show. We do it every month. You have all month to send in questions and guess what. You send in a question tomorrow. We do it every month. You have all month to send in questions and guess what. You send in a question tomorrow, we don't get to it, can't get to it on the July show. We might get to it on the August show. So send them in anytime you come up with that question and if it works into one of those shows we'll use it.
Speaker 3Absolutely.
Speaker 1Don't have to wait.
Speaker 3Yeah, that was a great show, great, great podcast. Look it up.
Speaker 2At my Burbank Talks Actually just on my Burbank on YouTube.
Speaker 3Oh, that too. How do you like that?
Speaker 1Or if you want to listen to the audio version, any of your podcast outlets, Any podcast platform I listen to it quite frequently automatically download it.
Speaker 3He's real good on camera and microphone and he answers those questions rather well. I mean, we talked about the homeless man that got dumped and he shared about questions rather well. I mean, uh, we talked about the uh, the homeless man that got dumped and he shared about that. He shared about allegedly things allegedly right allegedly and then him um getting to run into paul kakori accidentally, uh so forth, though. Take a listen, it's a great podcast.
Speaker 2Well, wednesday last week nothing.
Speaker 3Where's them crickets? Unless you're from Boston.
Speaker 1In Boston we had If you grew up in Boston, then you know Wednesday is Prince, spaghetti Day, prince.
Speaker 2Spaghetti.
Speaker 1Now is that every Wednesday, Every Wednesday in the south end or the north end of Boston?
Speaker 2It's kind of like Taco Tuesday here in.
Speaker 1California? It kind of is, but it's an old, old commercial we grew up watching, growing up in Boston, and if you look on YouTube, just put in Prince Spaghetti, prince Spaghetti Day, wednesday, prince Spaghetti Day, anthony, prince Spaghetti, whatever, you'll see the commercial.
Speaker 2Is Prince a A pasta brand. Oh, it's a brand, so it's not okay, A pasta brand.
Speaker 1Oh, it's a brand.
Speaker 2So it's not okay, prince Spaghetti Okay. So it's not like a restaurant called Prince, like Dunkin' Donuts or one of your Boston little things.
Speaker 1Not that I know of. I don't think they had a brick-and-mortar thing. I just know that they were a local brand of pastas and they had that commercial.
Speaker 3But when you say that Wednesday it was pretty quiet in town, I know the mayor.
Speaker 2Well, it's summertime, I think.
Speaker 3Exactly, and I know the city manager was off last week, I think our mayor whispered to us that he was going to go improve his tan lines or something. People can ask him about that. So but the week goes on, yep.
Speaker 2We won't send a crack reporter out to that one Thursday we had a ribbon cutting Ross that you went to to, so why don't you tell us about the ribbon cutting at, um uh, the forward fighting club?
Speaker 3well, this is. You know, if you've been around burbank ever, driven down glen oaks. This was the old 7-eleven on the west side of the street cypress and glen oaks. There's a little shopping center there. With that, someone's gone now. Huh, it's across street. It's on the east side now. Yeah, greg baron used to own that property and he raised their rent so they moved across street. They've been on the east side for a while, but it's a yeah, the forward fighting club, and I will tell you there were. There had to be over 100 kids I.
Speaker 2I thought greg baron was no longer with us he isn't, but he owned the property so how do you raise the?
Speaker 3rent. Oh, no, no, no, back when he was alive he did. It was something else. You know how many openings I've done there For the chamber. I think I've been there four or five times, so I hope this place makes it, and I suggested in our pre-production meeting that we need to start covering the closings of these places.
Speaker 1We cover all the openings we need to start covering the closings.
Speaker 2Yeah, who closed this week?
Speaker 3Well, so if you drive by and you see the, what do you call that?
Speaker 2So what we do is we cut the ribbon on our brand new, so we put a new ribbon up when it closes.
Speaker 1Stitch it back together.
Speaker 2Yeah, we just put another ribbon up. It's a stitching.
Speaker 3Well, this one has the balloon arch in front of the front door. We'll see if they're open as long as as the arch stays, but they have a boxing ring in there and there were tons of kids and, um, they had a lot of people. The food was like.
Speaker 1All I could say is oi vey and I don't want, I don't by my my joke, I don't want to uh give the idea that I'm foreshadowing uh forward fighting club to not succeed. I wish them all the success in the world if all those, those kids, you know.
Speaker 3But if you think about it during the summer, maybe that's why at the ribbon cutting there were 50 kids lined up. So we went inside and the guy has some real block boxing gloves and he's gotten some golden golden what do they call them in boxing?
Speaker 2You're bringing it up? I don't know.
Speaker 3This is your ribbon, cutting Don't you get a golden belt championship yeah, and he has them on display there and real boxing gloves, not fake ones, huh right.
Speaker 1Oh, they use real boxing gloves there I guess so, because I real, real boxing I guess.
Speaker 3So the mayor wasn't there, so I had camilla probably went on, and her and jamieieser were doing a couple of rounds, so we'll see. But yeah, that was last Thursday and then it was getting to be a hot day. Right afterwards there was a fire.
Speaker 1Really hot.
Speaker 3Right up the block and I you know for me to miss a fire, that's pretty unusual. But I saw the fire trucks, I heard them, I didn't know and you were already awake for this one, you know what a fire engine drove by and I said wait a minute, they're going the wrong way. It was engine 16. Where are they going that way? So I looked and fired seventh and magnolia four, four, port carport. So we got up there. I know this story was on my Burbankcom. Ashley Erickson wrote a little story, did a little video on it. Was this the day there were two, yes, two different fires? Yes, and good old your buddy John.
Speaker 2Your buddy, John John Orr.
Speaker 3No, oh, it was never my buddy. The battalion chief Owings in chief owings john owings, just john owings. How you doing, john? Well, it was funny because he was out there and he had just gotten back, like two hours earlier, from a strike team for four days. Oh no, sleep for four days and then you get two fires that's just wrong, yeah you know what we, you know what that that brings me.
Speaker 2We're off topic here, but I think it's something that I'd like to explain to people. Burbank sent out a task force for one of the recent brush fires and they're gone for several days and when they, you know of course they don't do it for free, they get paid to do this. I've heard so many people say, oh, your firefighters are making a half million dollars, you overpay them and let me tell you, you're not getting. The city of Burbank is number one not paying them when they go on a strike team. The state of California is, and the state of California doesn't sit there when they leave and say, oh, here's a check for you and a check for you and a check for you, for you and a check for you. They send the money owed to these people to the city of Burbank, which then pays them the money that is forwarded to them. So when you see the money that some of these firefighters are making, it's not because we're overpaying firefighters, it's because they're spending, sometimes two, three, four after a week fighting these brush fires and they're getting. You know they're paid for doing it and there are certain firefighters who always will volunteer for the task forces so, and they're not staying in hotels or anything they're not sleeping in their rigs in the
Speaker 2middle of nowhere yeah, they're probably laying on the ground or in a rig or something, and uh you remember, a couple years ago somebody one of the other publications went and put went online.
Speaker 3Online there's some webpage that you can look at everybody's salary and like the top two people in Burbank, one of them was a battalion chief and he happened to be away for three months, three months away from his family, up on like four different teams. He went from one to the other and I said to the battalion chief the other day, John Owens, I said so, this is the first year're only gone for a week. He said yeah, my team hasn't been called yet. If he gets called he's right up there in the command staff he's gone for Because every task force has to have a battalion chief with them.
Speaker 1Right, well, a strike team, which is usually five engines and a battalion chief. They go as a group with a battalion chief in charge of everybody. But Ross, just because you touched on it usually comes around, contract time is the cities will publish salaries of the highest paid public safety people, city employees and all that.
Speaker 2Well, it's on Transparent California.
Speaker 1It is, but what they hope that people take from that it's an inflated number, right? It's not what the person's taking home. It includes health benefit, pay, all kinds of long-term disability and state retirements, things like that. So it's every penny that the city has to, regardless of what their paycheck says, the city has to put into the system for them. Right, it is nowhere near what that person's taking home typically. Typically, if they're publishing those numbers just so you know.
Speaker 3And we've been very fortunate here in Burbank we haven't had huge brush fires. That requires because other agencies have come to Burbank. When the Burbank Mountains burned down many years ago, I saw agencies from up north down south. It's the same thing. They come to our aid and that's what the mutual aid system is. It's a great setup system.
Speaker 2Burbank paid for those firefighters Yep, so you know we paid in Likidia. They figure out how many firefighters or how much time and what part of the cities firefighters or how much time and what part of the cities. Anyway, I just want to bring that up because I keep hearing that from people who are ignorant and don't want to understand what the real story is.
Speaker 1Well, and you can explain it until you're blue in the face, but you said it. They don't want to understand, right? So it's not going to matter if it doesn't fit their argument.
Speaker 2But to the general person in the public. Right now at least they hear this explanation. So when they somebody does say it, they'll say yeah, maybe that guy it has a personal agenda with somebody.
Speaker 1Yeah, the brush was specifically when they're on working on brush fires and stuff. It's coming out of federal funds, state funds. You know all that that center set aside to fund the the fighting of these brush fires.
Speaker 3But and now these fires. It's a science. I mean the wind, the topography guys on the line, the prisoners that are working the lines, the air tankers, these helicopters. It's just they're trying to hit it fast, hit it hard and you know that's the way to work these fires now. So it's neat. Over the years I've been watching this what 30, 40 years?
Speaker 1And the technology is changing quite rapidly as we've come to learn and brush fire is year-round, or brush season is now year-round in the city. But on a somber note, we lost a longtime Burbank favorite Burbank police officer recently. Ross, you want to?
Speaker 3Yeah, I found out that the longtime Burbank police officer, recently Ross, you want to. Yeah, I found out that the long time Burbank police officer, tom Pussel, passed away last week. Great guy he was too.
Speaker 2Always a friendly guy.
Speaker 3I think everybody knew Tom Big burly guy.
Tribute to Tommy and Civitan Jamboree
Speaker 1Big guy Pussycat.
Speaker 3Yeah, he apparently, as I understand, went to St Finbar. I can't picture him as a little kid in St Finbar. Then he went out. He graduated from St Robert Bellarmine. He worked for the Parks Department. You mean Bell, jeff, bell, jeff Right, the elementary school. I'm sorry, they're across the street from each other, you can tell I don't go to that parish, the former Bell Jeff.
Speaker 1Right, and you're the only person in this room that could have corrected him right then. Just so you know for the record yeah, true, um.
Speaker 3So he uh went on to work for the burbank parks department and then uh became a police officer. He had done auto theft for years burglaries, um. He lost his life to cancer. Like I said, we will have the obit in myburbankcom with more information. Instead of a loo of flowers. The family wants some of the money to go to the Matt Provelka Scholarship Fund.
Speaker 1That's nice.
Speaker 3That's nice In memory of him. So that'll be nice and we'll have that obit and when the memorial is going to be in august at valley funeral home. So it was, you know, as soon as I heard that I I've been on thousands of calls with tom and he was just a great guy yeah, years ago when I was a burbank reserve, I worked with with tommy never in the same car with him.
Speaker 1I don't think I remember I don't know, both of us could go shoulder to shoulder in a, in a crown vic. But I remember tommy, sweetest guy in the world, that had hands the size of hubcaps Huge hands. I'd never want to take a swat from one of those Yep, but what a nice guy. He'll be missed.
Speaker 3Yeah, when you go over the six foot wall and you're already six foot, it was like one leg over.
Speaker 1He didn't go over the wall. The wall went under him.
Speaker 3Actually the wall. The wall went under him. I actually could go through the wall.
Speaker 1Yeah, we'll just go through or around the wall and everybody that I talked to the last couple of days have the same thoughts of tommy poosley. He just was.
Speaker 2I can't imagine anybody having anything bad to say yeah, yeah, and we're talking the other day about all these officers that we've kind of lost or retired the last five to ten years. These are all the guys that were really, were really. They always took care of us in the field. They were always nice to us, they were always, you know, considerate of us. They knew who we were, they were pros, yeah, and we don't really have that anymore. Now it's all become generic and vanilla, you know, and it's too bad.
Speaker 1Well, it's a different generation too. It's a different generation of people doing that job but doing that job. But you know listeners out there, uh, of the podcast that have spent a lot of time or grew up in Burbank oh, a lot of people know, know Tommy, or cross paths with, with with Tommy over the years, him helping you out, or something like that. He, he was around for a, for a long time.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, it was a bit on the website. Donation to something in his name.
Speaker 3It'll all be on there. We'll have the obit up within the next day or so.
Speaker 2And then on Thursday last year the only other thing that really happened we had our first announced school board candidate for us, annie Markarian, who announced her candidacy for the Burbank Board of Education Trustee Area 5. Now, if you want to know what Trustee Area 5 is, good luck, because you know what. Who announced her candidacy for the Burbank Board of Education trustee area five. Now, if you want to know what trustee area five is, good luck, because you know what. I went to the school district's website because you know they decided that they caved in to the threat of districts right away and they went to districts for their next election. So I go. Okay, fine, let me see where district five is Now wait, wait.
Speaker 3I'm just curious, Did you, did it require your Thomas brothers guide to find it had to?
Speaker 1dust off the old Thomas guide huh.
Speaker 2The funny part is, though I got the website, there's no districts on there. They didn't put the districts on their own website.
Speaker 1They don't even understand.
Speaker 2Well, yeah, it's as Ross would say many years ago it's hide the weenie. Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1Mike Nolan would say Wait a minute, I'm sorry. Mike Nolan would say oh, that was adjudicated. That's been adjudicated. Well, that's true.
Speaker 2But the point is you change the election system and then you put nothing on your website about it, about where the districts are, or anything. There's no maps, anything. The only thing I could find was the meeting where they talked about one of the maps it was called Map 104, which if they did adopt it, then that would be the map, but it doesn't say it was adopted, it just says up for adoption, so….
Speaker 3Well, you know what that brings. That brings me back. I won't go down the rabbit hole too far, craig, craig durling.
Speaker 3But if I ever told you I'm already confused craig sherwood, or was it you that we were responding to a call once and I threw you the thomas brothers me it was you, craig, just sherwood. And I threw him in the thomas brothers guide and I said it's 50 63, we're going to a brush fire. And he and and I threw him in the Thomas Brothers Guide and I said it's 56D3. We're going to a brush fire. And I threw him in the Thomas Brothers Guide and he's looking. Well, we were going at night. I had a red lens in my interior light so it didn't affect my headlights.
Speaker 2Let me go back for a second here. I went in the back and I looked up on the thing what page number. It was, yeah, 56d5. And so I start turning the pages and I said, ross, you have an effective Thomas. This has no page numbers on it. And I was.
Speaker 3I didn't know what to do. And I'm driving 100 miles an hour and I'm going come on, it's 56D5. He literally was going D1, d2. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2And it turned out Ross, because at nighttime driving you don't want to have a white light in your car, so he had a red light on Right because he used to drive a submarine. And all the Thomas Page numbers are in red.
Speaker 3They were red. They were in red, that's right.
Speaker 2So we got there and we turned the white light on and I go oh my, I said, how did you?
Speaker 3get a Thomas guy with no page numbers?
Speaker 1Yes, Wow, those old Thomas guys. You used to have all the fire stations marked out on the pages and somebody told me they recently.
Speaker 3They're around again. They're, thank God to Google. All you got to do is yell in your phone Emmama, get me there, and it'll get you there. Well, so good for something. Well, I'm glad. Uh, annie is the first we'll, uh, we'll see how that race turns out, and so forth. Uh, moving on um friday the 21st, you know what? There was nothing going on again. How, how do you like that? Another dark?
Speaker 3day, on a Friday, that's weird On a Friday, you know, but some of us got to rest. We were getting prepared for the heat that was coming up Moving along. What happened over the weekend? Craig Well?
Speaker 2over the weekend. What did happen? Oh, we had Turn the page. Turn the page. Wait what?
Speaker 1page are you on we? What did happen? Oh, we had Turn the page. Turn the page. Wait, what page are you on? We're on 17 of 27. Now, what color ink?
Speaker 2It's red there are no page numbers. We had the former Civitan Day Former.
Speaker 1Civitan.
Speaker 2Former Civitan Day. This is now called the Civitan Jamboree instead, because we used to have one week where we had the boys in Civitan or at Hat Minor and the second week would be the girls in Ponytail Softball, have their skills contests. But I guess, budget cutting and everything else, we were down to just one Saturday now and so they had it's combined it's more about the everything else, then.
Speaker 3Yeah, so they had a lot of kids. You know I stood out.
Speaker 1Well, what is Civitan? The experts in the room.
Speaker 3Well, it's a nonprofit organization that the service club City of Burbank Gosh, the Burbank Civitan Club is what it's called Right, and for years, years they used to go over the jocelyn center early and cooking up thousands of hot kosher hot dogs and buns. And that's what I'm not so sure they were kosher.
Speaker 3Well, they told us they were okay. The buns weren't. But the last couple of years, sue, uh, most of their members are getting pretty old and it's kind of hard to hold hot dog buns. You know when your hands are shaking like they were.
Speaker 1Mustard everywhere.
Speaker 3Exactly so they went to. They brought in a hot dog truck and they gave the kids tickets. But that was after the awards ceremony, which was out on the field. They had awards.
Speaker 2You couldn't get them during the day like you used to back in the day.
Speaker 3Yeah, well, after you competed you did the awards and then there were bounce houses. They moved all the stuff the competition stuff, right Throwing, fracracy running and so forth and then there were a whole mess of bounce houses. It was a great community event for young kids and then your team manager would get a ticket for all your kids and then you'd go out.
Speaker 2Okay, so, yeah, they used to give you how many hot dogs you wanted, exactly.
Speaker 3Gary Brick was out there he's still a member of Civitan and they were giving bottles of water out.
Speaker 2Wait, wait, wait. No, they weren't giving bottles of water out.
Speaker 3Cans, cartons, bags. This was the week that they still could put water out.
Speaker 1Well, they had to get rid of the rest of them, right? They had to get them out somewhere.
Speaker 3Exactly, can't do that after July 1st, but they did. But it was nice. You know who I saw at the award, who did?
Speaker 2you see out there.
Speaker 3Linda Murphy.
Speaker 2She was on a podcast once.
Speaker 3She was, and I talked to her about that podcast. She was one of our olympic stars. Uh, she was not only graduated from burroughs, part of burroughs, I remember she was a volleyball coach there. She's world renowned and quite well known. She was there to present the linda murphy one of the awards.
Speaker 3Um, they had four awards that are real prestigious there's an award that seemed after her, that's right, really yep, I didn't know that and so, uh, that'll be in the story as soon as we get linda murphy. It's not named after her. That's right, really, yep, I didn't know that, and so that'll be in the story as soon as we get. It's a different Linda Murphy, it's not named after her.
Speaker 2She was also a very accomplished softball player too.
Speaker 3She was and we all remember hearing Burbank Barbara Rounds. It was brought to our attention the other day. She played on her first team, barbara.
Speaker 2R. If you listen to the podcast, you'll hear all that.
Burbank Community News and Updates
Speaker 3Yeah, I said to her. You know that podcast was very interesting so we hope we're waiting for the results from the city on the kids that ran and did all that.
Speaker 2And I must have shot 100 pictures of the parade Sounds like a big photo gallery coming up along with all the results.
Speaker 1And how would somebody want to find that podcast that she was on? How might we direct them to that?
Speaker 2Once again. You go to any podcast platform that you prefer and you look up Women in Burbank with Linda Murphy, and that's the Ashley Erickson podcast. Or you can go to our YouTube page and you'll see a picture of her on the little thumbnail. It's the same name.
Speaker 1Women in Burbank. It was one of the Women in Burbank episodes Women of Burbank yes, excellent.
Speaker 3Yeah, it was great to see you. She was happy to see me because I've been shooting pictures of her for years, so it was again. You know what A great community day for a lot of teams, because afterwards they get barbecues. And my kid was on Sandoval Dodgers. We've had a lot of friends that were on the Dodgers team and they had a big barbecue afterwards and all their kids were there. So great day Right, oh, I'm glad it wasn't too.
Speaker 2I'm sure it was warm out there but it got toasty yeah. It got hotter as the weekend went on, so, um well, that takes us, uh, to the end of last week, and that could only mean one thing it must be Time for our commercial Enjoying the show right now, thinking you may want to do your own podcast, vibrate Talks is renting out our podcast studio on an hourly rate.
Speaker 4You can do audio podcasts or both audio and video, and even bring in guests to talk with. 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 arrested, please drop us an email at studiorentalsatmyburbankcom. That's studiorentalsatmyburbankcom, and we will get back to you. Now back to our show.
Speaker 2Well, we are back. This is Craig Short, of course, along with Ross Benson, hallie-ho, let's go, let's roll, let's roll. And Craig Derling Still here. It's a new record. There, we are All back in studio.
Speaker 3What are they Wait? Wait the band's all in. What are they Wait? Wait the bands all. The gang back together or the band back together.
Speaker 1Yeah, the band back yeah.
Speaker 2Was that?
Speaker 3a group of kids.
Speaker 2We're answering a three-piece band. I guess we're like Rush the Rascals.
Speaker 3The Rascals. And you know what the Rascals? There's some more rat hole stuff. You know that part of that was filmed in Burbank. I Come on, yeah, you do. That little market where Wait a minute, I'm thinking 6th, 6th, and what street was that you lived?
Speaker 1up there, that little tiny market, get the Thomas guide out.
Speaker 3Yes, and the rascals were filmed there because they run up the block to a house. Little rascals, yeah, you could have been a little rascal.
Speaker 2Or a big rascal? Hey, stuff filmed in burbank. We're lots of stuff, the media capital of the world and we're we're going to give you a little uh heads up. Here. We're actually working on a new rabbit hole show on the history of warner brothers I bet you there were a lot of rabbits over there and we're going to have a guest on talking about the history bugs money so, so look forward to that within the next few weeks. So today today is being Monday the 24th the Sustainable Burbank Commission they met today.
Speaker 3Oh, I bet they did.
Speaker 2And they went over the immediate district plan update. Why don't these groups all? How many times does the people give the update? They want to make sure, but they've given us the you know. Tell them, hey, watch the city council meeting and you can get the update. They want to make sure, but they've given us the you know. Tell them, hey, watch the city council meeting and you can get the update you know.
Speaker 1I mean no, but they need to feel special and have people come directly present themselves Because they've gone At their feet.
Speaker 2Yes, I guess so, but they've now gone to like every commission to give this update, so it's like it's already time for a new update, yeah.
Speaker 2So it's like it's already time for a new update. Yeah, it probably is. They also had. They were talking about the sustainable events budget that they asked the city council for. So they've asked the city council for a budget to hold events in the community, which is, I think, not a lot of money I think it was like $15,000 or something and because they said that most members were putting money out of their own pockets and they shouldn't have to do that and all their subcommittees all reported and the planning commission meeting today, it was cancelled, so we have no planning going on.
Speaker 1I mean, I sat there for an hour.
Speaker 2Now I find out it was cancelled you had planned for the worst and the worst happened unbelievable another meeting cancelled them planning board members, I'll tell you yeah, holy cow, you had planned for the worst and the worst happened. Unbelievable Another meeting canceled them planning board members.
Speaker 1I'll tell you yeah, holy cow. I wonder if they planned that cancellation.
Speaker 2Well, tomorrow we have a city council meeting. Oh boy, it's the first one in like three weeks, isn't it? Two weeks, yeah, they take two weeks off and then they have to have two months, so three weeks ago was their last meeting.
Speaker 1Yeah, that was their first meeting?
Speaker 2Yeah, it was three weeks ago there you go One, two, three.
Speaker 1You can take your mittens off to count the weeks if you want.
Speaker 2Modern math.
Speaker 1Who knew? Unless I'm completely wrong, and I'm sure I'll hear about that in the comments.
Speaker 2Well, you know.
Speaker 1Anywho.
Speaker 2Well, mrs Brady at Stevenson didn't teach much in the math tables. Oh, mrs Brady at Stevenson didn't teach much in the math tables, oh, mrs. Yeah, or Mrs Bacchus.
Speaker 3Oh, she was tall, lois Bacchus.
Speaker 1Any relation to Jim Bacchus. No, mr Magoo and Houston Howell III. Bacchus, not Bacchus.
Speaker 3I had her two times. You guys pronounce things. She taught me how to make cream out of milk or milk out of cream. How long did?
Speaker 1it take you to get out of third grade.
Speaker 3I don't know, were you like 15? No, but I remember peeing in that class by accident.
Speaker 2How do you do that? By accident.
Speaker 3Because they wouldn't let me go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1Oh, it's not by accident.
Speaker 3It doesn't sound like an accident to me Now. It's an accident.
Speaker 1Yes, no, now I got to go. Well, let's keep talking, we'll see what Ross says. The eye color changes.
Speaker 2You know, next week I'm going to put some running water onto our cell.
Speaker 3Oh, babbling Brooks, I will tell you when I take my diuretics, I go in the kitchen to run water. I can't do anything.
Speaker 1If I'm doing dishes ten times, I'm in the bathroom. You're thinking about deserts and tumbleweeds.
Police Body Cameras and City Council
Speaker 3Even that little thing when you get in your car and you hit your windshield wipers. If that thing's, I got to go to the bathroom. It's just. Can we please digress?
Speaker 2Let's move on to our city council meeting here.
Speaker 3This is boring. I mean city council, excuse me.
Speaker 2There's not a lot going on but I found this interesting and you know how I am about our friends at Burbank Bus. But they are going to approve a right of entry and encroachment agreement with Disney Worldwide Services to provide employee shuttle service at the downtown Burbank Metrelink station and at eight different places along the city's right-of-way, which tells me that we keep on the bus.
Speaker 3No, that Mickey Mouse is back to work.
Speaker 2No, no. You know what that tells me Is that Burbank bus is worthless. Because they don't want to use Burbank bus, they want to start doing their own shuttle service. When Burbank bus started, the whole idea of it was for the entertainment workers, so they had a way of going down to Metro League Station and all those things. That was the whole purpose behind Burbank Bus. Well, guess what Disney employees don't want to take Burbank Bus?
Speaker 3Right, and I thought what changed there was yes, you're correct, correct, burbank bus was supposed to, but they changed some routes. But when disney took over a large part of that grand central island out there, where they have quite a few businesses and buildings, that bus now goes also to the glendale businesses and what they're trying to do is the people that come in on the train get on the shuttles instead of the Burbank bus to go to Glendale.
Speaker 2So once again, one more reason not to have Burbank bus. Well, because now you have another possible user base. Our major studio does not want to use it any longer. They didn't use it before, right, yeah.
Speaker 1So now they're collecting, not want to use it any longer. They didn't use it before, right. They didn't use it before, yeah, so.
Speaker 3Now they're collecting some money to use it, I guess.
Speaker 2Well, I found that interesting. Also, let's see the police department, and this is on the consent agenda once again. They're going to enter into a five-year contract with axon for their body worn cameras. Um ross, you got any comments on that?
Speaker 3well I I read in the staff report. I found it rather interesting. Um, you know, years ago I remember we had I think we went through five reporters that wanted to do story on body cams. Burbank tank took many years to get their act together with body cams and reading the paperwork it's interesting. When an officer pulls either his gun or his taser, the cameras activate in his car within 20 feet or any device within 20 feet if it's not automatically on. I found that really interesting.
Speaker 2But I was more into that, though, though I mean, you're saying, I thought they were always on.
Speaker 3Anyway they have a 30-second buffer, I think, craig, is that when they activate the siren, there's several things that activate the cameras.
Speaker 1It's different from department to department how their policy, how they program them to function, what turns them on, what turns them off. Their policy dictates when they need to be recording, when they cannot be recorded.
Speaker 2We're talking about the ones in cars that are mounted, or the ones on their bodies all of them now are kind of working together.
Speaker 3That's what's kind of neat. Is axion, you know, with their cloud and I guess they are in interview rooms at the station now. Again, it's all that. Axion is handling all that and it was kind of neat. It's a five-year contract and I remember when they were battling that out, oh, when they were looking at the cameras a lot of officers did not want those cameras well, there's a lot of moving parts involved.
Speaker 2How many officers has that saved?
Speaker 3Oh yeah, but also, Craig, as you were going to say, there's both.
Speaker 1Well, most departments go into body cameras kicking and screaming, you know, and they want to wait until the last second. The department I worked for took a while to switch to them, but it's a you know, police officers don't typically like cameras around anyway, not because you're doing anything wrong, but the business of law enforcement isn't always pretty Right and a lot of things have are now public that people never saw. But he gets the business done. But, um, it's like a big brother type thing and nobody likes a big brother brother. But with every new technology you get used to it. You get used to it being around, you behave accordingly knowing it's there. But as far as and you have these service contracts with companies like Axon to provide the service, the repair the ongoing software, the body warrant.
Speaker 1It sounds basically what you're saying is Burbank uses it kind of globally within their department.
Speaker 3Yeah, because I didn't look, but I did notice our animal control officers now wear body warrant Basically anybody.
Speaker 1Any enforcement usually, especially enforcement people which animal control, parking enforcement. Anytime you have people interacting with the public, especially in an enforcement position, they're going to have them. So you'll see. Maybe again I'm not sure exactly who's got them in Burbank, but you'll see animal control, you'll see parking enforcement, you'll see police officers. You'll see a lot of people wearing them. Now it's security. You go to malls, you go to office complexes and security guards are wearing them. So they're readily available now.
Speaker 3Well, and it's if you think about it. Prior, you know, pointing the finger he said she said works real good. Burbank had recorders before and use that. But now cameras have saved officers. You know quite a bit. Um, in several scenarios that we've witnessed where they go back and what is on camera is a little different than what was right and that can work both ways.
Speaker 1Right, it keeps everybody in. Right, it keeps everybody in check. Yep, it keeps everybody in check. But what a lot of officers, and one of my departments. When we initially went to the car cameras, we went in kicking and screaming no, but soon found out that it got us out of more hot water than it got us into.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1For sure.
Speaker 3For sure. So you know when the city spends. I think the contract was big dollars. It's worth it, Every penny of it, and I'm glad, oh yeah, it is.
Speaker 1And the public demands this now, so they're willing to have agencies and local governments spend.
Speaker 2Well, as an example, we have requested for the footage from the homeless man and I'm sure when that footage comes out you're going to see, you will see what really happened and I think it's going to exonerate the officers because I'm sure on the body camera you'll hear the guy say let me out here. And you know that was not on the videotape, that was selectively shown.
Speaker 1Has there been a formal complaint made that these officers did something wrong?
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1There has been a formal complaint lodged.
Speaker 2Paul Kikorian.
Speaker 1Well, he said something in the press as a personnel complaint.
Speaker 2He said he's asking the Attorney General and the LA City Attorney to look into it. But that's where it's at. But they've opened cases, right, yeah, I attorney to look into it.
Speaker 1But that's where it's at. But they've opened cases, right yeah.
Speaker 2I mean, I didn't watch him file the paperwork himself, but he said that he's asked both of them to look into it.
Speaker 1Right, because, my point being not to be argumentative, but when we say things like you know, it should exonerate the officers. That's implying that they need to be exonerated from something.
Speaker 2From what he said From what he said.
Speaker 1So so far as we know, krikorian, just the allegations made.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1There's an investigation going on, so we're just, we're trying to.
City Council Updates and Broadband Feasibility
Speaker 2And I think everybody wants the truth on it anyway. So you know and there's, and the department has not been hiding anything. They will share the information once you know they have their investigation complete and release the results of the investigation. Anyhow, let's move on to one of the things they're going to have a public hearing on actually is the proposed community ordinance or outreach plan regarding potential rent cap Approval of a sole source. Actually, they want to have a professional service, a consulting firm. They're going to pay them $145,000 to look into different ways for rent stabilization, rent control or unjust evictions and, as they start to put together a plan for the future, Well, they did that.
Speaker 3They've done that. They've hired quite a few consultants in our city and it's kind of funny, but this is one that the council wants it done quickly. They want it done properly and our public information office has taken it under their watchful eye to hire a consultant. There's pivotal strategies to go out and do a community outreach. So we hear people say you know, the city spends this money here, this money there $145,000 is not a drop in the you know, a kick in the bucket.
Speaker 1a drop in the bucket or whatever, a hitch in the giddy up.
Speaker 2Yeah, but we're talking about a major policy for the city of Burbank and so it needs to be done. It's like the gun ordinance Yep Needs to be done, right.
Speaker 1Yeah, but you know the watchdogs and a number like this too, and you hope they're just not throwing money at some consultant to give them an answer. There's hopefully accounting behind this.
Speaker 3Well, as I said to you during our show, when we were going over our show notes a couple years ago, they hired a consultant and I remember which city council member said was this report written by a high school graduate? Because the consultant didn't do their homework? And Burbank caught it and a couple council members said I want this to go back and be rewritten properly and then pre-bought good money for this stuff in fact, it's our current mayor. I remember his words profusely let's just, yeah, my tooth is chiklet loose, yeah.
Speaker 2We're also going to get an update about broadband feasibility study about bringing the fiber optic tables to businesses and residences in Burbank. It said that prices should range from $50 to $70 monthly for residential and from $60 to $150 monthly for businesses. But the city would have to take on $106 million in debt to complete the build-out, but after the revenues down the line would offset the expenses.
Speaker 3But they said that build-out close to 20 years where are we going to be in 20 years in broadband?
Speaker 2In all honesty, we use the spectrum here and I'm paying for the very highest spectrum you can get. They're supposed to be the one gig spectrum which. I'm lucky if I get 700 megs and it's the only game in town.
Speaker 1Well, and what's the $50 to $70 monthly for? The entire service all the service, the highest level of service.
Speaker 2Well, no, they're talking about their T1. It's just one speed. Okay, it's a high-speed fiber optic line.
Speaker 3You know, it's kind of like many years ago when recycled water started getting used. We had a general manager, ron Davis, who had recycled water brought all over Burbank up to the golf course, all the public areas, chandler Bikeway it's all recycled water and they had it all put in the purple pipes and so forth. Well, that build-out cost quite a bit, but in the long run well, this is the same study. Things are changing so fast this wouldn't be worth it to the city by the time it pays for itself.
Speaker 1we're on to a new technology.
Speaker 3Exactly, that's the point. Yeah, exactly, so you know when people wonder you know what those council members do up there. I read the staff report on on this one too, because I was interested in it and it was really amazing to see. It would cost the city a pretty penny to bring in.
Speaker 2Yeah, our technology industry is old, though I mean spectrums. We need faster service.
Speaker 1I thought it was up to the internet providers to do the fiber.
Speaker 2Spectrum has a contract with the city of Burbank.
Speaker 3Spectrum and AT&T the contract read. I read it.
Speaker 2Those are the two companies that are laying on the wires and now T-Mobile is doing it wirelessly for that reason. So they can still get in there. But the T-Mobile 5G wireless is about 250, I think. At the most it's not very quick.
Speaker 3And most people don't understand if you have, like Verizon, they're using Spectrum lines, they don't have their own. And so when you think, oh, I have Verizon service, yeah, but if your, Spectrum is low.
Speaker 1Same pipes.
Speaker 2Yep. And when Spect spectrum goes down.
Speaker 3Those are verizon, yeah so interesting to read that staff report. I uh, you wonder what I do all night long, and that's what I I do. What about your senior citizen board, craig? Weren't you going to go to that, or was it too early, hey?
Speaker 1Hey, it's not until Wednesday either. Oh, it'd be really early, very early.
Speaker 2Get a good seat though, but on Wednesday there is a senior citizens board, and guess what?
Speaker 3They cancelled it. Did you make that request?
Speaker 2No, the police commission did. I've got to, I've got to rag on them somehow every commission did. I've got to rag on them somehow every show.
Speaker 1You guys, you've got to get your dig.
Speaker 2The transportation commission will meet, though, at 5 pm.
Speaker 3Are they going to talk about Burbank?
Speaker 2bus. Talk about the update on safer streets.
Speaker 1For senior citizens.
Speaker 2I'm not sure how the streets are safer or whatever it's going to be, but once again there's a meeting that could be canceled. There's a meeting that's really a worthless meeting. We used to see the agenda as an update on something. It means that the reports are even provided before to other people and they could just watch that report somewhere else. You know, you would think the people on the boards of commissions would watch city council meetings.
Speaker 3What do you mean? They're excited when they get the mail that you have a meeting.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's probably true. Anyhow, that will take us on to later that day, actually in the morning, you mean like Wednesday.
Speaker 1Yeah, 10 am. That's double digits, so you can actually go there, you can go. It's double digits, so you can actually go there, you can go, it's double digits.
Speaker 2My alarm is as good as 10 am, so I have to get there very quickly then.
Elephant Parade Arrives in Burbank
Speaker 1That'd be the earliest you could do it.
Speaker 2What is going on on Wednesday morning?
Speaker 1Elephants go marching in.
Speaker 2Wait a second Did you say elephants?
Speaker 1That doesn't sound like an elephant. Oh, but that sound what you say elephants. That doesn't sound like an elephant. Oh, but that sound. Oh, what does that mean? That sound means only one thing that is the word of the week.
Speaker 2The word of the week. The word of the week which, of course, this week is elephant.
Speaker 1As evidenced by that horn. That woke everybody up.
Speaker 3Well, I'm just curious, judy, you are the only one that was in the field for elephants. What sound do they?
Speaker 1make In a big field.
Speaker 3In a big field. What do they sound like? I?
Speaker 1don't know if I want to. Well let's see, I get spit all over you Not them huh. No, do they. No, but the elephant parade's in town. The elephant parade's coming. Yes, the elephant parade, and you can see them all in one place, at Ikea. Apparently they're already there. Are they already kind? Of there or is that just a little press event or something.
Speaker 3Oh, they came over the Verdugo Mountains and I hear they're moving in.
Speaker 1Well, they packed their trunks and they moved in. But, the elephant parade, burbank Grand Arrival at Ikea. You almost had me, me on my water and I've seen, I've seen them and they're very colorful, they're, they're, they're pretty uh fun to look at.
Speaker 3I thought when I saw the picture of all of them that viney drop. They packed their trunks. Yeah, I figured that went right over everybody's head well, I was wondering where there's a pool of water up there, if they're going to go swimming well, there will be one if you hang out out there for a while.
Speaker 1But you can see them all in one place before they're distributed to their various temporary residences around town. You can go see them in the Ikea parking lot parking lot H, I believe why didn't they put it in parking lot E?
Speaker 2It's the upper parking lot H.
Speaker 1Elephant yeah, there's an H in elephant.
Speaker 2It could be because that that's farther away and they would actually have some parking places for their customers.
Speaker 1That's true, it's actually H, I think is the first parking lot you come to when you come in off of First or Ikea.
Speaker 3Way, so we know who spends his off time at Ikea. It sounds like.
Speaker 1I just pay attention to the press releases, this particular one because I put this on the agenda. I put this on the agenda. But the parking lot H and from June 26th to June 28th, from 10 am to noon.
Speaker 2No, actually, that's the arrival on that.
Speaker 1The arrival is 10 am to noon and available for public viewing through the 28th at 4 pm Until 4 pm. Yes, you can go up to Ikea, the parking lot there. You don't have to go into the Ikea. If you don't want to, you can just go check out the elephants. But that's before they're distributed. But they'll be there, they'll have guest speakers, they'll have a DJ and a photo opportunity. So I guess you could take pictures with some of the elephants, and that's before they're spread out around the city, yeah, but what if you want Swedish meatballs, swedish meatballs, swedish meatballs?
Speaker 1I don't know, maybe they'll be serving those outside. I don't know. It doesn't say anything about the catering. Maybe you need to go into the IKEA.
Speaker 3What do elephants eat? Greg, A lot of grass.
Speaker 1Really A lot of grass. They're vegetarians, oh, they're vegetarians.
Speaker 3See what we'll learn. But this is a big, big, big like elephant big event coming through Burbank. It's going to be here for a month and it's uh, you know, visit burbank has brought it on the visitors and convention bureaus is behind it. It's to bring people to burbank to check out our elephants. They will be in, uh, we will publish the map of where they're going to be. I know one of of the places is UME Credit Union, one of our great credit unions that advertises with us. They're going to be a home of one of the elephants. I think there's how many of them?
Speaker 224, 26 or something, yeah all over Burbank.
Speaker 3One at the terminal, at the airport terminal. Now I don't think you can get an elephant in an airplane, unless it's a big airplane.
Speaker 2Hopefully you don't have to have a boarding pass to go see your emotional support elephant.
Speaker 3But they'll be all over our city. We'll probably have articles on it, videos on it. We might even have some horseshit. I mean, excuse me, elephant poop on it.
Speaker 1You know there's an old, great old saying. A favorite of mine is you never let the guy with the shovel decide how many elephants get to be in the parade.
Speaker 3You go Very good, very good.
Speaker 2You know what's sad is that I don't think they let elephants go on parades anymore, or horses you can do, horses you can apply to horses.
Speaker 1You know, I mean it's too bad that they don't do that we remember, it's a saying, it's for like, if somebody has a conflict, if, like, somebody is personally affected by the decision, they need to abstain, they need to stay out of the decision-making process, and it's like you don't let the guy with the shovel decide how many elephants get to be in the parade. He doesn't get to make that decision.
Speaker 3Craig, dirk Sherwood and I remember elephants, dirk Sherwood, dirk Sherwood, walking down Olive Avenue and along 3rd Street at Burbank on Parade many years ago and we had ostriches and all sorts of stuff and we had men with shovels following all that too, alrighty, let's move on to Thursday here we're chasing horses down Verdugo the infrastructure oversight board is going to meet at 6pm but their agenda is still not online.
Speaker 2But even if it was, they're still they wouldn't. And on Friday, I guess it's yeah.
Speaker 1Friday, the 28th.
Speaker 2Friday we have fire department promotions, okay, and that's going to be at Woodbury University at 10 in the morning. Oh, and that's going to be at a woodbury university at 10 in the morning. Uh, oh, there's gonna be some retirements too. So some people coming, some people going um. Lots of changes going on. Ross, why don't you tell us about all those changes?
Speaker 3well, I know that a lot of people. When you think of the fire department, you see those guys in the nice shiny red trucks racing down the street of the paramedics who've come and applied a Band-Aid on you. They're the guys that are out there. But you know what? There are a ton of people, support staff that makes everything work. What do they say that? And how the sausage is made? Well, to make the guys out in the field look good and everything work.
Burbank Fire Department Changes and Updates
Speaker 3You have secretaries, you have inspectors who go out, or a lot of people behind the scenes and there they have a lot of promotions within that group of people that will be getting promoted. We have some new paramedics that have just come back out of paramedic school that are hitting the street, and july is a big change for the burbank Fire Department, which we'll probably talk about next week. A new rescue ambulance is going to be out for stuff and a new logistics chief they're going to be busy chasing fireworks around this next week or two too.
Speaker 1I don't think they're going to hire those people have they?
Speaker 2Yes, oh, they have. These are people that have been working there for quite a few.
Speaker 3They just got approved in the budget last week. Oh, they have. Oh, these are people that have been working there for quite a few.
Speaker 2You know, they just got approved in the budget last week, oh yeah.
Speaker 3Yep.
Speaker 1Now they're working for pay.
Speaker 3Yes, Well, we've never had a logistics chief, so they've had to move people around. We've never had an EMS chief, that you know. We've had training and we've had.
Speaker 2So now we're short on people. We need to hire more. They have an academy, don't they starting?
Speaker 3real soon. They've asked for one. They have a couple of people that are laterals. Yeah, I believe they're looking at that. Yeah.
Speaker 1And they need to promote people behind all that. And with retirements and those new positions, they need to promote and hire behind that. So a lot of things happen when so a lot of things happen when one person retires or they create a new position of rank. A whole lot of movement underneath that.
Speaker 2I will say that once the city council negotiated the new contract with the firefighters, we don't have firefighters transferring to other cities anymore. They're staying in Burbank now and they're very happy being here.
Speaker 3Well, I know one of the great guys that we've worked with for years, kenneth Robertson. When I was a firefighter Warner Brothers Studios, he followed me in the ranks as being a firefighter there. He has gone up. He was a paramedic for many years. He did all the ranks here in Burbank and his class there's two of his class of 94, I believe are retiring.
Speaker 2From 1994. 1994. Yeah, not 94 people, no.
Speaker 1Okay, 94 people, no, okay, Good point, that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 3Um, but Kenneth has been a line BC as they call them, battalion.
Speaker 2One of the great guys one of the great guy and very calm. You hear him on the radio. He's very calm always, and anytime you see him he's very, very helpful. You know somebody we're going to miss, Somebody who is what Burbank's all about.
Speaker 3And this is his last week, but seeing the guys last week I was with at that Magnolia fire talking to a whole mess of captains that are moving up and they're looking forward to it. Eric Juden is one going to fill in a spot. We're going to have a new arson investigator. Our fire marshal is moving up to deputy chief. So fire department has a lot of changes this coming week.
Speaker 2All right. Well, that moves us on to the weekend and we're going to kind of paraphrase this a little bit. Here's one of those big titles for you Our community development department is going to host its second walking tour of the downtown Burbank transit-oriented development specific plan area on Saturday morning. It starts at 9 am. It's a walking tour. It's going to start at the old Bed Bath Beyond and it's going to go around the town center and Cambridge Park and the whole area. So plan on a lot of walking, plan on wearing good shoes, plan on a lot of water but you can't use. Oh no, we're still in June here, so you can still use bottled water still.
Speaker 2But if you want to know what's going on with the plan and you want to get involved in it, and see everything firsthand what they're talking about and then talk to the talk to the uh, the people involved in the community development, and also the uh, the uh people that they've hired to help you know, when you said that, just that I didn't bring it up during the show notes.
Speaker 3But uh, you said it's going to start at bed bath and beyond. You know tim conway jr told me since bed bath and beyond closed he has he's had to see a shrink every week. He used to go in there and just feel the towels and the bed cases and he loved walking in that store. I just like the way it smelled. Boy, he doesn't know what to do anymore with himself.
Speaker 1Well, there are other Bed Bath Beyonds, bed Bath Beyonds. No they're all gone, are they all?
Speaker 2gone, they're all gone.
Speaker 1Oh then some haven't taken their signs down yet.
Speaker 2Maybe not, but they are, but they're empty.
Speaker 1They're gone now.
Speaker 2They are gone, yeah, no more, and you kind of miss it.
Speaker 1But Tim Conway. I was able to get rid of all the coupons.
Speaker 2I was going to say I have 450 of those coupons still you.
Speaker 3Yeah, he was bummed when he heard they're closing the Burbank store down. His wife called the therapist and said Tim's going to come see you every week now, because I can't handle it. You know, we're not going to have new pillows every week.
Speaker 2It's interesting. I don't know where retail's going in our world because nobody's been. That's been gone for a couple years now and nobody's wanted to move into it.
Speaker 3In fact, sears very quietly came back into existence there wanted to move into it, in fact, but Sears very quietly came back into existence there.
Speaker 2Well, but if you notice, they did that Disney show Right, they ran the building out.
Speaker 1They had that auction.
Speaker 2Yeah, they ran the building out right.
Speaker 1But I will say this about retail and going away and brick and motors and stuff is I have a project going on at home and I needed some pieces and parts and thingamajigs and I thought I could order this all. I I needed some pieces and parts and thingamajigs and I thought I could order this all. I already had them all bookmarked on Amazon, right, everything I needed. Boom boom, boom, boom on the wishlist. I said you know what? I'm going to give brick and mortars, my local hardware stores and things like that a try here. I spent two days going to Home Depots, lowe's, diy centers, hardware stores, all these places. None of them had anything I needed. I go to one. I need a certain size part. The one hook that was empty was the size I needed, I mean, and I gave it a solid try. I gave this a solid try. I gave a lot of the different stores and stuff a chance, ended up going home after two days of this and getting everything in one click on Amazon. It'll be here tomorrow.
Speaker 2You know what I find actually is if mom and pop stores I do try to use, you know, do business with mom and pop stores, especially at Magnolia Park and places, but the corporate stores, like you said, you wonder, do they really care about the customer you know you want, you really wonder if they've lost touch?
Speaker 1It's like the big the box stores, like they're making all their money online. Yeah, with online orders. That's true, you know. But remember what happened with like Best Buy. Best Buy is still open God love them for still being alive and kicking but what do a lot of a lot of people do, you know? They find something on Amazon, so they go to Best Buy a camera or a computer or something to check it out, hold it, play with it, take a picture of it and then they go home and order it online.
Speaker 2Yep.
Speaker 1Some stores will kick you out if they see you doing that.
Speaker 3You're right, they do. It's funny, the Do Itself Center used to be lumber city and I worked there, uh, out of high school, learned a ton about hardware and all that stuff. But you know what's kind of neat you can go in the burbank do-it-yourself center besides petting the cats the cat was sleeping on a pile of boxes and I still like I specifically love going to that store.
Speaker 1I still, I'll still give them a shot.
Speaker 3And where else can you find a monkey?
Speaker 1wrench, an actual monkey holding a wrench Right yeah you know, and they got tons of drawers. They got a petting zoo in there.
Speaker 3Tons of drawers that you can go through.
Speaker 1I went through a few dozen of them. A few dozen of them, but I still like that store.
Speaker 3It's not a knock about that store for me. I can be in that store for an hour and I can go to the bathroom 10 times. Nobody will say can we help you?
Speaker 1I soak in the cat. By the way, they'd like you to not use the cat's box. Oh yeah, you could go to the human's restroom.
Speaker 2Well, one last thing on the agenda for the weekend, and that's our Burbank Historical Society. It's our Historical Society. They're having their membership appreciation luncheon at 1 o'clock to 4 o'clock at the Historical Society, which is on just off of Clark, right near the Betsy Lutke Art Center and the former little theater that's there. But according to, this our SVP.
Speaker 3But you know what? Yes, I saw that on the invitation that we got. But I can promise you, the three of us know Don Baldessaroni so well. If you get a hold of Don, you just tell Don Baldessaroni that we told you.
Speaker 2Youterone, that we told you.
Speaker 3He'll be glad to accept. You. Tell him that we told you yes, because you know what I saw Hot dogs, tri-tip coleslaw potato salad. They got desserts. They got cookies.
Speaker 2They got candies and popcorn. The Bob Baker marionettes may be there.
Speaker 1That's right and I'm betting. It's a member appreciation luncheon, but I'm betting you can go there, join 20 bucks and have some lunch $20, you get a year's membership. And a lunch and a lunch yeah.
Speaker 2And the Bob Baker Marinette Show.
Speaker 1There's pretty much every event. I've gone to there. If you're not a member already, guess what?
Speaker 2You become a member.
Speaker 1Your donation becomes your membership.
Speaker 3Well, you know, don Balderoni is very popular with the chamber. He's one of the ambassadors, he's at every ribbon cutting I'm at and he reminded me the other day and I said, bob Well not Bob.
Speaker 1You forgot what you reminded him of.
Speaker 3Well, it's funny because I have Bob Green at one end of the ribbon, Don Baldo Cerrone at the other.
Speaker 1The other one's easier to say.
Speaker 3And I told Don that we'll say it on tonight's podcast. Baldo cerrone at the other, and the other one was easier to say and I I told uh don that uh, we'll uh say it on tonight's podcast and you might get some new members out of it well, you know what, even if yeah, even if you don't want to go there for the food, you should just go there sometime and and tour the museum you gotta check it out.
Speaker 1It's the history of burbank.
Speaker 2You know. You know people love our little rabbit holes, things and shows. But you can go see it live right there. You would be surprised.
Speaker 1We've talked about that place several times, we've done events there, we've done podcasts there, great people, but you'd never know. Driving down the street past it, you'd never think that the place was that big, had that much going on in there.
Speaker 3And most people don't even know there's a second floor.
Speaker 2Most people don't know there's even a building. They think it's that house, that little house, that house is.
Speaker 1It's that little house, that house is, just but check it out. For no other reason get the lunch but walk around there, and it's a good time Worth a visit.
Speaker 2Well, we've covered that part of the show again. Oh boy, it's time to turn on the furnace. Oh boy, because all we have left is one thing and one thing only, and of course that is going to be. Ross's Rant, ross's, rant Ross's Rant. I take a flamethrower to this place. What's up, Doc?
Speaker 3Oh boy, what is up? Doc, it's time for my rant, apparently, and look at that I have for this week. I only wrote down a dozen, but I'll only do one or two and I'll save them. How's that for you? You know, um, one of the ones that I think I said it last week if you live near sun valley up on the hill where I do, it sounds like like the Star Spangled Banner every night. I mean bombs bursting in air. There is so much fireworks going on and I got a relative that lives over toward the North Hollywood border of Burbank and they're wondering is there a sale on shotguns or something, or no? These kids go out and buy this fireworks, which are all illegal, and they're firing them off, you know, and it's, or their parents buy them for them. Yes, exactly, um. So I uh again what you're hearing. I can almost guarantee, if it's after darkness, you go outside and look up, you'll see some fireworks.
Speaker 3Um, with the temperature as hot man, it's hot in here, you know hydrate. I say hydrate because I was a victim of dehydration a couple weeks ago. It can come on real quick. I was experiencing some real bad headaches the other day. Couldn't figure out what it was, I got rather panicked, thinking it was in the same spot. Back of figure out what it was, I got rather panicked, thinking it was in the same spot. Back of my head it was just a like an ice pick. After talking to my doctor, I take three diuretics and he said we better cut you down on your diuretics you have. You're losing too much water. If you're taking medication, check the warning on it. It might that they part of it.
Speaker 1you know, make sure you're well hydrated and and worth noting that dehydration can manifest itself in many, many ways oh yes, it's not just being thirsty by the time, like they say, by the time you're thirsty it's too late, but you can get dizziness, the walls can close in, you could have different pains, things like that.
Speaker 3So well, the night I was with you guys. The lights started, they were got very, very bright and I don't remember getting wheeled out.
Speaker 1That's why we were telling you go to the light, ross, go to the light but that brings up another, another thing.
Speaker 3It is hotter than heck out. If you have a pet, don't put them in your car, don't take them out of your house. The asphalt is hundreds degrees to their poor paws. They get in a car, you go somewhere. You think, oh, I have the air conditioning running, you know what leave?
Speaker 1your dog at home. When it's 100 degrees out, the pavement is 200 degrees. So I'm starting to see pictures coming across my feed now of of dogs with bandages on their paws and, you know, burning their paws. So understand that. Well, keep your dog at home. Yeah, keep your dog at home. If you're putting them on the pavement, put little shoeys on them or something like that. Well, they make shoes for dogs and I only have one or two more.
Speaker 3The big one is Greg and I. We all three listen to the fire, to radios. Every city has gone on responses for hikers that have either twisted their ankle or get dehydrated up on the hiking trails. You know what A couple of things. If you're going hiking these days, bring an extra bottle of water. Two, bring a cell phone that is fully charged, your cell phone if it has GPS in it and you go down and that right there. You should never hike alone.
Speaker 1Go with somebody, or let somebody know you're going, or yeah, yeah and where you are, where you're parked, and that used to be something. It was a style uh, canyon or whatever.
Speaker 3You'd go to the little building there and you'd sign in oh, I don't think they have you sign in anymore, because that usually closed, but now you know used to be a process where you could sign in so they know who was out there hiking we listen to the fire department and if they got to send a helicopter for you.
Speaker 3Your phone has gps locator on it, you know, and they can find out exactly where you are. So go with a charged phone, use drinks that have electrolytes in them, not just plain water. And the last one well, two really If you have elderly neighbors, right now some of them are not running their air conditioner because they need to save the money, because the electrical rates are going up right now. Everything right now. If you have elderly neighbors, go knock on the door, find out if they're okay, if their mail or the newspaper is still there, they get one delivered. Check on your neighbor, because we've already heard a couple of responses.
Speaker 3You know people in this heat expire literally and the last one is Burbank offers alerts from the city. They put it out several today. It's, if I'm right, ww ready, burbankorg. If there's evacuations, if there is power outages, if there are incidents that the police or fire department wants you to know about, they put them out via email. Just a great source for you to put in your smartphone and so forth. You know they might be called rants, but there are things that I thought of this week that just will help everybody.
Speaker 1Good pointers in there too. It doesn't have to be negative. Exactly Got some good points, very good points in there Exactly.
Speaker 3So for me that'll do it in the rant world. Okay, Good one, Good batch. I even snuck one in before that, though.
Speaker 1Okay, Good batch I even snuck one in before that, though, about the hardware stores.
Speaker 2That's alright. A little bit of a rant. You know what? I didn't get those notices today. What notices did they send out today?
Speaker 3Probably didn't look at the email after 3 this PIO's office put out about I thought you said they sent out several notices today. For people to sign on.
Speaker 2Oh, to sign on. Okay, I didn't see any of those notices Because you were signed on. Well, it should go to my phone.
Speaker 3Well, like I said, the city really was pushing that. The fire department is yeah, be prepared.
Speaker 1And the hiking one too, is go prepared, so you don't become part of the problem.
Speaker 3And it's snake season. Don't go out there running in tennis shorts and then go climb up the mountain and when you see a rattlesnake, think you're dressed for it.
Speaker 2That's true.
Speaker 3Dress appropriately.
Speaker 2Dress with a lot of heavy clothing on a hot day when you're hiking.
Speaker 3I wouldn't be surprised if we see our trails closed the next day or two I would say why don't we just not go hiking for a few?
Speaker 2you know we have too many great days in southern california. You don't have to pick the hottest day to go or the coldest and remember.
Speaker 1Anytime somebody has to come help you out of a situation, they're putting themselves at risk.
Speaker 3So again, don't become part of the problem. Yeah, and I don't think that helicopter rides free.
Speaker 2No, I don't think anything's free anymore with the paramedics which we are going to be working looking into. That's right, because and people don't think anything's free anymore with the paramedics which we are going to be looking into.
Speaker 3That's right, because people think, oh, I'll just go for a hike. I do it every week. It's a little different out there when you're drenched.
Speaker 1And remember if you're feeling okay for the first hour, you have to go back, and that's when a lot of people go down and start having their problems, when they finally get to a point in the hike where they're like, oh, I feel dehydrated, I'm getting dizzy. Well, you should have turned around half an hour ago. You still have to get back.
Speaker 2Don't be cocky and go oh, I can handle it, because there's a sheriff's deputy who was in Greece and an experienced hiker and in great shape, and they can't find him Right.
Speaker 3So I mean, and we hear the responses all the time. We listen to county fire, we listen to Burbank fire and they're out there. You know we hear them go up and if they have to, you know they hear them go up and if they have to, you know they'll come save you. But it's not a fun trip.
Speaker 2Okay, well, I think that's it for another show.
Speaker 3Wow, the week there was, the week there will be, the week there was, and whatever. Okay.
Speaker 1His meds are wearing off. This is the time of the show where his meds are wearing off.
Speaker 2He guess it's the time of the show His meds are wearing off, dehydration setting a little bit there.
Speaker 3You know how many bottles I've gone through today, if you notice.
Speaker 2Anyhow well for Craig Durling and for.
Speaker 3Ross Benson. As they say tally-ho, let's go. It was a great show. We'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 2There we go.
Speaker 1Well, this is Craig Sherwood saying thank you for listening or watching and we will see you next week. My Burbank Talks would like to thank all of my Burbank's advertisers for their continued support Burbank Water Power, cusimano Real Estate Group, umi Credit Union, burbank Chamber of Commerce, game Credit Union, providence, st Joseph Medical Center, community, chevrolet, media City Credit Union, ucla Health, tequila's Burbank, logix Credit Unit, hill Street Cafe, pertain, escobar Wealth Management and the UPS Store on Third Street.