myBurbank Talks
myBurbank Talks
The Week That Was and That Will Be - October 7
Unlock the latest insights from the heart of Burbank as we spotlight the city's vibrant pulse and hidden stories. Ever wondered how a simple word like "textbooks" could win you a prize? Join us as we celebrate Joe Quiricci's Word of the Week victory and unravel the intriguing discussions with Mayor Nick Schultz about the shifting council districts and his assembly seat ambitions. Our journey through the city doesn't stop there—discover how a pink police cruiser is driving awareness for breast cancer and explore the community's strides in tackling homelessness. Feel the excitement of Burbank High School's football victory in the "Battle of the Bulldogs," and scratch your head over the unusual theft of a Water and Power truck.
Imagine the future possibilities of the Starlight Bowl with our creative programming ideas, from nostalgic band nights to community-driven solutions that tackle parking woes while supporting local sports teams. Experience the magic of outdoor movie nights that could transform the Bowl into a cultural hub akin to the Ford or Greek Theaters. And don't forget to check out our myBurbank YouTube channel, where we're committed to keeping you informed and entertained with fresh, engaging content each week. Whether you're a longtime resident or just curious about what makes Burbank tick, this episode promises a captivating glimpse into a city bursting with potential and community spirit.
My Burbank Talks presents another edition of the Week that Was and the Week that Will Be a weekly podcast featuring highlights and commentary on local events and issues taking place right here in Burbank. Now let's see what's on today's agenda as we join our program.
Speaker 2:Thank you everybody. Thank you, thank you, I know I know. Thank you. Thank you. Hello Burbank, craig Sherwood here with you once again for a brief look at the week that was and the week that will be. As always, we have a humble request that you like this video and please subscribe to the channel so YouTube continues to recommend this video to others like yourself, and also think about a channel membership to support us here at MyBurbank. Last week's Word of the Week winner was Joe Carici. Then the word was textbooks, so he's going to get a nice gift certificate for $25 to Hill Street Cafe on Glen Oaks. We'll have another Word of the Week later in the show, so please keep listening.
Speaker 2:Last week on the YouTube channel we uploaded an Ask the Mayor episode where Nick Schultz told us the lawsuit about council districts was headed to trial next year. Very interesting, so happy to see the city stay on at this time. We also did a podcast with Frank Gomez of CBIS Data Tax about the upcoming tax deadlines in October and why everyone should have an accountant and what actually happens if you don't and you do not file. So please give that a listen. We also had a deep plunge podcast into the council meeting with Ashley Erickson I'm sorry into the council meeting and Ashley Erickson did a Women of Burbank podcast with Alina Nazeri who is a gut nutritionist Very interesting podcast. Finally, we did meet the candidate podcast with a very familiar face, burbank Mayor Nick Schultz, who is running for an assembly seat this November. Mayor Nick Schultz, who is running for an assembly seat this November.
Speaker 2:On Tuesday, the Burbank Police unveiled their pink cruiser at the station. We did a little video on it. We have a nice story by Ashley Erickson, so please check that out Once again. It's a brand new design. They do a new design on the police car every year, so it is worth checking out and you'll see that car around at different events, all during the month of october for breast cancer awareness month. So it's good, good, uh, good cause. Wednesday burbank announced the number of homeless individuals in burbank has declined and 2023 to 258 in 2024. So basically 17 people. I don't know how accurate their count really is to start with, but you know what it was 17 less. That's a good thing. We need to cut that number in half next year, not just by a, a tenth. So let's, we'll keep working on that and hopefully the shelter will be a little more farther along and we can get that going.
Speaker 2:Thursday, at the school board meeting there were complaints about a lack of information regarding the closing of the school one day at Bret Hart for a possible student threat. We agree. Nothing was sent out to the community and should have been, nor to my Burbank. So we're going to let people know. People should be informed and not have to guess or worry, especially with an elementary school. That's shooting that type of word. It's funny. The word transparency seems to only be used when people want to disclose something, not when they have to or should. Anyhow.
Speaker 2:Also on Thursday, burbank High football defeated Pasadena in football with a battle of the Bulldogs. Both teams, of course, are called the Bulldogs. Score was 33-21, although the Burbank Bulldogs were penalized 158 yards in the game. That's a lot of yards. Friday this is a little bit weird. A Burbank water and power truck was stolen. It was described as a white pickup truck equipped with a rear toolbox and light bar. The truck also contained shovels and cones in its bed, typically used by utility workers. The truck was last seen on the 5 freeway southbound. So I gotta say that's probably down in Mexico by now for all we know. But that's a very strange vehicle to steal. There's probably no value in the contents, but whatever.
Speaker 2:In football, friday Night Lights, burroughs defeated Hoover 47-21 in a game that was not as close to the score indicated against the winless Hoover team. So Hoover came back to the Pacific League and the question probably is why? So not a competitive game? But it'll be a tough game for Burroughs next week. I think they're going to play Muir, who is right now favored to win the league title. So it'll come down to a great game next week. So stay tuned. We'll let you know how that. Well, next week's show, let's know how that came out. That's about it for last week and once again, we can't try to do it a little quicker now? We've been. People say you know what, the shows are great but they go a little too long. So we're trying to quicken them up a little bit. But we do the best we can.
Speaker 3:Let's go ahead and take our commercial break in between the weeks and we will be back with you in about 30 seconds Enjoying the show right now, thinking you may want to do your own podcast, viberate Talks is renting out our podcast studio on an hourly rate. You 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 studio rentals at myburbankcom. That's studio rentals at myburbankcom and we will get back to you.
Speaker 2:now back to our show yes, thank, thank you, thank you once again. Thank you, turn off the applause sign. Thank you, enough applause, let's get back to, uh, the week that will be for today, which is October 7th Monday. Today. Only two meetings at the same time today, but one has been canceled. The Art and Public Places Committee meeting at 6 pm has been canceled, but the Landlord Tenant Commission will meet at 6.15 pm at the Community Services Building. Only one new item Someone has a question about the rent increase on Hollywood Way.
Speaker 2:Is there always a rent increase somewhere? And somebody always has a question. Soon, I think this is going to be a little more laid out for people, hopefully once this all gets decided. Here's something very, very interesting which I think you'll get some really great information out of Later. Today we are recording a debate between the yes and no sides of the school district's measure, abc. We will have Andrew Cantwell from the Burbank Unified School District on the yes side and Joel Schlauchman will argue against it. This should be interesting, so we will have that on the channel, probably on Tuesday tomorrow. Please check that out because I think it should be very informational and neither side has been given the questions in advance and it will be like the presidential debate type thing. So I think it will be the first time we've ever done a debate, so we'll see how it works out.
Speaker 2:On Tuesday the audit committee will meet at 2pm at the community services building. Their last meeting was in February, so it's been a while since their last meeting. Internal audit update they'll get an internal audit update the status of internal audits and such as the transient occupancy tax Okay, and they get an audit for that and the transient parking tax audit and any special audits. So I'd like to tell you more about stuff, but there's nothing on their agenda. There's no staff reports, no minutes have been posted from the other meetings, so we don't really have a way of telling you much about what's nothing on their agenda. There's no staff reports, no minutes have been posted from the other meetings, so we don't really have a way of telling you much about what's going on. They should audit themselves so we can find out the information you know Also. So the city council on Tuesday is dark. No meeting on Tuesday, but there is, instead of the council chambers, the League of Women Voters candidate forum will be held from 6 to 7.30 in the city hall chambers, and that's something that's always an interesting thing.
Speaker 2:Moving on to Wednesday the Burbank Culture Arts Commission Visibility Committee will meet at 9.30 am in the morning to discuss and explore ideas and plans for the Visibility Subcommittee. The Board of Library Trustees will meet at 5 30 pm at the central library discussion on the discussion on library rules and conducts. That's, that'll be interesting. They're trying to. I guess the rules to have the librarian say be quiet isn't good enough, so they're going to have to come up with other rules. I guess, once again, would love to know more, but nothing else is posted. Also, the Domestic Violence Task Force meeting will be held at the Community Services Building at 5.30 pm. There will be discussions and presentations from LA Family Housing on resources for survivors and a review of the Domestic Violence Task Force resource card. But the past minutes of this meeting have been posted, which is great, but why not the other meetings? Thursday, the Burbank Culture Arts Commission will meet at 9 am at the Community Services Building. So set your alarms. They're going to have a Burbank Little Theater and Park and Recreation staff is going to have an update from the architects, and the architects and the design group that will provide an up-to-date floor plan and general layout that was developed based on feedback for the December 1st 2023 and June 13th 2024 meetings with the community and feedback for the Georgia State Master Plan community engagement process. That night the Parks and Recreation Board meeting will be held at 6pm at City Hall.
Speaker 2:They're going to have a report on the starlight. I heard it, that's right. I heard it. It's the word starlight. Oh boy, gotta work on those effects, huh, anyhow. So this week's word of the week is starlight. So please send in that uh email. On the subject line put starlight. Oh no, I can't resist, I, I can't resist, I'm sorry. And uh, um, send an email to contest at myburbankcom and put Starlight into the subject line and you'll be added for a gift card for next week. So go ahead and do that. So there you go. Anyhow, there's going to be a report on the Starlight. Sorry about that bull the department takes now.
Speaker 2:According to the report, the department takes great pride in offering live entertainment to the Burbank community and greater Los Angeles area. There were a total of eight concerts held. So the concerts on July 4th the headliner was Billy Nation. Yeah, it's his live force show, but Billy Nation was. The headliner was Billy Nation. Yeah, it's a July 4th show, but Billy Nation was the headliner and it was a Billy Joel tribute band. Before that they've had tribute bands from Fleetwood Mac that only attracted 3,804 people. So that was July 4th.
Speaker 2:On July 13th, the Fab Four was the headliner and not bad on the attendance once again because they got 3,092 people but then it started to drop. The next one was Wanted, which is a journey tribute band, and a Bon Jovi tribute band. It attracted 1,964 people. August 3rd, taylor Nation tribute was the headliner and Boombox Heroes, which was the opener, was the Taylor Swift tribute band and that only brought in 2,355 people. August 10th, the Million Dollar McGraw was the headliner and Gold Rush Country was the opener, so the Tim McGraw 2U band cover band only drew 1,079 people. And August 24th that was probably one of the most popular ones Yachtley Crew came back to the Starlight Bowl and give me a second here we're a little behind and they actually brought in 3,823 people.
Speaker 2:So what was also interesting? There's two private dates One with a Eurodance music band that brought in over 7,000 people, so about $3,500 each In 2024, the average per concert cost was $52,649, and the average revenue brought in was $62,477. So they made basically $10,000 per concert. But they also made $37,000 by running it out for just two dates. So it shows you the money they could be making if they put bands in there that were actually bands, the bands they hired this year.
Speaker 2:You know what. We're going to get into that in my comment. We'll get into this more in my comment because the Starlight Bowl is one of those little prickly things sticking in my side and I keep swatting at it and wish I could fix it. So we'll talk about it later in my comments. So we'll move on here. So more when I more when we get to my comment at the end.
Speaker 2:Moving on friday um Friday, here's something the Starlight Bowl Is actually going to do Is we're going to have a Haunted Adventure Laboratory of Lost Souls and that's going to be the Starlight Bowl On Friday and Saturday From 7 to 9, 30pm and sponsored by Burbank Park and Rec Department On the weekend. Let's check out the weekend here. What do we On the weekend? Let's check out the weekend here. What do we got on the weekend? Actually, there's not much on the weekend at all. The weekend is actually a pretty uh. Not much on the city calendar, not much going on. I'm sure there will be. Events will come up though, and, uh, if anything, maybe it would be a little cooler than it was in the past and you go out and enjoy with the family. Hopefully the Dodgers will do a little better than they did on yesterday and Tuesday and Wednesday, and by next week they'll be playing in the next round. You can go to Dodger Stadium, hopefully, anyhow. So it's time for my comments. So here's Craig's comment for this week.
Speaker 2:So there are plans to renovate the bowl, and we're very happy about that because but it's only in the planning stage. The city council has not directed any money towards it. There's nothing in the budget towards it. It's only in the planning stage. The city council has not directed any money towards it. There's nothing in the budget towards it, it's only in the planning stages. That bull is old and it's run down and it's a jewel of this city and it's like the best kept secret in the city and it could be making us a lot of money toward the city if it's done right and it's done with the neighbors, of course, and all that. And I know the neighbors don't want a lot of things up there and there is a traffic situation. I get all that, but there's ways of mitigating all that. But there's ways of mitigating all that.
Speaker 2:So one of the things is which I would love to see they pay a parking company to go up there and park cars. Well, why not have school teams come in and help with parking? Because they do that, like at the Rose Bowl, and what they do is they pay the school team, the football team, the baseball team, the basketball team, whatever from different high schools to have the kids come in and help with the parking of the cars and make a donation to their program. Wouldn't that be a lot better than paying an outside company, like they do in Burbank? You know the Rose Bowl looks at their community and tries to get and spread the money around. Be nice to that in Burbank, but that's just a side thing. And once again, I'm looking for ways to help our sports teams because they're not getting help anywhere else, especially from the school district. It's sad. It's sad that every team has to go out and scratch for every dollar that they spend.
Speaker 2:But here's my problem with the Starlight Bowl why do we only get cover bands? I don't get it. There are so many bands out there. You know. There are bands from the 80s, the 70s, the 80s and the 90s that they're not the most popular bands anymore. But you know what, they've got a few hits and they're out there touring smaller venues and the Starlight Bowl would be perfect for them Bands that actually write their own songs, not bands that we can find at a bar on a Wednesday night and then they're at the Stylized Bowl on a Friday night or a Saturday night. We can get some real acts in there. There's no reason that we can't get real acts to come to the Bowl. And you know what? We can charge a little more money for it too, too, because people will pay for nostalgia. They'll pay to see a band come in there that day. Maybe we saw it in their younger years or something and had some good remembrances of. There's a lot of bands out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of looked around and we only had what? Six or eight events the entire summer the Ford Theater, which is real close to Burbank, right near the Hollywood Bowl. They have eight events in London in August. You know what else they also do? They have movies there. We just had a movie recently in Johnny Carson Park, okay, and it was a great event and all that. But why not have movies at Starlight Bowl? We could do that too, and the Ford Theater charges $10 admission. We could do that at Starlight Bowl. Have family nights why aren't we doing that?
Speaker 2:The Greek Theater in October has 18 events 18 events, 18 events. And the Greek theater is the same situation as Burbank. They're up in an area and there's a lot of houses and everything else, but they have shuttle service. Why can't we have shuttle service? The Highway Bull rents out the Metrolink station in downtown Burbank as one of their places to pick up people. So why can't we have a shuttle service where people park at the Metrolink Station and we shuttle them up to the Starlight Bull? That would stop a lot of traffic and a lot of the neighbor complaints, things like that. There's a lot of things like that that we could be doing, but we're not.
Speaker 2:But to let the bull run down into the condition it's in right now, it's going to cost a lot of money to fix it up. Is that money worth spending? Yeah, I think it is. If we're in the media capital of the world, why would we want to have a great stage facility? We have a facility in the mountain that most cities would die for and we just let it sit there like a pimple on our nose. What are we going to do to fix that? You know, we spent a lot of money on DeBell Golf Course. I get it, and it does make us some money. Well, why can't we do that with the Starlight Bowl?
Speaker 2:Back in the 70s we actually signed a contract to have an outside producer bring in shows, and then we had a council member object to one of the acts Because his Christian, you know. He said he didn't like what one of the bands stood for, so he shut down the show and said they can't have the show. Well, what did the company do with the signed contract? They sued the city. And when you sue the city because some councilman doesn't want to have an act show up for his own reasons, what happens? The city loses a lot of money, and that's what happened. So since then we've been scared to death to go to an outside contractor to bring in shows.
Speaker 2:Well, you know what? It's time to suck it up a little bit. Maybe we can come up with a new contract that gives us the right of refusal in advance of the booking and bring in those good shows. Bring in those 70s, 80s and 90s. Bring them in. Have some movie nights. Bring in those shows that a culture promoter could bring us in. Let's start making. And you know what Part of their contract would be.
Speaker 2:You've got to fix the bull up for us. You've got to bring in a better lighting system. The lighting system there is non-existent, basically it's 50 years old. The sound system once again needs huge improvements, but the structure is there. The structure, the stage, it's all right there. We can do better with this, but we haven't.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's a little bit of a passion for me, because I just hate seeing something like that just going and being squandered. And that's basically what it's being squandered. That's all I can really say to it. What I did to meet our county episodes for the upcoming election, I had to bring up the Starlight Bowl and everybody seemed concerned about it, you know. But what's going to happen? So there are plans to do something about it, but there's no money to do it with. So sign a contract, get a contractor in here, get a promoter in here, have them fix it. You know, that's what we're doing with the golf course. That's what we're doing with the Colony Theater. We're having the Colony Theater make the improvements as part of their rents and everything else. We may not make money in the bowl in the beginning because they're making improvements, but it's better than us spending our own money, correct? So let's get the Starlight Bowl going.
Speaker 2:That's kind of one of my pushes. I'm going to stay on it. I'll keep you informed of what's going on and what I hear. That's about it. So that's it for my comment. I try to come up with a comment that I kind of feel passionate about and not talk to, just to talk, which you probably think I do anyway, and I know I probably talk too much. I am trying to cut down the length of our shows. I promise I am, but if I get a passionate subject, I'm going to talk about it.
Speaker 2:Anyhow, hey, please remember to give us a like and subscribe. Those are free things to do, they. They don't cost you anything. So just give me a like and subscribe to our channel. It really helps. And consider a membership. I can tell you right now there's some big things that will be announced pretty soon In the future For our members and you'll probably really like those things, and memberships are as low as $3 a month, $3 a month, $3 a month and we put a lot of videos out. We put out Anywhere from 2 to 6 videos a week. So we are working at it. We're trying to cover events and give you an idea of what's going on. So support us, that's all we ask. Anyhow, that's it for the week that will be. This is Craig Sherwin saying thank you very much for listening or watching on the YouTube channel, and we will be back with you again next Monday for another episode thank you for watching the latest my Burbank video.
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