myBurbank Talks
myBurbank Talks
Meet the Candidate: Mike Van Gorder - Burbank City Council Candidate
Ever wondered how a personal journey through housing insecurity can ignite a passion for change? Meet Mike Van Gorder, a dynamic candidate for the Burbank City Council in the 2024 election. Mike's personal experience as both a renter and homeowner fueled his dedication to tenant rights and equitable housing access. With a master's degree from UCLA achieved during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mike brings a wealth of knowledge as a professional housing analyst. In our conversation, he shares his insights into the pressing issues of housing affordability, rent control, and the economic disparities in city council representation, all while balancing his roles as a father, husband, musician, and advocate for progressive change.
Join us as Mike provides a candid exploration of the challenges of homeownership, renting, and transit issues that impact diverse communities. He emphasizes the need for balanced policies that protect tenants and promote long-term security while questioning the notion of ever-increasing housing prices. Our discussion delves into the complexities of the housing market, the pressures landlords face, and the significance of providing alternatives to car ownership in Southern California. Mike passionately argues for clean, safe, and affordable transit systems that cater to everyone, including those who prefer not to own cars or cannot drive.
Mike's commitment to social change doesn't stop at housing. We explore broader socio-economic issues, such as urban planning, local campaign finance reform, and the climate crisis. Mike addresses the importance of diverse role models and emotional availability in combating toxic masculinity, highlighting his credentials and endorsements from various organizations. As an ally of the LGBTQIA community and educators, Mike's vision for a more inclusive and sustainable Burbank is clear, urging listeners to consider his lived experience and dedication to driving change.
My Burbank Talks presents another episode of Meet the Candidate, the show where we invite anyone appearing on the Burbank ballot in the 2024 election to join us here and give our listeners a chance to learn about their background and the issues important to them. Now let's join our podcast, hello Burbank, craig Stewart, here with you once again with another Meet the Candidate episode. We've done numerous episodes now and we've got a lot of great feedback. People say they love these episodes. They love to hear what the candidate has to say on a one-on-one basis where he's not being rushed by a time limit or anything else. So we enjoy doing them. Also, and remember, if you're a candidate on the Burbank ballot, your name appears there on the ballot send me an email at news at myberbinkcom and we'd be glad to get you on.
Speaker 1:Okay, so today we have Mike Van Gorder with us. Hi, thank you for having me. Absolutely glad to have you here. Give you a little background here. He's a father of two gorgeous girls that's true. Nobody's going to argue with that, of course One that he likes to call with leadership potential and the other, well, I guess she's two years old, right? She's just loud. There you go. He's been married to his best friend. For over a decade he works as a professional housing analyst and he's earned his master's degree. Where did you get your degree from?
Speaker 2:UCLA oh, very good, although I do like to note that it happened mostly in my kitchen because COVID hit when I was just a few months into my tenure at ucla. So yeah, it was uh extremely difficult online only learning um, while I also had to keep my job down and uh raise a toddler at the time. So that is a just the multitasking that had to go into all of those things All at once hardest thing I ever managed in my life.
Speaker 1:I think it was tough for you. How about all those elementary school kids too? You know they say that screwed them up for many years. I genuinely can't imagine that seriously.
Speaker 1:Let's see, he spent six years as a housing insecure renter, which turned him into a tenants rights activist. Since then, he's now living as a housing insecure homeowner. For the past two years. He's a musician, a union member, a decent baker oh, and we have another baker in the uh in the race here amateur and a and a cyclist. Yeah, uh, he trained amateur mixed martial. He trained, uh, amateur mixed martial arts for nearly a decade, but only got good enough to not be afraid of anyone, not necessarily to win. Sure, yeah, I like that. Okay, that's great. And he says losing doesn't scare him, which certainly helps as a political cause, as he cares about.
Speaker 1:Have required a flurry of losses to build the momentum necessary for big wins First a Bernie Sanders supporter, then a two-time elected delegate to the Senate Democratic Party on a Democratic Socialist platform, then a leader of a voter-led initiative for rent control. So he says he's learned a lot to run for office, change the conversation and win. So once again, thank you and welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate you. Okay, so I actually always get in first. Is you having me? I really appreciate you. Okay, so I always get in first. Is. You know, let's talk about you growing up. Where did you grow up? And you know, give us your early background.
Speaker 2:From Orange County, probably a decent analog to Burbank Garden Grove. You know, instead of the studios we had Disneyland in our backyard. But yeah, I went to Orange County High School of the Arts. First it was for musical theater and then it was for creative writing, got my undergraduate degree at Chapman University in Orange in sociology, so starting to go from an artist to a critic of our society and, like you know, possible change agent you know You're a musician.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir. So which instrument do you play? I play guitar and I sing. Oh, very good. Are you in a band or anything? Yeah, do you have a little band? Oh, we have a big band. Oh, okay, and you?
Speaker 2:play professionally. Yeah, my band's called Countless Thousands. We play professionally. Yeah, my band's called Countless Thousands. We're very good High energy indie rock bordering on punk. I tend not to foreground that because it makes some people nervous, but you know, I just it's fun. Music is supposed to be fun and punk is one of the most fun genres there is.
Speaker 1:And absolutely. I'd rather have people who are well-rounded and not just singly focused. So I think it's good to have a good background. Mine is basically in sports, but I mean music is. You know, I love music too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and being a front man of a band and being my first job was I was in a musical when I was a kid, when I was 15. Playing what part? Just in the ensemble at the. The musical was Capistrano, which is about the mission in juan capistrano original musical.
Speaker 2:A lot of fun, um, but I mean you learn how to be in front of people, you learn how to speak in front of people. You learn how to react to what people are saying. Um, and any performer will tell you like, um, when you're up on stage and you have an audience, you get access to a different part of your brain and, like my wife is so witty, she's so fast in conversation, like if we're just talking. Her jokes are brutal and efficient. It's great, I love it, and I just can't keep up with her when it's just the two of us. But like if you put a microphone in my hand and an audience of people out there, I can, I don't know. Like just something happens where I just get more incisive and reactive and clever in a way that I am just, you know, 95% of the time, just not.
Speaker 1:Okay, what about politics? So you did some activism, you got involved in things, what you know, not only what got you involved kind of in politics, but what led you to say I want to run for city council in Burbank.
Speaker 2:I mean there's a lot of answers to that question. What got me involved in politics?
Speaker 1:We'll get more into the issues in a second. I'm just more. You know what motivated you to start doing this?
Speaker 2:I wanted to be part of the next generation of leaders. I feel that local I mean quite truthfully. The thing that got me thinking it needs to be me, I need to run for something, was the inauguration of Donald Trump. I think that that's one of the great embarrassments in our country's history, you know, like certainly not Trail of Tears level, but it's. You know it's up there and on inauguration day 2017, I decided you know what it's got to be me. I got to run.
Speaker 2:I've been an activist for, you know, worried about housing issues for all this time. I know how to talk in front of people, I know how to get ideas across and none of the people that I really that I was hoping would run I was living at Glendale at the time and none of the candidates that I was hoping would run decided to. It was a big opportunity. There were three open seats and I just thought, all right, you know what it's going to be me, I'll run. I have no name recognition, I have no money, I have no preparation. I've never done anything like this before, but I'm the only renter in this race and I'm the only person that lives in the south half of the city and going in and talking about these issues, talking about renters issues, is a way to connect with people in a really genuine way.
Speaker 2:I didn't have to do the tap dance, I didn't have to perform, I didn't have to kowtow or try to tell a party line. I was there to be like hey, we have basically just lawyers and retirees on our city council and we talk about diversity, which is very, very important, but we have no economic diversity. We don't have diversity between homeowners and renters. We don't have geographic diversity people from the South half of the city and at the end of that campaign I got 13% of the vote.
Speaker 2:You know, without any preparation, the Teachers Association had endorsed me, like East Area, the teachers association had endorsed me, like East area, progressive Democrats had endorsed me, and it was a thrill and I knew it was a long shot, but it was still like okay, let's talk about these issues. Let's talk about housing affordability. There is nothing protecting tenants from the whims of the economy. There's nothing protecting tenants from a landlord that just decides you know what I'm going to sell and when, know what I'm going to sell and when I sell, I'm going to sell to this huge like a hedge fund.
Speaker 2:And that hedge fund is going to raise your rent $1,400.
Speaker 1:Let me, because you know what. Our first, because you're kind of getting into it now. But our first question is basically on rent control and landlord protections. Okay, so the question is you know, so give us your viewpoint on this very complex issue and where you think it should go, because it's in front of the city council now. They're working on it. So what are your thoughts on the entire subject?
Speaker 2:Go ahead and elaborate. Now founding for City Council Glendale 2017, I co-founded the Glendale Tenants Union to get rent control because I had a very competitively priced, let's say, apartment and I didn't want to lose it. And I've seen graphics floating around, that sort of match, the math that I've done, that sort of match, the math that I've done and basically, average rent in the city is $2,500. Or rather, that's $2,544 for a two-bedroom in Los Angeles County. Burbank's average is higher If you take the. My way of thinking is going from $2,500 to $3,000 means you know, people just can't hang on to their home. That's my imagined yardstick of I'm going to lose my house or I have to move because I've been priced out. And I saw online it's like how many years until you're evicted At the state cap of 8.9%? Basically 5% plus whatever the CPI the consumer price index is the number of years that it would take to go from a $2,500 rent to a $3,000 rent is two If you get two maximum increases of 8.9%, your rent goes from $2,500 to $3,000, and you got to move for this thought experiment $500 to $3,000. And you got to move for this thought experiment. If you do 5%, it's three years. If you do 3%. It's six years. There's a really big difference.
Speaker 2:People are talking about, like we're talking about, people who are in our community, people who deserve to be part of this community, who just didn't have the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars required to buy a home at some point in the past. But they still deserve to raise their kids here. They still deserve to have access to the schools here. We still want them as neighbors because we care about each other and we're keeping each other safe. You know, renter or homeowner, you are providing value and the connective tissue of this community and if that's the case, you deserve to be here. And for so long our country has overemphasized the investment value of a thing without considering that its use value might exceed its investment value of a thing, without considering that its use value might exceed its investment value.
Speaker 2:When I was in grad school, right at the beginning, before COVID shut everything down to save a little bit of money, I would park in Bel Air and ride my bike down to UCLA. And I asked the homeowner once like hey, I don't want to be a burden, I don't want to be in your way, do you mind if I park my car here, you know, a couple of days a week. She's like, yeah, just do behavior. That house is empty, that house is empty. That house is full. That house is empty, that house is empty. This house is our house, naturally. And then that house is empty. She's pointing out all of these incredible homes that have to be have, that have to be worth, you know, three, four, five plus million dollars. At that time I've just there, it's empty. You know, someone owns it, someone's holding on to it, but it's not being used. Um, I mean, that to me is a travesty, you know, because they're like I. If you talk to any millennial homeowner at some point they will use the word lucky.
Speaker 2:My wife and I were very lucky in that we bought our home two years ago. She had a very, very good job at the time. We were expecting our second child. We wanted to find something with three bedrooms so that our kids could have, you know, a marginally less chaotic early childhood, you know, just so we could put the baby in in her own room, and you know, and our daughter could have her own space and eventually we'd want them to share that space. But like we wanted the third bedroom, we could not find anything in this entire region that was under a million dollars except one house. Oh, that's not true region that was under a million dollars except one house. Um, oh, that's not true.
Speaker 2:There was another townhouse that, when we went to go see it, and then we're like, hey, we like this house. As we were walking out, they're like, oh, it's sold, sorry, um, yeah, just cash offer. If someone's just like, hey, um, yeah, it's no longer available. Um, if you, if you're in the position to pay cash for a home, I mean, that is such a huge advantage. Which people my age don't have a million dollars lying around. You know, we have not been able to save because our rents have been so much higher, because the costs of child care have been so much higher, because the cost of tuition and student loan debt is so much higher than previous generations.
Speaker 2:So my wife and I bought this house April 2022. 2022. Um, we're so excited. You know she's seven months pregnant. It's like, all right, we're making it happen. Can you believe this? You've been a tenant, tenant activist for for years and years and years and you, you guys, here we're getting your uh, your master's degree in housing, like, um, maybe we're one of the lucky ones.
Speaker 2:And then six days later she got laid off. No, we're expecting maternity leave. We're expecting so many things, so many things. Life-threatening curveballs, that's what it is. Yeah, and her parents were unable to help and mine were unwilling to help, and it was just figure it out and we went from a $1,400 rental two bedroom rental to a $5,000 three bedroom mortgage.
Speaker 2:You know, I keep telling people it's the last house that I'll sell in Burbank for under a million dollars. But I'm so cost burdened, like I spend more on my mortgage than I earn. You know, if my wife wasn't working as well like we wouldn't, we would not be making ends meet and I, like, I'm so adamant about rent control and tenant protections because I've been to city council meetings. I've known people who have, like, I just got priced out of this. I love my community, I love this community, but my friends, my children, had to move with me, naturally, and they don't get to be friends with their friends anymore. They have to go to this whole new school and I hear people's pushback of like, well, no one's entitled to anywhere.
Speaker 2:You're not entitled to Burbank, you're not entitled to Beverly Hills, which is a very, uh, ungenerous way to put it because for burbank is not beverly hills, but still sounds elitist. It does sound, yeah, you said it, not me. Um, but like nobody is entitled to anywhere. But my point is like everybody deserves long-term security. They deserve to. If they want to contribute to this community, they should have the means to do so. They should have the resources. We can't just say, well, I need to be able to charge as much as humanly possible for this, uh, uh, for this, because that is a, it's a one-way street. Um, there are diminishing returns to that kind of thing. Now. Granted, landlords are entitled to a fair rate of return.
Speaker 1:Well, but you did just state, though, that your tuition went up. All these things went up, and they go up substantially, probably more than 5%, 6%, yeah, I mean—. Now landlord costs also go up. You know. Water and Power and Burbank raised their costs like 6% 7%, two years in a row. Everything else seems cost-effective for landlords also, so do you understand that their plight also is— they're caught in the same vicious cycle as a renter is, except their hands are tied if there is rent control on them. So how do you tell them that? You know, know, hey, there's a way out of this for you also.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a fair rate of return built into all rent control in california, um, and if you have something where, hey, my roof needs a massive repair, uh, that can be part of a renting. Like you need to, uh, apply to I mean, honestly, I kind of forget the specific mechanics of it but you can apply to say, like I need an exception in this case because I have a major $20,000 repair to see to. And then there's that, like I saw a study very recently. I wish I had it on hand, I can't. I can't really cite or quote it, but the basics of it is like a third of rental income covers a mortgage, another third covers expenses, and then there's another third of like all right, well, that's your profit, or or there is space, you know, and if it's the kind of thing I have, I have a. I have a real problem with folks who come back and say like I am just as much a victim as you or I. I'm just in as much a bad spot as a renter who's getting a rent hike. You own a building and if you need to, you can sell the building and make a profit.
Speaker 2:It seems like housing is the only commodity in our society that is always guaranteed to go up like there people talk about like I, I, um. At one of the recent forums somebody challenged me on it of like well, you know, you took a risk to buy your house. Like yes, that's true, um, but he was unwilling to acknowledge that he took a risk buying these apartment buildings. People don't want to consider that the use value. It should be a consideration with things that are necessary for people to live Housing, water, food, clean air. Too often it's just like well, it's mine and I should be able to do with it what I want. It's like okay, but what about families? Do you want? Do you want? When was the last time you saw two? I'm thinking of like you see one stroller go by? Count how long it takes you to see a second stroller the next time. You're just sort of out in the neighborhood. Like it is so hard to start a family anymore and to maintain a family. We're losing families. Our enrollment is going down in the city, at our schools, you know, and that affects the amount of money that the school is taking, which affects the actual quality of the education that's delivered. And so when I talk about protecting tenants, protecting people who are trying to buy into the latter, the middle class, because, at the same time, it's this argument of like well, I worked hard to get what you want. I'm like. I will not dispute that any. Anyone anywhere worked hard to have what they have.
Speaker 2:My problem is that there are a lot of people who do not acknowledge the advantages that they have, that they weren't aware of at the time, that are no longer available to people like me, because we just got in after the market was torpedoed in 2008 and before then, you know like, at the same time, there's um, I mean, I got my my master's in urban planning, so we learned all about segregation. We learned all about redlining. There was this nefarious practice called contract mortgages or contact mortgages, excuse me, because African-American families were not offered traditional mortgages. They couldn't get insured, so the only people that would there was a format of a home loan where, basically, these vultures would come in and say, all right, so we'll buy this house for you, african-american family, and if you sign a contact mortgage, what this means is that if you miss one payment at any time, if you're late on one payment, you forfeit everything that you've spent and you forfeit the house.
Speaker 2:Now I'm not trying to draw a comparison between the plight of the African American family in 1940s and 50s America to millennials. Now I'm trying to say that there is an incumbency bias, there's an incumbency bonus. Prop 13 and other laws protect long-term home incumbency and that comes at a cost to people who are trying to get in and we are not creating housing that is appropriate for working people and working families. We are right now just creating either you can build an ADU in your backyard if you've got $100,000 plus lying around, which, if you do, awesome, that's a good way to keep families together. You know, grandma and grandpa live in the ADU. Adult children and their kids live in the main house. I've seen that a lot here in town and it's encouraging. You know, multi-generational living. I wish that we had access to more of my family as we were raising our kids. We're just a little spread out, but it's either an ADU or it's a luxury apartment, you know, and those start renting at four or five, sometimes six thousand dollars.
Speaker 2:You know, I spoke to a woman who lives near Huerta who had just sold her home at that time, you know, for the average cost, which is like one point two million dollars. One point two million dollars. Million dollars, 1.2 million dollars. Um, the mortgage, uh, that that new owner was going to be paying was ten thousand dollars a month because of what the interest rates were at the time. Um, I mean, even just back with my example, if I wanted to try to get the loan that I need to have my home right now, I could not. I got we, my family got the home loan.
Speaker 2:During these seven weeks it was possible for us to get the loan and we lucked out by finding a home that was, you know, in our price range at the time, so to speak. You know, going into it, we're like it's going to be a stretch but we can make it. But if we I mean we have an adjustable rate mortgage, so 10 years after the signing of that loan, the rates will change to whatever it is in 2032. I don't know if we'll be able to afford it at that point. I don't know if that's gonna shoot my mortgage up from $5,300 a month to six or seven. But I mean, my point is like I've been studying housing for so long, I've been studying the housing affordability crisis for so long.
Speaker 2:People's concerns about what about. You know my ability to make ends meet. I want to. You know like I'm a good landlord. Those are valid, but in a crisis, I'm more concerned about the people who are in crisis, and the crisis is the people who do not own things or who you know, people like me who are severely cost burdened, which is to say, I spend more than 30%. I spend 50% of my family's income just on our housing. These are the people that need help and they need help now. So I mean, like our response as a city, our response as a society, should be like who needs the most help? You know, what can we do? And to understand that ownership works for some people, doesn't work for everybody, everybody.
Speaker 2:But young people and newcomers to the market, people of color, seniors on fixed incomes we don't have this access to the same tools anymore. If you didn't buy 10 years ago or more, the percentage that you're going to be spending on your house or your home, or or, or I mean it. It's either break yourself to barely afford a thing, uh, save nothing for your retirement. You know, I don't know if I'm going to be able to retire. Um, you know, that's the other thing. It's like well, just keep working, like okay, so I'm going to be working into my 80s. You know, like, is that dignified? We are in so many ways sacrificing uh, uh or expecting young people to sacrifice their future so that we just don't adjust to status quo. That isn't working for us, you know, that's. That's where. That's where I come in. Well, to challenge that.
Speaker 1:Nothing like trying to get a? Uh, where that's where I come in, well, to challenge that. Nothing like trying to get a uh, a passionate answer on a question, huh. So we hit the fat first question, which is right up your alley. So yeah, I think I only got like one more question, no no, I think it's very important, though, that people understand what you're all about, and that's that's you know. I think you just showed it right there and gave your a good honest. You know good honest. I appreciate yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like I, I have. I have a hard time because I want to empathize with people and, like people, work hard, they should, they should, they're entitled to the benefit of their work. Um, it's just that. So am I. You know, I work so hard. Um, my family worked so hard. My family worked so hard. We've given up so much, but we do not have the same guarantees, because we bought in 2022 when the market was crazy, and it's gotten so much worse since then.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to move on to transportation. Sure, because once again, I appreciate the response and I said I wanted you to go on and give, get everything out there. You wanted to get out because that's what's your backgrounds in that housing, so I know it's important to you. Um, this dog.
Speaker 1:This dog is a winner, no longer skittish yes yes, he's now, we are friends he does like to make friends with people, excellent, okay, so give us your thoughts on the bus rapid transit plan that's going to go down all the BRT. So what are your thoughts on that? Right now, it's kind of a contentious issue on both sides.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we need more regional transit. We need good regional transit. We need more regional transit. We need good regional transit. We need to provide people options, not just to get people out of their cars, because we absolutely should be trying to get people out of the cars. Do you remember that week, right at the beginning of COVID, when everyone it was a lockdown? You look out over the hills, like you know, driving up the 134 to Pasadena. You look out, you see, like you can. And with climate change being such a present issue, you know Octobers are getting hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter. We need to change the way we think about transportation. We need to change the way we're thinking about energy use, and there are a lot of people who do not want to own cars. There are a lot of people who cannot own cars. There's plenty of seniors who just can't drive. They deserve freedom of movement in the city just as well as anybody else.
Speaker 2:Southern California developed so specifically during the era of the automobile, that the assumption that everyone's going to own a car, there will be a free place to park it and there will be a free place to park it, and there will be a free place to park it wherever you need to go. Like those assumptions are everywhere and those are expensive assumptions. Any parking space that is built now costs like $40,000 a piece. But it's not direct. You don't pay for it out of pocket. You don't say I'll have one parking space, please. You have to put that cost into everything else. So homes are more expensive. Housing you know, multifamily housing is more expensive. Restaurants are more expensive, like things are more expensive because you have to expect that free parking Back in.
Speaker 2:You know, back in the olden times I used to drive for Lyft and moving from Burbank or Glendale, there were people who lived Burbank, glendale, Atwater Village, silver Lake, who did not want to own a car but who wanted to get to the West Side. And I asked them once, like, is this really cheaper than owning your own car? Is it easier than owning your car? And he said yes to both. So I mean, there are people out there who do not want to own cars but at same time, like my daughter, is fascinated with buses. She just loves buses and she also loves the Chateau Tea House in Pasadena. I would love to be able to take the bus with my daughter to go to the Chateau Tea House in Pasadena. That sounds great.
Speaker 2:We need to provide people options and the instinct is to say no one's going to use it. Well, that may be true of you. You know, like you and your response, you as you're thinking it doesn't make sense for how things are working for you right now because you don't use a bus on a regular, you don't use rail on a regular. But if the option presents itself and it's attractive and it's clean and it's safe and it's affordable, maybe you start folding it into your daily use, like I used to. Um, uh, uh, I used to work for the Riverside planning department, uh, riverside County, and I'd have to be in my car for an hour at a time and I developed sciatica like nerve damage in my leg as a 37 year old dude, uh, with this commute to Riverside and back twice a day. It was horrible.
Speaker 2:Um, if I had the option to take option to take a bus or light rail and not have it you know, even if it was like an hour and 15 minutes instead of an hour or hour and 20 minutes, hour and a half, that would be something I would have considered.
Speaker 1:We'll get back to a little bit more transportation, but let's get back to Olive and the BRT. Are you for a single lane? Are you for mixed flow? What's your?
Speaker 2:how do you feel on that Dedicated lane? Dedicated lane with signal prioritization. So, basically, if it's going to be the bus rapid transit system, it needs to be rapid.
Speaker 1:They have said, though it's only, at the most, take maybe one minute off the trip. Who's that? The Metro?
Speaker 2:The Metro has said it's taking one minute.
Speaker 1:About a minute off the trip by having a single lane compared to mixed flow in that section of burbank. Yet the traffic will probably back up for eight to ten minutes well then, we got.
Speaker 2:Then we can get into, uh, the the urban planning concepts of induced demand and reduced demand. Um, so induced demand is the idea that when you widen the highway, everyone hears about it. Oh man, dude, did you hear? There's an extra lane on there. It's going to be smooth as silk. We're going to get in there. It's going to be so much faster. Everybody then chooses to use that route and for the first few months, the initial opening oh man, it's just great. And then the demand is induced, more people choose that route and it slows right back down to how it was. Widening highways doesn't work. Um, the opposite uh effect is called reduced demand. Oh man, all is going to be slower now. We can't go that way anymore.
Speaker 1:We got to go a different way but what if that way involves going through all the residential neighborhoods?
Speaker 2:now I mean people are already doing that um to to a limited degree. But also it will spread out, uh, the use of those uh intermediate streets, uh, and not just happy, because right now it's just like the one street is the main street, like, um, I can't remember offhand I've I've knocked so many doors, I've spoken to so many people, thousands, thousands of doors, thousands of people, and, yeah, in that immediate section, especially like that five-point cluster, or rather that six-point cluster at Olive and Sparks, like that, oh man, that is a.
Speaker 1:It's not great. Yeah, they've been talking about actually reconfiguring the intersection for a while now.
Speaker 2:I would be interested to see proposals. Not being a transportation like, I took transportation classes, I like transportation policy. Sorry, a theory. Rather it is the other side of the housing coin. You know, like what makes a city housing and transportation.
Speaker 1:You know let's go more into transportation. But my next question is you know how do you feel that the burbank bus serves the city? Do you like? Would you like to see anything else added to the transportation system in burbank to help burbank residents?
Speaker 2:yeah, I this came up a while back at this the um streets for all uh uh forum. I'd like to see more circulators, more bus circulators. I'd like to see a lot more north south connectivity. That's true of of bike infrastructure as well, but we don't have a lot of north-south movement in the city. So I wanted to see that green line sort of do two opposite flow circulators, using Hollywood or Buena Vista as the main, like the spine, so that people get moving around.
Speaker 2:I'm not an expert on using buses. I've gotten an invitation, or rather there was a challenge from a constituent, basically like hey, ride the bus with, you know, depend on the bus for a month, or sorry, for a week rather. And you know, like, so you really understand what it's like and how how much time you're giving up to use public transportation as it is, to find out where all the weak points are, really understand this thing better. And I said I want to take you up on this challenge. I cannot, you know, like I, I have to spend every spare moment I possibly can out talking to people. I have two small children, like I. You know they need me to pick them. My wife usually works a little bit later than I do. So I mean like I need that flexibility of transportation right now. So I can't accept that challenge. You know I appreciate exactly where it's coming from and I look forward to, in calmer times, really understand it, really riding the system depending on the system for a bit, understanding it better.
Speaker 2:So I'm not an expert, but I know people who are and I want to really integrate with that, really get into that perspective. You know, because the instinct if you use a car is to just be like no one wants to use that. Well, there are a lot of people that have to use it, in addition to some people who would choose to do so if they could. So I mean, just in general, we are so car dependent.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the transportation is not really helping us at all. I mean, we're not really seeing. You know, like you say, in Burbank, there's really no transit in Burbank for people to take. You see north-south routes and you know. Back to what you say about the amount of time spent, if you look at, you, go to Google Maps for directions and you can push to the side. Okay, how long does it take if I walk? How long does it take if I drive? How long does it take if I bike? And how long does it take if I take a bus? And you'll find the bus is sometimes two to three times longer than a car and sometimes even the bicycle is shorter than taking a bus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're talking to someone who rode his bike from here to UCLA and it was marginally faster than driving. I can't imagine how much longer it would have taken to use a bus. We had a volunteer really early on in the campaign who lived out in Monrovia and it took him like an hour, half hour 40 to be in Burbank to help knock. Yeah, it's like I'm looking at right now just to get home. If I want to use the system as it exists now from where I am to get you know here in the beautiful media district, if I want to get back to the Rancho adjacent district next to the five freeway at Alameda, that is a 40 minute endeavor I could probably hang out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, could I probably walk there? Yes, I think you could.
Speaker 2:Let's find out together, you and I walking an hour and 10 minutes or a 40 minute bus drive, it's a slow.
Speaker 1:That's a slow walk because I used to walk from here to Jordan Junior High School back in the day and it took about 45 minutes. Anyhow, you're in the media district and right now you're in the media district adjacent, so the media district specific plan is now starting to hit this forefront. What do you believe should be done to protect residents and to stimulate business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I need to see the specific plan. This is something that was an early proposal of mine of like look, you want an urban planner to read your urban plans. You want an urban planner to read the neighborhood plan? When I have time, time, I look forward to reviewing this thing.
Speaker 2:But my, my initial knee-jerk reactions are these um, the big box luxury developments. They're not for us, they're not. We have so many of those units right now. Um, I would like to see a rental registry to find out exactly how many of these luxury apartments are vacant. Um, that figures into some of the other considerations I like to make around tenant protections, and you know I want to. There should be a difference between the rental owning a rental as a hedge fund and owning a rental as a mom and pop Another conversation for a later time. But basically, like, media district is a gem. It is a very specific like you've got that beautiful. Like the village with oh, they got rid of the old chip shop. That was my favorite restaurant in town. They got rid of it. I'm so sad Cause that would be like the one thing of like, all right, we can barely afford to eat out anymore, but like, well, restaurants on that street last about a year or two years.
Speaker 1:All of the time has been there forever. There's 17 restaurants there in a three block radius with zero parking, so how do you sustain a business in that? In that regard, you know, yeah, again zero free parking?
Speaker 2:We're not. I mean, yeah, there's parking available but it's like $6, man, it's pretty brutal. But again, that goes back to the assumption of the only tool we will use to get around is a car, and using the car must be free. I would be interested in Okay, so I took the parking class with Donald Shoup at UCLA. He literally wrote the book the High Cost of Free Parking at UCLA. He literally wrote the book the High Costs of Free Parking. And the idea that parking will be ubiquitous and free does mask the costs of some things. And I would be interested to see charging for parking in such a way that it incentivizes the availability of parking spaces on the street and then the money that is used in that parking can be put into alternative transit options.
Speaker 1:Okay, Another conversation another time. You never saw my notes. It's amazing how you are morphing from one question to the next in the order I have them.
Speaker 2:I didn't get to start with the media.
Speaker 1:just yet I disagree, because these are all you know.
Speaker 2:so my next question was.
Speaker 1:I'm going to answer this question when you ask your next question Okay, do them both at the same time, because they kind of co-mingle then. So it sounds like parking meters are coming to downtown Burbank.
Speaker 2:I would be interested to see that.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts there? And should we look at putting them in additional areas to generate income also, like Magnolia Park or Glen Oaks or other areas? So there have been several meetings about that. Now it's coming in front of the council. So parking never had parking meters in Burbank before, yeah, so what do you think about all that? I mean?
Speaker 2:I love that Orange Grove parking structure. There's always something there and it's always available. It's always free. I could see a very good argument for, especially on San Fernando, since it's a one-way these days, to put meters that charge appropriately for the use. The idea of like I don't remember the term, like look it up, the high cost of free parking, donald Shute, 2005. Laughs at his own jokes in class all the time, don't we all? I don't know. The idea is to charge enough so that there will always be one to two spaces open.
Speaker 1:That's the plan they actually have in Burbank now. Right, that's the plan they're coming up with with electronic and they're going to do by demand and by you know. The goal is to have 20% of spots always open.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah. So that's yeah, that's flexible, it's annoying, it will. You know that's another cost that we're going to have to incur and you know it sucks as a political candidate to be talking about something that I know is unpopular, you know, but my master's degree is spinning on the wall back at home and I feel like I have to Um. So I mean, creating that availability is part of it. Generating the revenue and then specifically making sure that revenues from parking are put into uh, either uh, uh, beautifying our public spaces, uh, uh, creating, like, bus shelters. Beautifying our public spaces, creating bus shelters, creating parklets, making third spaces more available and safer, or alternate transportation infrastructure, like protected bike lanes and more and better bus lines to create the options where it's cheaper to ride the bus, and you know what it's about. The same time, these days I might as well, you know, incentivizing other uses. Um, you know, cause a lot of times it's like, right now, our bus service to get back home, it's going to cost me 40 minutes. There's just not that much uh available right now. Uh, like just not a lot of of lines that are moving. Um, but if we're charging for parking, the flex time, donald shoe model, uh, it generates money that we can then reinvest. You know, the point isn't to just dump it into the general fund, um, or, you know, put it into people's salaries that work for the city, but just like, no like, instead like ear market for these really specific purposes that directly dovetail with what people are doing in these spaces.
Speaker 2:Now to get back to the media district, okay, and that question, the neighborhood plan. So I've been talking for a while about more in different formats of housing. I think that the big box luxury apartments are we have enough, we don't need more. What we need are more in different formats. We have enough, we don't need more. What we need are more in different formats.
Speaker 2:I would like to start incentivizing smaller developments for smaller developers and have, you know, four to six unit townhomes be more common, and especially in our commercial corridors, because that's the big resource that a lot of cities have right now are underutilized commercial areas. You know we've got the IKEA building that's empty, we've got the Fry's, we've got Kmart. So all like the big format stuff. We also have the smaller format stuff, like Riley's Boutique on Magnolia has been. It's across from Palm Coffee, which I love, but I think Riley's Boutique has been closed since, even before COVID. You know there are opportunities and the state is constantly putting more legislation behind speeding up the development, making it cheaper and easier to build these sorts of recaptured commercial spaces into residential um. I would like to see what can be done with smaller format multifamily developments in the media district. You know because that we need more housing everywhere. But when you don't spread it out broadly you get those big prod, those big giant buildings that make the neighborhood feel like a kind of like they're doing a pass Riverside right now.
Speaker 2:Yes, pass Riverside Exactly. People talk about like seven stories. It's going to be casting shadows on people's homes and pools and stuff like yeah, we not great not great, but like my problem.
Speaker 2:Um, the problem is we're dealing with the consequences of the decisions made by councils prior to 2020. Like these are uh chickens that are coming home to roost. That that the present council, even the previous council, had nothing to do with, because the state housing element is it's a thing that every city needs to provide every eight years of like. Here's where we could put housing, here's where we, here's how much housing we have produced, um, for, basically up until 2020 or so. It was a paper exercise of just like. It shows where you could put it. If you can't put it anywhere, all right, it's, it's annoying, but it's fine. Um, but starting, uh, in 2020. Oh, we got puppy action.
Speaker 1:Yes, what's up, buddy, he can bark yes, he can all right, give it a minute uh, he'll keep going, we just keep, we'll just keep going here. I don't think you know all right, people understand dog doing his job yep, yep, keeping it safe.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's a flashing light coming from outside that's our, that's our on the air light oh okay, perfect, I thought it was like a truck out front, all right, anyways. Uh god, what was I talking about? Um, the dog. The dog threw me off so hard. Um well, we can move on here no I don't want to move on.
Speaker 2:I don't want to move on. Um, okay, so that's right. Um, council's project 2020 never took the housing crisis seriously, did not spread out uh uh housing throughout the but instead we're just like well, we need to preserve the character of our neighborhoods. I'll tell you what, mike let's pause for a second. He's really going after it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's going after it. So let's pause for a second and we'll be right back after this dog intervention. So stand by, we'll be right back. I can't. That's probably my 3 o'clock showing up, Ah there you go? Yeah, that's my 3 o'clock showing up.
Speaker 2:Go for it, okay, dodger.
Speaker 1:Dodger Dodger. You know her. You know her. Come on, love dog. I'm sorry, fred, I thought you were. No, it's okay, I put him in my head. I didn't think he was going to. You think that? Good boy, good boy.
Speaker 2:Go ahead and sit down and then we'll. Okay, I'm going'll get back on this.
Speaker 1:There's also and oh, handled yeah, she came in and he's he's doing what dogs do you know? He's. Naturally I gotta love a dog who's just loyal to what he needs to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay okay, I'm not taking the okay, perfect, all right, um, okay, so hold on a second. Here we were talking about councils prior to 2020. You hit me when you're ready. Okay, there'll be some. Oh, it's still recording. All right, we're good, yeah, but let me let me get back into this here.
Speaker 1:Uh, sure, so three, two, one. Well, we're back with you and, uh, the dodger alarm has been solved. So sorry about that we. We apologize for the the break here. Yeah, so, mike, we were talking about councils of the past and once you continue your thoughts on that, yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:So councils prior to 2020 never took the housing crisis seriously and because they came from a generation of leaders who are concerned about neighborhood character. You know retirees, people with time, and you know they've just been around a while and sure they love their city. But also they have a very specific perspective and this perspective is I'm a homeowner, I've been here for 30 plus years and I don't want anything to look different. I don't want anything to change. I don't want my commute to get longer and certainly there's merit in that but all the while we were underproducing housing, commutes were getting longer because the only housing being created was in the exurbs. We've got all this housing going up in Lancaster or Valencia and nothing here. We have one housing unit for every six jobs in the city. Our population goes from 100,000 to 250,000 during the daytime. You know, because we just we're not accounting for councils previous to now, we're not accounting for the need as it existed in the city and so to sort of be mindful of neighborhood character, it's sort of like, well, let's just put some housing and some multifamily housing and just these little tiny clumps. Basically, end of the day, state of California said you didn't produce enough housing. You did not make your regional housing needs assessment goal and therefore we are taking away local control. And so now the new generation coming in are, you know, having to clean up for this problem. Like we've got these massive buildings going in. Like, granted, we've built more units over the past I think four years than in the 20 prior to that. But it's the one format, it's just luxury apartments.
Speaker 2:So the idea that I'm trying to push is smaller format multifamily development for mom and pop developers. You know, I've spoken to people who are like I want to build some apartments but I can't because it's just so hard to do it through the city right now to get what we need, to get the permits, to get everything, get the plans, get things moving along. Granted the high-power, the big-box luxury developments, those go faster because they've got a huge legal team behind it. If it's just, you know, peggy and Bill who just want to put up some more housing because they've got the money and you know they want to try to create this thing, it's a huge burden and the burden turns people off. So trying to incentivize smaller development on smaller lots, that's what I want to do and I'm looking forward very strongly to being able to read these neighborhood plans. You know, with my critical background, like I studied this, I do this every day.
Speaker 1:If it helps you at all, we have one of the meetings from the district plan on my Burbank on the YouTube channel. We have the downtown parking meeting on the YouTube channel. Okay, so we have a lot of those meetings that the city's held. We want to go back and review any of those and take a look at the city's proposals, okay.
Speaker 2:My Burbank YouTube channel. Yes, I look forward to having enough time to review these things.
Speaker 1:We try to get a lot of things on there. We're always busy, trust me.
Speaker 2:I trust you.
Speaker 1:So what areas do you feel the city is going in the wrong way and what would you do, if elected, to change or improve that direction?
Speaker 2:The wrong- way, let me tell you what I'm worried about more than anything else. I'm a grassroots candidate, right, my reach is as far as my feet will take me. I'm going out. Like I said, this campaign is knocked over 14,000 doors. I personally have knocked over 3,000 doors like conversations with people and I work, I've worked really hard to do the fundraising thing that is necessary to have this kind of conversation with the city and I believe my team and I have raised about $20,000, probably more than that Raised and spent about that. And we exist in a post-Citizens United society. We're a local council race where the job earns you $20,000 a year, is being funded. There are some candidates who are being given or spent on their behalf a half a million dollars Mailers in your inbox every single day and those cost $10,000 apiece.
Speaker 1:Isn't that proportional, though, to all the other races? Are you looking at how much is being spent on Senate right now? No-transcript In a local race. Well, I'm just talking about isn't that proportional, though, as you move up the ladder for county supervisor, for whatever you know, la City Council member? It's proportional as far as how much money is spent on these campaigns.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's an appeal to normalcy of just like that's how it is for everyone else. That's how it should be, didn't?
Speaker 1:say it's right. I just said isn't that proportional to what's going on in the rest of?
Speaker 2:elections? I don't think. So I will say that, look, I'm excited to cast my ballot for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I think that a lot of people have a lot of progressives and liberals and leftists have donated to her campaign and it's been difficult to keep up. But I mean, like this election cycle has been so unlike the previous ones, you know, just in terms of raw dollars.
Speaker 2:When I ran in 2017, I gloated that. You know, basically, I had raised three thousand dollars and I got three thousand votes. You know I spent a dollar per vote and I was up against people who the three of them put together, who won these three seats collectively raised and spent a quarter of a million dollars between three people. Now, seven years later, there's two people and it's a half a million dollars. I'm sorry, six hundred and thirty thousand dollars independent expenditure. I just think that's grotesque, that's not democracy, that is a hijacking of our dialogue. You know, I can't have the same kind of conversation and you know what? Maybe that's helping in some ways, because so many people are sick of that format. Well, absolutely Do. I agree. Buried in these messages, every single day.
Speaker 1:Do I agree with you Absolutely, and we're in these messages every single day. Do I agree with you Absolutely? And we're in a nonpartisan election in Burbank. We don't go by Democrat or Republican. But yet the outside money being dumped in here is tremendous. But the problem is because of PACs and everything else that our country says it's fine to do. There's no choice in it, and I wish we could pass a campaign reform, but even so, outside PACs would still have their influence over and it wouldn't have to go by local conditions here's the response to that, which is I'm going to spend my money a lot more wisely than some of these other candidates.
Speaker 2:Just because I have to, I have to put a lot more thought into where am I going to get the most return on every dollar that I raise. You know, every dollar that people give me is a vote of confidence of like we think you're the, you're the person for this job. So I want to use that. I want to use that money very, very wisely, and what we've done is we've spent it on people to go out and knock doors and talk to people, get the flyers up. Uh, we're not advertising, we're talking um, blocking, um. What would help?
Speaker 2:Uh, uh, people like me, or you know me, or people like me uh, are matching funds. Um, uh, of los angeles does this. If you uh fundraise past a certain threshold and if you agree to certain limits, um, with the money that you raise thereafter, um, then you are given funds matched by the city, but just like here's, you know, just, for example, $15,000. Like that, would you know, if I fundraised 15K and then was provided 15K by the city to have an honest conversation with the city, I wouldn't spend that on mail. I wouldn't spend that on harassing Well, I understand that.
Speaker 1:But if you get $15,000, there's 10 candidates each, you get $15,000. That's $150,000 of taxpayer money in the city. So do you think that's the way people want to see that go?
Speaker 2:I think that people would be a lot more willing to provide that kind of money in good faith and say, like I want local candidates who are responsive to my needs have a real shot. And maybe degrees of that are voluntary, maybe degrees aren't, but just like whatever Los Angeles is doing to properly fund grassroots candidates with matching funds, we should be looking into that. I want to see ranked choice voting so that people don't worry about spoiler candidates. You know like if you're a first time candidate, you know just talking about renters issues and you have a Mohawk like I did in 2017, you know like if there were ranked choice, I bet you I would have gotten more than those 3,000 votes.
Speaker 1:What about council districts? They're saying that they tried to shove down our throats about a year ago and they're fighting against it.
Speaker 2:Well, shoving down our throats, packages the conversation, like now, trying to defend the idea, you know you put me on the defensive of like. We have districts for so many things. We have districts for the school board, we have districts for, you know, los Angeles.
Speaker 1:Well, they didn't have a choice in that either. The school district was forced into it, but it was the same person.
Speaker 2:Right, but it's more representative.
Speaker 2:They couldn't fight back because they didn't have the resources it's more representative of and they couldn't fight back because they didn't have the resources. Yeah, it's more representative of the neighborhood. Like I live rancho adjacent so, like I'm sure that my district, such as it ends up being, would include the ranchos, so I would need to be responsive to both rancho adjacent needs and the ranchos needs. But that's still 20,000 people and not 100,000 people. You know, we have this system set up where, like, I heard that criticism in 2017 of like, well, you're just building little fiefdoms where no one you know if you're in that area, then no one can ever bump you out. It's like we already have that, but just in the wealthiest areas in town.
Speaker 2:I am very encouraged that the candidates that keep winning elections here in Burbank are younger and more progressive. You know, we've got two renters on council. We've got a cost cost burdened homeowner on there right now who's moving into state assembly Very excited for, you know, vote Nick Schultz. He's, he's, he's a good one for state assembly. So we're getting more and more. We're getting closer and closer to representing the city, not only due to just the economics of it all, but like because there are people like me who are saying I deserve a shot at this too. It can't just be retirees and it can't just be lawyers. It can't just be people who are independently wealthy uh, who, who are just like. That sounds fun, it's.
Speaker 2:It's so much work like yes it's so much work but, like, you need to have the right priorities to make sure that you're serving your popular, you're serving your community. We were asked um uh, uh. One of the questions at the League of Women Voters was like should Burbank City Council weigh in on international issues? It was a way to talk about, like well, the ceasefire resolution that our city council unanimously voted through. I read it, I supported it and most candidates said no man should stay in our lane. And most candidates said no man should stay in our lane. My reaction was people vote for leaders because they want leadership, they want comfort, they want to be seen, they want to be heard, especially in moments of crisis, like, if you're an elected official, you are responsible to reach out and to be available and to be heard and responsive to what people care about. And, like, the ceasefire resolution specifically affected me because I'd be the first Jew in the history of Burbank City Council. You know, and I want, like my like I said, my comments.
Speaker 2:My heart broke for the victims of the October 7th attack and my heart continues to break for the tens of thousands of people who have died in Palestine since then, and it was so important to so many people in our community that our elected leadership say something, and so they did, and that's how it should be. Our elected leadership say something and so they did, and that's how it should be. We are here to be responsive to the needs, to people's needs, to make sure that we just don't like because I've been in the position where it's like, hey, city council member, I have a huge problem, I'm scared, and you get the pat on the head of like well, I care about everybody in the city. Well, that's not what I'm saying. Like, hey, I have this problem and I'm scared. What can the city do to help? Well, we're responsive to everybody. That's not what I'm saying. Like there's like I'm going to, I'm going to like you heard what I'm saying Like be responsive to everybody or be available to everybody, yes, but be responsive, be responsible to hear people out.
Speaker 2:You know and that's one of the things that I think that makes me such a compelling candidate is I'm going through what so many people are going through right now cost burden. I'm trying to raise a family where half my money goes to my house and the other quarter goes towards the child care necessary for the both me and my wife to work to, you know to to pay off these, to pay. You know we don't go, we don't really go out to eat, we don't go on vacation, we don't really get to relax all that much. We are worried all the time and that perspective is essential on council. I don't want to hear folks coming up like you know what? I hear you, I really do. I hear you it's like okay, but are you living what I'm living? Can you really understand what I'm going through? If you're not going, if you haven't gone through this, if you're not going through it now, because what? Like the trials and tribulations folks had gone through in their own?
Speaker 2:You know, young adulthood are not equivalent to what's happening now, and I say that as well as, like you know, an almost 40 year old person, like we've got the new cultural crisis of, you know these podcast hosts who are, you know, convincing all of our young men or trying to convince young men, rather, that women are the problem. You know that you're fine. You're a dude. That means you're fine. You're a dude, that means you're powerful, you're strong. You got to stand up, stand up straight, make your own bed and subjugate those people around you.
Speaker 2:You know it's like people hear toxic masculinity and they think, oh, all masculinity is toxic. Is that what you think? No, man, the adjective is important. There is masculinity. There's my version of masculinity, which is I like to wear pink, I have tattoos, I like to, like you know, be, I'm comfortable in my own skin and I'm emotionally available to my family and my friends. You know, I, I, my children have seen me cry before Like it's important that I present to my kids a complete picture of what a person and what a man is. And then there's toxic masculinity, which is this idea of, like men have to only either be angry or in control, and that is that is absolutely wrong. But that that line is being is being pumped into young men through YouTube and through podcasts, you know, such that young men are growing more and more conservative, you know, just because they don't have those same kind of role models.
Speaker 2:So, like when I'd say like I'm not, like you, older generations, you're not going through what I go through. I will acknowledge, at the same time, I'm not going through what younger generations are going through, you know. But like when I was talking to, like the League of Conservation Voters during their endorsement process, like the climate crisis terrifies me, absolutely terrifies me, and I know that one day it's going to be terrifying to my children as well. And so, in that moment, when they look at me and they're crying and they're so scared because they know they understand a fraction of what's happening to this planet and they say, daddy, what do I do? I just want to have a good answer in that moment. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And so, like that's, that's why I'm getting so involved in all this stuff, and there are so many people like me going through all this stuff, and they need to be heard, they need to be provided resources, they need to be prioritized. You know, it can't just be the solutions that we've trotted out for decades that have not worked, um, and we are starting to turn, like I imagine things like turning a boat. You know you can't just flip a boat. Uh, that boat takes time to curve around, you know, but it needs people, uh, like me, who are going to prioritize, creating different systems, uh, bringing those different priorities in, and not just being like, well, this is what happened before. Maybe it'll, maybe it'll work. Maybe it'll work this time.
Speaker 2:You know, I just don't, I don't have a lot of faith in that. But I have a lot of faith in the expertise, the lived experience that people like me are going through. And you know like I got a lot of faith in my master's degree there you go, yeah, bringing it back home.
Speaker 1:Well, mike, mike, we appreciate you being here and what I always do at the end of every podcast. You know your camera is and I give you the whatever time you want. You can look right in that camera, you can talk to the voters yourself and you can tell them why they should vote for you put the little check mark next to your name for burbank city council. So this is your time, please use. Please use it as you'd like to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, first of all, thank you. I appreciate you watching all the way through to this. I'm sure that there's some stuff that I've said that you've disagreed with. I hope that you've heard at least some stuff that you do agree with. But we're in a housing crisis and I'm a housing policy professional. We're in a democratic crisis where people just threaten our elected leaders for clicks and I am a twice elected delegate to the state democratic party who's run on a populist platform, uh, and I'm an amateur fighter. Who retired amateur fighter who's not afraid of putting myself between a vulnerable population and people who are accusing them of horrible things. I am a staunch ally of the LGBTQIA community. I'm a staunch ally of our educators. I'm endorsed by the Burbank Teachers Association. I'm endorsed by the California Working Families Party East Area Progressive Democrats Teamsters Joint Council 42. I'm one of two union members in this race. I'm one of two people with children in Burbank public schools.
Speaker 2:I am living a life like most young people in this city and I want to be part of that next generation of leaders and change makers. As I'm going around, I'm knocking on doors Again. I've knocked over me personally, knocked over 3,000. The team's knocked. We're coming up on like 15. And I keep hearing. You know what. I'm glad you're doing this. You know the no one's ever come to my door before you know and what that tells me is that people haven't reached out Like I want to reach out. I want to try to be there. I want to the conversation about resolving the crises. As a housing insecure homeowner who spent almost a decade as a tenants' rights activist, I submit to you I and my master's degree in housing and my years of experience working in housing policy. I'm the best person for this job, so I hope you'll consider me.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, mike Van Gorder, thank you very much for coming in. We appreciate it. Thank you. I know people watch and listen because we have this on YouTube Plus, we have it on 13 different podcast channels, so they get a lot of listens. So I think it's good that people get to know who you are. So we appreciate you coming in. Thank you Once. So we appreciate you coming in. Thank you Once again. This is Craig Sherwood saying thank you for watching, and if you're a candidate and your name appears in the Burbank ballot, please send an email to news at myburnercom and we will be glad to give you a shout-out. So there's a little quick, little shout-out of Mike. There. There's these campaign flyers.
Speaker 2:Thousands of these and doors. Okay, anywhere you've seen one of those, I've been.