Homelessness in LA has gone up--especially in women, director of the SoCal Earthquake Center predicts major quake, will the Florida Governor's invitation to CA businesses inspire a mass exodus?
Standing firm: Young GOP-er calls Trump a ‘con man,’ won’t vote for him
And then there was one.
Donald J Trump is the last man standing in a long and contentious contest for the Republican nomination. Ohio Governor John Kasich was the last candidate to drop. He made it official at a press conference in Columbus yesterday afternoon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsghAbD3Z38
Hours before Kasich bowed-out, Hillary Clinton tweeted her first attack ad targeting Trump. It features some familiar Republican faces:
"President Trump" is a dangerous proposition.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 4, 2016
Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio agree.https://t.co/fUkISvgaXC
USC student and young Republican Mary Perez has been a regular Take Two this election season.
She can be heard on earlier segments here.
Perez has been consistently anti-Trump from day one. The reason? She doesn’t believe Trump is a real conservative. With Trump’s place on the GOP ticket a certainty, Take Two brought her back for comment.
We’ve been talking to you since the start of the presidential race. Each time your message has stayed pretty consistent: no Trump. Well, Trump’s all you’ve got now. What are you feeling this morning?
I still won’t vote for him.
You will not vote for him?
I will not vote for him. In the general I will probably either cast my ballot for Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party, or I will just abstain from voting.
Could he reshape himself, change himself between now and November where you may reconsider? Is there any hope? Any crack in the doorway at all?
No. Donald Trump’s going to be Donald Trump: the Donald Trump that he was during The Apprentice and the Donald Trump that he’s going to be as the Republican nominee. He’d have to have Ted Cruz as the attorney general, [and] make really strong Republican voices in his cabinet for me to even consider, but you know what, though? I really stand strong when I say ‘never Trump.’ I mean never Trump ... You know, I was listening to a lot of my peers … and a lot of them in the college Republicans were like, ‘Okay, you guys. It’s time to unite. It is time to rally behind Donald Trump because, well, he’s better than Hillary [Clinton].' But is he really, though?
There is an open seat for the Supreme Court. Do you fear that your non-vote for the Republican nominee would mean that you’ve kept that door open for a liberal to take that seat?
You know, honestly, if Donald Trump were to be the president, we don’t know who he would nominate as the Supreme Court nominee. He could nominate someone as left as Hillary would nominate. He could nominate someone left of Merrick Garland. There’s always a worse choice, and you have to draw the moral line of where you’re going to go, and I think we don’t know where Donald Trump’s going, who he could possibly nominate … I really truly believe that he is not the conservative that he makes himself out to be. I honestly believe he’s kind of a con man. He kind of tricked the Republican voters and — in essence — I blame the Republican voters for falling into his trap.
Press the blue button to hear the full interview.
What LA's safe parking pilot program for the homeless would look like
With Los Angeles’ latest homeless numbers up 6 percent from last year, LA officials are looking for new solutions.
One possible idea can be found in Santa Barbara. It's called safe parking, and it allows homeless people who live in a car or RV to park overnight with permission from the city.
The program has been in-place there for 12 years, and it could soon be tested here in LA.
LA City Councilman Mike Bonin joined the show with more.
Interview highlights:
How LA’s pilot program would work:
“It’s a program I’ve been trying to get down here in Los Angeles for a long time, and my predecessor did as well. I think there is finally some momentum for it. The way it works is, I think it is important to dispel the misconception. Some folks would imagine we’re opening up parking lots to football-sized stadiums full of vehicles, and it’s not that, it’s not a big RV park. What they do in Santa Barbara is they have a number of scattered sites, three to five vehicles per lot, run by a social service agency in Santa Barbara. Folks are given an assigned spot that only they can use for certain hours of the day and a certain period of time, and in exchange for their participation in that program they don’t park in front of somebody’s residence or business overnight, and they also get counseling and a housing voucher. So in Santa Barbara, it’s a step and part of the path towards getting back into housing.”
How many of LA’s homeless live in a vehicle:
“LAHSA, The Homeless Services Authority, came out with their top line numbers yesterday, which didn’t break it down to vehicles, but we do think that the number of people living in their vehicles has gone up. County-wide last year, there were about 3,000. I think there’s over, probably 1,000 in Los Angeles, maybe 1,500. So obviously this program isn’t going to take care of everybody right away. I imagine the way that this program will start is a number of councilmembers will pick some locations in their districts, churches and synagogues and mosques will volunteer to provide sites, and there will be 20 or 30 pilots around the city of Los Angeles to get the program started. We’ve already worked with LAHSA, the Homeless Services Authority, and the Mayor and his budget to make sure that there is money available for the vouchers so that it’s actually a real program that does provide the pathway.”
On when the program would start:
“I’d like to see it start as soon as possible. We are doing the budget this week and next, and there’s money in it for the pilot program for safe parking. The Homeless Services Authority has been given the assignment a few months ago to come up with the contours of the program and have someone run it, an agency. They have an agency in Santa Barbara that does it, and so they’re looking for that now. So I’m hoping that we can get this up and running by the end of summer at the latest.”
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.
The number of homeless women in LA is on the rise
According to numbers released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority yesterday, homelessness in Los Angeles County has risen by about 6 percent.
But one group in particular stands out... women. Since 2013 they've accounted for the majority increase in homelessness in the city of LA. And there are currently about 15,000 homeless women in the city of LA alone.
Anne Miskey is the CEO of the Downtown Women's Center and she joins Ben Bergman in the studio to talk about the different needs of homeless women and how they need to be addressed.
Florida Governor's mission to lure California businesses away
This week Florida Governor Rick Scott visited California and it was not a social trip. For the second year in a row, he was coming here to lure businesses back to his state.
Scott said he met with lots of executives. He also ran this ad on local radio stations:
Courtesy: Enterprise Florida
Another Rick - Rick Perry - also made a similar trip when he was Governor of Texas. But there's a big question about whether these trips actually work.
For more, Robert Kleinhenz, an economist at Beacon Economics, joined the show.
Interview highlights
This isn't the first time a Governor has tried to lure businesses away, does it ever actually succeed?
"Well in the aggregate, when you take a look at the number of businesses that move out of state or you look at the amount of employment, both of which are a little hard to track from state to state. Job losses attributed to companies that leave California really amount to no more than a trickle relative to total jobs in the state."
Jamba Juice is moving its headquarters, a small automotive company we did a story on just moved...there are still some real issues here, right?
"Sure whether you look at the number of businesses or employment which I said earlier was a little bit hard to track or you look at population, out migration from state to state that is to say out of California to other states, that is about two-tenths of one percent of our total population. The numbers really are quite small but that doesn't mean we should ignore this issue. I think we need to be aware of the fact that we impose upon ourselves and businesses regulations to ensure a certain quality of life , safety and so on..."
What about that claim in Governor Scott's add, 700,ooo jobs will be lost, that can't possibly be true?
"Well, we have an economy with 15 or 16 million jobs, wage salary jobs, and several more independent contractor or 1099 workers. So the 700,000 number seems a little bit extreme, it could be a worst case kind of number that assumes that every minimum wage job that's at risk departs from the state. We know that that's not going to happen, there are all sorts of ways that businesses adapt to any change in cost whether it's up or down..."
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
State of Affairs: Hopes dashed for competitive CA primary
On this week's State of Affairs, a big letdown for Californians hoping for a competitive presidential primary, the legal age to buy cigarettes is bumped up to 21, and pot heads to the November ballot.
Joining Take Two to discuss:
- Carla Marinucci, POLIITCO's California Playbook reporter
- Phil Willon, California politics reporter for the Los Angeles Times
LA Times publishing company rejects Gannett's takeover offer, what's next for the paper?
Big news concerning the L.A. Times.
The paper's owner, Tribune Publishing, has rejected a generous takeover offer from Gannett and now Tribune says it wants big changes at the Times, including a major international expansion.
For more on what happened and what's next for Tribune, media analyst Ken Doctor of Newsonomics, joined the show.
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
The San Andreas fault is, 'Locked, loaded and ready to roll'
"Locked, loaded and ready to roll"
That's how Tom Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, describes the current state of the San Andreas fault.
At yesterday's National Earthquake Conference in Long Beach, Jordan explained his concern for the faultline, saying that California residents need to plan for the inevitable major shake.
For those who have followed the San Andreas fault through the years, this isn't exactly a new ascertainment. But Jordan says that California needs to continue its preparation efforts to prepare for when the San Andreas fault finally releases all of the stress that it's been collecting.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
Sierra tree deaths highest since Forest Service survey began
Trees in the Sierras are dying at rates faster than at anytime in at least 15 years. In fact, scientists say they haven't seen it this bad since they started doing surveys back in 2001.
The cause? California's ongoing drought and persistent pests known generally as bark beetles. Those are the findings from the latest aerial survey from the U.S. Forest Service, which estimates that more than 27 million trees died in 2015.
For more, we're joined by Jeff Moore, regional aerial survey program manager for the Forest Service.