Nice try, staff. But packing the city’s boards and commissions with pre-vetted members of the local establishment helps just whom?

 

More on this tomorrow, but for those who are interested in these kind of things we recommend a quick check of staff’s latest agendized scheme to pack your Burbank boards and commissions with both additional members and pre-approved establishment picks.

Basically, staff now wants the city council to:

— Consolidate several older and less vital commissions (to marginal effect),

— Consider increasing the actual membership size of two or three of the more important ones (a la old-fashioned court packing, to maximum effect), and,

— Impose much stricter qualification requirements on future board and commission appointments (stressing of course prior experience in the specific areas of concern, business and property ownership, or membership in Leadership Burbank).

Yeah. Talk about guaranteeing more agreeable and “collegial ” picks for your city groups, eh? What a blatant attempt to handpick pre-approved applicants to help suit the business at hand.

Who needs those annoying, pesky mavericks. We’ve had enough of that. Isn’t that right?

Uh-huh…

Btw, here’s an example of one of staff’s new suggestions:

For example, should the Landlord-Tenant Commission be comprised of a landlord, tenant, and property manager? This five member board hears cases for both landlords and tenants. A mix to consider could be two landlords, two tenants and one property manager, or at least one of each. Initially, Council may wish to focus any desired qualifications to BCC appointments with delegated authority.

Hey, yeah, that’s a mix to consider for sure. It would absolutely guarantee a 3-2 LTC vote against tenants.

Jesus. See why we hate Burbank? No one who deals in good faith would come up with such a ridiculously biased proposal for a tenant-complaint group. Talk about wanting an unfair setup from the get-go.

 

 

 

 

 

Schiff knows to keep Pelosi

 

Dems could send her to Mars and Reps would still run ads about her. She's barely in the news as it is, but she's still their go-to target. https://t.co/1qSElo00V1

— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) June 21, 2017

 

The news media today is telling Dems that they need to replace Nancy Pelosi because the Republicans don’t like her and will keep using her to run against in the future.

Like they’d stop at her?
 

is she's such a "drag" how the hell did GOP come this close to losing special elections last in two of the reddest states in America

— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) June 22, 2017

 

whole push to be less "toxic" in Georgia means replacing Pelosi w/ white male centrist.

but yes lib dudes, keep pushing for her ouster

— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) June 22, 2017

 
 

An alternate view

 

President Trump angers golf fans by driving golf cart on green at one of his clubs https://t.co/rqVOHHQyQn

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 22, 2017

 

What a pig.

Just an awful, awful individual.

 

 

The sex scolds continue their nasty work

 

Ridiculous. The guy was obviously joking, as well as being obviously led on by this morally upright tape recordist — who btw was breaking the law in California to have been recording him without two-party permission.

 

SAN JOSE, Calif. —

Uber rideshare company has acted swiftly to get a driver who some are calling offensive off the streets.

A passenger recorded the driver and sent in a complaint to Uber. The driver is heard saying, “My dream is to have some drunk chick by herself also going home at the end of my shift, and she wants me to come in. That would be the perfect ending to my day.”

A man, who wants to remain anonymous, said that the recording is from a conversation with a passenger during a ride in San Jose, California.

The driver is also heard saying, “Half the work is already done, man. She’s isolated and she’s drunk.”

 

Keep in mind that the operant term here is that she invites him in.  Which apparently is now viewed as a gang rape fantasy on the part of males.

 

When a passenger asks if that would be taking advantage, the driver says, “I will get really drunk too and then I can’t be held responsible.”

 

The guy’s obviously joking. And what if this fictional woman invites him in, gives him a great blowjob, and then climbs on top? Who’s the “rapist” then?

(No of course, such things never happen. But the courts would have a hard time figuring it all out, as well as would the woman.)

 

The man who recorded the video told ABC sister station KGO-TV he thought the driver crossed the line, so he posted the video on Facebook as a warning to women in San Jose.

He also complained to Uber and said the company was very responsive.

 

What a hero this guy is. Even if women get drunk and want to fuck, he’s there to protect them from those males.

 

Uber released a statement to KGO-TV that read:

“The comments in this video are disturbing and do not represent our driver-partner community. This driver has been banned from Uber.”

Frequent Uber users said they’re happy about the swift action.
“Cause it would make me extremely uncomfortable to know that they were OK with somebody who spoke like that (while) driving their cars,” said Marissa Garcia, an Uber user.

But some remain skeptical.

“I don’t know what Uber really does to ensure their drivers are qualified or that they are actually decent people,” said Lenka Lukacova, an Uber user.

 

Jesus Christ, the absolute hypocrisy and dishonesty going on here.

This is all about fear and hatred of sex — in a current, logically twisted, 21st-century permutation of the old sex-shaming routines of yore — as well as part of the continuing attempt to get everybody in the world in trouble for absolutely everything.

Meanwhile, the rich screw us all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News blackout

 

No matter how many times Gloria Allred tried to remind the jurors of her presence…

One [Cosby] juror told ABC News on Wednesday that ten of the 12 jurors voted to convict Cosby on two counts of aggravated indecent assault, but two people on the panel continued to hold out, leading to a deadlocked jury and a mistrial.

However, a different juror told CNN affiliate WPXI that jurors were in a “true deadlock” and that votes were generally split along 7-5 or 5-7 votes for most of the deliberations.

That sounds more like it, because the case against him is that hinkie. You can be sure that if it had been only one or two holdouts against acquittal, the court would have announced it to the world. That’s standard practice in this current pro-prosecution world.

Btw, here’s another question that we’re sure people will find offensive. But too fucking bad:

Much has been made of the fact that Cosby gave these women money, or at least paid for a number of services and benefits (such as college tuition) after claims were made against him, and that this is clear proof of his consciousness of guilt.

But like Sinatra and Carson before him, didn’t Cosby also have a long history of being generous to people to begin with? Back in the old days he was known to be a notoriously soft touch when it came to helping people who needed it.

And maybe too he and Camille had what they used to call an “open marriage”? Remember the best-selling book?

Yes. How dare we question today’s moral propriety.

 

 
Rather than admit that they probably had what used to be called in the olden days “an understanding,” it’s much easier to pronounce him blameworthy about it all. That could explain one reason why Camille Cosby was so angry at the entire proceeding. It’s also no one’s business but their own.

 

 

 

 

What an asshole

 

Who does such things?

 

Trump drives a golf cart over the green https://t.co/Bih55kaMPI pic.twitter.com/3MvKnAxdkO

— Raw Story (@RawStory) June 22, 2017

 
 
 

Why so low?

 

This is an incredibly low figure for that property, even taking into consideration the odd city/private sector “redevelopment” effort that went into its origin. And its legal entanglements and conditions.

From the San Fernando Valley Business Journal:

The former Ikea property and building in downtown Burbank sold this month for nearly $5.5 million, according to CoStar Group Inc.

Ccdp Nsfb LLC in Dallas paid about $2.44 a square foot for the 45 acres at 600 to 800 N. San Fernando Road. The purchase price separately included the two-story, 221,800 square foot retail building. The seller was Ikea Property Inc.

The Swedish retail giant moved in February from its longtime Burbank location built in1990 to a new, larger store a few miles south on San Fernando Road. There were plans to redevelop the old property into multi-family housing and a hotel.

A comparable sale was at 14665 Roscoe Blvd. in Panorama City, which sold for $18 million in January 2016 and included a vacant building that had once been a Montgomery Ward store built in 1965. The nearly nine acres of land sold for $47.60 per square foot.

There’s an obvious shell game going on here regarding a property transfer between interested parties. So of course, let’s now give them carte blanche approval on their dynamic new 21st-century 1,500 units and attached hotel.

Whoever they are.
 

 

And this has to do with Glendale how?

 

It doesn’t.

 

 

The Armenian American Museum and Cultural Center (AAM) is planned to be built across from the Central Library in downtown Glendale. The Museum envisions an iconic design that will depict the rock formations and mountain range found in Armenia. Alajajian-Marcoosi Artchitects described the design as also capturing the sensation one gets from the San Gabriel Mountains rising to the north of Glendale. (Courtesy renderings) Photos: American Armenian Museum planned for Glendale gets millions in funding

 

Yeah, they had to cynically slip reference to the San Gabriel’s in there to keep it from getting too perversely inappropriate. But remember the Native Americans who used to live here?

Instead, one special-interest ethnicity gets all the attention. And the public space and money.

They might as well start renaming the streets.
 

 

 

 
 

Happy Juneteenth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes we just hate being white.

 

 

What does any of this have to do with “sustainability”?

 

This is from the agenda for tonight’s meeting of the “Sustainable Burbank Commission”…

 

VIII. AD HOC MOBILITY AND URBAN DESIGN SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT At its July 20, 2015, meeting, the Commission agreed to form the ad hoc Mobility and Urban Design Subcommittee to discuss the bicycle plan, the network of bikeways, public transportation, and pedestrian corridors as they relate to sustainability in the community. The Subcommittee may give an update on its activities. The Commission may ask questions, engage in discussion, and provide feedback.

 

What this actually is — besides a prime example of verbal and bureaucratic convolution — is a clear and continued attempt to build a cheer-leading section for Burbank development. Sustainable “bikeways”?

Pedestrian corridors?

These off-topic concerns are an intrusion on the supposed original purpose of the Commission. But that’s really no surprise, because the above is also nothing more than a laundry list of what staff has already decided the city must have. And because we’re going to have them here for sure (for sustainability’s sake), we must also then build the kind of “21st-century” infrastructure that makes it all possible. That’s where big development comes in.

See how it works? Project an artificial need and a solution, and it shall come to be. And then get as many people as possible to have a stake in the proceedings to validate and rubber-stamp the big new projects. All for the sake of … you got it, sustainability.

Btw, under state law, “ad hoc” subcommittees need neither published agendas nor open meetings. Because they’re considered to be temporary and short-term (ad hoc), they’re not subject to the Brown Act.

But Burbank’s gotten into trouble before for maintaining supposed ad hoc “subcommittees” that went well into permanent or semi-permanent status. So let’s see how this one turns out, and what it comes up with.
 
 
 

Because polls show that almost 50 percent of the people around you are batshit crazy

 

 

 

 

 
 

St. Allred of Malibu

 

She’s now insisting that the Cosby judge allow in much more “witness” testimony from prior allegations, which means that she also wants him to be automatically convicted of the same. Without benefit of a trial.

 

 

 

Anything for attention….

NORRISTOWN, Pa. – Lawyer Gloria Allred got kicked out of a court gallery Friday for the second time this week after her cell phone rang — again — during proceedings in Bill Cosby’s sex-assault trial.

For her repeat technology no-no, Allred wasn’t allowed back in the main courtroom but instead banished to Courtroom C, an overflow room for members of the public, according to a court source…

On Wednesday, Allred, 75, was tossed out of the courtroom, where use of electronics is banned, when her cell phone went off.

“I was happy to leave,” Allred told The Post at the time. “It was off, and it rang. I have no idea how it happened. This young man was just trying to help me figure it out. I don’t know who it was. I don’t give out my number, and I never answer it anyway, you know that.”

Uh-huh. Yes, we know you’re there, Gloria.

 

 

 

When sex was funny

 

And everyone wasn’t a sanctimonious asshole.

 

 

Here’s to puncturing sacred cows. Imagine what could be done now with Cosby if anyone dared.

The Gap would do one of these each weekday at KPPC for a jeans company sponsor. It would usually be based on a current news story, and which Richard Beebe would deliver right beforehand in straight newscaster fashion.

As we remember, this particular one was about some kind of high school expulsion scandal (we actually heard this at the time on the fly). It’s funnier with the segue, but still funny enough.
 
This was about Carson balking at some contract renewal in 1971. He might be threatening to disappear, but…
 

 

No one’s ever this devastating any more. Why not?
 
 
 

Nonsense. Their new “bookstores” are a complete disaster

 

 

Wall Street of course is going crazy about this buyout — they’re obviously projecting all of their little digital fantasies about it:
 

Amazon’s Whole Foods Purchase Isn’t Just About Groceries. It’s About Everything.

 

Oh yeah? That’s hardly the case in reality, unless maybe you’re an ill-educated MBA grad who’s into hare-brained theorizing like all your delusional co-workers.

Been to one of those new Amazon “brick and mortar” bookstores they’re all equally extolling as much? Don’t bother. Just imagine the worst Waldenbooks you’d been into at the most mickey-mousiest mall in town, and then multiply it by about five. There’s no stock, no magazine selection to speak of, no “online” super-center with access to the heavens, and no discount pricing unless you’re a Prime Member at $100 a year. Unbelievably, it’s all list price.

And — except maybe in Seattle — they’re all half-empty. What else can you expect with only 4,000 titles?

For most purchases Whole Foods is also a loser unless you’re making at least 90g’s a year. Like exactly what is there to buy there that you can’t do better at TJ’s or Ralphs? Even their once-vaunted bulk foods section is shit– at least in their newer stores. That part of their business has been deprecated.

Nothing more delusional these days than rich people with too much cash on their hands. And their eager courtiers.

 

 

 

Burbank: Where concept and execution collide

 
Your guess is as good as ours.
 

 

Lots of ideas need to stay on the drawing board. This is one of them.

$350,000/3 = X. How long before this thing gets wrestled to the ground?
~
 
 
 

The Republican response

 

Even when they’re victims they’re stupid.
 

 

i assumed this would be the GOP response: after being victims of a gun attack, GOP says everybody needs more guns. https://t.co/JlTsR1rji7

— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) June 14, 2017

 

 

How much could this possibly raise?

 

Tokenism.

 

Despite the multimillion dollar deficit for the upcoming fiscal year, there were no cuts made to any services. However, several residents told council members they were not happy with a proposed fee change for bus service for seniors and the disabled.

Residents said they were upset that the fares for seniors and disabled people would go from a voluntary donation to a $2 fare per ride.

David Kriske, the city’s assistant community development director of transportation, said the fare amount was proposed as a way to help the city recover some of the costs of operating the service.

“[Paying] $2 one way and $2 another way, $4 per trip is just a little bit too much,” resident Camille Feigan said

 

Good Burbank Democrats, balancing their budget on the backs of the elderly poor.

Don’t these council members still get a car allowance?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because this violates received opinion, you won’t hear much about it

 

So maturity and wisdom haven’t totally disappeared…
 

Roman Polanski’s Sex Assault Victim Pleads to End Case, Says ‘He Owes Me Nothing’

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES — Roman Polanski’s sexual assault victim made an impassioned plea Friday to end the fugitive director’s four-decade legal saga, saying she felt more abused by the legal justice system than by the man who she said drugged, raped and sodomized her when she was 13.

“The trauma of the ordeal that followed was so great that, you know, the brief encounter with him that evening that was unpleasant just faded and paled,” Samantha Geimer said outside a courtroom in Los Angeles Superior Court. “It just wasn’t as traumatic for me as everybody would like to believe it was.”

 

Some of the reader comments about this woman are hilarious. “How dare she not be the victim we demand her to be!”

Yeah, how dare too that she indict the system. That’s because we need to punish everyone for absolutely everything that we’re totally weird about these days.

No one’s defending Polanski on this one, it’s just that when it comes to sex most people now are totally and completely nuts. They’re either sneaking around and fucking in secret, online or furtively the same, or else they’re flagellating themselves about how they once never had to do so — and conveniently took advantage of the scene that they now deplore so fashionably.

Oh, the regret! So go get ’em!
 
 
 

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June 12, 2017 · 8:43 pm

This is why Burbank needs to have a ‘mandatory’ roommate-allowance law, just like NYC

 

Interesting discussion going on at the **We Love Burbank** Facebook page right now about an ongoing landlord-tenant dispute.

Apparently the tenant just got this Notice to Correct:

 

 

The woman clearly needs to talk to a landlord-tenant attorney ASAP. These things can get grim quick.

Right now though, here’s the story as we understand it:

A mother and a daughter get a Burbank apartment. Both are on the lease; the daughter is pregnant. Daughter soon moves out. It’s a two-bedroom, two-bath place.

Six years later the daughter moves back in with her now six year old, and an older 12-year-old son. Landlord gets upset, sends both leaseholders a three-day ‘correct-or-get-out’ notice. But he also generously gives them about two weeks to get their things in order, which he actually doesn’t have to do legally.

Question: Can the landlord do this?

Maybe. It all depends upon a couple of things:

— Was the notice properly served?

— Is the daughter still on the lease?

— Can a landlord block the entry of any or all minor children of a leasee? Is it illegal discrimination in California?

— Did the landlord in bad faith bogus-ly insert a phantom “husband” into the mix in order to compound the claimed violation? (another adult in the place would clearly violate the lease conditions; kids perhaps not.)

This woman definitely needs an attorney. But if our city council had passed a rule allowing any Burbank tenant the right to have a roommate of their own choice not subject to the permission or clearance of the landlord, and thus not on the lease in writing, this problem of hers might not exist. The daughter would be willed in no matter what.

New York City has had such a law on the books for years, and it is IMMENSELY successful. In this day and age Burbank should consider the same.

I.e.,

If you’re renting an apartment in New York State, you can generally take on roommates without having to add them to the lease or even get your landlord’s approval. This is thanks to the tenant-friendly Unlawful Restrictions on Occupancy Law, commonly known as the “Roommate Law.” What’s more is that the Roommate Law applies not just to relatives but to non-relatives such as a boyfriend or girlfriend.

 

The best advice on that Facebook page btw is to never do this by yourself. Most judges or commissioners will ignore the law and award the landlord, no matter how good your case is (unless the landlord’s conduct has been really egregious).

But they will not fuck with attorneys.

 

 

 

 

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June 12, 2017 · 7:35 pm

Proof that Democrats are smarter than Republicans

 

 

 

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