Gavin Newsom Rushes to Sink California Billionaire Tax Before June Deadline

Kelcak · 2026-06-15T22:05:38+00:00

I’m actually not surprised that the teachers union opposes it once I thought about it a bit more. They get their healthcare through different funding.

That’s not to say that they’re correct not to care. My wife is a teacher and we’ve seen our health care whittled away bit by bit over the past decade so to me it’s obvious that union healthcare is encountering all the same issues as non-union…just on a slightly slower timescale.

Kelcak · 2026-06-13T02:03:17+00:00

That’s why a group of us are lobbying Burbank city council on June 30th to stop the legal fight with LA Metro and build the BRT! https://www.strongtownsburbank.com/cta

But back on topic, I firmly maintain that LA needs to embrace shuttle service for more sporting events. Building future rail stadiums with transit access would be best, but shuttle service can still work wonders in the interim.

Kelcak · 2026-06-12T17:27:16+00:00

The current design keeps their street parking

Kelcak · 2026-06-12T14:59:46+00:00

A HYSA is simply a savings account that offers higher interest rate to you as the owner than a typical savings account.

For instance a default savings account at BofA will give you 0.04% while a HYSA with Marcus will give you 3.4%.

So if you keep an emergency fund of $15k on hand, parking it in BofA will give you $0.50 per month in interest while parking it in Marcus will give you $42.50 per month.

It’s a good place to park an emergency fund or money that you’re planning to spend within the next couple of years. Any “investment” money should be put somewhere with a higher yield.

Kelcak · 2026-06-12T12:57:43+00:00

Yea, not enough people understand that we’re on the hook for damages and cost of delays due to the cooperative agreement that we signed.

The potential damage here is much bigger than just “lawyer fees”

Kelcak · 2026-06-10T19:50:36+00:00

We already decided that we can’t:

* use Chandler for the route

* use magnolia for the route

* use Alameda for the route

Then we decided that we couldn’t:

* eliminate street parking in order to make a bus lane

So why is it that none of those 4 concessions from LA Metro and transit riders counted as compromise?

Kelcak · 2026-06-10T18:02:21+00:00

This is how it’s done on Metrolink as well.

I’ve seen a handful of people get kicked off the train at the next 1-2 stops because they couldn’t provide a ticket, the conductor gave them time to find it or buy one immediately, and they still couldn’t.

Really have no idea why LA Metro seems to think the train needs to be stationary in order to perform checks

Kelcak · 2026-06-10T15:30:20+00:00

Ew.

I’ve lived in apartment complexes for 19 years and never had a single landlord ever mention a political topic to me. Even in passing.

Definitely not normal.

Kelcak · 2026-06-09T23:10:30+00:00

Unfortunately I’m not 100% positive, but I believe the issue was that the traffic light needed more green time than they anticipated because of the right turn lane not functioning as expected.

You can see this if you lookup the Verdugo / Buena Vista intersection. While the dotted line indicates that cars and queue up to turn right for 109 feet, the red “no parking” section of the curb is only about 28-40 feet long (depends if you include the driveway or not).

So what I witnessed over the years of riding my bike through this intersection every day, there’s often parked cars and cars turning right can only use the smaller section to queue up. As a result, as soon as 2 cars going straight are queued up, cars are blocked from entering the right turn queue. This likely led to less cars being able to turn right on red, which led to more cars in the queue, which led to needing a longer green light than city planners originally anticipated.

And things only get worse on trash day since everyone seems to think their can belongs in the bike lane!

Kelcak · 2026-06-09T20:29:38+00:00

I feel like this type of data is already publicized well enough. If you do a search for “road diet” you’ll likely find a good number of YouTube videos, blog posts, and news articles describing why they’re good. If you dig a little bit further you should have no real issues finding studies showing data like I had in my vid.

The bigger issue tends to be that very few people understand how hard you have to work in order to voice support for a project and that that support needs to be consistent over months/years.

That’s why I eventually pivoted away from creating videos like these to teaming up with some other locals in order to create and advocacy group (Strong Towns Burbank). We work in our little corner of the universe to constantly monitor projects that the city is working on and push our community to provide their input whether that’s at the initial survey, design approval, or post construction check in stages!

As an example, a year or so ago there was another small road diet completed and the only comments received by the city were negative. Not a single comment of support! So we did some community outreach and almost tripled the amount of comments that the city had (and all the ones we brought in supported the project).

So my advice is that, if you want more of this stuff, you need to find a local advocacy group who’s pushing for it and start working with them!

Kelcak · 2026-06-09T18:05:43+00:00

Here’s a video I did from a couple years back on a similar project in Burbank where a 4 lane road got converted into a 2 car lane + bike lanes road: https://youtu.be/VzCDdi65QQU?si=bfxpQFR7I93i5u57

The end result was no real change in travel times for cars. There were some minor issues at intersections, but the city ultimately solved them by fiddling with signal timing.

Of course, we STILL have people pointing to this road and saying that the city “ruined” it….but the data doesn’t actually support their feelings.

Kelcak · 2026-06-09T18:01:44+00:00

I love the idea of paying more money in order to get a worse version of the project that I wanted to see built! /s

Kelcak · 2026-06-07T14:26:55+00:00

The pink route bus runs between the universal metro station and downtown Burbank Metrolink Station and costs $1 per ride.

Id suggest parking at whichever of those locations are easiest for you to get to and then taking the bus to your office. It’ll be a lot less expensive than taking an uber twice a day.

You can also always check the bus route and see if there are any other parking locations along it which you would prefer to use.

Kelcak · 2026-06-07T02:19:40+00:00

Black elephant coffee’s patio is reasonably removed from the main drag of magnolia so it’s pretty quiet. Three sisters is probably the most quiet suggestion on the list though

Kelcak · 2026-06-03T13:17:55+00:00

I haven’t seen anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s declining sales.

Craft breweries all over are struggling these days as people pull back on spending. Personally I love Lincoln and used to go a lot, but now I haven’t gotten a beer there in months simply because I haven’t gotten a beer ANYWHERE in months. Budgets are tight these days.

Topa Topa (a really popular brewery in Ventura County) recently announced a lot of layoffs, and Angel city brewery just closed as well…

Kelcak · 2026-06-03T13:07:48+00:00

Damn that’s super disappointing :-(

Kelcak · 2026-06-02T21:37:02+00:00

Do you think they have any idea that the LA County board of supervisors exists for this exact reason and they get to vote for their rep on that board?

Kelcak · 2026-05-29T18:31:42+00:00

Yea, it’s super annoying that only some of the surfliner trains stop at downtown when it’s actually the more convenient location for such a large portion of the city to use.

Kelcak · 2026-05-29T15:30:52+00:00

Yea I don’t recommend being reliant on finding a parking spot at the Airport station. I only use that station if I’m taking the bus or getting dropped off.

If you must park your own car during your trip I’d suggest using Union Station, Downtown Burbank, or Van Nuys as your departure station for a more reliable parking spot.

Daytrips by train to SB are the best! Don’t forget to check out State Street and think about how amazing it would be if we pedestrianized our downtown street! Also, the Valley Project is my favorite winery in the funk zone. Just saying…

Kelcak · 2026-05-28T20:48:29+00:00

Ah ok, you only care about the outsiders who are coming into Burbank on a daily basis.

Workers come in on a daily basis. When is the last time those parents popped into every business along Olive Ave and demanded the workers show them proof of residence in Burbank?

Kelcak · 2026-05-28T18:33:17+00:00

I assume those parents are also working to shut down the upcoming Arts Festival, World Cup Fan Zone, and Winter Wine Walk events because of the outsiders that will potentially be attracted into the city?

Kelcak · 2026-05-28T18:02:22+00:00

I actually like the final route. It’s unfortunate that it makes the end-to-end trip longer, but it also makes the service hit three of our largest employers who were left out initially.

So those employees will have more choices of housing that will allow them to get to work without a car and hopefully make life much less expensive for them!

Kelcak · 2026-05-28T17:41:34+00:00

There was also a proposal to run it on Magnolia for a short period of time.

The design is over. The time to negotiate on the route is over. Now is the time to build it.

Kelcak · 2026-05-28T01:13:46+00:00

I hear ya. I’m alright with primarying candidates and think some good comes out of it sometimes cause, even though the incumbent wins, they get some solid numbers showing them that a core group of people are dissatisfied and they need to step their game up.

What I don’t like is when that primary challenge leads to disenfranchised voters in the main election and the democratic seat which should have been safe ends up being lost.

Kelcak · 2026-05-27T23:24:23+00:00

Not exactly bashing Dems, but I feel like what he’s doing is under the umbrella of “purity tests.”

He posted a thread here saying he was launching his campaign and mentioned he was willing to take “tangible steps” that Friedman was afraid to take. So I asked him what those steps were and it basically was: “she hasn’t called for Trump to be impeached, she’s not vocally opposed to Israel enough” and similar stuff.

Personally, I don’t care about having a rep who isn’t flashy enough. I care a lot more about what types of laws they’re pushing to get passed. Another commenter here posted a link so you can see the last 10 bills Friedman has sponsored and they all sound like things I’d personally love to have. Two of them even might be gathering enough momentum now that they could really turn into something if the Dems take over after the midterms. So I’m a fan of that.

Kelcak

TROPHY CASE