|
FRINGE posted:This is the most important part in the OP. Actually you just reminded me about El Segundo, but first... The Bell scandal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Bell_scandal Los Angeles is made up of over 100 towns, cities and census designated places all piled into one big heap of a city. Most use LAPD for law enforcement but some have their own city police departments and such. [Note I'm not counting Burbank or Santa Monica since they a separate from Los Angeles City even through they are practically surrounded by it]. One of these small communities was Bell, who elected a bunch of yahoos who noticed that the local citizens paid no attention to Bell politics at all. So they voted themselves huge huge raises, and had one of the, if not the highest paid police chiefs in the country at a $500,000 a year salary.  When news of this broke out, many people in LA started poking around in their communities to find similar issues. El Segundo in particular had a few interesting issues [I worked and lived there for a bit a few years ago]. http://www.city-data.com/city/El-Segundo-California.html At the time it was noted for having the highest police:citizen ratio in the country, you never ran a stop sign there, although if you look at the city data map, its not super difficult to be awash in tax revenue when 1/4 of your city is a huge chevron plant, and the other 2/4 being office towers for a sea of defense contractors and the global HQ for Mattel. So why the huge police force? I never saw them at work on the office building side, so it wasn't that and chevron has its own security and fire team so it wasn't that either. They mostly did enforcement on Sepulveda traffic catching speeders, DUI's etc on drivers passing through. http://www.laweekly.com/2010-10-14/news/a-stink-in-el-segundo-over-cadillac-salaries/ Anyways a local government employee blew a whistle on some excessive spending by the city, police and fire departments, but the whole thing got swept under the rug when the employee started being harassed daily by the ESPD. It was enough though for the department to finally get cutbacks despite the cries of the city becoming a crime filled cesspool which never happened. It was pretty crazy to see El Segundo put up 4th of July banners using 8 city employees driving 3 new utility trucks [about $500,000 worth of equipment] while Beverly Hills makes due with hiring a sign company that goes around with 2 guys and a ladder.
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 16:09
|
|
Birthplace of SWAT
|
|
| # ¿ May 2, 2024 13:30 |
|
|
agarjogger posted:I'm pretty sure companies know this obvious fact deep down, but are hoping that if enough companies pretend otherwise, labor will pretend too. You can't uproot skilled labor from a nice city to a nationally-renowned poo poo one without offering to make them all multi-millionaires. For Texas to strangle California, their companies would have to pay 1.5x-2.0x wages. Since that's loving ridiculous, California is still kicking. But maybe if you can convince people that caring about anything but numerical salary is for snobs and atheists, you can make them move to Texas for a $10,000 bonus, so lets try that. I had this exact thing happen. Company in Dallas wanted to hire me because of my extensive work experience in the film industry in CA, and were delighted that I'd be willing to move there. They weren't delighted when I wanted 50% on top of what I was making in California, they played the usual texas company crap like no state taxes, lower cost of living, in addition to a 50% pay cut vs what I am making now. I ran the math and my actual cost of living would probably drop 10% a month, not the huge numbers they were giving me.... What would convince me? If there was more of the film industry in Texas, but in Dallas its a one studio show, and they were notorious for breaking labor law and other nasty poo poo and get away with it because its workers were timid knowing it was the only gig in town. Here in socal? I can pick up a phone and get a job across the street and keep my kids in the same school, and not have to put up with relocation. Of course, unless it's for an assload of money which will help cover costs if poo poo goes sideways later [good ol' right to work states] Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jul 3, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2013 06:45
|
|
|
GD_American posted:Why does the line take such a pronounced hook south of Bakersfield? Geography? Antelope valley, theres a big rear end mountain range there. According to the high speed rail proposal, it will go right behind my residence, which means its sharing lines with BNSF and Metrolink.. plus street level ground crossings so no way its going to be high speed unless they eminent domain a bunch of land to build a separate track. Basically it looks like its only going to be highspeed in the middle and slow at the ends, which means it'll still be just as fast to drive.  Rail would make more sense if it swing out to victorville, then loop into Ontario along the I15/Cajon Pass, but the problem is the freight lines there have priority and they are pretty much 24/7 hauling long beach container traffic in mile+ long trains. And a LA->Vegas line would be terrific. Except California doesn't want to finance a big straw thats going to suck revenue right to Nevada. In fact if I recall correctly, groups in Nevada would offer to finance their line right to victorville if someone in California would finance "the last mile" into LA or Anaheim. In fact they pitched a Vegas -> Disneyland express at one point except Vegas isn't exactly family entertainment (except for when they tried that image in the 90's) Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jul 11, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2013 22:58
|
|
|
withak posted:The rental market in SF is insane. If you are looking at a place close to a Google/Apple/Facebook shuttle route then you are hosed unless you can compete with the people offering six months or a year's rent in advance. It isn't unusual for a building to have new tenants paying 2-3x (or more) above other tenants who have been there 10 years or more. I've seen this happen with places without rent control as well... Places with the equal opportunity housing program or section 8 usually get a big boost in subsidised rent. Not so much with the smaller apartment buildings but most of the larger building complexes usually don't get built unless they have a provision in there for low income housing. I know in my building now I'm averaging about $2200 a month for rent in Burbank, but the same unit going to section 8 would be about $800/mo with the government picking up the difference [usually marked up]. I saw this over with the Playa Vista development, they had 3 bedroom units there dedicated for section 8, in fact they wouldn't rent them out to you unless you were low income because they were charging under $1000/mo for the unit, and California an additional $3000/mo. Which reminds me... Playa Vista was kinda interesting, it was Los Angeles last undeveloped spot essentially. I worked near there for years. Dreamworks tried to build a studio lot all along Jefferson where the old Howard Hughes plant/airport was, but they didn't grease the right palms, plus they ran into environmental resistance due to the nearby wetlands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playa_Vista,_Los_Angeles http://www.ballonafriends.org/why.html So dreamworks failed in their bid, and in rolled the condo developers next, and the whole area turned into a huge shitstorm. The developers got support by promising low income units into their development plans, and the project was approved while setting aside some part of the land for "wetlands restoration" (basically building a walking path and a parking lot for the wetlands). The developers approved plan, was changed multiple times, which exploited a loophole where revisions didn't need to go back for county approval. So while the original plan for Playa Vista had lots of green space around buildings, the reality was they quickly changed it to put buildings edge to edge right up to the sidewall to pack in as many units as they could. After all that was done there were additional problems. The site is an native burial ground, sitting on swamp land full of old abandoned oil wells and methane gas pockets, combined with toxic waste left over from the Hughes plant, along with unexploded world war II ordnance. To add all this, the developers were playing shell games with soil samples actually trucking in clean soil from off site, laying it down, having government testers come in and then scoop the whole works back up once testing is done. The local NBC affiliate did a series on the issues. http://www.saveballona.org/videos-safe-water-safe-gas.html I was pretty much unaware of all this until I tried to move into Playa Vista and wondered why my lease paperwork was 70+ pages mostly dealing with methane gas leaks, and other toxic chemicals with the requirement that I wouldn't hold the developer or landlord liable if my place blew up, or if I got cancer, etc. I ran far away from that complex, and did some research. Oddly enough the 2 rental complexes there were built on the largest gas and toxin bubble of the whole development, with the Electronic Arts LA office being dead center of it along with a fire station. You know its bad when the LAFD off the record wouldn't advise anyone to live there...
|
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2013 23:38
|
|
|
Welp, looks like I'm moving from Burbank to.... the Bay Area. Works at the Presideo and the rental market within walking distance is pretty up there. I guess I'll get a place up towards San Rafael and commute down the 101 to work. Anyone commute by ferry?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2013 02:35
|
|
|
Papercut posted:I don't, but the ferry ride to the Financial District is supposed to be an amazing commute. The problem for you is that you would have to take a bus after getting off of the ferry. It seems like it would turn into a really long commute, especially if you're coming all the way from San Rafael. Yeah I was looking at Richmond area at first, I also found a corporate housing /monthly hotel that would give me a room/private bathroom for about $1700-1800 a month including maid service which is great if I have to work freelance in SF in the future. At the moment its a longer term gig, and I'm bringing up a ton of tools, a big rear end suv and a big rear end car, so that leaves most of SF out proper since most of the smaller rentals are street parking only and having one car (never mind 2) in SF would be a pain in the rear. Out towards San Rafael I'm looking at a commute but enough employees live out there that theres plenty of car pool opportunity to be had, plus I can get more square footage for the money plus 2 parking spots. Technically speaking half the company I'm working for is in Marin company, just not the division I'm working in I'll get a feel for the area and probably move again in a year.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2013 07:08
|
|
|
Cool, I'm figure something out in the next 3 weeks. I guess my focus is narrowed to the Richmond District and the Marina to Sausalito up to San Rafael at the furthest point. I didn't mean to side track the discussion  Is there big differences in political climate between SF city/county vs Marin county?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2013 22:35
|
|
|
What's the story with Treasure Island? Seems like it could be a cool spot, but after doing my limited research its a combination hazmat us government site turned into affordable housing that's run by a company that doesn't really give a poo poo about tenants... Does that sound about right?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2013 13:50
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Nobody's building high-density housing in Presidio National Park. Speaking of which there was a dirtbag vfx/animation studio that went under that exploited that zoning loophole claiming they didn't have to pay overtime rules since the area fell under federal labor law and not california. It's a load of crap but the employees fell for it anyways and toiled away unpaid for a bunch of stuff. Meanwhile the technicians and artists at ILM and Lucasarts a few buildings over on the Presidio got full benefit packages and OT.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2013 02:46
|
|
|
Zeitgueist posted:The Getty is a pretty awesome museum(s) as well. I went there for the first time last week, after living in LA for 8 years I'm not sure why I didn't go earlier*, it's an awesome facility. I'm taking a day off next week to bring my camera gear and shoot all the wings all day, what an awesome museum. *- The reality is I avoid that whole area of Sunset and Sepulveda/405 like the plaque due to horrible traffic..
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2013 02:52
|
|
|
Thanatosian posted:Honestly, I think building a house with a lawn in it in most of California is horribly irresponsible. One of my former co-workers left the film industry and started growing strawberries over in east San Bernardino county. His family business [organic self pick berries] goes through about 30-40,000 gallons of water per month. I wouldn't minding numbers on residential lawn/garden water usage vs agricultural / industrial use, because I'm willing to bet commercial water use is several magnitudes greater than residential, especially when it comes to waste. So the guy who has a lawn in LA would be a drop in the bucket. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Aug 23, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Aug 23, 2013 18:30
|
|
|
Protons posted:Best state? Isn't it prohibitively difficult to get a concealed carry license in California? Depends on the county. It's low fruit for DA's and Police Chiefs who want to appear to be tough on guns/crime.. to deny concealed carry to the general public*. *-unless you can prove that you carry more than $25,000 per day. I guess this is aimed at armored truck security guards. *-Or donate to a sheriffs or DA's campaign ( http://www.laweekly.com/2013-02-14/news/sheriff-lee-baca-concealed-weapons-permit/ ) I think the closest big city counties that will allow concealed carry for self defense purposes would be San Mateo for the Bay Area and San Bernardino close to LA. On another note, CA has a bunch of upcoming "ban 'em all bills" that are heading to Browns office [SB 374 in particular] but most of them are going to wind up in court if passed. That being said I'm curious on how much CA takes in on their DROS program, there's a minimum of 4,000-6,000 gun sales/transfers a day in CA times the $30 fee and thats during slow days...
|
|
#
¿
Aug 25, 2013 22:08
|
|
|
I'm going to Marin next week to look for a place to rent.. trying to get a feel for the place.. using Air BNB to stay in various neighbourhoods until I start work. Is there any new residential developments in the North Bay area? Marin at least seems built out.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2013 22:05
|
|
|
nm posted:There is a lot of cheap new development in solano county, but you'd have to want to live in Fairfield or Vallejo (you don't). Yeah, that drive would kill me, I'm jumping from place to place before I start work via AirBnB to give commuting a dry run, that and check out the sights. Any impact from the state of emergency in regards to the fire in Yosemite impacting SF Bays water supply? Was that a case of loosening up funds for emergency response or is it time to put away a barrel of water just in case?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2013 04:07
|
|
|
Xaris posted:This is true. Being young and living in Santa Rosa was really lovely and I couldn't wait to transfer out of Santa Rosa Junior College (and Sonoma County in general) because of how depressing it was. Bowling at the AMF in Petaluma was probably the highlight of things to do. It's definitely an elderly suburban or middle-aged overweight NIMBY Costco-goer setting with everything closing at midnight--usually much earlier. Novato is where I'm going to stay for a week via AirBnB, I figure that's the farthest I'm willing to commute. I don't Need the car for work, the ferry is an option but I'm concerned at how the presidio seems to be somewhat isolated from any major transit hubs, I'll give it a whirl certainly. The car requirement is mainly for when I'm working overtime, 10-12 hours a day I'm going to be outside normal operating hours of ferries and some bus routes. On the flip side that means I'll be commuting before and after rush hour so the drive won't be that bad. /edit The more I look into it, it's not really an option, the Ferries would be great if I worked a Finance job downtown, where I'm a few minutes walk from the terminal. Kinda like the LA red line and metrolink, great if your job is just off a station stop or near the downtown core. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Aug 29, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2013 15:07
|
|
|
incoherent posted:Do you do a lot of work? What are the barriers preventing you from joining the trade? Union dues? Specific type of work? It's also good for runaway production fleeing the state while unions twiddle their thumbs. The barriers can be pretty high, but can pay off if you can work consistently in the industry on union jobs for a long time. I'm not sure what a filmmaker is specifically ( not a specific enough job title ), but if he's a director, assistant director , unit director, production manager, the DGA initiation fee can range from $3500 to $11500. And that's if you got a signed deal from a employer thats a union signatory, otherwise they won't even send you an application. One option is to work for a larger agency or firm/studio as a contractor who will get you into a union , then freelance after that on union only jobs. I'm with IATSE , but I was laid off from a big union shop and I'm now work at another non-union facility at a competitor. I probably won't be in a Hollywood union again, my new job pays more, and has a better Heath care plan and benefits vs my old gig where my guild just bucked under studio pressure every 3 years.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2013 12:39
|
|
|
EnsGDT posted:
I'm with local 839 , the animation guild while I was at Dreamworks. Took about 6 months worth of hours to qualify, it was worth it since you'll eventually get to bank your hours and Heath plan to cover you when you are off work. Unfortunately after I left DWA, I went back into live action work I didn't qualify to keep my pension contributions (requires working union jobs for 5 years for one fund and 13 years for another.) I think my initiation was around 2-3 thousand but you could break it up into a payment plan.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2013 21:23
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 2, 2024 13:30 |
|
|
predicto posted:Why would anyone stand in line for an hour and a half? Fast Pass for the win. You learn how to work the Fast Pass system and you never wait more than a few minutes for anything. Or you can just single ride pass and do all the big ticket rights in an afternoon  Not good for little kids though, you and your group has to be ok with being split up to fill in empty seats, but it beats the line up.I like the bay area so far, lots to see and do, the air is cleaner. I refuse to take part in the insanity of rental housing in SF and wound up renting a house in Novato, my commute is 35 minutes but I got room for vistors, a back yard and a place to work on my car. I got another buddy who is getting displaced from LA due to the lack of film work, so chances are hes going to crash with me until my lease is up then we'll probably get something a bit closer in the Mill Valley/Sausilito area. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Dec 11, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2013 07:01
|
|