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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the past 5 years, KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/rightnowish\">Rightnowish podcast\u003c/a> spotlighted artists and culture keepers from all over the Bay Area. In doing so, Host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena showed a love for the culture that is unmatched.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On July 18, Rightnowish will air its last episode. Today, we sit down with Pen and Marisol to reflect on the rich archive of culture they’ve built.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1755778415\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Mike. Check, check. One. Check two. Are we here? All right. We’re here RIghtnowIsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>For the past five years. Host Pendarvis Harshaw, along with producer Marisol Medina-Cadena, have been building an archive of artists and culture makers in the Bay area. The Right Now ish podcast spotlighted artists, creatives and culture keepers from all over the region, and they did it with a love and reverence for the culture that goes unmatched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>I tell people I had a front row seat to the culture of the Bay area, and it was just my job to take notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>We tried so hard to really expand our reach. Tattoo artists, graffiti artists, poets, MCs, libraries, farm workers. Like there’s not a hierarchy of what type of art is acceptable on this show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Next month, the Right Now ish podcast will end its run. So today I sit down with Pen and Muddy Soul to talk about the rich archive of culture that they’ve built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>The origins of the show right now is come from a photo series that I was doing going around Oakland, taking photos of art that I saw that spoke to larger things happening in the world, and I would post it on Twitter and I’d add the tag right now ish, because I didn’t want people to know where I was when I was, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>So it’s kind of right now it’s lightweight. And when I got the opportunity to host a podcast with KQED and the question was, what was I going to name it? I went, the idea right now is, and that same concept of stumbling upon art and identifying how it speaks to a larger narrative, that’s what it was all about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And so we go into the meeting room to pitch right now, ish. And I literally had an image of Mister Rogers from Mister Rogers Neighborhood and the cover of two shorts, Short Dogs on the House album, which is like an animated dog cover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>That inspired Snoop Dog eventually. Yeah. And so these are the images that I wanted. I wanted to bring the Mr. Rogers get to know your neighbor meets that Oakland funk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And how are you, I guess at the time, defining arts and culture. Like who are the artists, the culture makers, culture keepers that you were thinking about when you were starting out the show?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Looking around my community, I saw artists in the backyard, parties. We would throw, biking events I would attend, really people in my community who I felt like needed to be highlighted because their work spoke to things that were universal. And so that was my goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Your neighbors quite literally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Yeah. What’s up? Yeah. My name is Pendarvis Harshaw, the journalist and host behind right now. Ish. Man, I am excited to bring our entire world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Can I remember your first ever episode of the Right Now in your podcast, which was with Oakland native and muralist Timothy B? Can you tell me a little bit more about Timothy B, and why you picked him as the subject of your very first official episode of the podcast?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Timothy B embodies a brilliant story that really shows Oakland’s change over the past 30 to 40 years. So my my name’s Timothy is the junior. Tom is money. Well, my friends call me Tim, but I’m locally known as Timothy B, the artist. He’s an awesome muralist. Internationally renowned. He has huge pieces all around the town and his work is brilliant, bright, vibrant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>We have, we have a queen with monkey skulls and palm trees in an urban setting taking place in the background. But that’s just one of many projects I’m working on. He depicts Afrocentric themes and images of gods, and he brings it all together in a real cool way. So Timothy is doing this awesome work on the streets and the work that Timothy’s father did on the streets back in the 80s and 90s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>It’s a little different. I never really was involved with the streets, never even wanted to be a part of it, simply because of my OGs who have learned from their mistakes. So Timothy story is important because it parallels not only my story, but so many other kids whose families were shaped by the war on drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>But Timothy B isn’t the average kid who grew up in Oakland in the 90s. He was one of the sons of Timothy Blues senior was part of the legendary six nine mob. You might be familiar with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Well, at least some of the. Since his release, he’s been back in the neighborhood doing great community work, and I was familiar with Timothy B, the artist. I was familiar with his father’s story. I wasn’t familiar with Dana Bluitt the mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Bluitt: \u003c/strong>I did what I had to do to make sure that he constantly spoke to his dad. When Tim would get in trouble, I would tell this, dad. So I say, your dad may not physically be here, but he is very much alive. And he is very much a father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And it was her comments about the family not being broken. It was unified in her work to hold the family together, raise this young man, and also make sure that the elder Timothy, as he reentered society, was stable. And so it was just a really beautiful story that showed a lot of different aspects of Oakland. And again, universal themes of family sticking together through thick and thin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, I think those are all the things you talk about in this first episode of Right Now ish, which is an arts and culture show at its core. But it’s also about everything else around that family life, kids growing up in Oakland, the stories behind the art. Marisol, you weren’t with the show yet, but what stands out to you from that episode?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>There’s an exchange in that first episode where he’s posing a question to Timothy’s b mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And I just keep thinking of like, how light this conversation is in spite of everything, in spite of oppressive systems and potentially broken families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And reflecting on like, what does it mean to have your family together and defy this broken family stereotype? And she corrects him and saying, we’re not broken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Bluitt: \u003c/strong>I never felt like we were broken. You know, I never I just felt like our reality was different than most, right? You know, nothing is going to break this family, Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>I’m here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>An early conversation Penn and I had. He made this very astute point, I think, where he was like, this is a show where I’m comfortable with black women correcting me on the mic. And I think having that moment kept in the tape really speaks to pens willingness to be corrected and to be informed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And there’s like this openness that he brings to each of the interviews, that they’re the experts of their lived experience. And Pen is just simply a mic for that story to be told louder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Producers play a really big role in how a show sounds. So when you joined muddy Saw and brought this East Bay expertise, this Oakland expertise, but you kind of brought that Frisco sensibility. Can you talk a little bit more about what drew you to working on right now? Ish. And with Penn in particular?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>I very much hold San Francisco Frisco very deep to my heart. It’s where my grandfather, my cousin and my aunt grew up. And so as a child, it was very common for my family to drive up from LA County all the way up to the bay, like every two months. And so I really got to see Bernal Heights, Snowy Valley in the mission as just like this beautiful place for experimentation and community arts and activism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Having witnessed the changes from afar, you know, like I didn’t go to school here, but coming to visit the Bay from the 90s to the mid 2000 and seeing all these shifts from the outside, I wanted to push back on this narrative that all of San Francisco was just gentrified and there was like, no more soul of the city. And I was like, that’s not what I see when I come back here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And now that I live here, there are still working class artists being working class in the city and making art about that experience. And there are these institutions like La Galeria de la Raza and Mission Cultural Center and Soma Arts that have deep, deep roots here. And and I got to tell, those histories are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Yes, that’s the truth, and that’s my truth. We did an episode about how day of the dead started back in the 1970s. Here in the mission, my family goes hard for Los Muertos growing up every weekend, and October was basically dedicated to assembling our home altar or community altar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And for me to be able to tell that history was so deeply personal, because that’s how part of my parents, on exposure to day of the dead, back in the 70s, you know, they were here learning from other Chicano artists, putting those events on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. And I feel like that’s something you and Penn have in common is these deep roots in these two really big hubs of art and artistry in the Bay area, San Francisco and the East Bay and Oakland. And one thing I feel like I really loved about right now is, is the range of things that you all have done with the show. Penn did your definition of arts and culture expand or change over the years, especially with Marisol on deck?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Oh man. Yes. It broadened my perspective of Northern California arts and culture. I always looked at San Francisco as my cousins across the water. So yeah, I wasn’t totally unfamiliar with that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>But going to other parts of the Bay, going to the North Bay and learning about people who are former farmworkers and transitioning into doing land work to fight wildfires. That is culture. It’s an art. Doing that type of work really showed me that, okay, there are so many more stories here to tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Our range of culture that we had on the show was really expansive. I mean, we did a whole series on tattoo artist. We did a whole series on the meaning of Love. We did a whole series on filmmakers rooted in the Bay, musicians in the Bay, jazz in the Bay. We all culture in the Bay. And we also did a series on land stewardship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, it went and went so much beyond painting and and drawing and murals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>All right, back into the lava field. Let’s do it. Pretty much. All right. We did one episode in. We’re in Bayview doing some glassblowing. So I’m going to open this up and you’re going to feel it. I’m standing behind you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And and so that all the orange that you see, that’s heat. Oh, God. That’s a heat glow, that the glass is not orange. We’re recording an episode while dealing with immense heat and being nervous that we’re going to drop either glass or burn ourselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s an art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>It’s an art. It was, but it was fun. Oh my God, Hades is turn turn turn turn turn. Keep going, keep going, turn fast first go fast. Rotate. There you go, Susie. Stay right there or up and out. And so being able to step into all of that, I tell people I had a front row seat to the culture of the Bay area, and it was just my job to take notes. We did the best we can. We have so much fun doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One example of that Marisol was you’re from the soil series. I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about that and what it was, and what y’all’s conversations were like about doing that kind of reporting for this show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Right. So we did a series called From the Soil. And really the idea was looking at land workers and their relationships to the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>It remains illegal for us to practice our ceremonies. And so, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>We talked to Valentine Lopez, the tribal chairman of the band of the Amah Mutsun, about this effort to protect sacred land from being turned into a mining operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>When we see this mining permit come in, we say this is the continuation of that brutality, that erasure, that destruction of the Amazon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>That was an instance where it took a lot of time to build trust with the tribal chairman and being like, please, we’ll give you as much time as you need to help tell this story. We’re not just trying to come in with a sound bite and out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>Just to the east of here, there were four natural lakes. We had seven villages at those four lakes, and we had large populations at those lakes. But what, you know. But they drain those lakes for agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>There’s the culture of land stewardship and tending the land. And what are all the beliefs and practices behind building a relationship with land that we were really centering, like, yo, this is a form of culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>That conversation sticks with me because we’re on the side of a just green pasture hillside, nondescript. It looks like just the rolling hills of Northern California. But this is indigenous land that’s been taken from them for over 100 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And now every time I pass it in Gilroy, I think about that. So when I talk about that expansion of the Bay area and culture and what it means, like now that’s etched in my memory forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>After five great years, right now ish is ending its run. I’ll start with you, Melissa. Like, how are you thinking about who you’re leaving this archive for?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>I’m thinking about, like the future generations of media makers and this archive that we’re leaving and thinking about the young people who are going to take up audio and filmmaking and chronicling that the next generation of storytellers. I just think audio is is just still there’s so much potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>We’re kind of made like a blueprint for some folks to say, like, we did it. There is interest, and people want to hear artists with what they have to say about their process, their identity, their ideas of belonging. And that’s important. And I think it just shows what kind of show is possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about you, Penn? How are you thinking about who you’re leaving this archive for?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>It’s fourfold. It’s the artists we highlighted and the fact that they have their names etched in stone. And they can. I got an email from somebody we interviewed a couple years ago, and they had it as their under their email signature. They had a link to the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Still, it’s like they still use it as a to show who they are. That’s sweet. It’s for the audience. Audience members for the community. People who want to go back and say, hey, this story is important. It’s for other journalists to say, hey, this. As Madison said, this is a blueprint for what can be done in journalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Most importantly for the stakeholders, people who fund this type of work and saying this community believes that this thing is important. Let’s try it again. Let’s try a new iteration, a different version of it. Those four tiers, I think, are really important to reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Penn, I’m thinking about something you said back in 2019 when you were just starting off the show, which is that there are these very niche artists and culture makers who you believe deserve the spotlight. And that I think over the last five years, you both have done an amazing job at giving a platform to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And these are people who I think, I think it’s fair to say would not have been on KQED, would not have been on any mainstream media platform, possibly for that matter. I guess I’m wondering for the both of you, like, did you feel an additional responsibility as journalists of color, as people who have deep ties to the Bay area when spotlighting these artists?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>I definitely felt there was a huge responsibility because essentially. We are gatekeepers in a way. Inviting people in into this institution and sharing that platform. And I think that’s why we tried so hard to really expand our reach. Time after time. I brought in an artist who grew up in the mission and they were like, yo, I’ve seen this building my whole childhood here and I’ve never stepped inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And that felt like, this is why we do this, because this is the public we’re serving and they matter to. And and then being part of the media that we’re creating back for the public, it felt really good to be able to open those doors and platform artists who’ve been part of these communities for such a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>As a journalist, you already have a responsibility to the community. There’s an additional responsibility that comes with me being a black man from the community, for the black community to reach back to me and say, hey, this institution has wronged me in some way, or, hey, this institution has done something good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>I end up being a conduit in between the community and the institution. Oftentimes, it’s not even about the podcast or even my reporting. It’s really just about what the community feels and what’s going on with the institution. And so I had to learn to accept that and, communicate that to the community and to the institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I guess both of you. I’d love to know. Like, what have you both learned about the Bay area in your time making right now ish?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>I’ll go first. The most important thing that I learned in trying to tell stories of the Bay area is that you’re never going to tell the story of the Bay area. There’s too much depth. There’s too much history. Some parts of the Bay or in 2050, some parts are in 1995. Like there’s too much going on right now. So you never want to tell every story, but the story that you do tell. Tell it as best you can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>I mean, for me, I think reporting with lived experience has been such a strength that me and Penn have been able to play on. I would sit on story sometimes like, well, the fact that I know them is that like, is that newsworthy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And then I had to, like restructure my brain to be like, no, this is because I’m I’m embedded in this neighborhood, and I see the people who are constantly at different events and, and tirelessly working. And so I guess what I’m taking away is that your lived experience is so valuable. And to bring that wherever you go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I feel like that lived experience for both of you. And. And then Marisol, you could hear it in the sound of the show. I just want to say, as a as a listener, someone on the other side, I have just really appreciated what y’all have done. And thank you for your work and all that you’ve done to archive that. The scene and arts and culture in the Bay area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was right now ish host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena. Shout out as well to Rightnowish editor Chris Hambrick. You can find Rightnowish’s rich archive at KQED.org/Rightnowish or wherever you listen to podcasts. The last episode of Rightnowish drops on July 18th.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This 40 minute conversation with the Rightnowish team was cut down and edited by our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. It was scored and produced by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Additional production support from me. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay is a listener supported production. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the past 5 years, KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/rightnowish\">Rightnowish podcast\u003c/a> spotlighted artists and culture keepers from all over the Bay Area. In doing so, Host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena showed a love for the culture that is unmatched.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On July 18, Rightnowish will air its last episode. Today, we sit down with Pen and Marisol to reflect on the rich archive of culture they’ve built.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1755778415\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Mike. Check, check. One. Check two. Are we here? All right. We’re here RIghtnowIsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>For the past five years. Host Pendarvis Harshaw, along with producer Marisol Medina-Cadena, have been building an archive of artists and culture makers in the Bay area. The Right Now ish podcast spotlighted artists, creatives and culture keepers from all over the region, and they did it with a love and reverence for the culture that goes unmatched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>I tell people I had a front row seat to the culture of the Bay area, and it was just my job to take notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>We tried so hard to really expand our reach. Tattoo artists, graffiti artists, poets, MCs, libraries, farm workers. Like there’s not a hierarchy of what type of art is acceptable on this show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Next month, the Right Now ish podcast will end its run. So today I sit down with Pen and Muddy Soul to talk about the rich archive of culture that they’ve built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>The origins of the show right now is come from a photo series that I was doing going around Oakland, taking photos of art that I saw that spoke to larger things happening in the world, and I would post it on Twitter and I’d add the tag right now ish, because I didn’t want people to know where I was when I was, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>So it’s kind of right now it’s lightweight. And when I got the opportunity to host a podcast with KQED and the question was, what was I going to name it? I went, the idea right now is, and that same concept of stumbling upon art and identifying how it speaks to a larger narrative, that’s what it was all about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And so we go into the meeting room to pitch right now, ish. And I literally had an image of Mister Rogers from Mister Rogers Neighborhood and the cover of two shorts, Short Dogs on the House album, which is like an animated dog cover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>That inspired Snoop Dog eventually. Yeah. And so these are the images that I wanted. I wanted to bring the Mr. Rogers get to know your neighbor meets that Oakland funk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And how are you, I guess at the time, defining arts and culture. Like who are the artists, the culture makers, culture keepers that you were thinking about when you were starting out the show?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Looking around my community, I saw artists in the backyard, parties. We would throw, biking events I would attend, really people in my community who I felt like needed to be highlighted because their work spoke to things that were universal. And so that was my goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Your neighbors quite literally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Yeah. What’s up? Yeah. My name is Pendarvis Harshaw, the journalist and host behind right now. Ish. Man, I am excited to bring our entire world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Can I remember your first ever episode of the Right Now in your podcast, which was with Oakland native and muralist Timothy B? Can you tell me a little bit more about Timothy B, and why you picked him as the subject of your very first official episode of the podcast?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Timothy B embodies a brilliant story that really shows Oakland’s change over the past 30 to 40 years. So my my name’s Timothy is the junior. Tom is money. Well, my friends call me Tim, but I’m locally known as Timothy B, the artist. He’s an awesome muralist. Internationally renowned. He has huge pieces all around the town and his work is brilliant, bright, vibrant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>We have, we have a queen with monkey skulls and palm trees in an urban setting taking place in the background. But that’s just one of many projects I’m working on. He depicts Afrocentric themes and images of gods, and he brings it all together in a real cool way. So Timothy is doing this awesome work on the streets and the work that Timothy’s father did on the streets back in the 80s and 90s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>It’s a little different. I never really was involved with the streets, never even wanted to be a part of it, simply because of my OGs who have learned from their mistakes. So Timothy story is important because it parallels not only my story, but so many other kids whose families were shaped by the war on drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>But Timothy B isn’t the average kid who grew up in Oakland in the 90s. He was one of the sons of Timothy Blues senior was part of the legendary six nine mob. You might be familiar with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Well, at least some of the. Since his release, he’s been back in the neighborhood doing great community work, and I was familiar with Timothy B, the artist. I was familiar with his father’s story. I wasn’t familiar with Dana Bluitt the mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Bluitt: \u003c/strong>I did what I had to do to make sure that he constantly spoke to his dad. When Tim would get in trouble, I would tell this, dad. So I say, your dad may not physically be here, but he is very much alive. And he is very much a father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And it was her comments about the family not being broken. It was unified in her work to hold the family together, raise this young man, and also make sure that the elder Timothy, as he reentered society, was stable. And so it was just a really beautiful story that showed a lot of different aspects of Oakland. And again, universal themes of family sticking together through thick and thin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, I think those are all the things you talk about in this first episode of Right Now ish, which is an arts and culture show at its core. But it’s also about everything else around that family life, kids growing up in Oakland, the stories behind the art. Marisol, you weren’t with the show yet, but what stands out to you from that episode?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>There’s an exchange in that first episode where he’s posing a question to Timothy’s b mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And I just keep thinking of like, how light this conversation is in spite of everything, in spite of oppressive systems and potentially broken families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And reflecting on like, what does it mean to have your family together and defy this broken family stereotype? And she corrects him and saying, we’re not broken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Bluitt: \u003c/strong>I never felt like we were broken. You know, I never I just felt like our reality was different than most, right? You know, nothing is going to break this family, Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>I’m here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>An early conversation Penn and I had. He made this very astute point, I think, where he was like, this is a show where I’m comfortable with black women correcting me on the mic. And I think having that moment kept in the tape really speaks to pens willingness to be corrected and to be informed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And there’s like this openness that he brings to each of the interviews, that they’re the experts of their lived experience. And Pen is just simply a mic for that story to be told louder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Producers play a really big role in how a show sounds. So when you joined muddy Saw and brought this East Bay expertise, this Oakland expertise, but you kind of brought that Frisco sensibility. Can you talk a little bit more about what drew you to working on right now? Ish. And with Penn in particular?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>I very much hold San Francisco Frisco very deep to my heart. It’s where my grandfather, my cousin and my aunt grew up. And so as a child, it was very common for my family to drive up from LA County all the way up to the bay, like every two months. And so I really got to see Bernal Heights, Snowy Valley in the mission as just like this beautiful place for experimentation and community arts and activism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Having witnessed the changes from afar, you know, like I didn’t go to school here, but coming to visit the Bay from the 90s to the mid 2000 and seeing all these shifts from the outside, I wanted to push back on this narrative that all of San Francisco was just gentrified and there was like, no more soul of the city. And I was like, that’s not what I see when I come back here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And now that I live here, there are still working class artists being working class in the city and making art about that experience. And there are these institutions like La Galeria de la Raza and Mission Cultural Center and Soma Arts that have deep, deep roots here. And and I got to tell, those histories are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Yes, that’s the truth, and that’s my truth. We did an episode about how day of the dead started back in the 1970s. Here in the mission, my family goes hard for Los Muertos growing up every weekend, and October was basically dedicated to assembling our home altar or community altar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And for me to be able to tell that history was so deeply personal, because that’s how part of my parents, on exposure to day of the dead, back in the 70s, you know, they were here learning from other Chicano artists, putting those events on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. And I feel like that’s something you and Penn have in common is these deep roots in these two really big hubs of art and artistry in the Bay area, San Francisco and the East Bay and Oakland. And one thing I feel like I really loved about right now is, is the range of things that you all have done with the show. Penn did your definition of arts and culture expand or change over the years, especially with Marisol on deck?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Oh man. Yes. It broadened my perspective of Northern California arts and culture. I always looked at San Francisco as my cousins across the water. So yeah, I wasn’t totally unfamiliar with that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>But going to other parts of the Bay, going to the North Bay and learning about people who are former farmworkers and transitioning into doing land work to fight wildfires. That is culture. It’s an art. Doing that type of work really showed me that, okay, there are so many more stories here to tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Our range of culture that we had on the show was really expansive. I mean, we did a whole series on tattoo artist. We did a whole series on the meaning of Love. We did a whole series on filmmakers rooted in the Bay, musicians in the Bay, jazz in the Bay. We all culture in the Bay. And we also did a series on land stewardship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, it went and went so much beyond painting and and drawing and murals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>All right, back into the lava field. Let’s do it. Pretty much. All right. We did one episode in. We’re in Bayview doing some glassblowing. So I’m going to open this up and you’re going to feel it. I’m standing behind you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And and so that all the orange that you see, that’s heat. Oh, God. That’s a heat glow, that the glass is not orange. We’re recording an episode while dealing with immense heat and being nervous that we’re going to drop either glass or burn ourselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s an art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>It’s an art. It was, but it was fun. Oh my God, Hades is turn turn turn turn turn. Keep going, keep going, turn fast first go fast. Rotate. There you go, Susie. Stay right there or up and out. And so being able to step into all of that, I tell people I had a front row seat to the culture of the Bay area, and it was just my job to take notes. We did the best we can. We have so much fun doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One example of that Marisol was you’re from the soil series. I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about that and what it was, and what y’all’s conversations were like about doing that kind of reporting for this show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Right. So we did a series called From the Soil. And really the idea was looking at land workers and their relationships to the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>It remains illegal for us to practice our ceremonies. And so, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>We talked to Valentine Lopez, the tribal chairman of the band of the Amah Mutsun, about this effort to protect sacred land from being turned into a mining operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>When we see this mining permit come in, we say this is the continuation of that brutality, that erasure, that destruction of the Amazon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>That was an instance where it took a lot of time to build trust with the tribal chairman and being like, please, we’ll give you as much time as you need to help tell this story. We’re not just trying to come in with a sound bite and out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>Just to the east of here, there were four natural lakes. We had seven villages at those four lakes, and we had large populations at those lakes. But what, you know. But they drain those lakes for agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>There’s the culture of land stewardship and tending the land. And what are all the beliefs and practices behind building a relationship with land that we were really centering, like, yo, this is a form of culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>That conversation sticks with me because we’re on the side of a just green pasture hillside, nondescript. It looks like just the rolling hills of Northern California. But this is indigenous land that’s been taken from them for over 100 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>And now every time I pass it in Gilroy, I think about that. So when I talk about that expansion of the Bay area and culture and what it means, like now that’s etched in my memory forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>After five great years, right now ish is ending its run. I’ll start with you, Melissa. Like, how are you thinking about who you’re leaving this archive for?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>I’m thinking about, like the future generations of media makers and this archive that we’re leaving and thinking about the young people who are going to take up audio and filmmaking and chronicling that the next generation of storytellers. I just think audio is is just still there’s so much potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>We’re kind of made like a blueprint for some folks to say, like, we did it. There is interest, and people want to hear artists with what they have to say about their process, their identity, their ideas of belonging. And that’s important. And I think it just shows what kind of show is possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about you, Penn? How are you thinking about who you’re leaving this archive for?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>It’s fourfold. It’s the artists we highlighted and the fact that they have their names etched in stone. And they can. I got an email from somebody we interviewed a couple years ago, and they had it as their under their email signature. They had a link to the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Still, it’s like they still use it as a to show who they are. That’s sweet. It’s for the audience. Audience members for the community. People who want to go back and say, hey, this story is important. It’s for other journalists to say, hey, this. As Madison said, this is a blueprint for what can be done in journalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Most importantly for the stakeholders, people who fund this type of work and saying this community believes that this thing is important. Let’s try it again. Let’s try a new iteration, a different version of it. Those four tiers, I think, are really important to reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Penn, I’m thinking about something you said back in 2019 when you were just starting off the show, which is that there are these very niche artists and culture makers who you believe deserve the spotlight. And that I think over the last five years, you both have done an amazing job at giving a platform to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And these are people who I think, I think it’s fair to say would not have been on KQED, would not have been on any mainstream media platform, possibly for that matter. I guess I’m wondering for the both of you, like, did you feel an additional responsibility as journalists of color, as people who have deep ties to the Bay area when spotlighting these artists?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>I definitely felt there was a huge responsibility because essentially. We are gatekeepers in a way. Inviting people in into this institution and sharing that platform. And I think that’s why we tried so hard to really expand our reach. Time after time. I brought in an artist who grew up in the mission and they were like, yo, I’ve seen this building my whole childhood here and I’ve never stepped inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And that felt like, this is why we do this, because this is the public we’re serving and they matter to. And and then being part of the media that we’re creating back for the public, it felt really good to be able to open those doors and platform artists who’ve been part of these communities for such a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>As a journalist, you already have a responsibility to the community. There’s an additional responsibility that comes with me being a black man from the community, for the black community to reach back to me and say, hey, this institution has wronged me in some way, or, hey, this institution has done something good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>I end up being a conduit in between the community and the institution. Oftentimes, it’s not even about the podcast or even my reporting. It’s really just about what the community feels and what’s going on with the institution. And so I had to learn to accept that and, communicate that to the community and to the institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I guess both of you. I’d love to know. Like, what have you both learned about the Bay area in your time making right now ish?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>I’ll go first. The most important thing that I learned in trying to tell stories of the Bay area is that you’re never going to tell the story of the Bay area. There’s too much depth. There’s too much history. Some parts of the Bay or in 2050, some parts are in 1995. Like there’s too much going on right now. So you never want to tell every story, but the story that you do tell. Tell it as best you can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>I mean, for me, I think reporting with lived experience has been such a strength that me and Penn have been able to play on. I would sit on story sometimes like, well, the fact that I know them is that like, is that newsworthy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>And then I had to, like restructure my brain to be like, no, this is because I’m I’m embedded in this neighborhood, and I see the people who are constantly at different events and, and tirelessly working. And so I guess what I’m taking away is that your lived experience is so valuable. And to bring that wherever you go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I feel like that lived experience for both of you. And. And then Marisol, you could hear it in the sound of the show. I just want to say, as a as a listener, someone on the other side, I have just really appreciated what y’all have done. And thank you for your work and all that you’ve done to archive that. The scene and arts and culture in the Bay area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was right now ish host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena. Shout out as well to Rightnowish editor Chris Hambrick. You can find Rightnowish’s rich archive at KQED.org/Rightnowish or wherever you listen to podcasts. The last episode of Rightnowish drops on July 18th.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This 40 minute conversation with the Rightnowish team was cut down and edited by our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. It was scored and produced by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Additional production support from me. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay is a listener supported production. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "'This Is Where My People Are': A Queer Person's Journey to the Bay",
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"headTitle": "‘This Is Where My People Are’: A Queer Person’s Journey to the Bay | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For many queer people, the Bay Area is seen as a place of safety and community. This Pride month, we hear the story of one queer person’s journey to the Bay, in their own words.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2647739090&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. For a long time, Quin Petty thought of the Bay area as this mythical place. The only real representation they’d actually seen of San Francisco specifically was in the TV show Charmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I was obsessed with Charmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>It was so unattainable. Almost. It just felt like, I don’t know, like. Like I said, like a fairyland where I wasn’t allowed to be. And if I could only make it there that, like, I don’t know, everything would be perfect, I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Beyond Charmed, there was just one thing they knew about the Bay. It was where they could find other queer people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And that I was someone who identified that way. And I didn’t know much about community before that. So, like, the concept of community was so foreign to me that I was like, I just know that this is where my people are, and I need to be there as much as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This month, San Francisco joined Sacramento and West Hollywood in becoming a sanctuary city for transgender people. But even before San Francisco was officially a sanctuary city, it has always been a beacon for queer folks like Quin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>My connection to the Bay area is very much a part of my connection with like myself and like my body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This Pride Month, we’re sharing this story of one trans person’s journey to the bay in their own words. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>My name is Quin Petty. I was raised in what is sometimes colloquially known as the Bible Belt of Southern California. Very Mormon forward town, in a place called Marietta, California. My mom is Mexican and my dad is half Japanese and half white. Growing up, I always knew that I was different and I always kind of felt. Closer to femininity than I did to boy things, I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I feel like it’s a very typical queer experience to like, know yourself, telling yourself without actually telling on yourself for a while until you reach pre-K kindergarten. But I think more than anything, my attraction to boys was definitely more so. The thing that led me to realizing I was different, especially because I knew that boys liked girls and like I wanted boys to like me. I do very specifically remember when I was younger constantly asking like, why was I born a boy? Like, why can’t I be a girl? It just wasn’t clicking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I didn’t understand why that option wasn’t available to me. So yeah, I came out around sophomore year of high school. It was the first day of P.E., and I had it with one of my best friends, and there was like some new girl was like, approaching me and like, we were talking and blah, blah, blah. I specifically remember her, like asking. She was like, are you okay? I just remember my best friend fully ready to defend me. She took in the breath to say no. And I was like, yeah. I just remember the look of shock on her face like, bitch, I’ve been lying for you this whole time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Everyone was already blaming me for thinking that I was gay and I was like, well, if I am gay, then they have to find something else to bully me for. Like, they can’t just keep going with us forever. If there ever was a perfect time to come out, I think I got a good time. I got a good time slot. 2008 was around the time, like Lady Gaga was coming out. Katy Perry was out here kissing girls. There was just so much culturally going on. Prop A was a big issue. Don’t ask, Don’t Tell was still being talked about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>There were things happening not only within culture, but within government and within everybody’s TVs at home. It wasn’t necessarily this bad thing anymore. And if anything, I think I saw that and I realized that like, hey, here’s this thing that I’ve had in me for forever, and people are finally starting to appreciate it, kind of see it as this thing that makes you special and makes you different. And it’s crazy too, because throughout high school, I was still kind of getting bullied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Like people are still talking behind my back, but I didn’t care. Another big thing that was happening around this time was like social media. I mean, yeah, I’d had a Myspace for a minute. I think I just made my Facebook. I actually happened to stumble upon this boy’s profile who, like, looked really cool. His all his photos were amazing and like, I believe he had a Lady Gaga song on his profile. And we just started talking like every single day. And they were working towards going to the Academy of Art in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>So yeah, that’s how I met my best friend Alejo. There was an opportunity that came up where I was able to, like, go visit Alejo, and I think my parents were down for it. But something happened and I ended up getting grounded. And they’re like, you’re not going to San Francisco anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I was like, I know you guys didn’t cancel the stick. I had access to their email. And so I went through their email and I found the ticket, printed it out. And like I specifically remember in the dead of night, slowly opening the front door, and my mom comes out and like her little nightgown and basically catches me running away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I just remember her repeating in her little sleepy haze, she was like, you’re going to come back for me? And I was like, yeah, there’s a return flight. Like, I’m not going to just stay there. I spent a good like my first two weeks in San Francisco. Alejo was this, like, broke art school student living in what used to be a utility closet in this, like, poorly kept apartment complex right off of Octavian. They had one single loft bed, but I was having the time of my life. I didn’t care. We had a hot plate, we had ramen, we had hot dogs and a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I stole a couple meals from that Safeway right there off of Market Street. Went to Dolores for the first time. It felt like one of those things where it’s like, I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t a place I was meant to be, but here I am. Me as a gay person from this horrible little town. Like, I wasn’t meant to make it out, but I did. I ended up moving up to the Bay about two years, 2 or 3 years after I first visited the morning of like, I think it was like four in the morning. I decided to start this voyage, with my parents permission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>This time I ended up moving in with Alejo again for about like four months or so. We were living in Concord. And I was working at Club Monaco at the Westfield in San Francisco. And, yeah. After like 4 or 6 months, maybe I was able to save up enough money to get an apartment. Well, a room in San Francisco for $400. And that was it. That’s all I needed. I lived in what I like to refer to as the outer, outer, outer mission. It’s past Excelsior, but like literally one block away from Daily City. I guess you could call it a duplex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>You could also call it a Chinese family living in their basement and letting four crust punks and me live above them. When I moved up here for the first time, and especially when I moved to San Francisco, it felt like everything about my like, being just felt like it was at a time when I made it, you know, I was just like, yes, I was just a sales associate, but I don’t know, I felt like I was on Gossip Girl. So when I first came out, I was very much a gay boy. I mean, I looked the part. I was very Twinkie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>In those days, I would say that I was I was happy enough at the time. I started to have more of a concrete idea of like. Where I was headed gender wise. If you ask any trans person who has taken time to transition and has like had multiple coming out, I think we all have this little conversation with ourself, this little mini check in where we’re like, girl, are you are you trans lady? Like, are you sure? And then there’s always that talk back where you’re like, no, there’s no way. Why would you want to make your life harder?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I ended up moving back home for about a year, actually. So like living back home, especially living in a place where you sort of have to rehash a lot of your trauma, a lot of it gets brought back up again. And I think in having that stuff being brought back up, I realized that I couldn’t necessarily have these important conversations with myself and go through these healing processes in the same place that I had endured so much trauma as well. So when I finally ended up moving back to the Bay area, I decided to go into food service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>There was a coworker there. Shout out to Justine! We love Justine. She asked the most simple question. This was the first time we were meeting and she was like, oh, what are your pronouns, by the way, that it was the first time anyone had ever asked me that question. And I paused for like a good 15 seconds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I literally remember responding with like, I’ll get back to you. Months after that, like whole situation where Justine had asked me that question. I don’t know if I ever gave them an answer, but I was still very much in flux with that question when the pandemic started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Because my job was affected by the pandemic. I was getting checks at that time. So I literally it was just like, it’s one of those things where you’re like, well, if all of your things are taken care of, like what? What are you what do you what do you have to to to give to society? I was able to, like, really get into makeup during the pandemic. My friends definitely were the most affirming. I found a really good base up here, obviously, and I had a very good community of online friends also that were super supportive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I debuted my new name on Facebook for like All To See, which I don’t know, I sort of assumed was a very like definitive way to do that. I’ve had the conversation with like a couple family members, a few like really accepting and open aunts. I haven’t really yeah, I haven’t really had that conversation with my family, if I’m being honest. They still either just refer to me as Mehul or by my dad name, which we’re working on it. Me and my parents sort of had this like this break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>We didn’t talk for like a good, I want to say to 2 or 3 years. Basically around the time of the George Floyd protests. I was talking on the phone with my mom. We were sort of talking about it, and she sort of said something along the lines of like, well, you know, if like, those people just followed the way of Jehovah. And I was like, mom, it led me to this question that I asked her where I was, like, as it stands, like I’m the way that I am when you die and when I die and like, you’re in Paradise, like, and I’m not there, like, are you going to be okay with that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>She paused a little, but she was also like, well, I mean, yeah, I’m going to miss you. But. And like, that was kind of all it took. I just remember clicking the phone off. I didn’t talk to her for like 2 or 3 years after that. Currently I identify as. Ultimately non-binary, ultimately, ultimately trans like. I really prefer using that umbrella. Mostly to give myself room to grow. I suppose I do often think that like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I know this is there’s a lot of discourse about this, within the community of like the validity of taking on certain monikers and like. Like it’s okay, but like, I don’t, I don’t know, I just I still think that there are. Other trans women who have gone through so much more than I have to be able, would like to be able to to take on that title. Feels like I am. I’m taking on so much more than just that. I’ve pretty much fully socially transitioned like my parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>No, they don’t necessarily talk about it, but they know. I’ve also sort of been a part of this school of thought that’s like your transness is also not invalid. If you don’t decide to medically transition like, I’m I’m of two minds of it because like, I would love to have facial feminization surgery, but like it also doesn’t define my transness. Am I interested in medical transition? The short answer is yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>It’s just one of those things that like, I guess, much like San Francisco was when I first moved here. And when I first thought about coming up here, it was it’s like that exists in such an abstract, like ideal version of what I want that like, it feels so unattainable, but who knows? I think a lot of me being up here, especially during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Especially during a time where we as a community really had to band together, not just as queer people, but as like people that are for the rights of all individuals and like being up here for like the George Floyd protests and like the Black Lives Matter movement, like, I don’t think I could have been anywhere else and felt more affirmed in my humanity in general, not just my transness. It’s really hard to imagine living anywhere else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Quin Petty in conversation with our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. This episode was pitched and cut by Ellie Prickett-Morgan. It was also produced by Adhiti Bandlamudi, who scored this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo. Additional production support from Me. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For many queer people, the Bay Area is seen as a place of safety and community. This Pride month, we hear the story of one queer person’s journey to the Bay, in their own words.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2647739090&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. For a long time, Quin Petty thought of the Bay area as this mythical place. The only real representation they’d actually seen of San Francisco specifically was in the TV show Charmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I was obsessed with Charmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>It was so unattainable. Almost. It just felt like, I don’t know, like. Like I said, like a fairyland where I wasn’t allowed to be. And if I could only make it there that, like, I don’t know, everything would be perfect, I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Beyond Charmed, there was just one thing they knew about the Bay. It was where they could find other queer people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And that I was someone who identified that way. And I didn’t know much about community before that. So, like, the concept of community was so foreign to me that I was like, I just know that this is where my people are, and I need to be there as much as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This month, San Francisco joined Sacramento and West Hollywood in becoming a sanctuary city for transgender people. But even before San Francisco was officially a sanctuary city, it has always been a beacon for queer folks like Quin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>My connection to the Bay area is very much a part of my connection with like myself and like my body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This Pride Month, we’re sharing this story of one trans person’s journey to the bay in their own words. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>My name is Quin Petty. I was raised in what is sometimes colloquially known as the Bible Belt of Southern California. Very Mormon forward town, in a place called Marietta, California. My mom is Mexican and my dad is half Japanese and half white. Growing up, I always knew that I was different and I always kind of felt. Closer to femininity than I did to boy things, I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I feel like it’s a very typical queer experience to like, know yourself, telling yourself without actually telling on yourself for a while until you reach pre-K kindergarten. But I think more than anything, my attraction to boys was definitely more so. The thing that led me to realizing I was different, especially because I knew that boys liked girls and like I wanted boys to like me. I do very specifically remember when I was younger constantly asking like, why was I born a boy? Like, why can’t I be a girl? It just wasn’t clicking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I didn’t understand why that option wasn’t available to me. So yeah, I came out around sophomore year of high school. It was the first day of P.E., and I had it with one of my best friends, and there was like some new girl was like, approaching me and like, we were talking and blah, blah, blah. I specifically remember her, like asking. She was like, are you okay? I just remember my best friend fully ready to defend me. She took in the breath to say no. And I was like, yeah. I just remember the look of shock on her face like, bitch, I’ve been lying for you this whole time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Everyone was already blaming me for thinking that I was gay and I was like, well, if I am gay, then they have to find something else to bully me for. Like, they can’t just keep going with us forever. If there ever was a perfect time to come out, I think I got a good time. I got a good time slot. 2008 was around the time, like Lady Gaga was coming out. Katy Perry was out here kissing girls. There was just so much culturally going on. Prop A was a big issue. Don’t ask, Don’t Tell was still being talked about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>There were things happening not only within culture, but within government and within everybody’s TVs at home. It wasn’t necessarily this bad thing anymore. And if anything, I think I saw that and I realized that like, hey, here’s this thing that I’ve had in me for forever, and people are finally starting to appreciate it, kind of see it as this thing that makes you special and makes you different. And it’s crazy too, because throughout high school, I was still kind of getting bullied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Like people are still talking behind my back, but I didn’t care. Another big thing that was happening around this time was like social media. I mean, yeah, I’d had a Myspace for a minute. I think I just made my Facebook. I actually happened to stumble upon this boy’s profile who, like, looked really cool. His all his photos were amazing and like, I believe he had a Lady Gaga song on his profile. And we just started talking like every single day. And they were working towards going to the Academy of Art in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>So yeah, that’s how I met my best friend Alejo. There was an opportunity that came up where I was able to, like, go visit Alejo, and I think my parents were down for it. But something happened and I ended up getting grounded. And they’re like, you’re not going to San Francisco anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I was like, I know you guys didn’t cancel the stick. I had access to their email. And so I went through their email and I found the ticket, printed it out. And like I specifically remember in the dead of night, slowly opening the front door, and my mom comes out and like her little nightgown and basically catches me running away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I just remember her repeating in her little sleepy haze, she was like, you’re going to come back for me? And I was like, yeah, there’s a return flight. Like, I’m not going to just stay there. I spent a good like my first two weeks in San Francisco. Alejo was this, like, broke art school student living in what used to be a utility closet in this, like, poorly kept apartment complex right off of Octavian. They had one single loft bed, but I was having the time of my life. I didn’t care. We had a hot plate, we had ramen, we had hot dogs and a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I stole a couple meals from that Safeway right there off of Market Street. Went to Dolores for the first time. It felt like one of those things where it’s like, I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t a place I was meant to be, but here I am. Me as a gay person from this horrible little town. Like, I wasn’t meant to make it out, but I did. I ended up moving up to the Bay about two years, 2 or 3 years after I first visited the morning of like, I think it was like four in the morning. I decided to start this voyage, with my parents permission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>This time I ended up moving in with Alejo again for about like four months or so. We were living in Concord. And I was working at Club Monaco at the Westfield in San Francisco. And, yeah. After like 4 or 6 months, maybe I was able to save up enough money to get an apartment. Well, a room in San Francisco for $400. And that was it. That’s all I needed. I lived in what I like to refer to as the outer, outer, outer mission. It’s past Excelsior, but like literally one block away from Daily City. I guess you could call it a duplex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>You could also call it a Chinese family living in their basement and letting four crust punks and me live above them. When I moved up here for the first time, and especially when I moved to San Francisco, it felt like everything about my like, being just felt like it was at a time when I made it, you know, I was just like, yes, I was just a sales associate, but I don’t know, I felt like I was on Gossip Girl. So when I first came out, I was very much a gay boy. I mean, I looked the part. I was very Twinkie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>In those days, I would say that I was I was happy enough at the time. I started to have more of a concrete idea of like. Where I was headed gender wise. If you ask any trans person who has taken time to transition and has like had multiple coming out, I think we all have this little conversation with ourself, this little mini check in where we’re like, girl, are you are you trans lady? Like, are you sure? And then there’s always that talk back where you’re like, no, there’s no way. Why would you want to make your life harder?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I ended up moving back home for about a year, actually. So like living back home, especially living in a place where you sort of have to rehash a lot of your trauma, a lot of it gets brought back up again. And I think in having that stuff being brought back up, I realized that I couldn’t necessarily have these important conversations with myself and go through these healing processes in the same place that I had endured so much trauma as well. So when I finally ended up moving back to the Bay area, I decided to go into food service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>There was a coworker there. Shout out to Justine! We love Justine. She asked the most simple question. This was the first time we were meeting and she was like, oh, what are your pronouns, by the way, that it was the first time anyone had ever asked me that question. And I paused for like a good 15 seconds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I literally remember responding with like, I’ll get back to you. Months after that, like whole situation where Justine had asked me that question. I don’t know if I ever gave them an answer, but I was still very much in flux with that question when the pandemic started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Because my job was affected by the pandemic. I was getting checks at that time. So I literally it was just like, it’s one of those things where you’re like, well, if all of your things are taken care of, like what? What are you what do you what do you have to to to give to society? I was able to, like, really get into makeup during the pandemic. My friends definitely were the most affirming. I found a really good base up here, obviously, and I had a very good community of online friends also that were super supportive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I debuted my new name on Facebook for like All To See, which I don’t know, I sort of assumed was a very like definitive way to do that. I’ve had the conversation with like a couple family members, a few like really accepting and open aunts. I haven’t really yeah, I haven’t really had that conversation with my family, if I’m being honest. They still either just refer to me as Mehul or by my dad name, which we’re working on it. Me and my parents sort of had this like this break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>We didn’t talk for like a good, I want to say to 2 or 3 years. Basically around the time of the George Floyd protests. I was talking on the phone with my mom. We were sort of talking about it, and she sort of said something along the lines of like, well, you know, if like, those people just followed the way of Jehovah. And I was like, mom, it led me to this question that I asked her where I was, like, as it stands, like I’m the way that I am when you die and when I die and like, you’re in Paradise, like, and I’m not there, like, are you going to be okay with that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>She paused a little, but she was also like, well, I mean, yeah, I’m going to miss you. But. And like, that was kind of all it took. I just remember clicking the phone off. I didn’t talk to her for like 2 or 3 years after that. Currently I identify as. Ultimately non-binary, ultimately, ultimately trans like. I really prefer using that umbrella. Mostly to give myself room to grow. I suppose I do often think that like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I know this is there’s a lot of discourse about this, within the community of like the validity of taking on certain monikers and like. Like it’s okay, but like, I don’t, I don’t know, I just I still think that there are. Other trans women who have gone through so much more than I have to be able, would like to be able to to take on that title. Feels like I am. I’m taking on so much more than just that. I’ve pretty much fully socially transitioned like my parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>No, they don’t necessarily talk about it, but they know. I’ve also sort of been a part of this school of thought that’s like your transness is also not invalid. If you don’t decide to medically transition like, I’m I’m of two minds of it because like, I would love to have facial feminization surgery, but like it also doesn’t define my transness. Am I interested in medical transition? The short answer is yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>It’s just one of those things that like, I guess, much like San Francisco was when I first moved here. And when I first thought about coming up here, it was it’s like that exists in such an abstract, like ideal version of what I want that like, it feels so unattainable, but who knows? I think a lot of me being up here, especially during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Especially during a time where we as a community really had to band together, not just as queer people, but as like people that are for the rights of all individuals and like being up here for like the George Floyd protests and like the Black Lives Matter movement, like, I don’t think I could have been anywhere else and felt more affirmed in my humanity in general, not just my transness. It’s really hard to imagine living anywhere else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Quin Petty in conversation with our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. This episode was pitched and cut by Ellie Prickett-Morgan. It was also produced by Adhiti Bandlamudi, who scored this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo. Additional production support from Me. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Willie Mays, the San Francisco Giants’ baseball legend, died Tuesday at age 93. Mays played 21 seasons with the Giants and is considered by many to be the greatest all-around baseball player ever. Today, KQED Morning Edition host Brian Watt brings us a tribute to the ‘Say Hey Kid.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8211231378&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Willie Mays, who played 21 seasons with the San Francisco Giants and who’s seen by many as the greatest baseball player to ever do it, died on Tuesday at the age of 93.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Fans have been stopping by Willie Mays Plaza at Oracle Park, where his statue stands. Paying tribute not only to baseball’s best, but the Bay Area’s best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 1: \u003c/strong>One of the cool things about baseball is the history of it. And, you know, you respect the people who did it before, and he was one of the best in history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 2: \u003c/strong>I think. Forever in baseball. It will always be said that he probably loved the game harder and played it better than any one of those in those two categories. Nobody was the tops and he was the tops of both.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 3: \u003c/strong>I’ve been following the Giants since 1971. I saw Willie Mays for the first time, a candlestick park against the Philadelphia Phillies. My mom took me to a game and after that I was hooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 4: \u003c/strong>I think it’s a sad day for the city, but it’s awesome to see people coming together like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 5: \u003c/strong>Knowing what he meant to baseball, to black folks, to the Negro League, to major leagues, which is important, to come out and pay my respects to him and all that he’s done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 6: \u003c/strong>Besides my father, he was my hero. And it takes me back to being a little kid and Candlestick Park and and being young and having San Francisco represented by the best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, my KQED colleague, Brian Watt what brings us this tribute to Willie Mays. The “say hey, kid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>The magic of Willie Mays can be summed up in one play in Game one of the 1954 World Series. Mays was playing for the New York Giants, who were taking on the Cleveland Indians. Mays in center field chased a fly ball and caught it over his shoulder. His back to the fast moving ball.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>This became known as the catch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Willie Mays \u003c/strong>When the ball went up. I knew exactly what to do before the ball ever came down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Mays remembered the play in a 2010 interview on NPR’s All Things Considered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Willie Mays \u003c/strong>I got to catch the ball. I got to stop. I got to make a 360. By the time I’d make the 36 it, the ball should be back into the infield. And a lot of people said, well, he had it all away. Well, I might have had the ball all the way. But the key to me was a throw. Getting it back into the infield so nobody could advance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>And he did exactly all of that. The underdog giants won the game and went on to sweep Cleveland in the series.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Willie Howard Mays Jr was born in 1931 in Westfield, Alabama, and played for the Birmingham Black Barons in the old Negro Leagues. Those games were highly competitive, but also meant to entertain, says James Hirsch. He wrote the biography Willie Mays, The Life, The Legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Hirsch: \u003c/strong>It wasn’t just that he ran fast or hit with power, but the use of the basket catch the hat flying off his head the way his. He would swivel his hand on his neck to crack the ball. He did it with a certain flair and charisma that he knew was irresistible to watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>In 1951, four years after Jackie Robinson broke the Major leagues color barrier, Mays joined the New York Giants. He was just 20 years old and brought up by the Giants famous manager, Leo Durocher. You hear Durocher talk about Mays abilities in the 2023 HBO documentary Say, Hey, Willie Mays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leo Durocher: \u003c/strong>There is no question in my mind, but what he can do with the five essential things better than any other player today. And that hit with power right fielder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>When the Giants and Dodgers moved from New York to California in 1958, Mays was a face of Major League Baseball’s westward expansion. The fact that his face was black made it a tough transition for Mays when he tried to buy a home in a white part of San Francisco. The neighbors pushed back. Mays eventually got the house and spoke plainly about the process in an interview on Kpix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Willie Mays: \u003c/strong>Yes, it was a disappointment to me because I didn’t figure that I would have this much trouble trying to buy a place. That’s why when I go looking for a house, I don’t worry about who are living besides me. I go and try to find the best place that I like, like. And I think I’ll be confident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Willie Mays was not comfortable with confronting racism forthrightly and loudly. This was a contrast with Jackie Robinson, who criticized Mays for not using his platform when the civil rights movement was in full swing. Hirsch wrote about this in his biography.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Hirsch: \u003c/strong>Robertson called them a, quote, do nothing Negro but import my will. He believed that in his own way, he did advance the civil rights movement as a role model for the rest of America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Mays pushed back quietly at the time, but talked about it decades later in the interview on NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Willie Mays: \u003c/strong>I know Jackie had a hard time when he came in. I applaud him. I don’t know if I could have done the things that he did when he came in. But, you know, what am I going to change? I can’t change the world. I can live the way I live and hope that I can help people of all races all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>In 1962, the San Francisco Giants made their first playoffs, beat the Dodgers in the National League championship and lost to the Yankees in seven games in the World Series. Mays played 21 seasons with the Giants. In his career, Mays hit 660 home runs, stole 338 bases, and his biographer, James Hirsch, says the most important statistic might be that Mays put out more than 7000 opposing players from center field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Hirsch: \u003c/strong>It underscores is durability. Willie played 20, 40 years. He rarely took a day off, not until his last couple of years when he was 40, 41, 42, when he began to be nagged by injuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Mays is also remembered for making peace in the clubhouse, keeping the focus on the baseball and making everyone feel welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nate Oliver: \u003c/strong>You remember that baseball team? He’s going to take care of you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Nate Oliver played with Willie Mays on the San Francisco Giants in 1968.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nate Oliver: \u003c/strong>He treated every single person in that clubhouse with dignity and respect. Because if you here, you belong here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Mays was also known for taking young players under his wing, including the outfielder Bobby Bonds, who made Mays the godfather of his son, Barry Bonds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Renel Brooks-Moon: \u003c/strong>Nothing gives him more pleasure than, you know, kind of teaching the game. And nothing gives him more pleasure than helping children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>That’s Renel Brooks-Moon, the San Francisco Giants former public address announcer. Brooks-Moon appeared with Mays at several charity launches. She says he was always generous with his time. Presence and name. On his 90th birthday in 2021. The Giants Community Fund launched a scholarship program for black students in his name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Renel Brooks-Moon: \u003c/strong>He’s always said that. People took such good care of him when he was young and coming up in baseball that he wants to give it back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>That’s the legacy Mays left. He was one of baseball’s greats who played the game and tried to live his life with joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Brian Watt, host of KQED’s Morning Edition. You can hear him on the radio weekdays on 88.5 FM. Willie Mays son Michael said in a statement, quote, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the unwavering love you have shown him over the years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This episode was edited by Alexander Gonzalez and senior editor Alan Montecillo. It was scored by our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. The tape of fans at the top of this episode was gathered by KQED Juan Carlos Lara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We got additional help this week from Adhiti Bandlamudi. The Bay is made by me and Alan Montecillo, Ellie Prickett Morgan, with support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We’re a KQED production. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Willie Mays, who played 21 seasons with the San Francisco Giants and who’s seen by many as the greatest baseball player to ever do it, died on Tuesday at the age of 93.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Fans have been stopping by Willie Mays Plaza at Oracle Park, where his statue stands. Paying tribute not only to baseball’s best, but the Bay Area’s best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 1: \u003c/strong>One of the cool things about baseball is the history of it. And, you know, you respect the people who did it before, and he was one of the best in history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 2: \u003c/strong>I think. Forever in baseball. It will always be said that he probably loved the game harder and played it better than any one of those in those two categories. Nobody was the tops and he was the tops of both.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 3: \u003c/strong>I’ve been following the Giants since 1971. I saw Willie Mays for the first time, a candlestick park against the Philadelphia Phillies. My mom took me to a game and after that I was hooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 4: \u003c/strong>I think it’s a sad day for the city, but it’s awesome to see people coming together like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 5: \u003c/strong>Knowing what he meant to baseball, to black folks, to the Negro League, to major leagues, which is important, to come out and pay my respects to him and all that he’s done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fan 6: \u003c/strong>Besides my father, he was my hero. And it takes me back to being a little kid and Candlestick Park and and being young and having San Francisco represented by the best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, my KQED colleague, Brian Watt what brings us this tribute to Willie Mays. The “say hey, kid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>The magic of Willie Mays can be summed up in one play in Game one of the 1954 World Series. Mays was playing for the New York Giants, who were taking on the Cleveland Indians. Mays in center field chased a fly ball and caught it over his shoulder. His back to the fast moving ball.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>This became known as the catch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Willie Mays \u003c/strong>When the ball went up. I knew exactly what to do before the ball ever came down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Mays remembered the play in a 2010 interview on NPR’s All Things Considered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Willie Mays \u003c/strong>I got to catch the ball. I got to stop. I got to make a 360. By the time I’d make the 36 it, the ball should be back into the infield. And a lot of people said, well, he had it all away. Well, I might have had the ball all the way. But the key to me was a throw. Getting it back into the infield so nobody could advance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>And he did exactly all of that. The underdog giants won the game and went on to sweep Cleveland in the series.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Willie Howard Mays Jr was born in 1931 in Westfield, Alabama, and played for the Birmingham Black Barons in the old Negro Leagues. Those games were highly competitive, but also meant to entertain, says James Hirsch. He wrote the biography Willie Mays, The Life, The Legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Hirsch: \u003c/strong>It wasn’t just that he ran fast or hit with power, but the use of the basket catch the hat flying off his head the way his. He would swivel his hand on his neck to crack the ball. He did it with a certain flair and charisma that he knew was irresistible to watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>In 1951, four years after Jackie Robinson broke the Major leagues color barrier, Mays joined the New York Giants. He was just 20 years old and brought up by the Giants famous manager, Leo Durocher. You hear Durocher talk about Mays abilities in the 2023 HBO documentary Say, Hey, Willie Mays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leo Durocher: \u003c/strong>There is no question in my mind, but what he can do with the five essential things better than any other player today. And that hit with power right fielder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>When the Giants and Dodgers moved from New York to California in 1958, Mays was a face of Major League Baseball’s westward expansion. The fact that his face was black made it a tough transition for Mays when he tried to buy a home in a white part of San Francisco. The neighbors pushed back. Mays eventually got the house and spoke plainly about the process in an interview on Kpix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Willie Mays: \u003c/strong>Yes, it was a disappointment to me because I didn’t figure that I would have this much trouble trying to buy a place. That’s why when I go looking for a house, I don’t worry about who are living besides me. I go and try to find the best place that I like, like. And I think I’ll be confident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Willie Mays was not comfortable with confronting racism forthrightly and loudly. This was a contrast with Jackie Robinson, who criticized Mays for not using his platform when the civil rights movement was in full swing. Hirsch wrote about this in his biography.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Hirsch: \u003c/strong>Robertson called them a, quote, do nothing Negro but import my will. He believed that in his own way, he did advance the civil rights movement as a role model for the rest of America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Mays pushed back quietly at the time, but talked about it decades later in the interview on NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Willie Mays: \u003c/strong>I know Jackie had a hard time when he came in. I applaud him. I don’t know if I could have done the things that he did when he came in. But, you know, what am I going to change? I can’t change the world. I can live the way I live and hope that I can help people of all races all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>In 1962, the San Francisco Giants made their first playoffs, beat the Dodgers in the National League championship and lost to the Yankees in seven games in the World Series. Mays played 21 seasons with the Giants. In his career, Mays hit 660 home runs, stole 338 bases, and his biographer, James Hirsch, says the most important statistic might be that Mays put out more than 7000 opposing players from center field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Hirsch: \u003c/strong>It underscores is durability. Willie played 20, 40 years. He rarely took a day off, not until his last couple of years when he was 40, 41, 42, when he began to be nagged by injuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Mays is also remembered for making peace in the clubhouse, keeping the focus on the baseball and making everyone feel welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nate Oliver: \u003c/strong>You remember that baseball team? He’s going to take care of you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Nate Oliver played with Willie Mays on the San Francisco Giants in 1968.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nate Oliver: \u003c/strong>He treated every single person in that clubhouse with dignity and respect. Because if you here, you belong here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>Mays was also known for taking young players under his wing, including the outfielder Bobby Bonds, who made Mays the godfather of his son, Barry Bonds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Renel Brooks-Moon: \u003c/strong>Nothing gives him more pleasure than, you know, kind of teaching the game. And nothing gives him more pleasure than helping children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>That’s Renel Brooks-Moon, the San Francisco Giants former public address announcer. Brooks-Moon appeared with Mays at several charity launches. She says he was always generous with his time. Presence and name. On his 90th birthday in 2021. The Giants Community Fund launched a scholarship program for black students in his name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Renel Brooks-Moon: \u003c/strong>He’s always said that. People took such good care of him when he was young and coming up in baseball that he wants to give it back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brian Watt: \u003c/strong>That’s the legacy Mays left. He was one of baseball’s greats who played the game and tried to live his life with joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Brian Watt, host of KQED’s Morning Edition. You can hear him on the radio weekdays on 88.5 FM. Willie Mays son Michael said in a statement, quote, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the unwavering love you have shown him over the years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This episode was edited by Alexander Gonzalez and senior editor Alan Montecillo. It was scored by our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. The tape of fans at the top of this episode was gathered by KQED Juan Carlos Lara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We got additional help this week from Adhiti Bandlamudi. The Bay is made by me and Alan Montecillo, Ellie Prickett Morgan, with support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We’re a KQED production. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Less than half of all San Francisco pharmacies carry buprenorphine, one of the most powerful medications used to treat opioid addiction, according to San Francisco’s Department of Public Health. The city hopes to change that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6143363888&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. There are lifesaving medications that can help people suffering from addiction, stay sober, but it can be hard for people to access them. And in- San Francisco, which experienced its deadliest year of drug overdoses in 2023, less than half of pharmacies in the city make a lifesaving drug called buprenorphine available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Matt Dorsey: \u003c/strong>Anyone who makes the brave and difficult decision to seek recovery from opioid use disorder is really in a race against the clock, and if that drug is not available, we know that there are life threatening drugs that are abundant on San Francisco streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Federal and state officials have attempted to lower the barriers to critical opioid treatments like buprenorphine, but San Francisco hopes to take it a step further by requiring pharmacies to carry the drug. Today, how expanding access to buprenorphine can help the city’s drug overdose crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Last year was the worst year on record for overdose deaths in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Sydney Johnson is a reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>There were 810 people who died of accidental overdose, according to data from the office of the Chief Medical Examiner. San Francisco has seen a higher rate of overdose deaths per capita compared to a lot of other places in the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>But really, the entire West Coast is experiencing a surge in overdose deaths right now. Oakland. Alameda, you know, certainly other parts of the Bay are experiencing this crisis, too. Most of the overdose deaths have been involving fentanyl, which is an opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It’s sometimes mixed intentionally with other drugs like methamphetamines and sometimes not intentionally. And we see the repercussions of that on both ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what do we know about what works when it comes to treating an opioid addiction? Like, what is that process look like for people?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>First of all, addiction is so personal to each individual and so is treatment. So I think when we’re talking about any kind of treatment or, you know, what works, it’s important to recognize that and also to recognize that relapse is such a common part of people’s recovery journey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So all that aside, there are a few different types of opiate addiction treatment. There’s residential treatment options counseling, peer to peer supports. But there’s also these proven treatments that are used to assist in recovery. And you know, these are just medications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. What are those. What are these medications and drugs that we know really help people fight their opioid addiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So the Food and Drug Administration has approved three different medications to treat opioid use disorder. It’s buprenorphine methadone and naltrexone. And all three of those have been found to reduce opioid cravings and withdrawal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And they’re widely considered to be powerful tools for recovery when combined with things like more counseling and social support, like housing and things that, can really influence someone’s ability to stay in recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know your story focused specifically on buprenorphine. Why this drug?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It’s been identified that buprenorphine is pretty underutilized under prescribed and under available. And that was something that now the city is trying to take some action in addressing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So it’s what sounds like a really important drug for people suffering from opioid addiction and helping folks address their addiction. What does this drug look like exactly? How do you take it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Yeah. You can take it as a pill. It comes as a tablet. Or it can also come as a film, which is sort of like placed under the tongue for this quick absorption, you know, rapid response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>There’s also an option to get slow release monthly injections. And, you know, this is a drug that is covered by insurance. You know, it’s very common. And people can sometimes stay on it for a very long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Let’s say you are someone living in San Francisco, and you decide that you are ready to seek treatment for an opiate addiction. How hard is it to access drugs like buprenorphine?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>A lot of pharmacies across the whole city, and really across the whole state, don’t carry enough buprenorphine to actually fill those prescriptions in a single day. If someone were to walk in and decide that they were ready to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So, for example, in San Francisco, where more than 3000 people have died of overdose since 2020, less than half of all the retail pharmacies carried buprenorphine and were able to fill a two week prescription within the same day within the years 2021 to 2022. And that was according to a survey by the city’s Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>You can imagine if you have made it to this point where you’re going to get a prescription, go to get it filled, only to find out that the pharmacy that you’re at doesn’t even carry it, won’t be able to fill it. You know, that can be a really critical time period of trying to engage someone in this whole process. But fewer than half of the city’s pharmacies are able to meet that demand right when people need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. And it’s not just buprenorphine. I mean, some of these other drugs. So we’re talking about that really help people out of their addiction are also, in some cases, hard to get. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Right. And really, this is a very similar story here. There are barriers to accessing methadone, such as being required to go in person every day to take your dose. Maybe that’s helpful for some folks, but for people who maybe have been on methadone for several years, you know, they know their doctor well, they know the routine. Maybe it’s actually a huge hang up to have to go to a clinic every single day to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Matt Dorsey: \u003c/strong>Anyone who makes the brave and difficult decision to seek recovery from opioid use disorder is really in a race against the clock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Supervisor Matt Dorsey and a handful of other San Francisco supervisors have noted that this particular issue, the lack of access to medication based treatments for opioid use disorder, is a real hang up for the city’s approach to actually trying to curb the rates of overdose that we’re seeing right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Matt Dorsey: \u003c/strong>And if that drug is not available at the pharmacy where you expect it to be. We know that there are life threatening drugs that are abundant on San Francisco streets. So it really is a life and death crisis. And I think ensuring the availability of buprenorphine at all of our retail pharmacies can go a long way to facilitating access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up. Why it’s so hard to get medication for addiction. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, between buprenorphine and methadone and some of these barriers that we’re talking about. How would you maybe summarize why these barriers are there in the first place?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Opioid addiction treatment medications have been around for a while, but for decades have been really, really highly regulated. There are reasons behind that. And one of them is that methadone and buprenorphine are technically opioids. They do not lead to overdose in the same way that other opioids have shown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>However, that certainly carries a lot of concern and stigma. You know that this is a type of drug that you’re giving to someone who has problematic use with. And so historically, the federal government has kept these drugs, even ones that are meant to treat opioid use disorder, in really tight control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>I actually met one woman who has been in recovery for several years now. And she takes buprenorphine. And the first time that she got it, she had tried to get it from her doctor, but wasn’t able to the first time and ended up getting it from an illicit market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what’s been done to lift some of the barriers to access for these lifesaving drugs nationally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So this year, the federal government agreed to remove a requirement for practitioners that required them to complete additional training that allowed them to obtain this special waiver before prescribing opioid addiction medications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And these regulations also allow for people to take home their medications rather than showing up daily when that’s appropriate. And for practitioners to be able to just prescribe larger doses and to be able to prescribe doses remotely via telehealth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So in response to these federal changes at the state level, Assemblymember Matt Haney, who represents San Francisco, has also proposed a bill that would align California law to these federal regulations to reduce those barriers to treatment. And this week, a handful of city leaders here in San Francisco said that they would go one step further and actually require pharmacies to stock the medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Is this normal to require pharmacies to stock a medication like buprenorphine?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>My understanding is that this is the first piece of legislation of its kind, where a city would require local retail pharmacies to stock any particular medication, at least coming from the metro level like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And this was done in San Francisco with naloxone last year as well. Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>That’s right. Last year, Supervisor Matt Dorsey proposed a similar piece of legislation to require pharmacies to carry naloxone, which is now actually over the counter. And that, he said, was very important also because naloxone is this really powerful medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Sydney, what do we know about how much giving people access to these drugs actually increases their likelihood of surviving a drug addiction?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So people who use medication assisted treatments, you know, like methadone or buprenorphine, were 80% less likely to die of an opioid overdose compared to people in treatment without the medications. That was according to a 2020 study in the medical journal addiction. These have a lot of potential to reduce the likelihood of overdose and really save lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know so often, San Francisco becomes like a city that people are watching to see how we address homelessness, how we address the drug crisis. I mean, even though this is really being, I guess, led in San Francisco, what benefits or what impact could this have for the rest of the Bay area when it comes to how we address the drug crisis? Regionally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>One thing San Francisco, I think is doing is at least trying to add more public health strategies to increase access to buprenorphine and methadone. And I think other cities and counties could learn from just San Francisco actually investing in this public health approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>There have been decades of underinvestment in this space in general. I think that other cities and counties can look at San Francisco and say, hey, this is a proven treatment. This is something that has a lot of evidence. What can we do to actually make it easier for people who want and can benefit from this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Because of course, this isn’t going to help everyone and, you know, fix everyone’s addiction. Who struggles with that? But how do we make sure that this is an option for the people who need it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Sydney. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Of course. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Sydney Johnson, a reporter for KQED. This 30 minute conversation with Sydney was cut down and edited by producer, Maria Esquinca. Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern. They scored this episode and added all the tape. Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Additional production support from me music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. There are lifesaving medications that can help people suffering from addiction, stay sober, but it can be hard for people to access them. And in- San Francisco, which experienced its deadliest year of drug overdoses in 2023, less than half of pharmacies in the city make a lifesaving drug called buprenorphine available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Matt Dorsey: \u003c/strong>Anyone who makes the brave and difficult decision to seek recovery from opioid use disorder is really in a race against the clock, and if that drug is not available, we know that there are life threatening drugs that are abundant on San Francisco streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Federal and state officials have attempted to lower the barriers to critical opioid treatments like buprenorphine, but San Francisco hopes to take it a step further by requiring pharmacies to carry the drug. Today, how expanding access to buprenorphine can help the city’s drug overdose crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Last year was the worst year on record for overdose deaths in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Sydney Johnson is a reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>There were 810 people who died of accidental overdose, according to data from the office of the Chief Medical Examiner. San Francisco has seen a higher rate of overdose deaths per capita compared to a lot of other places in the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>But really, the entire West Coast is experiencing a surge in overdose deaths right now. Oakland. Alameda, you know, certainly other parts of the Bay are experiencing this crisis, too. Most of the overdose deaths have been involving fentanyl, which is an opioid about 50 times stronger than heroin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It’s sometimes mixed intentionally with other drugs like methamphetamines and sometimes not intentionally. And we see the repercussions of that on both ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what do we know about what works when it comes to treating an opioid addiction? Like, what is that process look like for people?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>First of all, addiction is so personal to each individual and so is treatment. So I think when we’re talking about any kind of treatment or, you know, what works, it’s important to recognize that and also to recognize that relapse is such a common part of people’s recovery journey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So all that aside, there are a few different types of opiate addiction treatment. There’s residential treatment options counseling, peer to peer supports. But there’s also these proven treatments that are used to assist in recovery. And you know, these are just medications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. What are those. What are these medications and drugs that we know really help people fight their opioid addiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So the Food and Drug Administration has approved three different medications to treat opioid use disorder. It’s buprenorphine methadone and naltrexone. And all three of those have been found to reduce opioid cravings and withdrawal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And they’re widely considered to be powerful tools for recovery when combined with things like more counseling and social support, like housing and things that, can really influence someone’s ability to stay in recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know your story focused specifically on buprenorphine. Why this drug?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It’s been identified that buprenorphine is pretty underutilized under prescribed and under available. And that was something that now the city is trying to take some action in addressing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So it’s what sounds like a really important drug for people suffering from opioid addiction and helping folks address their addiction. What does this drug look like exactly? How do you take it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Yeah. You can take it as a pill. It comes as a tablet. Or it can also come as a film, which is sort of like placed under the tongue for this quick absorption, you know, rapid response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>There’s also an option to get slow release monthly injections. And, you know, this is a drug that is covered by insurance. You know, it’s very common. And people can sometimes stay on it for a very long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Let’s say you are someone living in San Francisco, and you decide that you are ready to seek treatment for an opiate addiction. How hard is it to access drugs like buprenorphine?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>A lot of pharmacies across the whole city, and really across the whole state, don’t carry enough buprenorphine to actually fill those prescriptions in a single day. If someone were to walk in and decide that they were ready to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So, for example, in San Francisco, where more than 3000 people have died of overdose since 2020, less than half of all the retail pharmacies carried buprenorphine and were able to fill a two week prescription within the same day within the years 2021 to 2022. And that was according to a survey by the city’s Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>You can imagine if you have made it to this point where you’re going to get a prescription, go to get it filled, only to find out that the pharmacy that you’re at doesn’t even carry it, won’t be able to fill it. You know, that can be a really critical time period of trying to engage someone in this whole process. But fewer than half of the city’s pharmacies are able to meet that demand right when people need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. And it’s not just buprenorphine. I mean, some of these other drugs. So we’re talking about that really help people out of their addiction are also, in some cases, hard to get. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Right. And really, this is a very similar story here. There are barriers to accessing methadone, such as being required to go in person every day to take your dose. Maybe that’s helpful for some folks, but for people who maybe have been on methadone for several years, you know, they know their doctor well, they know the routine. Maybe it’s actually a huge hang up to have to go to a clinic every single day to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Matt Dorsey: \u003c/strong>Anyone who makes the brave and difficult decision to seek recovery from opioid use disorder is really in a race against the clock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Supervisor Matt Dorsey and a handful of other San Francisco supervisors have noted that this particular issue, the lack of access to medication based treatments for opioid use disorder, is a real hang up for the city’s approach to actually trying to curb the rates of overdose that we’re seeing right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Matt Dorsey: \u003c/strong>And if that drug is not available at the pharmacy where you expect it to be. We know that there are life threatening drugs that are abundant on San Francisco streets. So it really is a life and death crisis. And I think ensuring the availability of buprenorphine at all of our retail pharmacies can go a long way to facilitating access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up. Why it’s so hard to get medication for addiction. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, between buprenorphine and methadone and some of these barriers that we’re talking about. How would you maybe summarize why these barriers are there in the first place?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Opioid addiction treatment medications have been around for a while, but for decades have been really, really highly regulated. There are reasons behind that. And one of them is that methadone and buprenorphine are technically opioids. They do not lead to overdose in the same way that other opioids have shown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>However, that certainly carries a lot of concern and stigma. You know that this is a type of drug that you’re giving to someone who has problematic use with. And so historically, the federal government has kept these drugs, even ones that are meant to treat opioid use disorder, in really tight control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>I actually met one woman who has been in recovery for several years now. And she takes buprenorphine. And the first time that she got it, she had tried to get it from her doctor, but wasn’t able to the first time and ended up getting it from an illicit market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what’s been done to lift some of the barriers to access for these lifesaving drugs nationally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So this year, the federal government agreed to remove a requirement for practitioners that required them to complete additional training that allowed them to obtain this special waiver before prescribing opioid addiction medications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And these regulations also allow for people to take home their medications rather than showing up daily when that’s appropriate. And for practitioners to be able to just prescribe larger doses and to be able to prescribe doses remotely via telehealth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So in response to these federal changes at the state level, Assemblymember Matt Haney, who represents San Francisco, has also proposed a bill that would align California law to these federal regulations to reduce those barriers to treatment. And this week, a handful of city leaders here in San Francisco said that they would go one step further and actually require pharmacies to stock the medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Is this normal to require pharmacies to stock a medication like buprenorphine?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>My understanding is that this is the first piece of legislation of its kind, where a city would require local retail pharmacies to stock any particular medication, at least coming from the metro level like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And this was done in San Francisco with naloxone last year as well. Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>That’s right. Last year, Supervisor Matt Dorsey proposed a similar piece of legislation to require pharmacies to carry naloxone, which is now actually over the counter. And that, he said, was very important also because naloxone is this really powerful medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Sydney, what do we know about how much giving people access to these drugs actually increases their likelihood of surviving a drug addiction?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So people who use medication assisted treatments, you know, like methadone or buprenorphine, were 80% less likely to die of an opioid overdose compared to people in treatment without the medications. That was according to a 2020 study in the medical journal addiction. These have a lot of potential to reduce the likelihood of overdose and really save lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know so often, San Francisco becomes like a city that people are watching to see how we address homelessness, how we address the drug crisis. I mean, even though this is really being, I guess, led in San Francisco, what benefits or what impact could this have for the rest of the Bay area when it comes to how we address the drug crisis? Regionally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>One thing San Francisco, I think is doing is at least trying to add more public health strategies to increase access to buprenorphine and methadone. And I think other cities and counties could learn from just San Francisco actually investing in this public health approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>There have been decades of underinvestment in this space in general. I think that other cities and counties can look at San Francisco and say, hey, this is a proven treatment. This is something that has a lot of evidence. What can we do to actually make it easier for people who want and can benefit from this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Because of course, this isn’t going to help everyone and, you know, fix everyone’s addiction. Who struggles with that? But how do we make sure that this is an option for the people who need it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Sydney. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Of course. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Sydney Johnson, a reporter for KQED. This 30 minute conversation with Sydney was cut down and edited by producer, Maria Esquinca. Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern. They scored this episode and added all the tape. Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Additional production support from me music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "the-rising-s-f-political-star-accused-of-rape-and-abuse",
"title": "'I Am Still Haunted': Women Accuse Rising SF Political Star of Rape and Abuse",
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"headTitle": "‘I Am Still Haunted’: Women Accuse Rising SF Political Star of Rape and Abuse | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jon Jacobo was a rising star in the progressive wing of San Francisco politics when a colleague \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/sashaperigo/status/1423674978948435973\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">publicly accused him of rape in 2021\u003c/a>. At that time, he largely escaped scrutiny from members of his own party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as Josh Koehn of the San Francisco Standard reported in mid-April, three more women have publicly accused Jacobo of sexual abuse and domestic violence. And they say that leaders treated their allegations with indifference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6773718564\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/04/16/san-francisco-housing-jon-jacobo-accused-of-sex-crimes-abuse/\">Women accused a rising SF political star of rape and abuse—and met a wall of silence\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/05/09/san-francisco-sexual-assault-hearing-supervisors-police/\">San Francisco created an agency to fight sexual crimes. It’s never met with police\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/05/02/san-francisco-democrats-metoo-sexual-assault-rape/\">San Francisco Democrats are having a #MeToo moment as women share stories of rape, abuse\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Hey, just a quick warning before we get started here. This episode describes sexual abuse. Please take care while listening. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There’s a whole network of people who make San Francisco politics and government go round, and that network has been shaken up. And it all centers around a community activist named Jon Jacobo, a once rising political star who was being groomed for the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>He was very much someone who was climbing up the ranks, up the ladder of politics, and was seen as someone who could be an heir apparent to become supervisor of the mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Jacobo had been super active in San Francisco’s Mission District and was the director of a powerful affordable housing nonprofit called TODCO. But behind the scenes, women were coming out to accuse Jacobo of rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence. And they say their stories were ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>The woman felt like Jon Jacobo did not get held accountable, that his political allies were able to lean on people into silence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, the allegations against Jon Jacobo and how his political allies turned a blind eye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And the last few years, Jon Jacobo has been a community activist in the Mission District of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Josh Keene is a senior reporter for the San Francisco Standard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>He served as a director for TODCO, which is one of the most powerful affordable housing nonprofits in the Bay area. He did a lot of work around helping community nonprofits in the mission. He served on the board of a group called Chi Venti Quatro. He also was, instrumental in the Latino Task force. This is someone who was deeply connected in San Francisco politics, particularly when it comes to the progressive wing of Democratic politics in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, how did people describe Jon Jacobo’s personality?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>John Jacobo was described to me as someone who’s very gregarious, can be quite charming, someone who is very astute politically and knows how to make connections. Whether or not those connections are genuine is up to the person who was meeting with him. I was told by multiple people that John Jacobo is someone who can be a little bit manipulative and use, those political connections to get to the next rung of the ladder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>He’s this rising political star in San Francisco, this really charismatic guy. And then in 2021, a woman named Sasha Perrigo comes out and accuses John Jacobo of rape. What was she alleging? Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>So Sasha Perrigo, in the summer of 2021, published an open letter on Twitter, and it was a seven page document that laid out in very excruciating detail how she felt that Jon Jacobo had raped her in a night in which she had come to his apartment. She had been telling him that, hey, I’m just going to come. We’re going to hang out, you know, maybe have some drinks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And over the course of the night, she said that he was very aggressive and kept advancing on her until the morning after they were hanging out. She woke up and he forced himself on her, is what she alleged. When Sasha Perego came forward, the document that she published laid out a whole host of allegations, but it also included a rape kit that she took, within the days of the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>It sent shockwaves through the whole political community. Not only was this a rising star in politics, but she also worked in the affordable housing space similar to much of Cobo. And so this had layers to it in which people in the housing community, people in the political space, people in Latino politics and the mission, everyone was kind of taken aback by these allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I remember this happening and it really being like a bombshell moment. Did Sasha Perrigo pursue charges against Jacobo after this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Sasha decided that she was not going to press charges with police. She had a lot of distrust of the criminal justice system, particularly in the way that it treats communities of color, but also in the way that it treats victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And so she felt that there were other forms of accountability that could be obtained by coming forward in the fashion that she did. However, she was very disappointed to see that there were not a lot of steps taken. Jacob did step down from a commissioned post with the city, but he retained his job and many of his political allies came to his defense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So in other words, there was a little bit of shock, a little bit of a response, but things sort of just fizzled out from there. It sounds like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah. For him, I think it was a chance to step back, I think, where his political aspirations were to probably run for supervisor. Those were probably eliminated. But other than that, he very much actually was starting to make a return to the limelight in just the last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Josh, that was three years ago that Sasha Perrigo posted those allegations on Twitter. Flash forward to April of this year, and we’re talking about this now because of a story that you broke for the San Francisco Standard about even more accusations that have come out against Jon Jacobo. What did you find?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Three women actually got in touch with me, and they told me, you know, we have been wanting to tell our story because actually, we filed police reports after Sasha came forward. We went to people in local politics that we knew to try to get their help, and those efforts didn’t go anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Let’s talk about these women and their stories a little bit. I mean, who are these women exactly? Are they people like Sasha who are also sort of working within the realm of local San Francisco politics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah, very much so. These three women, I have all worked at very high levels of local government and public policy. These are people that are well known in the political space. In some ways, that actually were acted as a detriment to them in trying to get their story out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>What they found is that the people in power, Jacobo’s political allies, were uninterested in hearing their stories, and they also knew that not only was there a potential risk for retribution from him and his allies, but that could end up leading to damage to their professional careers. And they also had fears for their own safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And they all wanted to remain anonymous and talking with you for this story. Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So I reported this story over the course of a year. Lots of interviews, lots of conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What are the range of accusations they make against him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah, the accusations are quite horrific. They range from harassment, stalking, domestic violence that included strangulation threats, sexual assault and rape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Zooming in on one of the women. Actually a former partner of Jacobus. Right. And she actually is the one who accuses him of domestic violence. And I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about her story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>The allegations made by the first woman in our story, they started dating in 2015 and they dated for over three years. Almost immediately, he began to abuse her. She didn’t know what to do, and she kind of fell under a trap and felt like she couldn’t get out. The accusations range from breaking their furniture, breaking through doors to get to her, locking her into their home, choking her multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Threatening to kill her, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Threatening to kill her. She she said that he would point a gun at her and talk about killing her and her family, and we also had audio recordings in which he is heard threatening her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And for the other women, what about them wanted their the allegations they made take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>So the other two women who are featured in this story, one of them alleged that Jon Jacobo raped her in the winter of 2018. Her allegations are very similar to Sasha Burgos, in which she says that John continued to pester her to come over and see her. She allowed him to come to her apartment. She said, we are not hooking up or anything like that. We can just talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And she says that almost immediately after he came to her home, he forced himself on her and she froze. Which is not an uncommon experience for many victims of sexual assault. She only later realized through quite a bit of therapy. She said, that this was in fact rape because she had told him no many times as he was removing her pants and forcing himself on her. So the third woman, her incidents there were two occurred in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>She says that after a night out in which John had been drinking, she allowed him to stay at her apartment in a common area, and she had roommates. She says that when she woke up in her bed, she thought her boyfriend had come home late. And instead, what she found was that Jacomo had allegedly entered her room, gotten naked and into bed with her, and then tried to force himself on her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>That morning, she managed to get him to snap out of it, apparently, and he quickly left and she tried to rationalize it. Which is, again, when we talk about locking up, out of fear or trying to rationalize someone’s behavior because you feel like maybe this is not indicative of who they are. Over time, she kind of stayed away from him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>But then there was a night out with friends later in 2016, in Oakland, in which they went out a group for drinks and dancing and went back to a friend’s house, and she passed out and found out later that her friend actually had to allegedly rescue her from Jacobo, trying to take advantage of her while she was unconscious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And that friend, who’s a commissioner for the Recreation and Parks Department in Oakland, who actually went on record saying that she felt that if she had not come in and stopped it, that she feels like he would have raped her. So those are the the three incidents in total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I mean, yeah, has has reporting these to the police led to anything for these women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>So the women went to police in the months after Sasha Burgo came forward with her public accusations. All of the women told me that they did not necessarily feel supported or believed. You know, it’s common for law enforcement to try to be very frank with the survivors and let them know these are very difficult cases. We need to get a lot of evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>But the women I spoke with said this isn’t that this was different. And looking at their police reports, they said that there were a lot of things that were left out. One of the women said she provided evidence that was not even mentioned in her police report. There were also not efforts made. They said, to connect them with outside jurisdictional police departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>That would also have a role in an investigation. The police would counter that argument, and they have been very aggressive in pushing back, saying that they have done everything they can in these cases. However, the women, their story should not be discounted because they have gone through this and they were very brave to come forward and do all of this from the police reports all the way to, telling the story with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, how these women say the political machine protected Jon Jacobo. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>In the first part of this episode, we heard about how multiple women accused Jon Jacobo of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence. The three women who talked to Josh keen for this story say they were ignored not only by police but also by people who worked with Jon Jacobo, including former San Francisco supervisor Jane Kim, who hired Jacobo back in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>The women felt like Jon Jacobo did not get held accountable, that his political allies were able to lean on people into silence. Supervisor Jane Kim, who was his former boss and is now the head of the California Working Families Party. She ran for mayor. She ran for a state senate that she brought Jacobo to a political gala just weeks after Sasha Perrigo accused him of rape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>But then I was also told by a very legitimate source that Jane Kim was working to hire John, an attorney, to deal with Sasha Perrigo’s accusation. So that’s one example. John Oberlin, the head of TODCO. He actually was grooming John to take over Taco’s financial operations, which would then make him a significant political player in deciding how to fund ballot measures polling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>So when they saw these reports and then they saw him doing TV interviews for the Mission Street vendors, and they knew that he was back on these community boards, they felt, you know what, we have to get this story out because that the very least, we want to make sure that our story is heard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When it comes to folks like Jane Kim, who are accused of not responding adequately to these accusations against John Jacobus. How has she responded? How has she and others? I mean, in the party responded to accusations that they protected Jon Jacobo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So I spoke with Jane Kim for this story. It was a very curious response I got from her, because she seemed less concerned with the fact that there were three more women who had disturbing allegations against John, who was a protege of hers, and that they had filed police reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And she seemed more concerned with the timing of the story, asking me, why is this happening now? Her level of outrage with each answer, and this is just to me, seemed to amplify when she realized the serious nature of what I was asking her. You know, I asked her if she was aware of other allegations against John, and she said, no, no, no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Well, you know, actually, yes, I had heard from the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee that there might be others out there, but she never pursued it. I have not seen any response from her since the story published in that, probably because there were people who said that she went out of her way to protect Jon Jacobo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Though she denies that right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>She did deny it. And she said that she’d never tried to help him find an attorney. You know, when it comes to TODCO, TODCO announced the day the story ran that Jon Jacobo had resigned from his position as a director with the housing organization. They said that they were not aware of the extent of the allegations in my story. Despite having an internal review of his work, even the the nonprofits within the mission that he had coordinated with very muted statements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Has Jon Jacobo said anything in response to these accusations in your story?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>No. Jon Jacobo did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including an email with very detailed questions. And he has not said anything that I have seen since the story published.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>After Josh’s story came out in mid April, allegations against other figures in San Francisco politics have surfaced. They include Kevin Ortiz, a former staffer for Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, and Jay Chang, who runs the moderate group neighbors for a Better San Francisco. Josh says these stories, regardless of party, show a pattern of people choosing to protect their political allies first. Why do these political figure. What what stake do they have in protecting someone? I guess like Jon Jacobo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Well, in this kind of it’s a, a deeper, complex question, but it comes down to the way that political tribes protect themselves, that if one of us is accused that we have their back, or if we don’t have their back, we just make sure that we can’t be harmed politically as a result of their alleged improprieties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>This is not a partisan issue within the Democratic Party, or even really Democrats and Republicans. There is always going to be this instinct to. Make sure that your click of politics is not harmed, or that you are not personally harmed. And so the the immediate reaction generally is to shut up and and just make sure that, like, let the story go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>The media cycles so fast these days that if you can just hunker down for a few days, maybe it’ll blow over. Yeah, but this one has not necessarily blown over. And I think it also just shows that, you know, once you put the lens really on the people hunkering down as well, not just the, accused predator, that a story can maybe have a little bit more impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>As a result of the story, there were two different hearings that were held. One was by the Democratic Party for San Francisco looking into sexual assault and harassment in political spaces. And then there was also a hearing at City Hall called by Supervisor Hillary Ronen to look into a group called sharp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hillary Ronen: \u003c/strong>Good morning, everyone. First, I really want to thank chair Stephanie and supervisor Mel…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>SHARP Stands for the Office of Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention. It’s actually under the umbrella of the Human Rights Commission. And their responsibilities are to advocate for survivors of sexual harassment and assault, and also try and transform the systems in place to address sexual violence in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>In the time that Sharp’s been created in six years, they have had zero meetings with the police department. A captain for the San Francisco Police Department, Alexa O’Brian. She runs the Special Victims Unit. Said that she wasn’t even certain they had had a phone call. Was sharp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hillary Ronen \u003c/strong>Have you ever met with SHARP and in any way, shape or form?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexa O’Brien: \u003c/strong>I think they have been on a call with us. Share. Like a call that I’ve been on with maybe one of my other partners. The case, they might have showed up on a call, but no, I have never met directly or had a meeting with sharp. I’ve never sharp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Officials, and it’s a small two person team. Seem to have actually not understood the mission. And instead of actually working with victims to better coordinate, with departments and hold these departments accountable if they’re not seen as supportive, they instead, went out and tried to find victims of sexual assault who were not reporting crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Keene: \u003c/strong>The sharp hearing on May 9th was. I would call it a dog and pony show. I think it was completely worthless, if I’m being honest. It was a lot of, elected officials thanking each other for trying to do the job, but failing miserably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, ultimately, what do survivors want? I mean, I feel like the answer is accountability, I guess. But I mean, could there be criminal charges against Jon Jacobo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Every every survivor of sexual assault has, you know, their own priorities. And the women in this story are no different in that sense, in which each of them had a different goal for coming forward, where Sasha Perrigo said that she wanted accountability but did not want to go through the criminal justice system. The three women who came forward in my story say no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>We would like to see him charged with crimes. I will add that the story, does end with Sasha Pago, reconsidering whether to press criminal charges. She wasn’t aware of many of the stories that these women told in in our piece. And so when she saw the totality of this, she was aware of other allegations, but nothing to the extent of what was in the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And so she said that she was going to have a conversation with police and, you know, decide whether or not to move forward. And if if Sasha Perrigo were to press criminal charges against John Jacomo, there is a possibility that the allegations in my story could be part of a larger, prosecutorial case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, how does all of this ultimately affect. All of us. Josh, right? Like, even if you’re coming to this story for the first time, maybe you’re not plugged in to San Francisco politics. How does this affect the average person?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>If you don’t know these people and you don’t vote for these people? It may seem like it’s just like, oh, well, politics is gross and I move on with my day. But my hope is that anyone who reads this story maybe actually says for a second, well, if this is happening to women in power, they are advancing in their careers. And, you know, there’s no way this could happen to them because they’re the people that actually could sound the alarm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>If it’s happening to women like that, then it’s probably happening to women all over. You know, also, if you see behavior, with someone you’re close to and, and there’s some kind of encounter that you know, of, but it’s kind of ambiguous, you know, these are the kind of things that maybe, like, we need to check ourselves and say, okay, maybe, maybe I need to be in more open ear, or I’m more helpful to my friends, family, colleagues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Josh, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Thanks, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Josh Koehn, a senior reporter for the San Francisco Standard. We’ll leave you some links to Josh’s reporting on this topic in our show notes. This 45 minute conversation with Josh was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern, they scored this episode and added all the tape. Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jon Jacobo was a rising star in the progressive wing of San Francisco politics when a colleague \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/sashaperigo/status/1423674978948435973\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">publicly accused him of rape in 2021\u003c/a>. At that time, he largely escaped scrutiny from members of his own party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as Josh Koehn of the San Francisco Standard reported in mid-April, three more women have publicly accused Jacobo of sexual abuse and domestic violence. And they say that leaders treated their allegations with indifference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6773718564\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/04/16/san-francisco-housing-jon-jacobo-accused-of-sex-crimes-abuse/\">Women accused a rising SF political star of rape and abuse—and met a wall of silence\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/05/09/san-francisco-sexual-assault-hearing-supervisors-police/\">San Francisco created an agency to fight sexual crimes. It’s never met with police\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2024/05/02/san-francisco-democrats-metoo-sexual-assault-rape/\">San Francisco Democrats are having a #MeToo moment as women share stories of rape, abuse\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Hey, just a quick warning before we get started here. This episode describes sexual abuse. Please take care while listening. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There’s a whole network of people who make San Francisco politics and government go round, and that network has been shaken up. And it all centers around a community activist named Jon Jacobo, a once rising political star who was being groomed for the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>He was very much someone who was climbing up the ranks, up the ladder of politics, and was seen as someone who could be an heir apparent to become supervisor of the mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Jacobo had been super active in San Francisco’s Mission District and was the director of a powerful affordable housing nonprofit called TODCO. But behind the scenes, women were coming out to accuse Jacobo of rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence. And they say their stories were ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>The woman felt like Jon Jacobo did not get held accountable, that his political allies were able to lean on people into silence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, the allegations against Jon Jacobo and how his political allies turned a blind eye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And the last few years, Jon Jacobo has been a community activist in the Mission District of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Josh Keene is a senior reporter for the San Francisco Standard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>He served as a director for TODCO, which is one of the most powerful affordable housing nonprofits in the Bay area. He did a lot of work around helping community nonprofits in the mission. He served on the board of a group called Chi Venti Quatro. He also was, instrumental in the Latino Task force. This is someone who was deeply connected in San Francisco politics, particularly when it comes to the progressive wing of Democratic politics in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, how did people describe Jon Jacobo’s personality?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>John Jacobo was described to me as someone who’s very gregarious, can be quite charming, someone who is very astute politically and knows how to make connections. Whether or not those connections are genuine is up to the person who was meeting with him. I was told by multiple people that John Jacobo is someone who can be a little bit manipulative and use, those political connections to get to the next rung of the ladder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>He’s this rising political star in San Francisco, this really charismatic guy. And then in 2021, a woman named Sasha Perrigo comes out and accuses John Jacobo of rape. What was she alleging? Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>So Sasha Perrigo, in the summer of 2021, published an open letter on Twitter, and it was a seven page document that laid out in very excruciating detail how she felt that Jon Jacobo had raped her in a night in which she had come to his apartment. She had been telling him that, hey, I’m just going to come. We’re going to hang out, you know, maybe have some drinks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And over the course of the night, she said that he was very aggressive and kept advancing on her until the morning after they were hanging out. She woke up and he forced himself on her, is what she alleged. When Sasha Perego came forward, the document that she published laid out a whole host of allegations, but it also included a rape kit that she took, within the days of the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>It sent shockwaves through the whole political community. Not only was this a rising star in politics, but she also worked in the affordable housing space similar to much of Cobo. And so this had layers to it in which people in the housing community, people in the political space, people in Latino politics and the mission, everyone was kind of taken aback by these allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I remember this happening and it really being like a bombshell moment. Did Sasha Perrigo pursue charges against Jacobo after this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Sasha decided that she was not going to press charges with police. She had a lot of distrust of the criminal justice system, particularly in the way that it treats communities of color, but also in the way that it treats victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And so she felt that there were other forms of accountability that could be obtained by coming forward in the fashion that she did. However, she was very disappointed to see that there were not a lot of steps taken. Jacob did step down from a commissioned post with the city, but he retained his job and many of his political allies came to his defense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So in other words, there was a little bit of shock, a little bit of a response, but things sort of just fizzled out from there. It sounds like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah. For him, I think it was a chance to step back, I think, where his political aspirations were to probably run for supervisor. Those were probably eliminated. But other than that, he very much actually was starting to make a return to the limelight in just the last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Josh, that was three years ago that Sasha Perrigo posted those allegations on Twitter. Flash forward to April of this year, and we’re talking about this now because of a story that you broke for the San Francisco Standard about even more accusations that have come out against Jon Jacobo. What did you find?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Three women actually got in touch with me, and they told me, you know, we have been wanting to tell our story because actually, we filed police reports after Sasha came forward. We went to people in local politics that we knew to try to get their help, and those efforts didn’t go anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Let’s talk about these women and their stories a little bit. I mean, who are these women exactly? Are they people like Sasha who are also sort of working within the realm of local San Francisco politics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah, very much so. These three women, I have all worked at very high levels of local government and public policy. These are people that are well known in the political space. In some ways, that actually were acted as a detriment to them in trying to get their story out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>What they found is that the people in power, Jacobo’s political allies, were uninterested in hearing their stories, and they also knew that not only was there a potential risk for retribution from him and his allies, but that could end up leading to damage to their professional careers. And they also had fears for their own safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And they all wanted to remain anonymous and talking with you for this story. Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So I reported this story over the course of a year. Lots of interviews, lots of conversations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What are the range of accusations they make against him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah, the accusations are quite horrific. They range from harassment, stalking, domestic violence that included strangulation threats, sexual assault and rape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Zooming in on one of the women. Actually a former partner of Jacobus. Right. And she actually is the one who accuses him of domestic violence. And I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about her story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>The allegations made by the first woman in our story, they started dating in 2015 and they dated for over three years. Almost immediately, he began to abuse her. She didn’t know what to do, and she kind of fell under a trap and felt like she couldn’t get out. The accusations range from breaking their furniture, breaking through doors to get to her, locking her into their home, choking her multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Threatening to kill her, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Threatening to kill her. She she said that he would point a gun at her and talk about killing her and her family, and we also had audio recordings in which he is heard threatening her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And for the other women, what about them wanted their the allegations they made take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>So the other two women who are featured in this story, one of them alleged that Jon Jacobo raped her in the winter of 2018. Her allegations are very similar to Sasha Burgos, in which she says that John continued to pester her to come over and see her. She allowed him to come to her apartment. She said, we are not hooking up or anything like that. We can just talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And she says that almost immediately after he came to her home, he forced himself on her and she froze. Which is not an uncommon experience for many victims of sexual assault. She only later realized through quite a bit of therapy. She said, that this was in fact rape because she had told him no many times as he was removing her pants and forcing himself on her. So the third woman, her incidents there were two occurred in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>She says that after a night out in which John had been drinking, she allowed him to stay at her apartment in a common area, and she had roommates. She says that when she woke up in her bed, she thought her boyfriend had come home late. And instead, what she found was that Jacomo had allegedly entered her room, gotten naked and into bed with her, and then tried to force himself on her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>That morning, she managed to get him to snap out of it, apparently, and he quickly left and she tried to rationalize it. Which is, again, when we talk about locking up, out of fear or trying to rationalize someone’s behavior because you feel like maybe this is not indicative of who they are. Over time, she kind of stayed away from him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>But then there was a night out with friends later in 2016, in Oakland, in which they went out a group for drinks and dancing and went back to a friend’s house, and she passed out and found out later that her friend actually had to allegedly rescue her from Jacobo, trying to take advantage of her while she was unconscious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And that friend, who’s a commissioner for the Recreation and Parks Department in Oakland, who actually went on record saying that she felt that if she had not come in and stopped it, that she feels like he would have raped her. So those are the the three incidents in total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I mean, yeah, has has reporting these to the police led to anything for these women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>So the women went to police in the months after Sasha Burgo came forward with her public accusations. All of the women told me that they did not necessarily feel supported or believed. You know, it’s common for law enforcement to try to be very frank with the survivors and let them know these are very difficult cases. We need to get a lot of evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>But the women I spoke with said this isn’t that this was different. And looking at their police reports, they said that there were a lot of things that were left out. One of the women said she provided evidence that was not even mentioned in her police report. There were also not efforts made. They said, to connect them with outside jurisdictional police departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>That would also have a role in an investigation. The police would counter that argument, and they have been very aggressive in pushing back, saying that they have done everything they can in these cases. However, the women, their story should not be discounted because they have gone through this and they were very brave to come forward and do all of this from the police reports all the way to, telling the story with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, how these women say the political machine protected Jon Jacobo. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>In the first part of this episode, we heard about how multiple women accused Jon Jacobo of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence. The three women who talked to Josh keen for this story say they were ignored not only by police but also by people who worked with Jon Jacobo, including former San Francisco supervisor Jane Kim, who hired Jacobo back in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>The women felt like Jon Jacobo did not get held accountable, that his political allies were able to lean on people into silence. Supervisor Jane Kim, who was his former boss and is now the head of the California Working Families Party. She ran for mayor. She ran for a state senate that she brought Jacobo to a political gala just weeks after Sasha Perrigo accused him of rape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>But then I was also told by a very legitimate source that Jane Kim was working to hire John, an attorney, to deal with Sasha Perrigo’s accusation. So that’s one example. John Oberlin, the head of TODCO. He actually was grooming John to take over Taco’s financial operations, which would then make him a significant political player in deciding how to fund ballot measures polling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>So when they saw these reports and then they saw him doing TV interviews for the Mission Street vendors, and they knew that he was back on these community boards, they felt, you know what, we have to get this story out because that the very least, we want to make sure that our story is heard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When it comes to folks like Jane Kim, who are accused of not responding adequately to these accusations against John Jacobus. How has she responded? How has she and others? I mean, in the party responded to accusations that they protected Jon Jacobo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So I spoke with Jane Kim for this story. It was a very curious response I got from her, because she seemed less concerned with the fact that there were three more women who had disturbing allegations against John, who was a protege of hers, and that they had filed police reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And she seemed more concerned with the timing of the story, asking me, why is this happening now? Her level of outrage with each answer, and this is just to me, seemed to amplify when she realized the serious nature of what I was asking her. You know, I asked her if she was aware of other allegations against John, and she said, no, no, no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Well, you know, actually, yes, I had heard from the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee that there might be others out there, but she never pursued it. I have not seen any response from her since the story published in that, probably because there were people who said that she went out of her way to protect Jon Jacobo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Though she denies that right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>She did deny it. And she said that she’d never tried to help him find an attorney. You know, when it comes to TODCO, TODCO announced the day the story ran that Jon Jacobo had resigned from his position as a director with the housing organization. They said that they were not aware of the extent of the allegations in my story. Despite having an internal review of his work, even the the nonprofits within the mission that he had coordinated with very muted statements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Has Jon Jacobo said anything in response to these accusations in your story?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>No. Jon Jacobo did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including an email with very detailed questions. And he has not said anything that I have seen since the story published.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>After Josh’s story came out in mid April, allegations against other figures in San Francisco politics have surfaced. They include Kevin Ortiz, a former staffer for Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, and Jay Chang, who runs the moderate group neighbors for a Better San Francisco. Josh says these stories, regardless of party, show a pattern of people choosing to protect their political allies first. Why do these political figure. What what stake do they have in protecting someone? I guess like Jon Jacobo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Well, in this kind of it’s a, a deeper, complex question, but it comes down to the way that political tribes protect themselves, that if one of us is accused that we have their back, or if we don’t have their back, we just make sure that we can’t be harmed politically as a result of their alleged improprieties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>This is not a partisan issue within the Democratic Party, or even really Democrats and Republicans. There is always going to be this instinct to. Make sure that your click of politics is not harmed, or that you are not personally harmed. And so the the immediate reaction generally is to shut up and and just make sure that, like, let the story go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>The media cycles so fast these days that if you can just hunker down for a few days, maybe it’ll blow over. Yeah, but this one has not necessarily blown over. And I think it also just shows that, you know, once you put the lens really on the people hunkering down as well, not just the, accused predator, that a story can maybe have a little bit more impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>As a result of the story, there were two different hearings that were held. One was by the Democratic Party for San Francisco looking into sexual assault and harassment in political spaces. And then there was also a hearing at City Hall called by Supervisor Hillary Ronen to look into a group called sharp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hillary Ronen: \u003c/strong>Good morning, everyone. First, I really want to thank chair Stephanie and supervisor Mel…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>SHARP Stands for the Office of Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention. It’s actually under the umbrella of the Human Rights Commission. And their responsibilities are to advocate for survivors of sexual harassment and assault, and also try and transform the systems in place to address sexual violence in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>In the time that Sharp’s been created in six years, they have had zero meetings with the police department. A captain for the San Francisco Police Department, Alexa O’Brian. She runs the Special Victims Unit. Said that she wasn’t even certain they had had a phone call. Was sharp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hillary Ronen \u003c/strong>Have you ever met with SHARP and in any way, shape or form?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexa O’Brien: \u003c/strong>I think they have been on a call with us. Share. Like a call that I’ve been on with maybe one of my other partners. The case, they might have showed up on a call, but no, I have never met directly or had a meeting with sharp. I’ve never sharp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Officials, and it’s a small two person team. Seem to have actually not understood the mission. And instead of actually working with victims to better coordinate, with departments and hold these departments accountable if they’re not seen as supportive, they instead, went out and tried to find victims of sexual assault who were not reporting crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Keene: \u003c/strong>The sharp hearing on May 9th was. I would call it a dog and pony show. I think it was completely worthless, if I’m being honest. It was a lot of, elected officials thanking each other for trying to do the job, but failing miserably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, ultimately, what do survivors want? I mean, I feel like the answer is accountability, I guess. But I mean, could there be criminal charges against Jon Jacobo?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Every every survivor of sexual assault has, you know, their own priorities. And the women in this story are no different in that sense, in which each of them had a different goal for coming forward, where Sasha Perrigo said that she wanted accountability but did not want to go through the criminal justice system. The three women who came forward in my story say no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>We would like to see him charged with crimes. I will add that the story, does end with Sasha Pago, reconsidering whether to press criminal charges. She wasn’t aware of many of the stories that these women told in in our piece. And so when she saw the totality of this, she was aware of other allegations, but nothing to the extent of what was in the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>And so she said that she was going to have a conversation with police and, you know, decide whether or not to move forward. And if if Sasha Perrigo were to press criminal charges against John Jacomo, there is a possibility that the allegations in my story could be part of a larger, prosecutorial case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, how does all of this ultimately affect. All of us. Josh, right? Like, even if you’re coming to this story for the first time, maybe you’re not plugged in to San Francisco politics. How does this affect the average person?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>If you don’t know these people and you don’t vote for these people? It may seem like it’s just like, oh, well, politics is gross and I move on with my day. But my hope is that anyone who reads this story maybe actually says for a second, well, if this is happening to women in power, they are advancing in their careers. And, you know, there’s no way this could happen to them because they’re the people that actually could sound the alarm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>If it’s happening to women like that, then it’s probably happening to women all over. You know, also, if you see behavior, with someone you’re close to and, and there’s some kind of encounter that you know, of, but it’s kind of ambiguous, you know, these are the kind of things that maybe, like, we need to check ourselves and say, okay, maybe, maybe I need to be in more open ear, or I’m more helpful to my friends, family, colleagues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Josh, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Koehn: \u003c/strong>Thanks, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Josh Koehn, a senior reporter for the San Francisco Standard. We’ll leave you some links to Josh’s reporting on this topic in our show notes. This 45 minute conversation with Josh was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern, they scored this episode and added all the tape. Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Billionaire-Backed Bid for New Solano County City Will Likely Be on the Ballot",
"headTitle": "Billionaire-Backed Bid for New Solano County City Will Likely Be on the Ballot | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California Forever, the billionaire-backed group behind an effort to build a city from scratch in Eastern Solano County, is plowing ahead in its campaign to convince voters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last week, the company announced that it has gathered enough signatures to qualify its measure for the November ballot. KQED’s Adhiti Bandlamundi unpacks the last few months of campaigning and speaks to voters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6487870674&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. California forever, the group backed by tech billionaires who want to build a city from scratch in Solano County, has been real busy these past few months. This year, they want to get their plan passed by voters in the November election, and now they say they’ve got enough signatures to put it on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jan Sramek: \u003c/strong>So I know voters have made that first decision and they have made it loud and clear. Over 20,000 Solano residents have signed the petition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>If it clears this hurdle, voters will be asked to change county rules to make way for a new, walkable city of about 400,000 people near Rio Vista today. How California Forever has been trying to convince voters to get on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>This is a humongous issue, and California forever is wasting no time in getting started on getting out to the voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Adhiti Bandlamudi is a housing reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They announced last week that they collected more than enough signatures needed, and they basically started that process earlier than I think we all expected them to start. Can you remind us why California Forever even needs Solano County voters approval to do what they’re hoping to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, Solano County is interesting because it has this provision called the Orderly Growth Initiative that basically restricts any sort of residential or commercial development to happen in areas that are already zoned for agriculture or that are sort of protected by this orderly growth initiative. The whole point is to sort of keep farmland as farmland and keep cities as cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>What California Forever is doing is this totally different thing, where they want to replace like 60,000 acres of farmland and turn it into a walkable city. By law for California forever. To start construction on a project like this, they have to bring it before the voters who have to approve this in order for them to start any sort of development process. They needed to get 13,062 signatures and they produced 20,000 signatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jan Sramek: \u003c/strong>That’s more than 7000 signatures. More than was required.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Now Jan Sramek, who is the CEO of California Forever, basically said in his press conference that that number is evidence of the amount of support that California forever got from the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jan Sramek: \u003c/strong>From people from all walks of life, all parts of the county who are all saying the same thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Now, for context, I spoke with a few campaign experts and campaign strategist who said California Forever hired PCI consultants. They’re one of the best signature gathering firms in the country, and if you hire the best of the best, then you’re going to get a result. And basically, they’re doing their best to make sure that this gets to November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>They do sound really excited about where they’re at right now too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They do. They really do. I think they’re very hopeful about the future. The vibe of the press conference was definitely very excited and celebratory. At this press conference, you had actual Solano County Council members who were speaking in support of this plan, and it kind of feels like things are becoming a little bit more mixed now. It’s not a full on skepticism. Some people are actually becoming more open to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, clearly California for ever. Folks have been really busy these last couple of months. What exactly have they been up to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>The last three months have been a lot of signature gathering work for them. They were very aggressive in getting those signatures. We actually, had had heard and then later confirmed from the registrar’s office that some residents complained that the signature gatherers were misleading or a bit too aggressive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>We actually spoke to a woman, Tina Collins, who says that she was followed to her car by a California Forever signature gathering. They got, I think, like nine complaints, and we tried to see if the Secretary of state was investigating that. We couldn’t get an answer whether they were or not. They’ve also been trying to drum up support for their plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>From some of the organizations that I think people are looking to as like a bellwether. You know, we talk sometimes in campaigns about like single issue voters in this campaign. I’m seeing many people take Travis Air Force Base as that single issue. Like if Travis Air Force Base is okay with California forever, there are some people who are like, okay, we’ll be fine with it, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>California Forever has been coming up with these, like, ads that are very, like, veteran focused and sort of highlight the fact that they, you know, made sure to change their initiative language to specifically cater to Travis Air Force bases needs. So they’re really leaning into that. So as we get closer to November. We’re only going to see more of that language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How much money have they spent so far trying to get the word out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They’ve spent about $2 million so far within basically the first three months of their campaign, and a majority of that money has gone towards signature gathering. Other expenditures have gone towards campaign strategy literature. So that means, like pamphlets and booklets that that explain what the plan is about, different things like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, is that a lot of money?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>It is a lot of money for Solano County, but comparatively, you know, California wide, it’s not really that much. It’s kind of par for the course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know they’ve also been gathering more support from local politicians in Solano County. Right. Even though they were kind of on a lot of people’s bad side at the beginning of all of this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They were, and I will say, the support that they’ve gotten from local politicians has been slow. But, you know, significant. For example, Vacaville Vice Mayor Greg Ritchie spoke at that press conference in support of the East Solano Plan, as it’s called.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Greg Ritchie: \u003c/strong>I think with this project. We can take clear canvas and create the design that we choose for our community. I think together with their passion, we can do that. We’re here SLO County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And when we were looking through campaign finance records, we actually saw that the wife of Fairfield Council member Rick Vaccaro was paid $4,000 in campaign consulting. So it’s kind of interesting how slowly there are local politicians who might have distanced themselves from California forever at first. Now people are starting to take sides. People are starting to say, actually, this plan is a good idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, we’ll talk about the groups against California forever and hear from some residents about how they’re feeling. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Have there been any more, I guess, organized efforts against California forever in Solano County?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Oh yeah. There are actually two packs that were formed. The Greenbelt Alliance Solano Initiative Fund is one of them. And no to California Forever. That’s like literally what the pack is called is another one. Both of them basically oppose the plan and are campaigning against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And are these like environmental groups? Are they just concerned residents? Like, who are the people behind these packs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>It’s kind of a combination of both. The Green Belt Alliance is one of the loudest voices that I’ve seen in my reporting, and they’re a collection of, you know, local Solano residents who are very skeptical of the plan and really support the Orderly Growth Initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They consist of local politicians who are against it, farmers who want to protect that farmland, environmentalists who are worried that this new city will just create more sprawl, and it will just cause people to drive more because it’s literally in the middle of farmland. I will say, I think many of the talking points from these groups sort of draw back to the cloud of mystery surrounding California forever, and what their true intentions are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>The company did buy 60,000 acres of land really in secret since 2017, and were only forced to come out publicly about their plan like last year, because a New York Times investigation found out about this company who is like buying up all the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There is a lot of skepticism surrounding that. There are people who feel like the promises that are being made on the campaign trail are too lofty. They don’t seem like they’re going to be able to follow through with those promises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. And not to mention the folks behind this idea are tech billionaires from Silicon Valley, which is far, far away from Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And, you know, some of those tech billionaires live in Atherton, where housing is expensive. And some of those billionaires have come out against housing in their own backyard, yet they want to build housing in Solano County. And depending on how you feel about housing and all of these different issues, like you’re, you know, it’s dicey. Excuse me. Hi there. I’m a reporter for KQED, and I’m doing a story about California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, I know already you spoke with a bunch of folks in in Sassoon and Dixon about how they’re feeling. Who do you hear from? Who I guess is excited about this? And what’s their take on this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>The person who showed the most excitement was this man, Tyree Carey. I met him outside of a Sassoon like Walmart Supercenter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tyree Carrie: \u003c/strong>Honestly, I feel like it’s something that’s very necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>He was basically like, we need this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tyree Carrie: \u003c/strong>There’s a lot of people who are struggling with like affordable housing and just housing in general. So I always think it’s also when there’s more options available. Of course, things are affordable and just, you know, being able to generate more income in an area as far as giving people work, things of that nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And he was sort of like, even if these promises are like half fulfilled, it’ll be good for the county.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tyree Carrie: \u003c/strong>I think there are a lot of empty promises just in general. So if somebody is trying to do something good is I feel like it’s worth a shot. If it doesn’t work out, we could always try something different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>He sort of was like, at least it’s something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What did you hear from people who maybe aren’t so excited about this idea?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>I was talking to Khristiana Knight in Dixon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Khristiana Knight: \u003c/strong>Born and raised. Brought up, grew up in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>She right now lives in Sacramento, but she used to live in Solano County and had to move because of affordability reasons. But her family still lives in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Khristiana Knight: \u003c/strong>If you’re going to bring affordable housing to our community, I’m 100% for that. But with that, you’re going to have to take into account the responsibilities of infrastructure, the roads, the water supply, energy supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>She’s still concerned about how affordable is the housing going to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Khristiana Knight: \u003c/strong>So I’m curious to know what kind of people will actually be able to afford to live in these houses, because the heart of the communities are not the people that move out here. So they can take Amtrak to commute to the city. They’re the people that work here in the community, in the agriculture, in the bureaucracies, in the office buildings, in the warehouse districts, Travis Air Force Base, trucking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And for what it’s worth, those are questions that California Forever has not answered yet. California forever, I think, will have to answer at least some of them in order to convince a lot of people to vote in favor of it. But we’ll see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When can we know whether this will, in fact be a question that Solano County voters will have to decide on in November?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So right now, the Registrar of Voters is like counting all of the signatures and making sure that it’s actually the right amount. But after they say, hey, they have the right amount of signatures, it goes to the Board of Supervisors, and the Board of Supervisors has the final say on, you know, it going on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>One of the supervisors, Mitch Mashburn, he did say that if the ballot initiative comes to the Board of Supervisors, he’s going to ask for a report that basically shows all of the impacts, both negative and positive, that the new town would have on Solano County, the date that really matters, where everything has to be done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>The Board of Supervisors has to sign off and say this is going to the voters is August 9th. So if they make it past August 9th, we’re going to see it on the ballot. And because they already submitted signatures so early, like end of April, it’s likely that they’ll make it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So wherever I guess folks stand on this, these billionaires are going to need Solano County voters approval in November if they want to get this done. So do you get the sense at all that all this money that they’re spending, all this campaigning, these billboards are working on voters here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>When I spoke to the campaign, analysts, I asked them this question, like, if you spend enough money, like, can money buy votes? And what they were saying is like, not really. Money can get you on the ballot, but it can’t necessarily win you votes. What it is doing is it is raising awareness about the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There were very few people who I met who didn’t know anything about California forever. Most people had an opinion one way or another. There were very few people who are like, I don’t know, maybe people who are speaking were like, oh yeah, I hate it. Or oh yeah, I love it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, I guess as a housing reporter, why are you interested in, in this story and then in continuing to follow it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>This story has so many, like, juicy elements that are like so tricky for me because the promise of California forever is is really enticing, but it is being built in an area that doesn’t have existing infrastructure. So that means that it’s going to take a lot to get the city built. I think there are a lot of promises in this project that are quite lofty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>15,000 new jobs paying almost $90,000 a year, down payment assistance programs, walkable streets, new public transportation. They’re promising a lot. And if they’re able to follow through on their grand plan, it will be one of the first successes in this kind of master planned city to exist in modern American society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Because many developers have proposed master plan communities like this in the past, and they’ve all become suburbs, basically. So if somebody can do it, then that’s interesting, but they have to be able to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Adhiti, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Adhiti Bandlamudi, housing reporter for KQED. By the way, we’ve got tons of older episodes on California forever and the people behind it. I’ll leave you some links to those in our show notes if you want to take a look back at those. This 36 minute conversation with oddity was cut down and edited by producer Esquinca.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern. They scored this episode an ad about the tape. Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay is a listener supported production of KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California Forever, the billionaire-backed group behind an effort to build a city from scratch in Eastern Solano County, is plowing ahead in its campaign to convince voters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last week, the company announced that it has gathered enough signatures to qualify its measure for the November ballot. KQED’s Adhiti Bandlamundi unpacks the last few months of campaigning and speaks to voters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6487870674&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. California forever, the group backed by tech billionaires who want to build a city from scratch in Solano County, has been real busy these past few months. This year, they want to get their plan passed by voters in the November election, and now they say they’ve got enough signatures to put it on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jan Sramek: \u003c/strong>So I know voters have made that first decision and they have made it loud and clear. Over 20,000 Solano residents have signed the petition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>If it clears this hurdle, voters will be asked to change county rules to make way for a new, walkable city of about 400,000 people near Rio Vista today. How California Forever has been trying to convince voters to get on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>This is a humongous issue, and California forever is wasting no time in getting started on getting out to the voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Adhiti Bandlamudi is a housing reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They announced last week that they collected more than enough signatures needed, and they basically started that process earlier than I think we all expected them to start. Can you remind us why California Forever even needs Solano County voters approval to do what they’re hoping to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, Solano County is interesting because it has this provision called the Orderly Growth Initiative that basically restricts any sort of residential or commercial development to happen in areas that are already zoned for agriculture or that are sort of protected by this orderly growth initiative. The whole point is to sort of keep farmland as farmland and keep cities as cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>What California Forever is doing is this totally different thing, where they want to replace like 60,000 acres of farmland and turn it into a walkable city. By law for California forever. To start construction on a project like this, they have to bring it before the voters who have to approve this in order for them to start any sort of development process. They needed to get 13,062 signatures and they produced 20,000 signatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jan Sramek: \u003c/strong>That’s more than 7000 signatures. More than was required.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Now Jan Sramek, who is the CEO of California Forever, basically said in his press conference that that number is evidence of the amount of support that California forever got from the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jan Sramek: \u003c/strong>From people from all walks of life, all parts of the county who are all saying the same thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Now, for context, I spoke with a few campaign experts and campaign strategist who said California Forever hired PCI consultants. They’re one of the best signature gathering firms in the country, and if you hire the best of the best, then you’re going to get a result. And basically, they’re doing their best to make sure that this gets to November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>They do sound really excited about where they’re at right now too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They do. They really do. I think they’re very hopeful about the future. The vibe of the press conference was definitely very excited and celebratory. At this press conference, you had actual Solano County Council members who were speaking in support of this plan, and it kind of feels like things are becoming a little bit more mixed now. It’s not a full on skepticism. Some people are actually becoming more open to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, clearly California for ever. Folks have been really busy these last couple of months. What exactly have they been up to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>The last three months have been a lot of signature gathering work for them. They were very aggressive in getting those signatures. We actually, had had heard and then later confirmed from the registrar’s office that some residents complained that the signature gatherers were misleading or a bit too aggressive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>We actually spoke to a woman, Tina Collins, who says that she was followed to her car by a California Forever signature gathering. They got, I think, like nine complaints, and we tried to see if the Secretary of state was investigating that. We couldn’t get an answer whether they were or not. They’ve also been trying to drum up support for their plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>From some of the organizations that I think people are looking to as like a bellwether. You know, we talk sometimes in campaigns about like single issue voters in this campaign. I’m seeing many people take Travis Air Force Base as that single issue. Like if Travis Air Force Base is okay with California forever, there are some people who are like, okay, we’ll be fine with it, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>California Forever has been coming up with these, like, ads that are very, like, veteran focused and sort of highlight the fact that they, you know, made sure to change their initiative language to specifically cater to Travis Air Force bases needs. So they’re really leaning into that. So as we get closer to November. We’re only going to see more of that language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How much money have they spent so far trying to get the word out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They’ve spent about $2 million so far within basically the first three months of their campaign, and a majority of that money has gone towards signature gathering. Other expenditures have gone towards campaign strategy literature. So that means, like pamphlets and booklets that that explain what the plan is about, different things like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, is that a lot of money?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>It is a lot of money for Solano County, but comparatively, you know, California wide, it’s not really that much. It’s kind of par for the course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know they’ve also been gathering more support from local politicians in Solano County. Right. Even though they were kind of on a lot of people’s bad side at the beginning of all of this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They were, and I will say, the support that they’ve gotten from local politicians has been slow. But, you know, significant. For example, Vacaville Vice Mayor Greg Ritchie spoke at that press conference in support of the East Solano Plan, as it’s called.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Greg Ritchie: \u003c/strong>I think with this project. We can take clear canvas and create the design that we choose for our community. I think together with their passion, we can do that. We’re here SLO County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And when we were looking through campaign finance records, we actually saw that the wife of Fairfield Council member Rick Vaccaro was paid $4,000 in campaign consulting. So it’s kind of interesting how slowly there are local politicians who might have distanced themselves from California forever at first. Now people are starting to take sides. People are starting to say, actually, this plan is a good idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, we’ll talk about the groups against California forever and hear from some residents about how they’re feeling. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Have there been any more, I guess, organized efforts against California forever in Solano County?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Oh yeah. There are actually two packs that were formed. The Greenbelt Alliance Solano Initiative Fund is one of them. And no to California Forever. That’s like literally what the pack is called is another one. Both of them basically oppose the plan and are campaigning against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And are these like environmental groups? Are they just concerned residents? Like, who are the people behind these packs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>It’s kind of a combination of both. The Green Belt Alliance is one of the loudest voices that I’ve seen in my reporting, and they’re a collection of, you know, local Solano residents who are very skeptical of the plan and really support the Orderly Growth Initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>They consist of local politicians who are against it, farmers who want to protect that farmland, environmentalists who are worried that this new city will just create more sprawl, and it will just cause people to drive more because it’s literally in the middle of farmland. I will say, I think many of the talking points from these groups sort of draw back to the cloud of mystery surrounding California forever, and what their true intentions are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>The company did buy 60,000 acres of land really in secret since 2017, and were only forced to come out publicly about their plan like last year, because a New York Times investigation found out about this company who is like buying up all the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There is a lot of skepticism surrounding that. There are people who feel like the promises that are being made on the campaign trail are too lofty. They don’t seem like they’re going to be able to follow through with those promises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. And not to mention the folks behind this idea are tech billionaires from Silicon Valley, which is far, far away from Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And, you know, some of those tech billionaires live in Atherton, where housing is expensive. And some of those billionaires have come out against housing in their own backyard, yet they want to build housing in Solano County. And depending on how you feel about housing and all of these different issues, like you’re, you know, it’s dicey. Excuse me. Hi there. I’m a reporter for KQED, and I’m doing a story about California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, I know already you spoke with a bunch of folks in in Sassoon and Dixon about how they’re feeling. Who do you hear from? Who I guess is excited about this? And what’s their take on this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>The person who showed the most excitement was this man, Tyree Carey. I met him outside of a Sassoon like Walmart Supercenter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tyree Carrie: \u003c/strong>Honestly, I feel like it’s something that’s very necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>He was basically like, we need this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tyree Carrie: \u003c/strong>There’s a lot of people who are struggling with like affordable housing and just housing in general. So I always think it’s also when there’s more options available. Of course, things are affordable and just, you know, being able to generate more income in an area as far as giving people work, things of that nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And he was sort of like, even if these promises are like half fulfilled, it’ll be good for the county.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tyree Carrie: \u003c/strong>I think there are a lot of empty promises just in general. So if somebody is trying to do something good is I feel like it’s worth a shot. If it doesn’t work out, we could always try something different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>He sort of was like, at least it’s something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What did you hear from people who maybe aren’t so excited about this idea?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>I was talking to Khristiana Knight in Dixon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Khristiana Knight: \u003c/strong>Born and raised. Brought up, grew up in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>She right now lives in Sacramento, but she used to live in Solano County and had to move because of affordability reasons. But her family still lives in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Khristiana Knight: \u003c/strong>If you’re going to bring affordable housing to our community, I’m 100% for that. But with that, you’re going to have to take into account the responsibilities of infrastructure, the roads, the water supply, energy supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>She’s still concerned about how affordable is the housing going to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Khristiana Knight: \u003c/strong>So I’m curious to know what kind of people will actually be able to afford to live in these houses, because the heart of the communities are not the people that move out here. So they can take Amtrak to commute to the city. They’re the people that work here in the community, in the agriculture, in the bureaucracies, in the office buildings, in the warehouse districts, Travis Air Force Base, trucking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And for what it’s worth, those are questions that California Forever has not answered yet. California forever, I think, will have to answer at least some of them in order to convince a lot of people to vote in favor of it. But we’ll see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When can we know whether this will, in fact be a question that Solano County voters will have to decide on in November?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So right now, the Registrar of Voters is like counting all of the signatures and making sure that it’s actually the right amount. But after they say, hey, they have the right amount of signatures, it goes to the Board of Supervisors, and the Board of Supervisors has the final say on, you know, it going on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>One of the supervisors, Mitch Mashburn, he did say that if the ballot initiative comes to the Board of Supervisors, he’s going to ask for a report that basically shows all of the impacts, both negative and positive, that the new town would have on Solano County, the date that really matters, where everything has to be done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>The Board of Supervisors has to sign off and say this is going to the voters is August 9th. So if they make it past August 9th, we’re going to see it on the ballot. And because they already submitted signatures so early, like end of April, it’s likely that they’ll make it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So wherever I guess folks stand on this, these billionaires are going to need Solano County voters approval in November if they want to get this done. So do you get the sense at all that all this money that they’re spending, all this campaigning, these billboards are working on voters here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>When I spoke to the campaign, analysts, I asked them this question, like, if you spend enough money, like, can money buy votes? And what they were saying is like, not really. Money can get you on the ballot, but it can’t necessarily win you votes. What it is doing is it is raising awareness about the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There were very few people who I met who didn’t know anything about California forever. Most people had an opinion one way or another. There were very few people who are like, I don’t know, maybe people who are speaking were like, oh yeah, I hate it. Or oh yeah, I love it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, I guess as a housing reporter, why are you interested in, in this story and then in continuing to follow it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>This story has so many, like, juicy elements that are like so tricky for me because the promise of California forever is is really enticing, but it is being built in an area that doesn’t have existing infrastructure. So that means that it’s going to take a lot to get the city built. I think there are a lot of promises in this project that are quite lofty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>15,000 new jobs paying almost $90,000 a year, down payment assistance programs, walkable streets, new public transportation. They’re promising a lot. And if they’re able to follow through on their grand plan, it will be one of the first successes in this kind of master planned city to exist in modern American society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Because many developers have proposed master plan communities like this in the past, and they’ve all become suburbs, basically. So if somebody can do it, then that’s interesting, but they have to be able to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Adhiti, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Adhiti Bandlamudi, housing reporter for KQED. By the way, we’ve got tons of older episodes on California forever and the people behind it. I’ll leave you some links to those in our show notes if you want to take a look back at those. This 36 minute conversation with oddity was cut down and edited by producer Esquinca.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern. They scored this episode an ad about the tape. Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay is a listener supported production of KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "nursing-home-staff-shortages-leave-patients-waiting-in-ers",
"title": "Nursing Home Staff Shortages Leave Patients Waiting in Hospitals",
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"headTitle": "Nursing Home Staff Shortages Leave Patients Waiting in Hospitals | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the state’s sickest patients are stranded in hospitals rooms for weeks, months, and even years as they wait to be moved into nursing homes and psychiatric facilities. The backup is caused by nursing home staffing shortages, coupled with a rapidly aging population. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED’s Lesley McClurg tells us the story of one Berkeley resident’s struggle to find adequate care for his wife.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2746021185\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Links:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991871/systemic-neglect-how-staffing-shortages-in-nursing-homes-leave-patients-trapped-in-hospitals\">Systemic Neglect: How Staffing Shortages In Nursing Homes Leave Patients Trapped in Hospitals\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. If you have a loved one who needs 24 over seven medical care, getting them into a nursing home in California can be really difficult. Nursing homes and psychiatric facilities are dealing with a huge staffing shortage, and it’s leaving some of the sickest, neediest patients with few options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>As a society, we’re not set up in a way to care for people. At a certain point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>While patients wait for their chance to get into a nursing home, they’re increasingly getting trapped in hospitals for weeks, months, and even years. Today, we’ll hear about a man in Berkeley who tried for years to get his wife into a nursing home and why the hospital has become one of the only choices left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>David and Lisa Alter are a couple who met, I think, in their early 20s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Lesley McClurg is a health correspondent for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>They live in Berkeley. They were a lively, well-connected, community oriented couple. They did a lot of adventuring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>Where you go skiing and mountain biking and camping and stuff like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And they love to go to live concerts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>Chris, Isaac and one. You know, it’s like a lot of Tina Turner. And at one point it was, you know, there’s a Joan Jett phase, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>They ended up having two kids. And I looked back just last night actually at some family videos and, you know, really sweet, kind of very conventional sweet family videos. And then things started to go a little bit awry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>Once the kids were born and stuff, she was starting to struggle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Lisa started to forget things. She started to struggle at work. She started to struggle to parent in a sense that she would just kind of disappear, literally, physically kind of erratic behavior that David really couldn’t figure out what was going on. And then in 2011, she was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. When Lisa was diagnosed, she was 45 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Tell me a little bit more about Huntington’s disease. I’m actually not super familiar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so it’s a neurodegenerative disease. And over time, basically the brain and the body stop working. So very slowly over time, you know, you kind of lose function. It’s marked by kind of writhing and twitching. That’s sort of the characteristics that are kind of most known. But today, you know, Lisa can’t walk, she can’t eat, she can’t talk, she can’t communicate. It’s a slow and painful decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know over time, David was sort of doing a lot of things to try and help Lisa when things I guess started to go awry. What were some of the things that he was doing to try and help her situation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>They were really fortunate in the sense that they have a big family. They have a lot of friends. They were quite well connected to their community in Berkeley and she was quite active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>I had an email list with over 40 people on it. Here’s the things that you know. Can you take her to the Y? Can you you know, she she wants to get her hair cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And then over time she lost, you know, kind of the ability to walk. But he would still try to walk with her. So he had this sort of large belt that he would help kind of keep her upright with. And he would, you know, as much as possible, try to give her a good quality of life. You know, over time, that group of friends and family and support system kind of dwindled as the work became more challenging and for some, you know, kind of physically impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>In September of 2020, Lisa had a really terrible accident. What happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>It was that fall that we can all kind of remember when the state was on fire. There was the Orange Day. We were in the middle of the pandemic. David was kind of losing his mind before this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>It’s kind of like when you have an infant, when you know those first few months and you’re kind of always exhausted and you frequently feel like you’re just not making great decisions. It’s like that, but it’s not getting easier. It’s getting harder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>The way he remembers that is he was in the kitchen and he saw Lisa out of the corner of his eye, which worried him. She shouldn’t have been sort of moving around the house without assistance. And so he was going to dry his hands off at the kitchen sink. And then he turned to to look at her. And by the time he made that turn, he heard her head crack on the linoleum floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And so he immediately went to try to find some bandages to wrap her up, and then race to the emergency room. This was not an unusual, though occurrence. You know, that was a particularly bad occurrence, and that she was diagnosed at the hospital with a brain bleed. But he said at that time, it wasn’t unusual for them to go to the E.R. twice a week because she was falling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>We wouldn’t go to the E.R. for all of these because they were too frequent. So I get up and I patch her up. I would use suture strips or even sometimes Krazy Glue to take close cuts. You know, and we deal with it in the morning because it was just is too frequent. You know, I mean, these things happened a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It seems like at this point, David sort of comes to realize that he needs more help, that Lisa needs more help. What kind of help did Lisa really need, exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>I mean, I think at this point he was at the breaking point, I think a year or two earlier than that, he realized that he needed help. And David was in the process of attempting to do that in the sense that he had reached out to literally, he says, every nursing home in the state and written them letters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>I want you to meet my my wife, Lisa. See picture above a vibrant woman, wife, teacher and mother of two beautiful children who is diagnosed with Huntington’s disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And he showed me sort of, you know, personal letters with pictures that made, you know, Lisa and in his family look like a really beautiful, beautiful couple with two kids and living this sort of vibrant life. And now she needed help because she was in this, you know, stage of her disease. And he received letter after letter after letter denying their request for a bed for Lisa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>It’s funny, you know, at first you’re thinking, oh, you know, I’m going to go shop for a facility. But I had heard all the stories about how this, you know, how hard this was and stuff, but it didn’t sink in. And then I’m calling and people are very nice and polite, but I’m going nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>So he knew that she needed, you know, 24 hour basically supervision. And then at this point she needed help. You know, bathing, going to the bathroom, eating anything, basically because he hurt her limbs at that point and her brain were not functioning. You know, at one point he hired a consultant to help him. That didn’t work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>If any hired a lawyer to help him, that didn’t work. Then he reached out to his legislators. That didn’t help, all to try to get into a nursing home. Right? Because he has insurance, he does qualify. Lisa qualifies, to get that kind of care. And yet, the centers, the nursing homes were telling him that they didn’t have any long term beds for Lisa, and so he didn’t know what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>So he started reaching out to advocates for the Huntington’s Disease Society. And at that point, they started to tell him that really, the only option that he might have is to leave Lisa at the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What does David say about what that was like for him to hear that that is his only real option?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>I think the fairest way is sort of flabbergasted. And I think at that point he was sobered, right. He had tried everything else. And so he when he heard that, he thought, Jesus, that’s awful. But maybe that’s what I have to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>I remember sitting in the car in the parking lot at Kaiser and calling one of the social workers I know, and like, just crying like, this isn’t right. Like I shouldn’t be doing this. Are you sure this is, you know, and just trying to get talked down? I mean, it’s just nothing about it feels right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, he chooses to leave his wife at the hospital even though she’s ready to be discharged. Right. And this is something that even advocates are telling people to do. Why is that? Why are advocates saying that this is the best option for people in this situation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>It’s often their only option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maura Gibney: \u003c/strong>Pretty much the only way that you can get into a nursing home in California is if you’re being discharged from the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Maura Gibney: is the executive director for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, and she told me that this is, unfortunately, advice that they give fairly often. Sometimes it’s the only way to take care of a patient like Lisa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maura Gibney: \u003c/strong>And people are really disappointed when they call us, because they’re calling to help, you know, for us to help them find a nursing home for their loved one. I mean, I’m just thinking about the last few years of me talking to consumers. I don’t know anybody that’s gotten into a nursing home any other way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>A hospital is going to have more resources. They have a whole discharge team that can take care of this. They’re going to have more connections. They’re going to be able to work with the insurers easier potentially, and hopefully, you know, find a bed. Advocates know that that patient will be safe in the hospital, even though it’s a burden and not necessarily a fair burden. It’s a broken system to put that burden on the hospital. But that is sort of the the situation that we’re in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why patients like Lisa are being left behind. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Are there a lot of people in this situation, Leslie? Like how common, I guess, are stories like Lisa’s, where these patients are waiting for the care that they actually need?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>That’s definitely becoming more common in 2022. The average length of stay in a hospital across the country increased by about 20%. That’s according to the American Hospital Association. And every day in California, 4500 patients are stranded inside hospitals. That’s according to the California Hospital Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>So this problem, this problem of people getting stuck in hospitals is getting worse. The data shows that nearly 10% of hospital patients are facing discharge delays of at least three days. So you’re cleared to go home and you get stuck for about three days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>I visited a hospital in San Diego, and that hospital has a psychiatric patient with some physical issues as well, who’s been there for more than two years. And the California Hospital Association estimates that this is costing about $3.25 billion per year in avoidable costs. Right. These people shouldn’t be in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What we’re talking about here are lots of patients with high medical needs waiting in hospitals to get the care that they actually need, right. But why is it so hard to get patients that care that they need in these nursing homes, in these psychiatric facilities?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>I think it’s a two fold issue. The demographics of the country are changing. Boomers are getting older. You know, they’re aging. They’ve got more health issues. They need more care. Simultaneously, we haven’t trained enough people to take care of that population. And this was true pre-pandemic. Right. And then for the last four years, we’ve heard about the staffing shortages in health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Craig Cornett: \u003c/strong>But the problem got significantly worse during Covid and we have not yet recovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Craig Cornett is the CEO of the California Association of Health Facilities, which is the industry group that represents nursing homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Craig Cornett: \u003c/strong>Before Covid, there were about 142,000 of workers in skilled nursing facilities in California. That number dropped to 125,000 during Covid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>The work is challenging. The patient population is difficult. The pay is not as good. It’s not as glamorous as other sectors of the healthcare industry. And so it’s been challenging to staff these parts of the industry, and they are trying to improve the situation. But unfortunately it is a major, major issue that’s not going to go away anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Lesley, what factors affect a patient’s ability to get into a nursing home faster? Like are there types of patients that nursing homes would prefer to have that maybe wouldn’t cost as much?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>The ideal patient for a nursing home is someone who is on Medicare. So a senior my aunt is a perfect example. Recently she fell. She broke her hip. She’s 89 years old. She went to the hospital. She was discharged in a couple of days. She went to a nursing home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>She was in and out of the nursing home in two weeks. Her Medicare paid for that, which reimbursed at about $1,250 a day. And then that bed can be turned over for someone else two weeks later. Unfortunately, Lisa is the least attractive kind of patient because she could be there for a very long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>She’s not on Medicare because she’s not a senior. She’s on Medi-Cal, which is the state’s insurance. And when she goes in, Medicare will reimburse at about $350 a day. And she’s a very high needs patient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And so she just costs more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Yes. Maura Gibney says this is not a bed issue. She said this is a money issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maura Gibney: \u003c/strong>And so it really is just a profits issue. How much money are they going to make off of this person?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And this is based on how much money a nursing home can make. And a short term Medicare patient is going to be much more attractive than a long term Medi-Cal or Medicaid patient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maura Gibney: \u003c/strong>Like they they’re going to make more money by keeping the bed open for a few days, avoiding a long term Medi-Cal patient, and then just getting, you know, a short term person instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And the industry denies that they’re doing this right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Absolutely. It’s illegal. They have been reprimanded by the state a few times in the last year for doing this. So the industry says they’re not doing it. The state says stop doing it. And the advocates say you’re absolutely doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what’s being done then to solve this problem?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Craig Cornett told me that there are a couple positive things happening. California is spending about $26 million to recruit more health care workers to help kind of fill this gap. This will hopefully attract about 5500 certified nursing assistants by 2027. That’s not nearly enough, but it’s, you know, 5500 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>State lawmakers are also considering a new bill that would allow select community college districts to offer nursing degrees. This kind of lowers the bar for entry, and that would make it easier for workers to enter the health care industry. Again, he said that neither one of these are, you know, completely going to solve the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How then, I guess, do you get a patient into a nursing home given all of this? Leslie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>In this particular case, David decided to, you know, leave his wife in the hospital. She ended up staying there for four months. Eventually they did find her a home, but it wasn’t in a nursing home. They found her care in what’s called a, boarding care or a assisted living facility, where she’s unfortunately not getting the care that she really needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>It’s more like an apartment building than what I would think of as a medical facility. And they don’t offer any medical care, so they do feed her there. She does have supervision. There are aides, but but not technical nurses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>So they will monitor if you have to take pills or you have to take medicine throughout the day. But if you need any particular treatment, you need to call and arrange to have doctors or nurses come to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You actually went there to visit her with David, right? What was that like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>You know, she’s 60 to 70 pounds. Her body was very contorted into a position that you couldn’t even imagine the body could be in. She was nearly asleep when we got there, so I didn’t really get to interact with her, but it was a very, very sad situation. You know, and in David’s opinion, he thinks, you know, that she’s probably not getting nearly the nutrition that she needs to sort of sustain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>It’s very depressing for him to visit her, although he does try to go once a week because he doesn’t think that she’s getting enough social interaction. He tried to put a movie on for her. He tries to make that visit, you know, an enjoyable experience. But I think he would say, and from what I could see, she’s not really there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>I don’t know, there’s, there’s I mean, there’s nothing good about this situation. There’s nothing is the disease. I mean, she could she could be in that bed for five more years. She has no quality of life. It’s not like she can. She can even watch TV or, you know, she can’t operate a remote. It’s like I come there and I turn on some music for her. I come there, I put on a movie, but, you know, it’s like the people in the facility. I asked them to do that, but I don’t know if that happens, so I kind of think it doesn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I mean, I was going to ask like, how is David’s spirit or her mood?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>To David’s credit, he has an incredible person and has a very strong constitution. And I really saw that during the interview and in ensuing weeks of getting to know him. But he’s crushed. I mean, he’s crushed by the system. He’s crushed by his efforts going nowhere. He’s really, really, really trying to get her good care. He’s really trying to do what’s best for her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And he feels really, really stuck. And defeated was the word he used. He’s got the financial resources, he’s got the familial resources, he’s got friends. And he was, you know, working a full time job as a software engineer, raising two kids. And he still couldn’t find her care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>As a society, we’re not set up in a way to care for people at a certain point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what do you make of this story? Leslie? As a as a health reporter. I mean, I just feel like we’re talking about some of the sickest, some of the neediest patients in our society. And you would hope that those folks could get the care that they need, but it just sounds so impossible. Like and concerning. Frankly, I.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Left this story very deeply questioning whether we care about this population. If you can’t really fight for yourself, you’re definitely not going to get care. And even when you can really fight for yourself, this is a great example of that. You’re not going to get the right care. So I think as a society, we really have to ask ourselves, do all people deserve to have, you know, some kind of quality of life?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>The other main thing that I really got in talking to David about this story is, you know, he knows that Lee says quality of life is not good right now. You know, he really grappled with the question about whether or not she should still be alive. Should she be still getting care?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Now, obviously, that’s a very sensitive and challenging conversation to have, but it’s way harder to have right now than it would have been if they would have had that conversation 20 years ago when she was first diagnosed, and when she was still lucid enough to have put it in her own request for what kind of quality of life she would want. So I really think this underlines for all of us that we should have those conversations with our family members when we’re in good health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Leslie, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Lesley McClurg, a health correspondent for KQED. This 30 minute conversation with Leslie was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern. They added all the tape. Additional production support by Marie Esquinca and me. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay’s a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "Nursing Home Staff Shortages Leave Patients Waiting in Hospitals | KQED",
"description": "View the full episode transcript. Some of the state’s sickest patients are stranded in hospitals rooms for weeks, months, and even years as they wait to be moved into nursing homes and psychiatric facilities. The backup is caused by nursing home staffing shortages, coupled with a rapidly aging population. KQED’s Lesley McClurg tells us the story of one Berkeley resident’s struggle to find adequate care for his wife. Links: Systemic Neglect: How Staffing Shortages In Nursing Homes Leave Patients Trapped in Hospitals Episode Transcript This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors. Ericka",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the state’s sickest patients are stranded in hospitals rooms for weeks, months, and even years as they wait to be moved into nursing homes and psychiatric facilities. The backup is caused by nursing home staffing shortages, coupled with a rapidly aging population. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED’s Lesley McClurg tells us the story of one Berkeley resident’s struggle to find adequate care for his wife.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2746021185\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Links:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991871/systemic-neglect-how-staffing-shortages-in-nursing-homes-leave-patients-trapped-in-hospitals\">Systemic Neglect: How Staffing Shortages In Nursing Homes Leave Patients Trapped in Hospitals\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. If you have a loved one who needs 24 over seven medical care, getting them into a nursing home in California can be really difficult. Nursing homes and psychiatric facilities are dealing with a huge staffing shortage, and it’s leaving some of the sickest, neediest patients with few options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>As a society, we’re not set up in a way to care for people. At a certain point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>While patients wait for their chance to get into a nursing home, they’re increasingly getting trapped in hospitals for weeks, months, and even years. Today, we’ll hear about a man in Berkeley who tried for years to get his wife into a nursing home and why the hospital has become one of the only choices left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>David and Lisa Alter are a couple who met, I think, in their early 20s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Lesley McClurg is a health correspondent for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>They live in Berkeley. They were a lively, well-connected, community oriented couple. They did a lot of adventuring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>Where you go skiing and mountain biking and camping and stuff like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And they love to go to live concerts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>Chris, Isaac and one. You know, it’s like a lot of Tina Turner. And at one point it was, you know, there’s a Joan Jett phase, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>They ended up having two kids. And I looked back just last night actually at some family videos and, you know, really sweet, kind of very conventional sweet family videos. And then things started to go a little bit awry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>Once the kids were born and stuff, she was starting to struggle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Lisa started to forget things. She started to struggle at work. She started to struggle to parent in a sense that she would just kind of disappear, literally, physically kind of erratic behavior that David really couldn’t figure out what was going on. And then in 2011, she was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. When Lisa was diagnosed, she was 45 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Tell me a little bit more about Huntington’s disease. I’m actually not super familiar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so it’s a neurodegenerative disease. And over time, basically the brain and the body stop working. So very slowly over time, you know, you kind of lose function. It’s marked by kind of writhing and twitching. That’s sort of the characteristics that are kind of most known. But today, you know, Lisa can’t walk, she can’t eat, she can’t talk, she can’t communicate. It’s a slow and painful decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know over time, David was sort of doing a lot of things to try and help Lisa when things I guess started to go awry. What were some of the things that he was doing to try and help her situation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>They were really fortunate in the sense that they have a big family. They have a lot of friends. They were quite well connected to their community in Berkeley and she was quite active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>I had an email list with over 40 people on it. Here’s the things that you know. Can you take her to the Y? Can you you know, she she wants to get her hair cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And then over time she lost, you know, kind of the ability to walk. But he would still try to walk with her. So he had this sort of large belt that he would help kind of keep her upright with. And he would, you know, as much as possible, try to give her a good quality of life. You know, over time, that group of friends and family and support system kind of dwindled as the work became more challenging and for some, you know, kind of physically impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>In September of 2020, Lisa had a really terrible accident. What happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>It was that fall that we can all kind of remember when the state was on fire. There was the Orange Day. We were in the middle of the pandemic. David was kind of losing his mind before this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>It’s kind of like when you have an infant, when you know those first few months and you’re kind of always exhausted and you frequently feel like you’re just not making great decisions. It’s like that, but it’s not getting easier. It’s getting harder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>The way he remembers that is he was in the kitchen and he saw Lisa out of the corner of his eye, which worried him. She shouldn’t have been sort of moving around the house without assistance. And so he was going to dry his hands off at the kitchen sink. And then he turned to to look at her. And by the time he made that turn, he heard her head crack on the linoleum floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And so he immediately went to try to find some bandages to wrap her up, and then race to the emergency room. This was not an unusual, though occurrence. You know, that was a particularly bad occurrence, and that she was diagnosed at the hospital with a brain bleed. But he said at that time, it wasn’t unusual for them to go to the E.R. twice a week because she was falling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>We wouldn’t go to the E.R. for all of these because they were too frequent. So I get up and I patch her up. I would use suture strips or even sometimes Krazy Glue to take close cuts. You know, and we deal with it in the morning because it was just is too frequent. You know, I mean, these things happened a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It seems like at this point, David sort of comes to realize that he needs more help, that Lisa needs more help. What kind of help did Lisa really need, exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>I mean, I think at this point he was at the breaking point, I think a year or two earlier than that, he realized that he needed help. And David was in the process of attempting to do that in the sense that he had reached out to literally, he says, every nursing home in the state and written them letters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>I want you to meet my my wife, Lisa. See picture above a vibrant woman, wife, teacher and mother of two beautiful children who is diagnosed with Huntington’s disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And he showed me sort of, you know, personal letters with pictures that made, you know, Lisa and in his family look like a really beautiful, beautiful couple with two kids and living this sort of vibrant life. And now she needed help because she was in this, you know, stage of her disease. And he received letter after letter after letter denying their request for a bed for Lisa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>It’s funny, you know, at first you’re thinking, oh, you know, I’m going to go shop for a facility. But I had heard all the stories about how this, you know, how hard this was and stuff, but it didn’t sink in. And then I’m calling and people are very nice and polite, but I’m going nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>So he knew that she needed, you know, 24 hour basically supervision. And then at this point she needed help. You know, bathing, going to the bathroom, eating anything, basically because he hurt her limbs at that point and her brain were not functioning. You know, at one point he hired a consultant to help him. That didn’t work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>If any hired a lawyer to help him, that didn’t work. Then he reached out to his legislators. That didn’t help, all to try to get into a nursing home. Right? Because he has insurance, he does qualify. Lisa qualifies, to get that kind of care. And yet, the centers, the nursing homes were telling him that they didn’t have any long term beds for Lisa, and so he didn’t know what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>So he started reaching out to advocates for the Huntington’s Disease Society. And at that point, they started to tell him that really, the only option that he might have is to leave Lisa at the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What does David say about what that was like for him to hear that that is his only real option?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>I think the fairest way is sort of flabbergasted. And I think at that point he was sobered, right. He had tried everything else. And so he when he heard that, he thought, Jesus, that’s awful. But maybe that’s what I have to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>I remember sitting in the car in the parking lot at Kaiser and calling one of the social workers I know, and like, just crying like, this isn’t right. Like I shouldn’t be doing this. Are you sure this is, you know, and just trying to get talked down? I mean, it’s just nothing about it feels right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, he chooses to leave his wife at the hospital even though she’s ready to be discharged. Right. And this is something that even advocates are telling people to do. Why is that? Why are advocates saying that this is the best option for people in this situation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>It’s often their only option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maura Gibney: \u003c/strong>Pretty much the only way that you can get into a nursing home in California is if you’re being discharged from the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Maura Gibney: is the executive director for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, and she told me that this is, unfortunately, advice that they give fairly often. Sometimes it’s the only way to take care of a patient like Lisa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maura Gibney: \u003c/strong>And people are really disappointed when they call us, because they’re calling to help, you know, for us to help them find a nursing home for their loved one. I mean, I’m just thinking about the last few years of me talking to consumers. I don’t know anybody that’s gotten into a nursing home any other way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>A hospital is going to have more resources. They have a whole discharge team that can take care of this. They’re going to have more connections. They’re going to be able to work with the insurers easier potentially, and hopefully, you know, find a bed. Advocates know that that patient will be safe in the hospital, even though it’s a burden and not necessarily a fair burden. It’s a broken system to put that burden on the hospital. But that is sort of the the situation that we’re in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why patients like Lisa are being left behind. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Are there a lot of people in this situation, Leslie? Like how common, I guess, are stories like Lisa’s, where these patients are waiting for the care that they actually need?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>That’s definitely becoming more common in 2022. The average length of stay in a hospital across the country increased by about 20%. That’s according to the American Hospital Association. And every day in California, 4500 patients are stranded inside hospitals. That’s according to the California Hospital Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>So this problem, this problem of people getting stuck in hospitals is getting worse. The data shows that nearly 10% of hospital patients are facing discharge delays of at least three days. So you’re cleared to go home and you get stuck for about three days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>I visited a hospital in San Diego, and that hospital has a psychiatric patient with some physical issues as well, who’s been there for more than two years. And the California Hospital Association estimates that this is costing about $3.25 billion per year in avoidable costs. Right. These people shouldn’t be in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What we’re talking about here are lots of patients with high medical needs waiting in hospitals to get the care that they actually need, right. But why is it so hard to get patients that care that they need in these nursing homes, in these psychiatric facilities?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>I think it’s a two fold issue. The demographics of the country are changing. Boomers are getting older. You know, they’re aging. They’ve got more health issues. They need more care. Simultaneously, we haven’t trained enough people to take care of that population. And this was true pre-pandemic. Right. And then for the last four years, we’ve heard about the staffing shortages in health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Craig Cornett: \u003c/strong>But the problem got significantly worse during Covid and we have not yet recovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Craig Cornett is the CEO of the California Association of Health Facilities, which is the industry group that represents nursing homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Craig Cornett: \u003c/strong>Before Covid, there were about 142,000 of workers in skilled nursing facilities in California. That number dropped to 125,000 during Covid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>The work is challenging. The patient population is difficult. The pay is not as good. It’s not as glamorous as other sectors of the healthcare industry. And so it’s been challenging to staff these parts of the industry, and they are trying to improve the situation. But unfortunately it is a major, major issue that’s not going to go away anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Lesley, what factors affect a patient’s ability to get into a nursing home faster? Like are there types of patients that nursing homes would prefer to have that maybe wouldn’t cost as much?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>The ideal patient for a nursing home is someone who is on Medicare. So a senior my aunt is a perfect example. Recently she fell. She broke her hip. She’s 89 years old. She went to the hospital. She was discharged in a couple of days. She went to a nursing home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>She was in and out of the nursing home in two weeks. Her Medicare paid for that, which reimbursed at about $1,250 a day. And then that bed can be turned over for someone else two weeks later. Unfortunately, Lisa is the least attractive kind of patient because she could be there for a very long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>She’s not on Medicare because she’s not a senior. She’s on Medi-Cal, which is the state’s insurance. And when she goes in, Medicare will reimburse at about $350 a day. And she’s a very high needs patient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And so she just costs more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Yes. Maura Gibney says this is not a bed issue. She said this is a money issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maura Gibney: \u003c/strong>And so it really is just a profits issue. How much money are they going to make off of this person?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And this is based on how much money a nursing home can make. And a short term Medicare patient is going to be much more attractive than a long term Medi-Cal or Medicaid patient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maura Gibney: \u003c/strong>Like they they’re going to make more money by keeping the bed open for a few days, avoiding a long term Medi-Cal patient, and then just getting, you know, a short term person instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And the industry denies that they’re doing this right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Absolutely. It’s illegal. They have been reprimanded by the state a few times in the last year for doing this. So the industry says they’re not doing it. The state says stop doing it. And the advocates say you’re absolutely doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what’s being done then to solve this problem?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Craig Cornett told me that there are a couple positive things happening. California is spending about $26 million to recruit more health care workers to help kind of fill this gap. This will hopefully attract about 5500 certified nursing assistants by 2027. That’s not nearly enough, but it’s, you know, 5500 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>State lawmakers are also considering a new bill that would allow select community college districts to offer nursing degrees. This kind of lowers the bar for entry, and that would make it easier for workers to enter the health care industry. Again, he said that neither one of these are, you know, completely going to solve the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How then, I guess, do you get a patient into a nursing home given all of this? Leslie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>In this particular case, David decided to, you know, leave his wife in the hospital. She ended up staying there for four months. Eventually they did find her a home, but it wasn’t in a nursing home. They found her care in what’s called a, boarding care or a assisted living facility, where she’s unfortunately not getting the care that she really needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>It’s more like an apartment building than what I would think of as a medical facility. And they don’t offer any medical care, so they do feed her there. She does have supervision. There are aides, but but not technical nurses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>So they will monitor if you have to take pills or you have to take medicine throughout the day. But if you need any particular treatment, you need to call and arrange to have doctors or nurses come to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You actually went there to visit her with David, right? What was that like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>You know, she’s 60 to 70 pounds. Her body was very contorted into a position that you couldn’t even imagine the body could be in. She was nearly asleep when we got there, so I didn’t really get to interact with her, but it was a very, very sad situation. You know, and in David’s opinion, he thinks, you know, that she’s probably not getting nearly the nutrition that she needs to sort of sustain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>It’s very depressing for him to visit her, although he does try to go once a week because he doesn’t think that she’s getting enough social interaction. He tried to put a movie on for her. He tries to make that visit, you know, an enjoyable experience. But I think he would say, and from what I could see, she’s not really there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>I don’t know, there’s, there’s I mean, there’s nothing good about this situation. There’s nothing is the disease. I mean, she could she could be in that bed for five more years. She has no quality of life. It’s not like she can. She can even watch TV or, you know, she can’t operate a remote. It’s like I come there and I turn on some music for her. I come there, I put on a movie, but, you know, it’s like the people in the facility. I asked them to do that, but I don’t know if that happens, so I kind of think it doesn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I mean, I was going to ask like, how is David’s spirit or her mood?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>To David’s credit, he has an incredible person and has a very strong constitution. And I really saw that during the interview and in ensuing weeks of getting to know him. But he’s crushed. I mean, he’s crushed by the system. He’s crushed by his efforts going nowhere. He’s really, really, really trying to get her good care. He’s really trying to do what’s best for her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>And he feels really, really stuck. And defeated was the word he used. He’s got the financial resources, he’s got the familial resources, he’s got friends. And he was, you know, working a full time job as a software engineer, raising two kids. And he still couldn’t find her care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Alter: \u003c/strong>As a society, we’re not set up in a way to care for people at a certain point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what do you make of this story? Leslie? As a as a health reporter. I mean, I just feel like we’re talking about some of the sickest, some of the neediest patients in our society. And you would hope that those folks could get the care that they need, but it just sounds so impossible. Like and concerning. Frankly, I.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Left this story very deeply questioning whether we care about this population. If you can’t really fight for yourself, you’re definitely not going to get care. And even when you can really fight for yourself, this is a great example of that. You’re not going to get the right care. So I think as a society, we really have to ask ourselves, do all people deserve to have, you know, some kind of quality of life?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>The other main thing that I really got in talking to David about this story is, you know, he knows that Lee says quality of life is not good right now. You know, he really grappled with the question about whether or not she should still be alive. Should she be still getting care?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Now, obviously, that’s a very sensitive and challenging conversation to have, but it’s way harder to have right now than it would have been if they would have had that conversation 20 years ago when she was first diagnosed, and when she was still lucid enough to have put it in her own request for what kind of quality of life she would want. So I really think this underlines for all of us that we should have those conversations with our family members when we’re in good health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Leslie, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Lesley McClurg, a health correspondent for KQED. This 30 minute conversation with Leslie was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern. They added all the tape. Additional production support by Marie Esquinca and me. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. The Bay’s a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Silicon Valley House Seat Race Gets a Recount",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ballots are being recounted in the race for California’s 16th Congressional house seat, which ended in a tie for second between Assemblymember Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian. One or both of them will move on to face former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED’s Guy Marzorati explains how the recount is working, and why it’s gotten a little ugly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1324653751&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Election workers are recounting ballots in Silicon Valley after the race for California’s 16th congressional district seat ended. In a mind blowing tie, Assembly member Evan Lo and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian both got second place, after each winning exactly 30,249 votes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>It took just such a insane confluence of events to even end up here. I mean, all the candidates have talked about, like, people coming up to them. I’m really sorry, I have to admit. Like, I didn’t cast a ballot like you. Could have been the difference today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>KQED politics and government correspondent Guy Marzorati explains how the recount is going and why it’s gotten a little ugly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So this is a district that stretches from Pacifica down through San Mateo County into Santa Clara County, Palo Alto, Mountain View, parts of San Jose all the way to Los Gatos. It’s been represented for about 30 years by Anna Eshoo. She decided last year she’s not going to run for another term. And so this opened up this really wild primary that’s gotten even more interesting recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Right. And can you just remind us to who are the players in this election?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So there was a lot of players in the primary. You could have made a football team out of it. There’s 11 candidates, running, but three ones who were the front runners, kind of from the beginning. And that was former mayor of San Jose, Sam Liccardo. Evan Lowe, a state assembly member, and Joe Simitian, who’s currently a Santa Clara County supervisor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Those three, I guess we’re kind of the favorites going in, but there’s a lot of money spent more than $5 million by campaigns in the primary there, as millions more by outside groups just trying to get, you know, candidates names out there. But ultimately those were the, you know, top three finishers in the primary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Remind us of this very crazy, unlikely. Everything that happened in terms of the results of this race, there were actually two runner ups who were basically caught up in a tie. Like, what are even the odds of that happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I’m I’m not a math person, but this you would need one of those massive calculators where they’re like front of it kind of ramps up at the end to figure this out. Basically. Yeah. Liccardo won the primary. He got a little bit more than 38,000 votes. And then Lo and Simeon each ended with 30,249 votes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I mean, it’s just like the chances of that happening and the vote counts were coming in all through the month of March. People were, you know, following it. They would go back and forth. One person would lead the next day, then it would switch. But that’s where they ended up. And what that means is both Simitian and Lo advance of the general election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I know we have a top two primary, but the rules and the top two primaries, if there is a tie for a second, all three candidates, would advance for a general election, which is just incredibly rare. That only happened one time in the state history since we switched to a top two primary, and in this case, the first time where you’d have three Democrats on the ballot in the general election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So this tie that we’re talking about between Evan Lo and Joe Simitian did that, then automatically trigger a recount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Now, that’s what’s crazy is there is no automatic recount. In this race, that is the law for some local races, like in Santa Clara County and a local race, if it’s within 25 votes, it doesn’t even have to be tied though automatically to a recount. But in this case, there is no automatic recount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>This is a federal race that stretches across two different counties, and it’s up to a voter to actually come forward and start the recount process. So in this case, you know, once the vote was certified in early April, there was a five day window where any voter could come forward and request a recount as long as they can pay for the recount themselves, then the recount can go forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>The first place we were looking was would the campaigns be interested in doing this? But both Evan Lowe and Joe Simeon were like, you know what? We’re good. Like, let’s just run it back in in November and see what happens. But then someone did come forward. Jonathan Padilla, who requested a recount in both of the counties and got this process started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How then, does a recount work? Exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>What literally what’s happening is the ballots are being run back through the machine with the extra added element of PDA has requested to view a lot of election materials and ballots that were not counted the first time around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what are those ballots you’re referring to? Ballots that weren’t counted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So this can, you know, range a lot of different ways, but how it’s actually played out so far in this recount is ballots relating to conditional voters. So if you’re someone who shows up to vote but is not registered even up to Election Day in California, you can just register on the spot and cast a, conditional on a provisional ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>How that works is you fill out your information, you attest to the fact that you’re a citizen, that you’re 18 years old, that you’re not voting elsewhere, and then the registrar will go and double check all that information and ultimately count your ballot or not. In this case on the form, there was a box that needed to be checked. Just declare I’m a US citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>There was also a signature field to say I’m a citizen, I’m 18, etc. in many of these ballots that are being challenged, the voters signed it but did not check that box and so the registrar did not count their ballots. We don’t know which way the voters voted in this race, but the registrar didn’t even go through the process of actually counting that vote. And so Padilla and his lawyers are challenging that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And this is just a very, very small number of ballots. Right. But when we’re talking about a tie, they maybe matter a lot. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Only takes one. I mean, I think that’s definitely something to drive home in this case. In any election you’re going to look at, there might be a handful of votes that are kind of judgment calls. Maybe it’s a voter marked a certain choice, cross it out and marked another one. In this case, election workers literally review those. Those ballots go on like dual screens and two election workers view them and kind of make their determination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>But those are kind of judgment calls trying to figure out, okay, what is this voter’s intent. And so in this case, you have, at least in Santa Clara County, about two dozen ballots that have been challenged. You have about a dozen more in San Mateo County, but that’s in the grand scheme of thousands and thousands of votes. So it’s not as if we’re finding a whole different result. But as you say, it only takes one vote to actually change what we’re all watching in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, we’ll talk about who requested the recount and why. Some folks in the South Bay are suspicious of him. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay, so anyone can initiate a recount as long as you basically have the money to to fund it. But in this case, it’s even more interesting, in part because of who requested it and what we know of his background. Tell me a little bit more about who exactly this guy is, Jonathan Padilla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So here’s where things I think pivot from, like schoolhouse Rock to something a little more spicy. Jonathan Padilla actually used to work for Sam Liccardo. He was the finance director when Liccardo ran for mayor of San Jose in 2014. He contributed to Lakatos campaign last year. He told me like, that’s the last contact he’s had with the campaign from then D.A., someone who stayed politically involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Even though he’s a tech entrepreneur, he doesn’t necessarily work in politics, is his day job. He’s been involved in politics. So when it was discovered this is the guy who is requesting the recount. That’s when questions started. Why is he doing this? Is there some advantage that he is looking for for Liccardo by requesting this recount?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Perhaps he wants a field to be narrowed to just two candidates. So that’s when the questions started to come in. And like, you know, what’s the political motivation behind going ahead with this process? You’ve heard a lot of critiques from Evan Lo’s campaign. They’ve even called him like a lackey for Sam Liccardo. They’re basically like, you’re doing Sam Liccardo bidding in this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Well, what do we know about that? Why is he spending money to do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>This is what I’ve been trying to figure out for weeks. Padilla came out and said, you know, I just want to have all the votes counted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Padilla: \u003c/strong>My positions have been super clear. We should count every single vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I’ve been DMing with him like trying to get more information. Finally, earlier this week, he agreed to to chat on the phone, and he’s kind of stuck by this story that he is not doing this in any kind of coordination with Liccardo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Padilla: \u003c/strong>This is about counting all the ballots. I have not spoken Mercado about this. I have not spoken anybody campaign about this. I had no meaningful contact with anybody in Liccardo campaign since I made my donation at the end of December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>He said, you know, I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I’m really just interested in making sure that all the votes are counted. And something he talked about was he didn’t want any candidate to win the seat with like a plurality of votes. I mean, you could end up in a scenario with three candidates. Maybe someone gets, you know, in the high 30s and they can still win the seat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>This is a really important seat. There’s no term limits. You can have this for decades. So it’s almost like, should it really be up to less than a majority of voters to make this decision? That’s his story. I mean, he is very involved in politics. It’s hard to believe there’s no political inklings or no kind of political motivations at all in here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>But that’s what Padilla said. He said he’s not getting anything out of this personally other than, you know, supporting democracy. And the Carlos campaign has said, we have nothing to do with this. We you know, we’re completely not involved. We’re happy to see the votes get counted. But we’re not involved with this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How much is this costing Jonathan Padilla?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>It’s not just Padilla. There’s this whole outside organization called Count the Vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Padilla: \u003c/strong>And we’re a concern group of citizens that are acting with every intent to follow, every FEC guideline and law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>It could be well over $200,000 when all is said and done, because the amount each county is charging is $12,000 a day. And literally, like I’ve seen the checks, they have to write a $12,000 check each day and give it to the registrar. And then that’s how the work goes forward for that day with a recount. Like you have to see it all the way through. If at any point they start making the payments, then the whole recount stops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And even if there were votes that were changed, none of it counts. There have been calls, you know, from Anna. Sue currently holds the seat. She wants them to release their donors. Who’s actually funding the recount? There have been a complaint filed with federal election regulators by a group of lawyers in Santa Clara County who have said, Sam Liccardo is really behind this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>This needs to be investigated what kind of coordination he has with this recount group. So there have been a lot of critiques hurled that Padilla’s way. And until we get more of the information about donations, what we know now is Padilla is someone who has supported Liccardo in the past, but there’s no smoking gun, you know, between the Liccardo campaign and Padilla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So you have Padilla and Liccardo basically saying, we’re not in this together, and you have Evan Lowe saying, yeah, you are. Where’s Joe Simitian and all this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>You know, Joe Simitian has not gone into the fray in this kind of back and forth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Simitian: \u003c/strong>Eventually the process will work itself out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>He’s kind of said, I want to see this play out. And it’s actually kind of been a good look for him. I would have to say, you know, in this race where you have this mudslinging back and forth, when I’ve asked him his reaction to all these developments, he said, look, I just want to thank the election workers and we’ll see how this process plays out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Simitian: \u003c/strong>I’ll just politics at this point. And, my job is to stay focused on how I can best represent the folks in our district. That’s really my reaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What do you make of the rhetoric here in this debate over the recount guy between all the candidates involved? And it just seems very heated, like, why does it matter to the average voter what arguments these people are slinging around?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I think there’s definitely room for self-reflection on a lot of sides, in kind of how the rhetoric has escalated since this recount started. You had Evan Lowe’s campaign when the recount was announced, accused PDA of taking a page out of Trump’s playbook, attacking democracy, subverting the will of voters. I mean, ultimately, we’re counting ballots like the will of the voters will either be confirmed or newly illuminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And then you also had Padilla, who said, you know, the fact that there was ballots challenge. He called it a travesty. He said the ballots were discovered. He said there was special interest influencing, you know, the election work going on in San Mateo County. Even when I asked him, like what specifically you’re talking about? He didn’t really have an answer. So I’m not trying to be the language police here, but like just taking a step back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>These are all Democrats. I know all these folks were appalled by, you know, former President Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the election, appalled by ideas like fake, fake electors. And I think if every bit of election gamesmanship becomes Trumpian, if it becomes undermining democracy, then it all might just be noise to voters when someone is actually trying to threaten democracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what’s next here, guy? What’s the timeline for this? When can we know the new results?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>By the end of this week. Santa Clara County election officials are confident they can wrap this up. Adjudicate all those, you know, challenge ballots, finish running everything through the machine and have a result. It might be even sooner in San Mateo County just because it’s there’s fewer votes there. So I think, you know, by the end of this week, we could know who’s actually going to the general election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, as a politics reporter, I’m curious what big questions you’re left with from this situation. I mean, one thing I’m thinking about is that not any average person maybe has $200,000 lying around if they want a recount. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And that’s, you know, what Padilla has actually been. That’s one of the things he’s been talking about a lot is like, why should it come to this that I have to put together this money to make the recount happen? At the local level, there are automatic recount laws. And so I wonder if this is, you know, going to kind of spur a conversation about maybe having a state law that triggers an automatic recount at some point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I mean, like I said, there’s in any election, there’s going to be votes where you have kind of a 5050, you know, should this vote be counted, what’s the voters intent? But in the grand scheme of things, they don’t really matter. But if you have a race like this where it’s tied, maybe that’s the impetus that could lead to some changes. Could lead to a state mandatory recount law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Guy, thank you so much as always.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>My pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Guy Marzorati, politics and government correspondent for KQED. This 26 minute conversation with Guy was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>They scored this episode and added up the tape. Music courtesy of First Come Music Audio Network and Universal Production Music. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks so much for listening. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ballots are being recounted in the race for California’s 16th Congressional house seat, which ended in a tie for second between Assemblymember Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian. One or both of them will move on to face former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED’s Guy Marzorati explains how the recount is working, and why it’s gotten a little ugly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1324653751&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Election workers are recounting ballots in Silicon Valley after the race for California’s 16th congressional district seat ended. In a mind blowing tie, Assembly member Evan Lo and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian both got second place, after each winning exactly 30,249 votes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>It took just such a insane confluence of events to even end up here. I mean, all the candidates have talked about, like, people coming up to them. I’m really sorry, I have to admit. Like, I didn’t cast a ballot like you. Could have been the difference today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>KQED politics and government correspondent Guy Marzorati explains how the recount is going and why it’s gotten a little ugly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So this is a district that stretches from Pacifica down through San Mateo County into Santa Clara County, Palo Alto, Mountain View, parts of San Jose all the way to Los Gatos. It’s been represented for about 30 years by Anna Eshoo. She decided last year she’s not going to run for another term. And so this opened up this really wild primary that’s gotten even more interesting recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Right. And can you just remind us to who are the players in this election?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So there was a lot of players in the primary. You could have made a football team out of it. There’s 11 candidates, running, but three ones who were the front runners, kind of from the beginning. And that was former mayor of San Jose, Sam Liccardo. Evan Lowe, a state assembly member, and Joe Simitian, who’s currently a Santa Clara County supervisor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Those three, I guess we’re kind of the favorites going in, but there’s a lot of money spent more than $5 million by campaigns in the primary there, as millions more by outside groups just trying to get, you know, candidates names out there. But ultimately those were the, you know, top three finishers in the primary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Remind us of this very crazy, unlikely. Everything that happened in terms of the results of this race, there were actually two runner ups who were basically caught up in a tie. Like, what are even the odds of that happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I’m I’m not a math person, but this you would need one of those massive calculators where they’re like front of it kind of ramps up at the end to figure this out. Basically. Yeah. Liccardo won the primary. He got a little bit more than 38,000 votes. And then Lo and Simeon each ended with 30,249 votes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I mean, it’s just like the chances of that happening and the vote counts were coming in all through the month of March. People were, you know, following it. They would go back and forth. One person would lead the next day, then it would switch. But that’s where they ended up. And what that means is both Simitian and Lo advance of the general election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I know we have a top two primary, but the rules and the top two primaries, if there is a tie for a second, all three candidates, would advance for a general election, which is just incredibly rare. That only happened one time in the state history since we switched to a top two primary, and in this case, the first time where you’d have three Democrats on the ballot in the general election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So this tie that we’re talking about between Evan Lo and Joe Simitian did that, then automatically trigger a recount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Now, that’s what’s crazy is there is no automatic recount. In this race, that is the law for some local races, like in Santa Clara County and a local race, if it’s within 25 votes, it doesn’t even have to be tied though automatically to a recount. But in this case, there is no automatic recount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>This is a federal race that stretches across two different counties, and it’s up to a voter to actually come forward and start the recount process. So in this case, you know, once the vote was certified in early April, there was a five day window where any voter could come forward and request a recount as long as they can pay for the recount themselves, then the recount can go forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>The first place we were looking was would the campaigns be interested in doing this? But both Evan Lowe and Joe Simeon were like, you know what? We’re good. Like, let’s just run it back in in November and see what happens. But then someone did come forward. Jonathan Padilla, who requested a recount in both of the counties and got this process started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How then, does a recount work? Exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>What literally what’s happening is the ballots are being run back through the machine with the extra added element of PDA has requested to view a lot of election materials and ballots that were not counted the first time around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what are those ballots you’re referring to? Ballots that weren’t counted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So this can, you know, range a lot of different ways, but how it’s actually played out so far in this recount is ballots relating to conditional voters. So if you’re someone who shows up to vote but is not registered even up to Election Day in California, you can just register on the spot and cast a, conditional on a provisional ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>How that works is you fill out your information, you attest to the fact that you’re a citizen, that you’re 18 years old, that you’re not voting elsewhere, and then the registrar will go and double check all that information and ultimately count your ballot or not. In this case on the form, there was a box that needed to be checked. Just declare I’m a US citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>There was also a signature field to say I’m a citizen, I’m 18, etc. in many of these ballots that are being challenged, the voters signed it but did not check that box and so the registrar did not count their ballots. We don’t know which way the voters voted in this race, but the registrar didn’t even go through the process of actually counting that vote. And so Padilla and his lawyers are challenging that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And this is just a very, very small number of ballots. Right. But when we’re talking about a tie, they maybe matter a lot. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Only takes one. I mean, I think that’s definitely something to drive home in this case. In any election you’re going to look at, there might be a handful of votes that are kind of judgment calls. Maybe it’s a voter marked a certain choice, cross it out and marked another one. In this case, election workers literally review those. Those ballots go on like dual screens and two election workers view them and kind of make their determination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>But those are kind of judgment calls trying to figure out, okay, what is this voter’s intent. And so in this case, you have, at least in Santa Clara County, about two dozen ballots that have been challenged. You have about a dozen more in San Mateo County, but that’s in the grand scheme of thousands and thousands of votes. So it’s not as if we’re finding a whole different result. But as you say, it only takes one vote to actually change what we’re all watching in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, we’ll talk about who requested the recount and why. Some folks in the South Bay are suspicious of him. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay, so anyone can initiate a recount as long as you basically have the money to to fund it. But in this case, it’s even more interesting, in part because of who requested it and what we know of his background. Tell me a little bit more about who exactly this guy is, Jonathan Padilla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So here’s where things I think pivot from, like schoolhouse Rock to something a little more spicy. Jonathan Padilla actually used to work for Sam Liccardo. He was the finance director when Liccardo ran for mayor of San Jose in 2014. He contributed to Lakatos campaign last year. He told me like, that’s the last contact he’s had with the campaign from then D.A., someone who stayed politically involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Even though he’s a tech entrepreneur, he doesn’t necessarily work in politics, is his day job. He’s been involved in politics. So when it was discovered this is the guy who is requesting the recount. That’s when questions started. Why is he doing this? Is there some advantage that he is looking for for Liccardo by requesting this recount?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Perhaps he wants a field to be narrowed to just two candidates. So that’s when the questions started to come in. And like, you know, what’s the political motivation behind going ahead with this process? You’ve heard a lot of critiques from Evan Lo’s campaign. They’ve even called him like a lackey for Sam Liccardo. They’re basically like, you’re doing Sam Liccardo bidding in this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Well, what do we know about that? Why is he spending money to do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>This is what I’ve been trying to figure out for weeks. Padilla came out and said, you know, I just want to have all the votes counted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Padilla: \u003c/strong>My positions have been super clear. We should count every single vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I’ve been DMing with him like trying to get more information. Finally, earlier this week, he agreed to to chat on the phone, and he’s kind of stuck by this story that he is not doing this in any kind of coordination with Liccardo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Padilla: \u003c/strong>This is about counting all the ballots. I have not spoken Mercado about this. I have not spoken anybody campaign about this. I had no meaningful contact with anybody in Liccardo campaign since I made my donation at the end of December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>He said, you know, I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I’m really just interested in making sure that all the votes are counted. And something he talked about was he didn’t want any candidate to win the seat with like a plurality of votes. I mean, you could end up in a scenario with three candidates. Maybe someone gets, you know, in the high 30s and they can still win the seat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>This is a really important seat. There’s no term limits. You can have this for decades. So it’s almost like, should it really be up to less than a majority of voters to make this decision? That’s his story. I mean, he is very involved in politics. It’s hard to believe there’s no political inklings or no kind of political motivations at all in here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>But that’s what Padilla said. He said he’s not getting anything out of this personally other than, you know, supporting democracy. And the Carlos campaign has said, we have nothing to do with this. We you know, we’re completely not involved. We’re happy to see the votes get counted. But we’re not involved with this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How much is this costing Jonathan Padilla?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>It’s not just Padilla. There’s this whole outside organization called Count the Vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Padilla: \u003c/strong>And we’re a concern group of citizens that are acting with every intent to follow, every FEC guideline and law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>It could be well over $200,000 when all is said and done, because the amount each county is charging is $12,000 a day. And literally, like I’ve seen the checks, they have to write a $12,000 check each day and give it to the registrar. And then that’s how the work goes forward for that day with a recount. Like you have to see it all the way through. If at any point they start making the payments, then the whole recount stops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And even if there were votes that were changed, none of it counts. There have been calls, you know, from Anna. Sue currently holds the seat. She wants them to release their donors. Who’s actually funding the recount? There have been a complaint filed with federal election regulators by a group of lawyers in Santa Clara County who have said, Sam Liccardo is really behind this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>This needs to be investigated what kind of coordination he has with this recount group. So there have been a lot of critiques hurled that Padilla’s way. And until we get more of the information about donations, what we know now is Padilla is someone who has supported Liccardo in the past, but there’s no smoking gun, you know, between the Liccardo campaign and Padilla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So you have Padilla and Liccardo basically saying, we’re not in this together, and you have Evan Lowe saying, yeah, you are. Where’s Joe Simitian and all this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>You know, Joe Simitian has not gone into the fray in this kind of back and forth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Simitian: \u003c/strong>Eventually the process will work itself out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>He’s kind of said, I want to see this play out. And it’s actually kind of been a good look for him. I would have to say, you know, in this race where you have this mudslinging back and forth, when I’ve asked him his reaction to all these developments, he said, look, I just want to thank the election workers and we’ll see how this process plays out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Simitian: \u003c/strong>I’ll just politics at this point. And, my job is to stay focused on how I can best represent the folks in our district. That’s really my reaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What do you make of the rhetoric here in this debate over the recount guy between all the candidates involved? And it just seems very heated, like, why does it matter to the average voter what arguments these people are slinging around?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I think there’s definitely room for self-reflection on a lot of sides, in kind of how the rhetoric has escalated since this recount started. You had Evan Lowe’s campaign when the recount was announced, accused PDA of taking a page out of Trump’s playbook, attacking democracy, subverting the will of voters. I mean, ultimately, we’re counting ballots like the will of the voters will either be confirmed or newly illuminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And then you also had Padilla, who said, you know, the fact that there was ballots challenge. He called it a travesty. He said the ballots were discovered. He said there was special interest influencing, you know, the election work going on in San Mateo County. Even when I asked him, like what specifically you’re talking about? He didn’t really have an answer. So I’m not trying to be the language police here, but like just taking a step back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>These are all Democrats. I know all these folks were appalled by, you know, former President Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the election, appalled by ideas like fake, fake electors. And I think if every bit of election gamesmanship becomes Trumpian, if it becomes undermining democracy, then it all might just be noise to voters when someone is actually trying to threaten democracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what’s next here, guy? What’s the timeline for this? When can we know the new results?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>By the end of this week. Santa Clara County election officials are confident they can wrap this up. Adjudicate all those, you know, challenge ballots, finish running everything through the machine and have a result. It might be even sooner in San Mateo County just because it’s there’s fewer votes there. So I think, you know, by the end of this week, we could know who’s actually going to the general election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, as a politics reporter, I’m curious what big questions you’re left with from this situation. I mean, one thing I’m thinking about is that not any average person maybe has $200,000 lying around if they want a recount. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And that’s, you know, what Padilla has actually been. That’s one of the things he’s been talking about a lot is like, why should it come to this that I have to put together this money to make the recount happen? At the local level, there are automatic recount laws. And so I wonder if this is, you know, going to kind of spur a conversation about maybe having a state law that triggers an automatic recount at some point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I mean, like I said, there’s in any election, there’s going to be votes where you have kind of a 5050, you know, should this vote be counted, what’s the voters intent? But in the grand scheme of things, they don’t really matter. But if you have a race like this where it’s tied, maybe that’s the impetus that could lead to some changes. Could lead to a state mandatory recount law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Guy, thank you so much as always.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>My pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Guy Marzorati, politics and government correspondent for KQED. This 26 minute conversation with Guy was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>They scored this episode and added up the tape. Music courtesy of First Come Music Audio Network and Universal Production Music. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks so much for listening. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Infamous Women’s Prison Plagued by Sex Abuse Closes",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Federal Bureau of Prisons abruptly announced that it will shut down Federal Correctional Institution Dublin, the federal women’s prison infamous for an alleged culture of sexual abuse. KQED’s Alex Hall tells us why this news took many people by surprise, and what it could mean for the hundreds of women inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5784740829&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. The Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin or FCI Dublin, has faced allegations of sexual abuse for years. There are nearly 60 lawsuits against the women’s prison, including a class action lawsuit alleging sexual assault and retaliation from guards and other prison officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker: \u003c/strong>I mean, I’ve personally witnessed a bunch of, like, sexual assault the officers used to cover for each other. Officers used to stand, stand, point, like, you know, stand and keep a lookout for other officers while they do whatever they do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>In recent weeks, it seemed like the feds were bent on cleaning up the place. The FBI raided the facility, and a third party was appointed to make sure the prison implemented reforms. Then suddenly, this week, the Bureau of Prisons ordered FCI Dublin to shut down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newscaster: \u003c/strong>We’ve talked to a number of lawyers, attorneys who represent women inside this prison, who have been involved in some lawsuits surrounding the prison, saying they’re pretty shocked to hear the news this morning. There are about 600 inmates at the all female.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, the closure of FCI Dublin, and what this could mean for the hundreds of women who are incarcerated there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>So the Bureau of Prisons announced this week that they are officially closing FCI Dublin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Alex Hall is an enterprise and accountability reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>The Federal Bureau of Prisons is the government agency that oversees and operates all of the federal prisons in the United States. At the agency’s director, Collette Peters, issued a statement saying that, you know, for the past several years, the Bureau of Prisons has really taken unprecedented steps and provided a tremendous amount of resources to address the culture at FCI Dublin. But despite those steps, the prison is not meeting expected standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, was this a big surprise, this announcement, Alex?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>This has been a long time coming. There’s been waves of sexual abuse and misconduct allegations. There’s numerous lawsuits alleging harassment, retaliation, sexual assault. The question is, why now? We’re at a very specific and unprecedented moment in the timeline of FCI Dublin and all of the challenges that the facility has faced in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>It was only about a week ago that a federal judge appointed a special master to oversee a series of reforms at FCI Dublin. So the special master has full access to the prison’s records. She has a team of experts hired to support her. She is tasked with overseeing a number of immediate changes at the prison. Wendy still was appointed on April 5th\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>That’s a week ago last Friday. From what I heard, she really hit the ground running. She was at the prison at least twice last week. And then on Monday we heard, actually, the prison is shutting down. So I think a lot of people are asking the question of what was Bureau prisons leadership thinking?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What have their reactions been so far? What are you hearing, especially from inside the prison?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I spoke with Ashley Castillo. She’s an inmate at FCI Dublin. She’s been there for about six years. She says she found out Monday morning when she woke up because other inmates were saying the prison is shutting down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo: \u003c/strong>Around 830 in the in the morning. We just got woken up and it was by inmates saying, we’re on the news. We’re on the news. They’re closing Dublin down. So we were like, what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>She told me that Monday when people were notified, they were told, 100 women are going to leave the prison per day, and that by Friday everyone would be gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo: \u003c/strong>And then they called my name and they said, oh, Castillo, you know, you need to pack your stuff if you’re one of the one that’s leaving today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>They were told, you know, what items they could bring with them, which items they couldn’t bring with them. She said they were given a green bag to to put their items in. Some women actually got on a bus, she said. And then some point they just turned around and came right back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo: \u003c/strong>Like around 230 ish, the special master, she came in and said, the judge has put a stop to our movement because we’re not medically cleared to go. So yeah, so they just made us pack our lives and then for nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>The situation sounds a little chaotic. I’ve spoken with attorneys, too, who have said Monday they were hearing from their clients that I’m going to be sent somewhere. I don’t know where. I don’t know when. Bopp wouldn’t disclose when the women were being transferred for security reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>And then within a matter of hours, I was hearing from attorneys who said, actually, now we’re being told that the transfers are on hold. So we know as much as you we’re just trying to keep up with what’s going on. One attorney told me that she couldn’t even get a hold of her clients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We’re talking about more than 650 people incarcerated caught up in this chaos. What do we know, Alex, about what is going to happen to them? Or do we know where these women are going?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>We don’t. I mean, we heard word that women were being transferred Monday, but then the situation changed very quickly when there was a hearing that was held immediately within, you know, hours of this announcement being made. Basically, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued this order saying that Bop sHall: update casework for all of the women at FCI Dublin, and that this is required in part to ensure that they are transferred to the correct location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>That includes whether the women should be released to another Bop facility, of which, you know, there are a limited number of low security female federal women’s prisons in this country. They’re not all clustered on the West Coast, so it is possible that they could be transferred to facilities states away from their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kara Janssen: \u003c/strong>Folks may want the facility overall to close, or people may see that as a positive things. At the same time, it has some negative impacts on folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>So I spoke with Kara Janssen, who is one of the attorneys who’s representing women who filed this class action lawsuit back in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kara Janssen: \u003c/strong>If your family is here and you’re transferred, you know, across the country to another camp, that’s going to be harder to see your family. It’s going to be harder to talk to your kids on the phone if you’re in a different time zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>Her understanding is that people were transferred on Monday before the judge really caught wind that this was happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kara Janssen: \u003c/strong>People who were supposed to get transferred or had released these coming up are worried that in that transfer process, you know, things will go wrong, you know, and folks don’t know what they’re going to face or where they’re even going to go. So there’s a lot of fear and concern in the facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>We’re hearing a lot of different things right now. Some say nobody has been transferred yet. Some say some of the women were transferred on Monday and that, you know, the transfers were put on hold once the judge’s order was issued. But it’s just really hard to know for sure right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about the staff of this prison? Alex? Will they be transferred somewhere else? Will they be fired? What’s going on with them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I mean, BOP says that staff will not lose their jobs. There are multiple employees. We’re on administrative leave right now. The. So the facility has really struggled with staffing in recent months. For those who are still working there, it’s unclear what’s going to happen to them, but apparently they will maintain employment with the agency whether or not they are transferred to another facility and they have to move or not. It’s it’s unclear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what about the actual building itself? Is it going to get torn down? What’s going to happen with with the facility?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>That’s another really big unknown. Bob, in their statement said that the closure may be temporary, which was pretty ambiguous. It’s unclear if that means that the prison is going to resume operations at some point in the future, or if the government is still working that out, we really don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I guess besides the shock that people are feeling in the in the chaos, how would you, I guess, describe the range of reactions and emotions you’ve seen to this news so far?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I think on the one hand, people you know can see the value in the decision and that this facility has had major issues for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenna Davidson: \u003c/strong>My first reaction is, thank God, honestly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>Jenna Davidson was formerly incarcerated at FCI Dublin for a couple of years. She was recently released and she’s now living nearby with her family, but she’s in really close contact with a lot of the women inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenna Davidson: \u003c/strong>It does suck for some of the women that are in there because they have to be transferred, but at least are not dealing with the same administration. That has been like screwing them over, you know what I mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I think on the one hand, it’s probably, you know, a relief. But on the other hand, you know, obviously these women are being abruptly uprooted and being sent to they don’t know where. And so, you know, if you’re being told you’re have to leave today or by the end of the week, get rid of all your stuff. It can just be really scary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo \u003c/strong>I’m stressed out a lot because I’m from California. I don’t want to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>Ashley told me she is stressed out. Her family is in California. She said that she hasn’t seen her son for years since he was 11 months old. She says she gave birth to him in prison and hasn’t seen him since. You know, he was almost a year old, you know? Now, at this point, depending on, you know, where she’s going, it’s most likely going to be pretty far away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo: \u003c/strong>My parents are here. They were going to just come and me for my birthday. Like I want to see my family. I haven’t seen them since Covid. Like I just want to go home so bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>You know, her attorney told me her family most likely is not going to be able to afford to fly to wherever she’s going to be next. She doesn’t know where she’s going next. She said that in her attorney said that sometimes when you are transferred in Bop custody, it takes quite a bit of time to come out on the other side. You don’t know where you’re going because bop says, you know, that’s a security breach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>You don’t want to tell the inmates exactly where they’re going, so they don’t know until they get there. She might go to some sort of detention facility before she actually reaches her final destination and might not be able to contact her attorney or her family for a couple of weeks a week. So it’s just really stressful. You know, she has no idea what’s going to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about all of these lawsuits that we’ve talked about in the in the beginning? Is there a chance still for these victims to get justice now that the prison is closing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>These lawsuits are seeking monetary compensation for abuse or harassment that is alleged to have happened in the past. And this doesn’t change that, right? But what it could impact is the access that women have to their attorneys. It might be harder for plaintiffs lawyers to access their clients. Most of the women have West Coast attorneys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>So if they’re moved to another state like Texas, for example, that kind of complicates things. One of the attorneys I talked to said that she was scheduling a meeting with a psychological expert to evaluate her client. Now she has to find a new one. You know, there are concerns that the women will be shipped away from their support systems and their families, and that they could face similar problems in other facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>But, you know, in another sense, it might help the lawsuits and that it kind of shows the magnitude of the problems at FCI Dublin. When you have an acknowledgment directly from Bop that FCI Dublin cannot be reasonably operated any longer, that could impact the outcomes of these claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What happens from here? Like what updates could unfold over the next couple of weeks, given there’s so much we don’t know yet?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I think that we’re going to know within days what is happening with a lot of these women and where they’re going. One looming question is, will there be more indictments? The Department of Justice’s investigation into FCI Dublin is still ongoing. The FBI was just at the prison conducting a court authorized search last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>So it’s unclear whether or not there will be more criminal charges against officials at FCI Dublin. The also the outcomes of the lawsuits, the class action and the 58 other individual damages cases. I think that the special master’s presence was expected to do a lot for transparency and help us all understand what was actually happening inside of the prison. She was already at the prison last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>We don’t know exactly what she was doing, but she was expected to write reports about what she was finding out. And so I think that some of that information might still come out. It’s unclear exactly what is going to happen with the special master or where the women end up, but a lot of that, I think, will become clear in the coming days, in the coming weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Alex, thanks so much for breaking this all down for us. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>Absolutely. Thanks for inviting me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Alex Hall, enterprise and accountability reporter for KQED. This 35 minute conversation with Alex was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern. They scored this episode and added all the tape. Maria Esquinca is our producer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Extra production support from me. Music courtesy of Bluedot sessions. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The Federal Bureau of Prisons announced that it will shut down Federal Correctional Institution Dublin — or FCI Dublin — the infamous federal women’s prison in Dublin plagued by sexual assault allegations, sending shockwaves through the prison. \r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Federal Bureau of Prisons abruptly announced that it will shut down Federal Correctional Institution Dublin, the federal women’s prison infamous for an alleged culture of sexual abuse. KQED’s Alex Hall tells us why this news took many people by surprise, and what it could mean for the hundreds of women inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5784740829&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. The Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin or FCI Dublin, has faced allegations of sexual abuse for years. There are nearly 60 lawsuits against the women’s prison, including a class action lawsuit alleging sexual assault and retaliation from guards and other prison officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker: \u003c/strong>I mean, I’ve personally witnessed a bunch of, like, sexual assault the officers used to cover for each other. Officers used to stand, stand, point, like, you know, stand and keep a lookout for other officers while they do whatever they do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>In recent weeks, it seemed like the feds were bent on cleaning up the place. The FBI raided the facility, and a third party was appointed to make sure the prison implemented reforms. Then suddenly, this week, the Bureau of Prisons ordered FCI Dublin to shut down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newscaster: \u003c/strong>We’ve talked to a number of lawyers, attorneys who represent women inside this prison, who have been involved in some lawsuits surrounding the prison, saying they’re pretty shocked to hear the news this morning. There are about 600 inmates at the all female.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, the closure of FCI Dublin, and what this could mean for the hundreds of women who are incarcerated there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>So the Bureau of Prisons announced this week that they are officially closing FCI Dublin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Alex Hall is an enterprise and accountability reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>The Federal Bureau of Prisons is the government agency that oversees and operates all of the federal prisons in the United States. At the agency’s director, Collette Peters, issued a statement saying that, you know, for the past several years, the Bureau of Prisons has really taken unprecedented steps and provided a tremendous amount of resources to address the culture at FCI Dublin. But despite those steps, the prison is not meeting expected standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, was this a big surprise, this announcement, Alex?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>This has been a long time coming. There’s been waves of sexual abuse and misconduct allegations. There’s numerous lawsuits alleging harassment, retaliation, sexual assault. The question is, why now? We’re at a very specific and unprecedented moment in the timeline of FCI Dublin and all of the challenges that the facility has faced in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>It was only about a week ago that a federal judge appointed a special master to oversee a series of reforms at FCI Dublin. So the special master has full access to the prison’s records. She has a team of experts hired to support her. She is tasked with overseeing a number of immediate changes at the prison. Wendy still was appointed on April 5th\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>That’s a week ago last Friday. From what I heard, she really hit the ground running. She was at the prison at least twice last week. And then on Monday we heard, actually, the prison is shutting down. So I think a lot of people are asking the question of what was Bureau prisons leadership thinking?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What have their reactions been so far? What are you hearing, especially from inside the prison?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I spoke with Ashley Castillo. She’s an inmate at FCI Dublin. She’s been there for about six years. She says she found out Monday morning when she woke up because other inmates were saying the prison is shutting down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo: \u003c/strong>Around 830 in the in the morning. We just got woken up and it was by inmates saying, we’re on the news. We’re on the news. They’re closing Dublin down. So we were like, what?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>She told me that Monday when people were notified, they were told, 100 women are going to leave the prison per day, and that by Friday everyone would be gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo: \u003c/strong>And then they called my name and they said, oh, Castillo, you know, you need to pack your stuff if you’re one of the one that’s leaving today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>They were told, you know, what items they could bring with them, which items they couldn’t bring with them. She said they were given a green bag to to put their items in. Some women actually got on a bus, she said. And then some point they just turned around and came right back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo: \u003c/strong>Like around 230 ish, the special master, she came in and said, the judge has put a stop to our movement because we’re not medically cleared to go. So yeah, so they just made us pack our lives and then for nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>The situation sounds a little chaotic. I’ve spoken with attorneys, too, who have said Monday they were hearing from their clients that I’m going to be sent somewhere. I don’t know where. I don’t know when. Bopp wouldn’t disclose when the women were being transferred for security reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>And then within a matter of hours, I was hearing from attorneys who said, actually, now we’re being told that the transfers are on hold. So we know as much as you we’re just trying to keep up with what’s going on. One attorney told me that she couldn’t even get a hold of her clients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We’re talking about more than 650 people incarcerated caught up in this chaos. What do we know, Alex, about what is going to happen to them? Or do we know where these women are going?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>We don’t. I mean, we heard word that women were being transferred Monday, but then the situation changed very quickly when there was a hearing that was held immediately within, you know, hours of this announcement being made. Basically, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued this order saying that Bop sHall: update casework for all of the women at FCI Dublin, and that this is required in part to ensure that they are transferred to the correct location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>That includes whether the women should be released to another Bop facility, of which, you know, there are a limited number of low security female federal women’s prisons in this country. They’re not all clustered on the West Coast, so it is possible that they could be transferred to facilities states away from their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kara Janssen: \u003c/strong>Folks may want the facility overall to close, or people may see that as a positive things. At the same time, it has some negative impacts on folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>So I spoke with Kara Janssen, who is one of the attorneys who’s representing women who filed this class action lawsuit back in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kara Janssen: \u003c/strong>If your family is here and you’re transferred, you know, across the country to another camp, that’s going to be harder to see your family. It’s going to be harder to talk to your kids on the phone if you’re in a different time zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>Her understanding is that people were transferred on Monday before the judge really caught wind that this was happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kara Janssen: \u003c/strong>People who were supposed to get transferred or had released these coming up are worried that in that transfer process, you know, things will go wrong, you know, and folks don’t know what they’re going to face or where they’re even going to go. So there’s a lot of fear and concern in the facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>We’re hearing a lot of different things right now. Some say nobody has been transferred yet. Some say some of the women were transferred on Monday and that, you know, the transfers were put on hold once the judge’s order was issued. But it’s just really hard to know for sure right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about the staff of this prison? Alex? Will they be transferred somewhere else? Will they be fired? What’s going on with them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I mean, BOP says that staff will not lose their jobs. There are multiple employees. We’re on administrative leave right now. The. So the facility has really struggled with staffing in recent months. For those who are still working there, it’s unclear what’s going to happen to them, but apparently they will maintain employment with the agency whether or not they are transferred to another facility and they have to move or not. It’s it’s unclear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what about the actual building itself? Is it going to get torn down? What’s going to happen with with the facility?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>That’s another really big unknown. Bob, in their statement said that the closure may be temporary, which was pretty ambiguous. It’s unclear if that means that the prison is going to resume operations at some point in the future, or if the government is still working that out, we really don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I guess besides the shock that people are feeling in the in the chaos, how would you, I guess, describe the range of reactions and emotions you’ve seen to this news so far?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I think on the one hand, people you know can see the value in the decision and that this facility has had major issues for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenna Davidson: \u003c/strong>My first reaction is, thank God, honestly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>Jenna Davidson was formerly incarcerated at FCI Dublin for a couple of years. She was recently released and she’s now living nearby with her family, but she’s in really close contact with a lot of the women inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenna Davidson: \u003c/strong>It does suck for some of the women that are in there because they have to be transferred, but at least are not dealing with the same administration. That has been like screwing them over, you know what I mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I think on the one hand, it’s probably, you know, a relief. But on the other hand, you know, obviously these women are being abruptly uprooted and being sent to they don’t know where. And so, you know, if you’re being told you’re have to leave today or by the end of the week, get rid of all your stuff. It can just be really scary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo \u003c/strong>I’m stressed out a lot because I’m from California. I don’t want to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>Ashley told me she is stressed out. Her family is in California. She said that she hasn’t seen her son for years since he was 11 months old. She says she gave birth to him in prison and hasn’t seen him since. You know, he was almost a year old, you know? Now, at this point, depending on, you know, where she’s going, it’s most likely going to be pretty far away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley Castillo: \u003c/strong>My parents are here. They were going to just come and me for my birthday. Like I want to see my family. I haven’t seen them since Covid. Like I just want to go home so bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>You know, her attorney told me her family most likely is not going to be able to afford to fly to wherever she’s going to be next. She doesn’t know where she’s going next. She said that in her attorney said that sometimes when you are transferred in Bop custody, it takes quite a bit of time to come out on the other side. You don’t know where you’re going because bop says, you know, that’s a security breach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>You don’t want to tell the inmates exactly where they’re going, so they don’t know until they get there. She might go to some sort of detention facility before she actually reaches her final destination and might not be able to contact her attorney or her family for a couple of weeks a week. So it’s just really stressful. You know, she has no idea what’s going to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about all of these lawsuits that we’ve talked about in the in the beginning? Is there a chance still for these victims to get justice now that the prison is closing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>These lawsuits are seeking monetary compensation for abuse or harassment that is alleged to have happened in the past. And this doesn’t change that, right? But what it could impact is the access that women have to their attorneys. It might be harder for plaintiffs lawyers to access their clients. Most of the women have West Coast attorneys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>So if they’re moved to another state like Texas, for example, that kind of complicates things. One of the attorneys I talked to said that she was scheduling a meeting with a psychological expert to evaluate her client. Now she has to find a new one. You know, there are concerns that the women will be shipped away from their support systems and their families, and that they could face similar problems in other facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>But, you know, in another sense, it might help the lawsuits and that it kind of shows the magnitude of the problems at FCI Dublin. When you have an acknowledgment directly from Bop that FCI Dublin cannot be reasonably operated any longer, that could impact the outcomes of these claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What happens from here? Like what updates could unfold over the next couple of weeks, given there’s so much we don’t know yet?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>I think that we’re going to know within days what is happening with a lot of these women and where they’re going. One looming question is, will there be more indictments? The Department of Justice’s investigation into FCI Dublin is still ongoing. The FBI was just at the prison conducting a court authorized search last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>So it’s unclear whether or not there will be more criminal charges against officials at FCI Dublin. The also the outcomes of the lawsuits, the class action and the 58 other individual damages cases. I think that the special master’s presence was expected to do a lot for transparency and help us all understand what was actually happening inside of the prison. She was already at the prison last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>We don’t know exactly what she was doing, but she was expected to write reports about what she was finding out. And so I think that some of that information might still come out. It’s unclear exactly what is going to happen with the special master or where the women end up, but a lot of that, I think, will become clear in the coming days, in the coming weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Alex, thanks so much for breaking this all down for us. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Hall: \u003c/strong>Absolutely. Thanks for inviting me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Alex Hall, enterprise and accountability reporter for KQED. This 35 minute conversation with Alex was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Ellie Prickett-Morgan is our intern. They scored this episode and added all the tape. Maria Esquinca is our producer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Extra production support from me. Music courtesy of Bluedot sessions. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "A’s to Play Their Next Season in Sacramento",
"headTitle": "A’s to Play Their Next Season in Sacramento | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s official: The A’s have a plan to leave Oakland. The Athletics announced last week that they’ll play their home games at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento starting next year, as part of bigger plans to relocate to Las Vegas for the 2028 season. But A’s fans vow to continue speaking out about the move and how its long goodbye to Oakland has been handled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7404077838&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Okay for real this time. The A’s actually have a plan to leave Oakland. Last week, the team announced it’ll play the rest of its home games in Sacramento starting next year as it prepares for a bigger move to Las Vegas. And fans who’ve been protesting A’s management since last year are, as you guessed it, not happy about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jorge Leon: \u003c/strong>I’ve never been able to relax before 1998, knowing that they could just leave any given day. And so here we are now, and still the same old shit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, I talk with A’s superfan and KQED producer Nina Thorsen about the latest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So, Nina, the A’s are leaving Oakland, but not to Las Vegas yet. Can you remind us where are the A’s at right now in their planned move to Las Vegas? It’s still a few years out, it sounds like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Right, right. The A’s have approval from Major League Baseball to relocate. They have a site. They’ve unveiled a design for a domed stadium with a big window. The architect called it a spherical armadillo. The A’s don’t have the funding for this ballpark completely worked out. In fact, we really don’t know very much about where the funding is, except that we know they don’t have either a loan or a outside funder that we know of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>A’s owner, John Fisher, says he and his family are going to put up as much of the funding as they have to. If everything goes the way they’ve planned. The new ballpark will open in 2028. But you know, in projects of this magnitude, things often don’t go as they plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Right right. So still a few years out and we’re kind of in this interim period with the A’s, right, where we know that they have this plan. But there’s still a lot that needs to be done. But they recently announced a plan to temporarily move to a minor league park in Sacramento until their new stadium in Vegas is built. Why did they have to leave the Coliseum in the first place?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>They’re actually in the last year of a ten year lease agreement that they signed, and it was very much a, you know, most favored tenant kind of lease. So it was a very low rate. They had the option of renewing it, and they were discussing with the city of Oakland and with Alameda County and the Joint Powers Authority, which manages the Coliseum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>They were discussing renewals, but the city of Oakland, understandably, nobody wanted to give them the same great deal that they had before because they were no longer committed to the city. And in fact, the city and county had a bit of a disincentive in that on a per event basis, they could make more money with other tenants. They couldn’t come to a number. That was enough of a step up to satisfy the city and county, and enough of a discount to satisfy the A’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What were their options exactly? And why did the team’s owner ultimately pick Sacramento?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>So the options that we knew about that they were talking about publicly were staying at the Coliseum for the interim period or moving to minor league ballparks in Las Vegas, in Sacramento, or in Salt Lake City. Staying at the Colosseum would be their easiest option, and the team could keep all of its lucrative cable TV contract, which is based on their being in the Bay area, which is a very large market compared to any of these other places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>But the Coliseum holds about five times as many people as the minor league parks, so there’d be a lot of empty seats. And also, the fans who have been protesting would continue to be very visible if they play at the Coliseum. It still seemed like Oakland had the edge. And then the owner of the Sacramento minor league team, the River cats, offered the A’s free rent, and that seems to have been too good a deal for them to pass up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dave Kaval: \u003c/strong>And we felt that this was just a great interim home for the A’s. We have a lot of fans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>So Dave Kaval is the president of the A’s, and he has said that this is a very attractive deal for them. They’re very excited about moving to Sacramento. And they think that the intimacy of the park, because it’s only 10,000 plus seats. It’ll be an interesting change from being at the Coliseum, which is 56,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dave Kaval: \u003c/strong>Seats in a minute. It’s like the spring training experience, but the games matter. And so I think people are going to have a fun time. People are going to travel in to see these games. It’s going to be a great location for baseball. And as someone who’s traveled to all 30 ballparks, seeing a baseball game, a major League Baseball game, in this type of setting, it’s going to be world class and it’s going to be a lot of fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Nina, you are a huge A’s fan as we’ve talked with you on this show plenty of times before. For those who don’t know, Nina is one of the iconic drummers in remind me which section?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Right field section 149.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, how are fans like you, I guess, responding to this news?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I was going to say something about it’s, you know, is it adding insult to injury? There have been so many insults and so many injuries to this fan base in the last few years. For me personally, this is the first year since 2009, except for the pandemic year, that I haven’t had at least a partial season ticket plan or a full season ticket plan this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jorge Leon: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, to me, it’s a disappointment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Jorge Leon is the president of the Oakland 68, which is a fan group that got its start in the right field bleachers. And full disclosure, I’m a member of the Oakland 68.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jorge Leon: \u003c/strong>You know, I wrote an essay in 1998 to try and keep Dave in Oakland. That was in 1998. So them staying in Oakland had always been in the back of my head, though in a way I’ve never been able to relax since 1998, knowing that they could just leave any given day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>The idea that the A’s would be leaving the Coliseum is something that fans have been hearing for so many years, that it almost seemed like it was never going to happen. And Jorje Leon talked to one of our KQED reporters about what it feels like to be told, you know, not just that they are leaving eventually, but that there there is a day when there is the last game coming up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jorge Leon: \u003c/strong>We’re not supporting the team at all. Not in Sacramento, not in Vegas, not in a thousand. Not in Fremont. Not anywhere. We support the team in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Is fans have been very active and very loud about their feelings about the team and plans to leave Oakland, organizing and staging protests, really rallying around this call to force the owner, John Fisher, to sell the team. Can you talk a little bit more about how fans have been organizing and protesting in the months leading up to this announcement?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>So last year was the summer of sell. This year it’s going to be more of a boycott situation for the home opener this year, which was, you know, just a couple of weeks ago at the end of March. These two HS fan groups that have been leading the protests organized a boycott where people did not buy tickets to the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>But we all went into the Coliseum parking lots and set up a big party and partied throughout the game. Okay, this is the parking lot about 6 p.m. you know, Oakland has always been known for its tailgating experience. The Coliseum parking lots of a magical place of celebration, both for the A’s and for the Raiders. But this was really next level opening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>And there were live bands and there were free tacos. And the first 5000 people got free flags that set sail on them. And it was just a surreal experience to be standing in the parking lot, looking through the little gap in the Colosseum upper deck so that we could see the scoreboard. There were more fans outside the stadium than there were fans inside, that’s for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The actions you are describing, it’s like fans saying, we’re here, we exist in the thousands, but we’re not going to give you our money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Yes, it’s definitely that. It’s definitely the idea that nobody wants to give John Fisher any more money than is absolutely necessary if you want to go to a couple of games. A lot of people are trying to only buy tickets on the secondary market, so they’ve already been sold. I think the other thing about the protests is that they are not negative. Yes, the message is sell the team and get John Fisher out, change the ownership. But there’s also a tremendous amount of positivity, a tremendous amount of festivity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>As fans have also been pretty active around what’s happening in Nevada, right where they’ve been preparing for in a move. How have fans been getting involved in that front?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Another way that A’s fans have been active in the last year is by supporting efforts in Nevada, specifically by the Nevada Teachers Union, to organize opposition to the public funding that the state voted for. The A’s ballpark and the Nevada Teachers Union has two different legal strategies going on. One of them involves a referendum that they want to put on the ballot in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>That would essentially allow the voters of Nevada to weigh in on whether they want to give the A’s money for their stadium. And A’s fans have been very instrumental in donating a lot of money to that effort. And there’s a lot of A’s fans who are planning to go to Nevada to go to Reno in Vegas and other parts of Nevada and, you know, be the ones who will go around collecting signatures to put this thing on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Oakland is, of course, preparing to contend with an empty stadium. And this is a real solid plan for the A’s to officially leave Oakland. What is this going to mean for the Coliseum?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Well, in the short term, say, next season, 2025, the plan is that the Coliseum is going to be the home field for the Oakland Roots and the Oakland Soul soccer clubs. There may be a few games for the Oakland Ballers. They wanted to do an exhibition game this year, but the A’s said no. There could be outdoor concerts, which used to happen a lot at the Coliseum in the old days on the green. In the longer term, I mean, the Coliseum is a it’s an old stadium. It’s been there since 1968. It will probably be demolished. And what happens next in that site is something that has been the subject of discussions for years and years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And in, in the short term as well. Nina, what’ll happen to the workers at the Coliseum?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>I think it’s going to be really tough for a lot of the Coliseum workers who are game day workers. A lot of those folks live in East Oakland. They live or they live, you know, within easy commuting distance of the Coliseum. And it it may be really tough for them. It’ll be a big change for them. Now, a lot of those folks will probably end up working at whatever else goes on at the Coliseum, the roots and whatever else happens there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>It just may not be as many games, so it won’t be as much money for people who are paid on a game by game basis. And then because of the way that the A’s are relocating to Sacramento temporarily, they are moving into a stadium in Sacramento that already has a team that’s there, the River cats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>And that team has ticket takers and ticket sellers and grounds crew and all of the rest of the of the people who work at a ballpark. So the A’s are planning to to lay off most of those people. Only a very few people in the front office will relocate to Sacramento and then ultimately to Las Vegas, assuming that that all goes forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about the fans, Nina, who’ve been, as we’ve been talking about, really making big statements on where they stand on how the A’s owner, John Fisher, has been handling things. How could the move to Sacramento change fans ability to protest or gather in the ways that they have been?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>It’s going to change. It’s not going to be the same. It is as it is at the Coliseum. But I don’t think that his fans are going to be quiet. I think there is a change in feeling at some levels of Major League Baseball, whether it’s really an official policy or not. I think there is a change in feeling about the fan relationship and what it means to be a fan of Major League Baseball. The ideal were fans who were loyal to one team and were maybe loyal to one team over generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>You know, your parents took you to games and then you took your children’s games. And the feeling that the sports team represented the city and represented the region and had some meaningful connections to that community. And in the past few years in the A’s are the most extreme example. But they’re not. They’re far from the only one. There seems to be a new philosophy that you buy a ticket to a ballgame, and that’s all you’re buying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>You’re not making a commitment to the team, and the team’s not making a commitment to you. Major League Baseball seems to perhaps want to move away from the idea that you’re a fan of a team so much is that you’re a fan of MLB The Brand. This is not an Oakland phenomenon. This is not something to do with the particular situation at the Oakland Coliseum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>This is something that other teams are going to do. It has much more to do with. Baseball teams and sports teams in general, wanting public funding for their facilities, and. Being willing to use the threat of relocation as leverage to get more money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Nina, our unofficial ace correspondent. Thank you so much again for joining us. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Well, it’s always great to talk to you and, let’s go Oakland. As long as we can say that, we will be saying that. Let’s go Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Nina Thorsen, a producer for KQED. Thanks as well to KQED intern Daniel Eduardo Hernandez, who did the interview that you heard in this episode with Jorge Leon. This hourlong conversation with Nina was cut down and edited by our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. Maria Esquinca is our producer. She scored this episode and edited the tape. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. Additional production support by me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. If you’re interested in supporting our show, consider becoming a member yourself. Just go to KQED.org/Donate. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s official: The A’s have a plan to leave Oakland. The Athletics announced last week that they’ll play their home games at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento starting next year, as part of bigger plans to relocate to Las Vegas for the 2028 season. But A’s fans vow to continue speaking out about the move and how its long goodbye to Oakland has been handled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7404077838&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Okay for real this time. The A’s actually have a plan to leave Oakland. Last week, the team announced it’ll play the rest of its home games in Sacramento starting next year as it prepares for a bigger move to Las Vegas. And fans who’ve been protesting A’s management since last year are, as you guessed it, not happy about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jorge Leon: \u003c/strong>I’ve never been able to relax before 1998, knowing that they could just leave any given day. And so here we are now, and still the same old shit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, I talk with A’s superfan and KQED producer Nina Thorsen about the latest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So, Nina, the A’s are leaving Oakland, but not to Las Vegas yet. Can you remind us where are the A’s at right now in their planned move to Las Vegas? It’s still a few years out, it sounds like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Right, right. The A’s have approval from Major League Baseball to relocate. They have a site. They’ve unveiled a design for a domed stadium with a big window. The architect called it a spherical armadillo. The A’s don’t have the funding for this ballpark completely worked out. In fact, we really don’t know very much about where the funding is, except that we know they don’t have either a loan or a outside funder that we know of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>A’s owner, John Fisher, says he and his family are going to put up as much of the funding as they have to. If everything goes the way they’ve planned. The new ballpark will open in 2028. But you know, in projects of this magnitude, things often don’t go as they plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Right right. So still a few years out and we’re kind of in this interim period with the A’s, right, where we know that they have this plan. But there’s still a lot that needs to be done. But they recently announced a plan to temporarily move to a minor league park in Sacramento until their new stadium in Vegas is built. Why did they have to leave the Coliseum in the first place?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>They’re actually in the last year of a ten year lease agreement that they signed, and it was very much a, you know, most favored tenant kind of lease. So it was a very low rate. They had the option of renewing it, and they were discussing with the city of Oakland and with Alameda County and the Joint Powers Authority, which manages the Coliseum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>They were discussing renewals, but the city of Oakland, understandably, nobody wanted to give them the same great deal that they had before because they were no longer committed to the city. And in fact, the city and county had a bit of a disincentive in that on a per event basis, they could make more money with other tenants. They couldn’t come to a number. That was enough of a step up to satisfy the city and county, and enough of a discount to satisfy the A’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What were their options exactly? And why did the team’s owner ultimately pick Sacramento?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>So the options that we knew about that they were talking about publicly were staying at the Coliseum for the interim period or moving to minor league ballparks in Las Vegas, in Sacramento, or in Salt Lake City. Staying at the Colosseum would be their easiest option, and the team could keep all of its lucrative cable TV contract, which is based on their being in the Bay area, which is a very large market compared to any of these other places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>But the Coliseum holds about five times as many people as the minor league parks, so there’d be a lot of empty seats. And also, the fans who have been protesting would continue to be very visible if they play at the Coliseum. It still seemed like Oakland had the edge. And then the owner of the Sacramento minor league team, the River cats, offered the A’s free rent, and that seems to have been too good a deal for them to pass up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dave Kaval: \u003c/strong>And we felt that this was just a great interim home for the A’s. We have a lot of fans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>So Dave Kaval is the president of the A’s, and he has said that this is a very attractive deal for them. They’re very excited about moving to Sacramento. And they think that the intimacy of the park, because it’s only 10,000 plus seats. It’ll be an interesting change from being at the Coliseum, which is 56,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dave Kaval: \u003c/strong>Seats in a minute. It’s like the spring training experience, but the games matter. And so I think people are going to have a fun time. People are going to travel in to see these games. It’s going to be a great location for baseball. And as someone who’s traveled to all 30 ballparks, seeing a baseball game, a major League Baseball game, in this type of setting, it’s going to be world class and it’s going to be a lot of fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Nina, you are a huge A’s fan as we’ve talked with you on this show plenty of times before. For those who don’t know, Nina is one of the iconic drummers in remind me which section?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Right field section 149.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, how are fans like you, I guess, responding to this news?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I was going to say something about it’s, you know, is it adding insult to injury? There have been so many insults and so many injuries to this fan base in the last few years. For me personally, this is the first year since 2009, except for the pandemic year, that I haven’t had at least a partial season ticket plan or a full season ticket plan this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jorge Leon: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, to me, it’s a disappointment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Jorge Leon is the president of the Oakland 68, which is a fan group that got its start in the right field bleachers. And full disclosure, I’m a member of the Oakland 68.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jorge Leon: \u003c/strong>You know, I wrote an essay in 1998 to try and keep Dave in Oakland. That was in 1998. So them staying in Oakland had always been in the back of my head, though in a way I’ve never been able to relax since 1998, knowing that they could just leave any given day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>The idea that the A’s would be leaving the Coliseum is something that fans have been hearing for so many years, that it almost seemed like it was never going to happen. And Jorje Leon talked to one of our KQED reporters about what it feels like to be told, you know, not just that they are leaving eventually, but that there there is a day when there is the last game coming up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jorge Leon: \u003c/strong>We’re not supporting the team at all. Not in Sacramento, not in Vegas, not in a thousand. Not in Fremont. Not anywhere. We support the team in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Is fans have been very active and very loud about their feelings about the team and plans to leave Oakland, organizing and staging protests, really rallying around this call to force the owner, John Fisher, to sell the team. Can you talk a little bit more about how fans have been organizing and protesting in the months leading up to this announcement?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>So last year was the summer of sell. This year it’s going to be more of a boycott situation for the home opener this year, which was, you know, just a couple of weeks ago at the end of March. These two HS fan groups that have been leading the protests organized a boycott where people did not buy tickets to the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>But we all went into the Coliseum parking lots and set up a big party and partied throughout the game. Okay, this is the parking lot about 6 p.m. you know, Oakland has always been known for its tailgating experience. The Coliseum parking lots of a magical place of celebration, both for the A’s and for the Raiders. But this was really next level opening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>And there were live bands and there were free tacos. And the first 5000 people got free flags that set sail on them. And it was just a surreal experience to be standing in the parking lot, looking through the little gap in the Colosseum upper deck so that we could see the scoreboard. There were more fans outside the stadium than there were fans inside, that’s for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The actions you are describing, it’s like fans saying, we’re here, we exist in the thousands, but we’re not going to give you our money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Yes, it’s definitely that. It’s definitely the idea that nobody wants to give John Fisher any more money than is absolutely necessary if you want to go to a couple of games. A lot of people are trying to only buy tickets on the secondary market, so they’ve already been sold. I think the other thing about the protests is that they are not negative. Yes, the message is sell the team and get John Fisher out, change the ownership. But there’s also a tremendous amount of positivity, a tremendous amount of festivity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>As fans have also been pretty active around what’s happening in Nevada, right where they’ve been preparing for in a move. How have fans been getting involved in that front?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Another way that A’s fans have been active in the last year is by supporting efforts in Nevada, specifically by the Nevada Teachers Union, to organize opposition to the public funding that the state voted for. The A’s ballpark and the Nevada Teachers Union has two different legal strategies going on. One of them involves a referendum that they want to put on the ballot in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>That would essentially allow the voters of Nevada to weigh in on whether they want to give the A’s money for their stadium. And A’s fans have been very instrumental in donating a lot of money to that effort. And there’s a lot of A’s fans who are planning to go to Nevada to go to Reno in Vegas and other parts of Nevada and, you know, be the ones who will go around collecting signatures to put this thing on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Oakland is, of course, preparing to contend with an empty stadium. And this is a real solid plan for the A’s to officially leave Oakland. What is this going to mean for the Coliseum?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Well, in the short term, say, next season, 2025, the plan is that the Coliseum is going to be the home field for the Oakland Roots and the Oakland Soul soccer clubs. There may be a few games for the Oakland Ballers. They wanted to do an exhibition game this year, but the A’s said no. There could be outdoor concerts, which used to happen a lot at the Coliseum in the old days on the green. In the longer term, I mean, the Coliseum is a it’s an old stadium. It’s been there since 1968. It will probably be demolished. And what happens next in that site is something that has been the subject of discussions for years and years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And in, in the short term as well. Nina, what’ll happen to the workers at the Coliseum?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>I think it’s going to be really tough for a lot of the Coliseum workers who are game day workers. A lot of those folks live in East Oakland. They live or they live, you know, within easy commuting distance of the Coliseum. And it it may be really tough for them. It’ll be a big change for them. Now, a lot of those folks will probably end up working at whatever else goes on at the Coliseum, the roots and whatever else happens there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>It just may not be as many games, so it won’t be as much money for people who are paid on a game by game basis. And then because of the way that the A’s are relocating to Sacramento temporarily, they are moving into a stadium in Sacramento that already has a team that’s there, the River cats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>And that team has ticket takers and ticket sellers and grounds crew and all of the rest of the of the people who work at a ballpark. So the A’s are planning to to lay off most of those people. Only a very few people in the front office will relocate to Sacramento and then ultimately to Las Vegas, assuming that that all goes forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about the fans, Nina, who’ve been, as we’ve been talking about, really making big statements on where they stand on how the A’s owner, John Fisher, has been handling things. How could the move to Sacramento change fans ability to protest or gather in the ways that they have been?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>It’s going to change. It’s not going to be the same. It is as it is at the Coliseum. But I don’t think that his fans are going to be quiet. I think there is a change in feeling at some levels of Major League Baseball, whether it’s really an official policy or not. I think there is a change in feeling about the fan relationship and what it means to be a fan of Major League Baseball. The ideal were fans who were loyal to one team and were maybe loyal to one team over generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>You know, your parents took you to games and then you took your children’s games. And the feeling that the sports team represented the city and represented the region and had some meaningful connections to that community. And in the past few years in the A’s are the most extreme example. But they’re not. They’re far from the only one. There seems to be a new philosophy that you buy a ticket to a ballgame, and that’s all you’re buying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>You’re not making a commitment to the team, and the team’s not making a commitment to you. Major League Baseball seems to perhaps want to move away from the idea that you’re a fan of a team so much is that you’re a fan of MLB The Brand. This is not an Oakland phenomenon. This is not something to do with the particular situation at the Oakland Coliseum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>This is something that other teams are going to do. It has much more to do with. Baseball teams and sports teams in general, wanting public funding for their facilities, and. Being willing to use the threat of relocation as leverage to get more money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Nina, our unofficial ace correspondent. Thank you so much again for joining us. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nina Thorsen: \u003c/strong>Well, it’s always great to talk to you and, let’s go Oakland. As long as we can say that, we will be saying that. Let’s go Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Nina Thorsen, a producer for KQED. Thanks as well to KQED intern Daniel Eduardo Hernandez, who did the interview that you heard in this episode with Jorge Leon. This hourlong conversation with Nina was cut down and edited by our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. Maria Esquinca is our producer. She scored this episode and edited the tape. Music courtesy of the Audio Network. Additional production support by me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. If you’re interested in supporting our show, consider becoming a member yourself. Just go to KQED.org/Donate. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "a-toxic-dust-threatens-salmon-can-we-do-something-about-it",
"title": "A Toxic Dust Threatens Salmon. Can We Do Something About It?",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California’s salmon are still in decline — so much so that fishery managers may cancel the state’s salmon season for the second straight year. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lawmakers, environmental groups and tribes have identified one part of the problem: toxic dust that comes from our tires. KQED’s Ezra David Romero tells us how we can fix this problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Links:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1992122/toxic-dust-threatens-california-salmon-population-lawmaker-seeks-solution\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Toxic Dust Threatens California Salmon Population, Lawmaker Seeks Solution\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3045338206&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong> I’m Alan Monticello in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. California’s salmon are still in big trouble. So much so that fishery managers might cancel salmon season for the second straight year. That would have a big impact on the fishers and tribes who rely on salmon for their livelihoods. Now, salmon are dying in large part because of how we manage our water system. But lawmakers and advocates have also identified another issue. A toxic chemical that’s used in our everyday life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think that was like a moment that flabbergasted me that like, my actions are doing this. And I think that’s what separates this story from, say, other salmon stories today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>My colleague Ezra David Romero introduces us to one fisher who’s worried about this salmon season and tells us about an effort to do something about this problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Dick Ogg is the salmon fisherman who lives in bodega Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>My name is Dick Ogg. I own and operate the fishing vessel Karine Jean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>He’s 71, and he’s been fishing there for something like 51 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>I’m very passionate about maintaining and supporting the commercial and fishing industry in general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>He’s sort of that, like, grandpa type of person who’s funny and who’s going to put you in your place and has a lot of information. And he knows salmon really well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>I’m 71 now, so, you know, I mean, I’ve been doing this for a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>He has this like almost spiritual view of the fish that they’re the strong intellectual creature, you know, that like, makes these long journeys from the deep oceans up through watersheds or rivers and lay their eggs up there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>And all the fish that I can think of this salmon is probably has one of the greatest spirits of them all. I mean, when they come up, they can take a look and bend it straight so that they can get away. And if you try to do that with your own fingers, you couldn’t do it. You just couldn’t do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And when I asked him about, like, if these fish are getting away or there’s not enough, he’s like, I think that’s actually okay. Like the more fish that can go up the river and spawn, the better. He kind of like honors the life cycle of these fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What if the past few salmon season’s been like for him, including this one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>The past couple of years have been really tough for Dick, because last year they canceled the salmon season altogether, and their fishery managers are warning they might do that again this year because there’s just so few salmon in the ocean off the California coast, and that number has been decreasing over time. And he said the last really great year he had was back in 2011. So he hasn’t had many good years since then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>I think you need to be patient right now. It’s difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>How will a lack of salmon affect him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think it’s a bummer for him in two ways. First of all, you know, his livelihood depends partly on salmon. He does fish other things. But if the salmon go away and people love the salmon and serve, you know, it’s a high dollar fish. You know, that part of his livelihood, it’s essentially gone. Yes, I figure something else out. And second of all, I think just spiritually like the fish are something that he has this connection with over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>I don’t know anyone in on the commercial in that at this point wants to go try to to fish for the minimal potential that we were offering. They would much rather the week and have a reasonable season, maybe next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So Ezra, we are talking about this now because California might cancel its salmon season again. What are the chances that could happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>It seems like they’re pretty high. I mean, we won’t know for like a month or two if that actually goes down. But all the Fisher people I talked to for this story are saying this is what they’re hearing is going to happen, so they’re preparing for that. The perils against salmon are many. They’re dying because we’ve cut off the waterways or rivers or streams from the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>We put dams up and reservoirs that collect all of this water that cut them off from their spawning habitats that are often way up streams, right, like up a creek in an area with a small amount of water. We also have droughts that decrease water flows in the rivers that also warm up water when we have all these hot days. And that’s a an effect of human caused climate change, which is as a result of warming water as well. There’s also overfishing. There’s also people’s love for salmon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>So we’re eating a lot more salmon than ever. So all of those things combined create a dire scenario for the salmon that Dick Ogg: loves. On top of all those factors like droughts and reservoirs, there’s something that everybody uses that’s affecting these fish. It’s a chemical in tires called 6PPD. Environmentalists are worried about it. Lawmakers are worried about it. Tribes are worried about it. And even the tire manufacturing industry is thinking about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So let’s get into this chemical, which I had not heard of before. This story is called 6PPD. What is it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>It’s this chemical that tire manufacturers put in the slurry that makes tires. It basically preserves them so they don’t wear out as fast. And it’s in every tire. As you drive your car around town or anywhere. Little pieces of your tire break off, right? They wear out. And in those pieces of tire that chemical exists, those little pieces that are on the roads. So we have these really big storms or really any storm in California which we know are intensifying because of human caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Those chemicals get into water, and then they flow out to the ocean, or they flow out into a river or stream. And when dissolved in that water, fish breathe that in. And then it kills them within two hours. The idea is that it thickens their blood. And fish have this brain barrier that separates their blood from their brain. But this chemical. Where’s that out? And blood floods their brain, essentially, like frying their brains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What do we know about how big of a problem 6PPD is for salmon?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>It’s harder to estimate, like exactly how many fish have died in California. But when we look at studies from Washington, where they’ve studied this extensively. In some of these creeks and rivers, they found that just in one waterway, up to 90% of salmon died from this. And so it can have like a huge effect. Another study showed that even if the contaminant 6PPD is diluted by like 95% of water, right, it can still kill fish. They also found this chemical in San Francisco waterways and also in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Coming up. What federal and state authorities are trying to do about six PPD. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Are there efforts to ban this? Since so many people are concerned about its effects on fish and the environment?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Last summer, tribes from across the West Coast primarily petitioned the US EPA to, you know, have tire manufacturers stop using this chemical. And that sort of resulted in the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. That’s the agency that regulates, you know, hazardous substances across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>They required the tire industry to provide them a list of alternatives. And that was due, I believe, last Friday on the 30th of March. And now that agency has about two months to think about. Is there an alternative for using this in tires that maybe won’t harm other fish or kill these fish as well?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What do tire manufacturers think of this idea? If you know, the government is saying, hey, we might ban a chemical that you use to make your products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I’m sure at first they weren’t really excited that they’re going to have to change their ingredient list. It’s something that’s been on market for like 50 plus years. But when I talk to the tire industry, you know, they seem very compliant, like they want they’re going to work on this and they’re seeing the effects happening. The fish seems like they’re willing to change their ingredient list, but time will tell. And to even change that would take years, maybe decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Right. Because even if this chemical were banned tomorrow, there are all these tires out there with this chemical already. So what else is being done to reduce the potential harm now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Well, this assemblymember from San Mateo named Dianne Patterson, introduced a bill in March to do something about this. Her idea is to rid these waterways of six PPD, and how she wants to do this is by requiring Caltrans. That’s the state’s leading transportation agency, to create five pilot projects in different ecosystems across the state, three of which are in the Bay area in San Mateo County, Sonoma and Contra Costa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And what they want to do is go to five areas where a highway, say, goes over a river or creek, and they want to put in these culverts, you know, which are just little canals, and then put all that water and say, like a big holding pond. And the idea is that plants and soil will clean the water of this chemical, and after the water is treated, it can go flow into the river and not kill fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Could this effort be expanded beyond these five pilot projects?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah. The lawmaker also is asking Caltrans to create a map of areas where salmon are in the most at risk. As part of this. So they’ll do these five projects and then they’ll get an idea of like, where else can we do this across the state to target the most at risk populations of salmon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So we have these kind of two ideas in tandem, right. You could ban six PPD from being used in tires, which would take a very long time. And then you also have this creative kind of green infrastructure type solution. What’s the ideal scenario here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think the idea is plainly to like have salmon not die because of this chemical. Right? So that means in the near term, treating the water and in the long term banning the 6PPD use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I mean, based on what you’re saying. Is it fair to say there is hope to get rid of this dangerous chemical that poses such a threat to our salmon?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>All the evidence and interviews I did point to that, that this chemical could be removed. Tribes alerted the federal government, and now tire manufacturers are paying attention to it and are responsible to the state of California to do something about this. So I think there is positive momentum, but at the same time, I think it’s a really big feat. There are millions of cars on California roads, like I have a car. I don’t really want to put new tires on, I just did. But like if the tires are killing all these fish, maybe we should. So I think there’s a really big feet ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What did you learn in this story that you didn’t know before about the challenges facing Sam in our climate and our water systems?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I quite simply didn’t know that this chemical was killing fish from my Prius tires. I drive in the mountains all the time. I go to Sonoma, I like go hiking, and I park next to creeks all the time in the tire dust from my car is killing, potentially killing the fish in that. I think that was the moment that flabbergasted me that my actions are doing this. And I think that’s what separates this story from, say, other salmon stories that are about how our water infrastructure is set up or like how we’ve built our waterways in California, or like what water managers are doing to like, decrease water flows. This is about something that we all do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And it also seems like, at least in this case, there could be a clear path forward to reducing or even eliminating this problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Definitely. Perhaps a solution is nigh or coming up close. There’s positive momentum here, and you don’t often hear that with salmon stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Ezra, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>That was Ezra David Romero, a climate reporter for KQED. This conversation was cut down by Ellie Prickett-Morgan. Dana Cronin scored this episode and added the tape. Additional production support from myself and Maria Esquinca. Music courtesy of Audio Network and Universal Production Music. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Alan Montecillo in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. What’s your favorite Beyonce album?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think Renaissance, my favorite Beyoncé song is Freakum Dress. It’s a good one. Everyone forgets about it, but, you know, we all have that dress or outfit that you wear to the club.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California’s salmon are still in decline — so much so that fishery managers may cancel the state’s salmon season for the second straight year. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lawmakers, environmental groups and tribes have identified one part of the problem: toxic dust that comes from our tires. KQED’s Ezra David Romero tells us how we can fix this problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Links:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1992122/toxic-dust-threatens-california-salmon-population-lawmaker-seeks-solution\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Toxic Dust Threatens California Salmon Population, Lawmaker Seeks Solution\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3045338206&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong> I’m Alan Monticello in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. California’s salmon are still in big trouble. So much so that fishery managers might cancel salmon season for the second straight year. That would have a big impact on the fishers and tribes who rely on salmon for their livelihoods. Now, salmon are dying in large part because of how we manage our water system. But lawmakers and advocates have also identified another issue. A toxic chemical that’s used in our everyday life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think that was like a moment that flabbergasted me that like, my actions are doing this. And I think that’s what separates this story from, say, other salmon stories today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>My colleague Ezra David Romero introduces us to one fisher who’s worried about this salmon season and tells us about an effort to do something about this problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Dick Ogg is the salmon fisherman who lives in bodega Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>My name is Dick Ogg. I own and operate the fishing vessel Karine Jean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>He’s 71, and he’s been fishing there for something like 51 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>I’m very passionate about maintaining and supporting the commercial and fishing industry in general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>He’s sort of that, like, grandpa type of person who’s funny and who’s going to put you in your place and has a lot of information. And he knows salmon really well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>I’m 71 now, so, you know, I mean, I’ve been doing this for a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>He has this like almost spiritual view of the fish that they’re the strong intellectual creature, you know, that like, makes these long journeys from the deep oceans up through watersheds or rivers and lay their eggs up there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>And all the fish that I can think of this salmon is probably has one of the greatest spirits of them all. I mean, when they come up, they can take a look and bend it straight so that they can get away. And if you try to do that with your own fingers, you couldn’t do it. You just couldn’t do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And when I asked him about, like, if these fish are getting away or there’s not enough, he’s like, I think that’s actually okay. Like the more fish that can go up the river and spawn, the better. He kind of like honors the life cycle of these fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What if the past few salmon season’s been like for him, including this one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>The past couple of years have been really tough for Dick, because last year they canceled the salmon season altogether, and their fishery managers are warning they might do that again this year because there’s just so few salmon in the ocean off the California coast, and that number has been decreasing over time. And he said the last really great year he had was back in 2011. So he hasn’t had many good years since then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>I think you need to be patient right now. It’s difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>How will a lack of salmon affect him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think it’s a bummer for him in two ways. First of all, you know, his livelihood depends partly on salmon. He does fish other things. But if the salmon go away and people love the salmon and serve, you know, it’s a high dollar fish. You know, that part of his livelihood, it’s essentially gone. Yes, I figure something else out. And second of all, I think just spiritually like the fish are something that he has this connection with over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dick Ogg: \u003c/strong>I don’t know anyone in on the commercial in that at this point wants to go try to to fish for the minimal potential that we were offering. They would much rather the week and have a reasonable season, maybe next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So Ezra, we are talking about this now because California might cancel its salmon season again. What are the chances that could happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>It seems like they’re pretty high. I mean, we won’t know for like a month or two if that actually goes down. But all the Fisher people I talked to for this story are saying this is what they’re hearing is going to happen, so they’re preparing for that. The perils against salmon are many. They’re dying because we’ve cut off the waterways or rivers or streams from the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>We put dams up and reservoirs that collect all of this water that cut them off from their spawning habitats that are often way up streams, right, like up a creek in an area with a small amount of water. We also have droughts that decrease water flows in the rivers that also warm up water when we have all these hot days. And that’s a an effect of human caused climate change, which is as a result of warming water as well. There’s also overfishing. There’s also people’s love for salmon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>So we’re eating a lot more salmon than ever. So all of those things combined create a dire scenario for the salmon that Dick Ogg: loves. On top of all those factors like droughts and reservoirs, there’s something that everybody uses that’s affecting these fish. It’s a chemical in tires called 6PPD. Environmentalists are worried about it. Lawmakers are worried about it. Tribes are worried about it. And even the tire manufacturing industry is thinking about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So let’s get into this chemical, which I had not heard of before. This story is called 6PPD. What is it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>It’s this chemical that tire manufacturers put in the slurry that makes tires. It basically preserves them so they don’t wear out as fast. And it’s in every tire. As you drive your car around town or anywhere. Little pieces of your tire break off, right? They wear out. And in those pieces of tire that chemical exists, those little pieces that are on the roads. So we have these really big storms or really any storm in California which we know are intensifying because of human caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Those chemicals get into water, and then they flow out to the ocean, or they flow out into a river or stream. And when dissolved in that water, fish breathe that in. And then it kills them within two hours. The idea is that it thickens their blood. And fish have this brain barrier that separates their blood from their brain. But this chemical. Where’s that out? And blood floods their brain, essentially, like frying their brains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What do we know about how big of a problem 6PPD is for salmon?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>It’s harder to estimate, like exactly how many fish have died in California. But when we look at studies from Washington, where they’ve studied this extensively. In some of these creeks and rivers, they found that just in one waterway, up to 90% of salmon died from this. And so it can have like a huge effect. Another study showed that even if the contaminant 6PPD is diluted by like 95% of water, right, it can still kill fish. They also found this chemical in San Francisco waterways and also in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Coming up. What federal and state authorities are trying to do about six PPD. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Are there efforts to ban this? Since so many people are concerned about its effects on fish and the environment?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Last summer, tribes from across the West Coast primarily petitioned the US EPA to, you know, have tire manufacturers stop using this chemical. And that sort of resulted in the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. That’s the agency that regulates, you know, hazardous substances across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>They required the tire industry to provide them a list of alternatives. And that was due, I believe, last Friday on the 30th of March. And now that agency has about two months to think about. Is there an alternative for using this in tires that maybe won’t harm other fish or kill these fish as well?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What do tire manufacturers think of this idea? If you know, the government is saying, hey, we might ban a chemical that you use to make your products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I’m sure at first they weren’t really excited that they’re going to have to change their ingredient list. It’s something that’s been on market for like 50 plus years. But when I talk to the tire industry, you know, they seem very compliant, like they want they’re going to work on this and they’re seeing the effects happening. The fish seems like they’re willing to change their ingredient list, but time will tell. And to even change that would take years, maybe decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Right. Because even if this chemical were banned tomorrow, there are all these tires out there with this chemical already. So what else is being done to reduce the potential harm now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Well, this assemblymember from San Mateo named Dianne Patterson, introduced a bill in March to do something about this. Her idea is to rid these waterways of six PPD, and how she wants to do this is by requiring Caltrans. That’s the state’s leading transportation agency, to create five pilot projects in different ecosystems across the state, three of which are in the Bay area in San Mateo County, Sonoma and Contra Costa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And what they want to do is go to five areas where a highway, say, goes over a river or creek, and they want to put in these culverts, you know, which are just little canals, and then put all that water and say, like a big holding pond. And the idea is that plants and soil will clean the water of this chemical, and after the water is treated, it can go flow into the river and not kill fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Could this effort be expanded beyond these five pilot projects?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah. The lawmaker also is asking Caltrans to create a map of areas where salmon are in the most at risk. As part of this. So they’ll do these five projects and then they’ll get an idea of like, where else can we do this across the state to target the most at risk populations of salmon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So we have these kind of two ideas in tandem, right. You could ban six PPD from being used in tires, which would take a very long time. And then you also have this creative kind of green infrastructure type solution. What’s the ideal scenario here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think the idea is plainly to like have salmon not die because of this chemical. Right? So that means in the near term, treating the water and in the long term banning the 6PPD use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I mean, based on what you’re saying. Is it fair to say there is hope to get rid of this dangerous chemical that poses such a threat to our salmon?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>All the evidence and interviews I did point to that, that this chemical could be removed. Tribes alerted the federal government, and now tire manufacturers are paying attention to it and are responsible to the state of California to do something about this. So I think there is positive momentum, but at the same time, I think it’s a really big feat. There are millions of cars on California roads, like I have a car. I don’t really want to put new tires on, I just did. But like if the tires are killing all these fish, maybe we should. So I think there’s a really big feet ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What did you learn in this story that you didn’t know before about the challenges facing Sam in our climate and our water systems?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I quite simply didn’t know that this chemical was killing fish from my Prius tires. I drive in the mountains all the time. I go to Sonoma, I like go hiking, and I park next to creeks all the time in the tire dust from my car is killing, potentially killing the fish in that. I think that was the moment that flabbergasted me that my actions are doing this. And I think that’s what separates this story from, say, other salmon stories that are about how our water infrastructure is set up or like how we’ve built our waterways in California, or like what water managers are doing to like, decrease water flows. This is about something that we all do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And it also seems like, at least in this case, there could be a clear path forward to reducing or even eliminating this problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Definitely. Perhaps a solution is nigh or coming up close. There’s positive momentum here, and you don’t often hear that with salmon stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Ezra, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>That was Ezra David Romero, a climate reporter for KQED. This conversation was cut down by Ellie Prickett-Morgan. Dana Cronin scored this episode and added the tape. Additional production support from myself and Maria Esquinca. Music courtesy of Audio Network and Universal Production Music. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Alan Montecillo in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. What’s your favorite Beyonce album?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think Renaissance, my favorite Beyoncé song is Freakum Dress. It’s a good one. Everyone forgets about it, but, you know, we all have that dress or outfit that you wear to the club.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
},
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
},
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
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