Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:03] I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara and welcome to the Bay’s December News Roundup, where I sit with the rest of the Bay team to discuss some of the other stories on our radars this month. I am joined by Senior Editor Alan Montecillo. Hey, Alan.
Alan Montecillo [00:00:19] Happy Holidays!
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:20] Happy holidays, and our producer, Jessica Kariisa. Hey, Jessica.
Jessica Kariisa [00:00:24] Hey, Ericka.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:25] Okay, so this is actually gonna be our last new episode of the year, and then we’re gonna be rerunning some of our favorite holiday-related episodes through January 7th. But yeah, it’s almost the holidays. It’s been really cold. It’s really dark. How are you all doing?
Alan Montecillo [00:00:46] I feel like every year I think it’s not actually that cold in the Bay area. My friends on the East coast have actual snow. It’s actually freezing there. Like it’s only like 48, 50 degrees here. And then I totally eat my words every single year. Like I’m cold and I want to just stay home.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:03] No, but this year in particular feels like especially cold. I feel like I’ve had that conversation with like multiple people. Like it feels historic.
Jessica Kariisa [00:01:15] I think it actually is historically cold and like.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:19] Fact like fact-checked?
Jessica Kariisa [00:01:20] Like yeah like fact checked, and I keep thinking to back to the episode that we just did about your PG&E bail because I know mine is gonna be So high from the usage of my heater because it’s just been absolutely freezing in San Jose.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:36] Yeah, I felt like I was cheating a little bit because I brought my October bill, which is a little, you know, a little old, but I really have been cranking up the heat. As I mentioned, this is our last new episode of the year. Any reflections from the team here about the year of shows, the year on the Bay?
Alan Montecillo [00:02:00] Oh gosh, I don’t know if I’m ready to reflect on the entirety of 2025. Obviously a lot of news happened. You know, we didn’t do a news roundup in November because it coincided with Thanksgiving. But, you know, obviously the last couple of months, there’s been everything from, you, know, the special election to the government shutdown, to people on SNAP losing their benefits temporarily. And then even on top of that, you know, local stories like teachers in Contra Costa County going on strike, so, you know, the rhythm of the end of the year is kind of news-wise has been pretty turbulent, I would say.
Jessica Kariisa [00:02:35] It hasn’t been ramping down, it doesn’t feel like it. No, yeah, I think this year has been a lot of really intense news, especially, as Alan was mentioning, the local impacts of a lot of things that were happening at the federal level, the way that immigration was snapped, with, you know, national parks. I think we ended up covering a lot of stories like that, but I think I’m also really proud of the fact that we were able to get out in the field. We talked to a priest in San Jose, Erica interviewed, food is free, Solano’s executive director in Vallejo, and also Perrin Kao in Berkeley. And so we were also able to do a lot of really Bay Area specific things, which felt really good.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:20] Well, let’s get right into some of the other stories that have been on our radars this month. Starting with you, Alan, I feel like there just have been so many earthquake notifications all around the Bay Area, including in Vallejo, one that really shook me and my cat.
Alan Montecillo [00:03:39] Oh, really?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:40] A few weeks ago. So tell us about these earthquake warnings.
Alan Montecillo [00:03:45] Sure. So in the process of reading about this, including reporting from our KQED colleague, Ezra David Romero, I learned a term that I was not thrilled to learn, which is earthquake swarm. Yeah, I know. It’s like, it sounds very like Old Testament plaguey, you know, like God sent an earthquake swarm to like the Pharaoh. But that’s what large portions of the Bay Area have been seeing these last couple of weeks. In fact, over the last month, there were more than 150 earthquakes in the San Ramon area. Most of those weren’t felt, but many of them were, including 10 that were at or above a magnitude 2.5 just on December 8th alone. And then in Sonoma County, there was about, I think, seven earthquakes, including a 4.0 magnitude between Rohnert Park and Glen Ellen. So we’ve, I’ve been seeing our My Shake notifications, but there are many residents who have literally felt multiple. Yeah, small earthquakes that didn’t damage their homes, but definitely spooked them.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:44] I’ve been having a bit of trouble trying to decide how much of this is actually just normal and part of life in California. How normal are these clusters of earthquakes that we’ve been experiencing here in the Bay Area? How worried should I be?
Alan Montecillo [00:05:03] These swarms, how normal are the swarms?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:05] Yes.
Alan Montecillo [00:05:06] Uh, they seem pretty normal. I think that a few things to know about earthquake swarms, they do differ from a typical sequence of earthquakes. I think most of us think of a sequence of earthquake as there being like one big earthquake, like maybe there was a 5.0 somewhere or a 6.0 and then, you know, several like aftershocks over the next few hours or the next few days in the case of earthquake sw arms, there isn’t like a dominant earthquake, there’s sort of a cluster of tiny minor earthquakes and then the fault tends to quiet down. So this, this happens. So I think just because there were more than 150 earthquakes in the San Ramon area over the last month, doesn’t mean that we’re going to get, you know, knock on wood the big one, you know, tomorrow or something like that. Watch it be the one tomorrow just cause I said that.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:50] Oh god. No. No, I’m just gonna say that actually brought me a lot of relief, that answer right until the very end there.
Jessica Kariisa [00:05:58] I mean, even though they are minor, I feel like it would still freak me out. Have we heard anything from residents about these swarms and how they’re feeling about it?
Alan Montecillo [00:06:09] Yeah. So Ezra talked to residents in San Ramon in particular about the earthquakes that hit specifically around December 8th when there were 10 just that morning.
Mona Epstein [00:06:22] Well, Sunday night was rocking and rolling here.
Alan Montecillo [00:06:28] One of them was a woman named Mona Epstein, and in Mona’s case, she felt several within several hours spanning from the very early morning to kind of mid-morning.
Mona Epstein [00:06:40] I was woken, awakened around two o’clock. I felt a jolt and I’ve lived in Santa Mona quite a while. So I remember the last swarm of earthquakes we had. Then again at five o’ clock in the morning, shake the bed again, went back to sleep. At nine o’ o’ I was talking to my son on the phone a little after nine and this one really scared me. People were saying, well, it’s 3.6, it is nothing. I lived through the big one, blah, blah blah, but they don’t get it.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:11] Wow, my gosh. I just imagine this, like, poor woman being, like shaken in her home.
Alan Montecillo [00:07:17] Yeah. And, and you know, there’s something about the number 3.6 in this case that I think is a little deceiving, like it doesn’t sound that bad and it, you know it’s not really damaging buildings, but when there’s several in sequence too, it also makes you think like, oh, when’s the next one, will the next one be bigger, especially if you’re, you know, literally in, in Mona’s case, like at the epicenter of like, what’s technically a small earthquake, but if you were close to the epicenter of it, it feels big.
Mona Epstein [00:07:45] And people, I remember people were saying, this is just making me feel so on edge. I feel so irritable because it’s just, you never know if this is gonna be the big one or if it’s an annoyance.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:58] And I didn’t know this, but there is an actual fault in San Ramon that is pretty active, right?
Alan Montecillo [00:08:07] Right. So San Ramon in particular is above what’s called the Calaveras Fault. It sort of runs underneath the city. Um, it’s also technically part of the San Andreas Fault as well. So, you know, this kind of thing does happen. I mean, as you heard Mona say, uh, this wasn’t the first earthquake swarm that she had, uh you know lived through.
Jessica Kariisa [00:08:27] I guess the whole thing with earthquakes is that, you know, never really know when it’s coming and you know just got to be prepared. But what about like warning systems? Is there anything in place for residents or people who might be affected by swarms to at least just have like a little bit of heads up?
Alan Montecillo [00:08:45] So the MyShake Alert will send out an alerting signal if it is measured at, I believe, 4.5 or higher. So if everyone got a notification anytime there was literally any seismic activity, our phones would be going off. I mean, they’re always going off anyway, but you know, it would be a little too much. One funny detail from this story that Ezra reported is that another resident named Rachael Heys said that her Cat was making weird noises and hid under a table, like seconds before the earthquake hit. Um, I, I’m not endorsing that as like a tried and true early warning system, like having a cat, but I thought that was, that was an interesting detail.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:28] Well, my cat Remi needs a software update, because she was fast asleep seconds before that earthquake in Vallejo. Well, Alan, thank you so much for bringing that story. We’re gonna take a quick break, but when we get back, we’ll dig into some of the other stories that we’ve been following this month. Stay with us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:03] And we’re back with the Bay’s Monthly News Roundup, where we dig into some of the other stories that have been on our radars this month, and we’re gonna dive into my story, which is a spicy one. Oakland City Council voted this week to expand a very controversial license plate reader, and this happened despite concerns from both residents and privacy experts. Who are especially worried about how these cameras could potentially expose residents to federal surveillance. I don’t know if you both have heard about these cameras from this Atlanta-based company called Flock Safety. They’ve been in the news, I feel like, a lot this summer, especially after a few media investigations revealed how… Local police departments around the US have shared data from these cameras with federal law enforcement. That actually includes the Oakland Police Department, which the San Francisco standard had actually reported. In at least one case, California Highway Patrol searched OPD’s database for data related to an immigration and customs enforcement investigation. So the headline here really is that despite a lot of pushback by residents a lot of concerns from privacy experts. At this city council meeting on Tuesday, Oakland approved this new two-year contract with Flock Safety.
Alan Montecillo [00:11:38] What does OPD typically use these cameras for?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:44] So these cameras are used in a variety of ways around Oakland. They’ve been installed in the city since the spring of 2024. There’s about 300 of them around the city. They’re used by both merchants and also the Oakland police department. Merchants say that they have cameras, you know, around Oakland Chinatown, for example, to try and prevent crime. And Oakland PD says they use the data from these cameras to help them with investigations. According to one OPD report that was reported on by the San Francisco Chronicle, the police department there credits flock cameras for helping investigators track cars connected to robberies, cars connected to human trafficking, auto theft rings. And then they also say that these cameras have allowed this county-wide task force to make 110 arrests related to stolen cars. Because of these flock alerts. So they say it’s just really, really helpful for them in doing their jobs and in responding to the kind of crimes that they say that Oakland residents want them to respond to.
Jessica Kariisa [00:12:58] Yeah, I mean, especially with, you know, some of this data potentially being sent to ICE, I can imagine there was a lot of controversy around this. Can you talk a bit more about how residents are feeling or if there’s any pushback happening at that level?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:17] I actually saw this specific description of the council meeting that I found really interesting. This is from writer Maggie Tokuda-Hall for the Oakland Review of Books. She wrote, quote, “‘It’s like I wandered into the comment section “‘on an NPR article and got trapped.'”
Jessica Kariisa [00:13:36] Oh, no.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:36] That’s the vibe at the December 16th Oakland City Council meeting. I was among some of the most informed people I’ve ever heard, each rushing to complete their statements before their mic was cut off at the one minute mark. So she was really talking about this like flood of residents who are really concerned about, you know, in this moment that we’re in, where a lot of community members are concerned about immigration customs enforcement actions. And when also the city of Oakland is, you know, really coming out as a sanctuary city, many residents see this as like a move that kind of works against that. Council Member Carroll Fife was the only no vote and she really points to this scrutiny around data sharing with the feds and she sort of makes this argument that this really goes against the city status as a Sanctuary City.
Alan Montecillo [00:14:32] Are there any guardrails against sharing data with the feds in this contract with Flock?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:39] So in order to address some of these privacy concerns from residents, Oakland City Council also adopted a few amendments to their contract with Flock. And one of those includes prohibiting any sharing of data with federal immigration agencies or any state law enforcement for the purpose of investigating reproductive health or gender affirming care. Which seems maybe a little specific, but there is literally a story of a Texas police officer searching national flock data to find a woman who had self-administered an abortion. And so that’s the concern that they’re addressing there. Another amendment includes a sort of approval system that requires the city’s chief privacy officer and also the Oakland Police Department’s information technology director to authorize any sort of data sharing relationships with other agencies. A Flock spokesperson says that any municipality has the authority to decide what gets shared or not, but I will say that there are still data privacy folks out there who say any data collected is data at risk.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:09] And that is it for my doozy of a story. Jessica Karii, we’re gonna end this one with you. What story have you got for us today?
Jessica Kariisa [00:16:18] I have a story about Transit. So, effective December 10th, Clipper launched their 2.0 version, which has a bunch of really cool upgrades for those of you who use Clipper. Basically, there’s four major upgrades. First, you can immediately access funds in your Clipper account. You don’t have to wait a few days, which was something that people had to do before sometimes.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:46] I mean, that is like… ne of the most annoying things to me about the Clipper. Because it’s like we’re in the Bay Area. We’re in- It should be immediate. Yeah, we’re the tech capital of the world. What do you mean?
Jessica Kariisa [00:16:56] No, I’m with you. So that’s huge. The second is you can now have like family accounts. So basically, users will be able to manage more than one Clipper card. So a parent, for example, could add money to their kid’s account, just making things a little bit smoother on that end. Another big thing is now you can use contactless payment with a debit or credit card. I think we actually We talked about this in another roundup. About BART launching this towards the end of the summer, and now Clippers launched it, so that’s pretty cool.
Alan Montecillo [00:17:30] Meaning that you can now tap to pay with a credit card or debit card on any transit system that uses Clipper, right? So that includes Muni, Caltrain, et cetera.
Jessica Kariisa [00:17:39] Exactly. Yeah. And the one that I’m most interested in as someone who takes two transit agencies to work is that now when you transfer from one agency to another, you can get a discount of up to $2.85 on your second ride.
Jessica Kariisa [00:17:59] As long as your transfer happens within two hours of your first ride. So that’s gonna lead to quite a bit of savings for some people.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:18:06] Wow, I did not know about that last one, but I also take two transit systems to work.
Jessica Kariisa [00:18:11] Yeah, and there’s actually a really cool website called clipper2.hikingbytransit.com where you can actually put in your transit information and it’ll tell you how much you’re expected to save over a year of commuting, which they’re calculating at about 500 trips. And so I put mine in and I’m going to save over $1,000, which is pretty cool. Which is pretty cool.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:18:35] Oh my gosh, what are you gonna do with that thousand dollar?
Jessica Kariisa [00:18:38] I don’t know, I don’t know, maybe I’ll buy something, maybe i’ll go on a trip. Now I have that extra money.
Alan Montecillo [00:18:45] Does everyone already have this? Has this automatically been implemented for everybody?
Jessica Kariisa [00:18:49] Great question. So the whole Clipper 2.0 update is gonna take about eight to 12 weeks. It will happen automatically for everybody, but it will take some time. But you can manually update the app yourself by going to the Clipper website or going through however you have the app, if you have it on your phone, to get the update faster. That said, when… Clipper 2.0 first launched. There were some glitches and people were having issues updating. So there was a little frustration around that. It’s now been over a week. I was able to update mine pretty smoothly. So I think they’re working out some of the kinks.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:19:32] I mean Jessica, we’ve talked a lot on this show about like how much transit agencies around the Bay Area are really struggling financially right now so why why are they doing this and and why are they giving you and I big discounts?
Jessica Kariisa [00:19:46] Yeah, that’s a great question. And our colleague Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman did some really great reporting around this. So transit officials say that, you know, they’re hoping that offering these discounts will actually increase ridership. And if ridership goes up, then revenue goes up as well.
Alan Montecillo [00:20:03] The timing of this is interesting too, because next year we’re going to have the Super Bowl in the Bay Area in February, and then we will have World Cup games later in the year. So I think especially the tap to pay debit credit card for tourists, for people visiting out from other parts of the country or the world, I think that’s, I think essential to have, honestly.
