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"slug": "you-cant-recycle-your-way-out-californias-plastic-problem-and-what-to-do-about-it",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated Nov. 2, 2022: This story was originally published Jan. 24, 2022. Since then, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB54\">a version of Senate Bill 54\u003c/a>, covered in this article, was signed into law in June. The new law requires most single-use plastic packaging and foodware be reusable, compostable, refillable or recyclable by 2032 — with definitions for what is “recyclable” to be set by state agency CalRecycle. Plastic producers will also be required to pay into a plastic pollution mitigation fund. Because of the passage of SB 54, proponents of a voter initiative addressing very similar goals removed their measure from the November 2022 ballot.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original Article:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California dumps more than 12,000 tons of plastic into landfills every day — enough to fill 219 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/Details/1666\">CalRecycle\u003c/a>, the state’s recycling and waste management agency. The state boasts one of the highest recycling rates in the country, especially of cans and bottles, but despite decades of investment in infrastructure and machinery, the system remains overwhelmed by plastic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A trip to a recycling processing center helps explain why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside one of Republic Services’ massive facilities in Milpitas, an impressive array of high-tech machines sort through tons of material from residents’ recycling bins, separating metal from plastic from paper. Some of the machines use magnets, eddy currents or puffs of air blown through hundreds of nozzles to sort the materials; others identify different kinds of plastic with optical scanners. Whizzing conveyor belts ferry it all from one machine to the next, until the recyclables are sorted, baled, and eventually shipped and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Not all plastic is created equal\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>One of plastic recycling’s success stories is HDPE, or high-density polyethylene, the translucent plastic commonly used in milk jugs, shampoo bottles and cutting boards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In today’s marketplace, this is the most valuable commodity that we produce at this location,” said Pete Keller, the company’s vice president of sustainability. “These materials are non-pigmented, so any downstream consumer of this material could turn it into any color they want to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HDPE is currently fetching a price of $1 per pound, or over $2,000 per ton, according to Keller. “I wish we had more of it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That price is partially driven by demand resulting from so-called sustainability commitments major manufacturers have made to use recycled plastic. Naked Juice, for instance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nakedjuice.com/goodness-outside/\">makes its juice bottles\u003c/a> from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic, while Danone has \u003ca href=\"https://www.danone.com/impact/planet/packaging-positive-circular-economy.html\">pledged\u003c/a> to make all of its evian water bottles from 100% recycled plastic by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/-bTCCB6wbks\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a push to boost demand for plastic that is recycled, like HDPE, California lawmakers in 2020 passed a “minimum recycled content” bill. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB793\">Assembly Bill 793\u003c/a>, which went into effect on Jan. 1, mandates that most plastic beverage bottles contain a minimum amount of recycled content. Specifically, all plastic bottles that can be redeemed for $0.05 or $0.10 must contain no less than:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>15% recycled plastic starting Jan. 1, 2022\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>25% recycled plastic starting Jan. 1, 2025\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>50% recycled plastic starting Jan. 1, 2030\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The law, one of the first of its kind in the nation, is targeted at bottle manufacturers, most of whom still use new plastic — or “virgin resin” — which is typically cheaper than recycled plastic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11901454\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11901454 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-800x450.jpeg\" alt=\"Workers in green safety jackets and helmets sort trash along a conveyor belt. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-800x450.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-1020x574.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers at Recology’s San Francisco recycling facility pick out plastic that can’t be recycled, including plastic bags, on July 16, 2021. \u003ccite>(Monica Lam/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In addition to HDPE, PET plastic, or polyethylene terephthalate, can be recycled into clamshells — the clear boxes that strawberries are often packed in — or spun into polyester for clothing. Some denser plastics can also be recycled into pipes, plastic lumber, carpets or buckets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But current recycling markets only accept a fraction of the plastic that’s marked with the three-arrow recycling symbol. Until a few years ago, this problem was largely concealed because the U.S. shipped most of its plastic waste to China, where it was ostensibly being recycled. But in 2018, citing its own environmental concerns, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20741-9#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20China%20announced%20an,are%20enormous%20but%20yet%20unexamined\">China began banning imports of most solid materials\u003c/a>, including most plastics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s forcing domestic recyclers to confront the real challenges of recycling plastic. For one, plastic comes in a myriad of chemical formulations, densities, transparencies and colors. Many products are made of mixed materials: a bottle of hand soap, for example, might contain four different kinds of plastic, plus a metal spring nestled inside the pump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if there were markets for all these different kinds of plastic, sorting and separating them would be a gargantuan task.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s just so many types of plastic. We can’t recycle them all. We can’t manage them all,” said Robert Reed, public relations manager for Recology, which handles San Francisco’s waste and recycling. “You can’t recycle your way out of the larger plastic problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So most plastic — in fact, almost all of it — ends up in landfills: plastic forks and knives, coffee cups and takeout boxes, used cosmetics, styrofoam trays, and most kinds of plastic bags, from shopping bags to those used for frozen peas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11901455\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11901455 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-800x532.jpeg\" alt=\"Three men talk underneath an open-air canopy in a parking lot. \" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-800x532.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-1020x678.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-1536x1021.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State Assemblymember Phil Ting visits a prototype for a mobile recycling program that aims to bring recycling collection trucks to various San Francisco neighborhoods, on July 16, 2021. \u003ccite>(Monica Lam/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Legislative efforts bogged down\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Democratic Assemblymember Phil Ting, who introduced AB 793, has tried to expand the law’s reach by proposing a similar bill requiring the recycling of \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB478\">thermoform plastic\u003c/a>, a group of plastics formed using heat. That legislation, however, got bogged down last year over concerns that infrastructure wasn’t yet in place to accommodate an additional plastic recycling mandate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, many of the more ambitious plastic recycling-related bills floated last year didn’t survive, including \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1371\">AB 1371\u003c/a>, introduced by state Assemblymember Laura Friedman, D-Burbank, which would have banned the use of plastic packaging for online purchases. The bill failed to receive the 41 votes necessary to make it out of the Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Globally, the e-commerce industry uses nearly 2.1 billion, with a ‘B,’ pounds of plastic packaging. … With almost a third of the world’s population now buying online, the amount of plastic packaging generated is estimated to double by 2025,” Friedman told the Assembly Natural Resources Committee last April. “This is low-hanging fruit, members, and something that is really, really a scourge.”[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jennifer Fearing, president, Fearless Advocacy\"]‘I can’t tell you and point to a particular member of the Legislature who’s been ‘bought,’ but I can tell you, we are deeply outgunned on the environmental front.’[/pullquote]“Even with our super-duper Democratic majority and consistently two-thirds of Californians saying this is a huge problem that needs to get addressed, we have really struggled to get enough votes,” said Jennifer Fearing, an environmental lobbyist who helped promote AB 1371.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, last year shelved \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB54\">SB 54\u003c/a>, his bill to ban all single-use plastic products that aren’t recyclable or compostable — opting to buy more time to work out details with various stakeholders, in the face of formidable industry opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘Deeply outgunned’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The list of trade groups that weighed in against the bill underscores the depth of plastic’s reach within multiple industries. During an early hearing on SB 54, associations representing farming and agriculture, pet food, personal care, household products and restaurants voiced their opposition — in addition to the Plastics Industry Association, the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment, and the Flexible Packaging Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can’t tell you and point to a particular member of the Legislature who’s been ‘bought,’” said Fearing. “But I can tell you, we are deeply outgunned on the environmental front.”[aside postID=news_11898724,news_11883400,lowdown_29456 label=\"Related Stories\"]More incremental efforts to reduce plastic waste, however, have proved fruitful, including a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB343\">“Truth in Labeling” bill\u003c/a>, approved by lawmakers last year, which prohibits manufacturers from calling their products recyclable or using recycling symbols or other suggestions of recyclability unless they meet CalRecycle’s criteria. The agency has until Jan. 1, 2024, to formalize a list of products it deems recyclable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tim Shestek, the American Chemistry Council’s senior director of state affairs, said his organization opposed SB 54 and several other bills last year because they failed to recognize why so many businesses use plastic over other materials in the first place: its durability and value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Does it go too far? Does it provide opportunities for the business community to comply in a reasonable fashion?” Shestek said. “In our view, it didn’t take into account some of the other trade-offs that we like to discuss: lightweighting, fuel efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions associated with potential alternatives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Shestek acknowledged that more can be done to cut down on plastic waste. His group, for example, has \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanchemistry.com/chemistry-in-america/chemistry-sustainability/circularity\">set goals\u003c/a> for its members to produce 100% recyclable plastic packaging containing at least 30% recycled plastic by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our focus is trying to get that circular loop completely closed and to be part of the solution,” he said. “I think we recognize that we have a role to play.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11901452\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11901452 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-800x450.jpeg\" alt=\"Two women standing near the bay pour water samples.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-800x450.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-1020x574.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rebecca Sutton, left, and Alicia Gilbreath of the San Francisco Estuary Institute strain water collected from the San Francisco Bay through two sieves to sample for microplastics. \u003ccite>(Monica Lam/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Microplastics and human health\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Since plastic was first invented in the mid-1800s, worldwide production has grown to an estimated 400 million tons annually. In the U.S., \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data\">less than 9%\u003c/a> of plastic gets recycled, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Meanwhile, the production of plastic, which is made from petroleum and natural gas, is projected to increase as the fossil-fuel industry faces competition from alternative energy sources. Dozens of plastic plants are currently being built or planned, most of them on the Gulf Coast and in the Ohio River Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a fair bit of attention has been paid to the impact of plastic pollution on marine animals, who often ingest it, research on human health has only recently started to ramp up. In 2018, California legislators directed the State Water Resources Control Board to \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1422\">start studying levels of microplastics\u003c/a> — plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters — detected in municipal drinking water supplies. Some microplastics, like those used in adhesives or paints, are manufactured at a small size, while some are generated when larger pieces of plastic degrade over time. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Scott Coffin, senior scientist, California State Water Resources Control Board\"]‘I think a better question would be, where have microplastics not been found? We’ve found them from Mount Everest to the Mariana Trench. … I’m not sure that there exists a place that is not impacted by plastic pollution.’[/pullquote]“One of the reasons that plastic in drinking water has received recent attention, especially by California’s legislators, is that we know that the amount is increasing,” said Scott Coffin, a senior scientist with the state water board. “Additionally, plastic never goes away. So these two factors, they necessitate some concern.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffin’s team is tasked with eventually establishing safety thresholds for the level of microplastics in the state’s water supply. He estimates that there are more than \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c00976\">2,400 chemicals\u003c/a> commonly added to plastic that are potentially dangerous for human health, including known toxins like bisphenol A (commonly known as BPA), phthalates, and a class of flame retardants called \u003ca href=\"https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/pbde.html\">PBDEs\u003c/a>, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can think of plastic as a carrier for other chemicals, and in many ways, it’s like a sponge,” Coffin said. “Once it’s in the environment, it can pick up all of the other pollutants that are already there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some microplastics are even small enough to enter into our cells, he noted. \u003ca href=\"https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4923/13/7/921\">One German study\u003c/a> found microplastics in the placentas of pregnant women — on both the maternal and fetal side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The smaller the particle, the deeper it’s going to make it into our bodies, and the more likely it is to interact with our cells, causing toxicity,” Coffin said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One major \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfei.org/projects/microplastics\">study \u003c/a>published in 2019 by the San Francisco Estuary Institute found microplastics throughout the San Francisco Bay — in the water, the mud, and both stormwater runoff and treated wastewater. The study’s authors concluded that the bay likely has higher levels of microplastic pollution than most major water bodies in the United States because it’s surrounded by dense, urban areas and has a relatively restricted water flow. The two most common particles found were fibers from clothing and bits from tires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We found microplastics in just about every sample we collected,” said Rebecca Sutton, who led the three-year study. “This is pretty consistent with what you see all around the world. Pretty much everywhere you look for it, you are going to find microplastics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffin echoed that sentiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think a better question would be, where have microplastics not been found?” he said. “We’ve found them from Mount Everest to the Mariana Trench. Every organism that we’ve ever looked at, we’ve found some levels, and at this point, I’m not sure that there exists a place that is not impacted by plastic pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The climate change impact\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>With that grim assessment in mind, the students in Jacqueline Omania’s fifth grade class at Oxford Elementary in Berkeley have set themselves an ambitious goal: to make so little trash over the course of the school year that the entire class’s garbage fits into a tiny little container about the size of a jam jar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The larger issue is that these youth are growing up in a climate crisis,” said Omania.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The main type of trash that ends up in the class’s container is plastic, so for starters, every student brings a reusable cutlery kit to school to use while eating lunch. Inside the classroom, they use unpainted pencils so that the shavings can be composted. Birthday parties feature home-baked treats instead of anything that comes in a plastic wrapper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Omania’s students were part of a successful campaign to pass a citywide ordinance in 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleyside.org/2019/01/23/berkeley-says-good-riddance-mostly-to-disposable-plastic-foodware\">limiting single-use plastics in Berkeley restaurants\u003c/a>. Her students even showed city councilmembers the tiny container they were using as a garbage can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11901451\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11901451 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-800x450.jpeg\" alt=\"Three young people stand on a rock pile. One hands an orange bucket to another.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-800x450.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-1020x574.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students Sam (left), Alina and Sasha pick up trash off the beach at the Berkeley Marina, Oct. 7, 2021. \u003ccite>(Rick Santangelo/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I believe the adults need to step up so we don’t make the environmental waste in the first place,” Oxford student Jae Marie Howard told a crowded council meeting on the night the ordinance was approved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More recently, Omania’s students helped successfully push the Berkeley Unified School District to include \u003ca href=\"https://www.dailycal.org/2021/11/04/berkeley-school-board-passes-65k-climate-literacy-resolution/\">climate literacy in the K-12 curriculum\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jacqueline Omania, teacher, Oxford Elementary\"]‘The larger issue is that these youth are growing up in a climate crisis.’[/pullquote]An increasing number of studies draw a connection between the production of plastic and climate change. One \u003ca href=\"https://www.beyondplastics.org/plastics-and-climate\">report\u003c/a> from a Vermont-based environmental group found that “as of 2020, the U.S. plastics industry is responsible for at least 232 million tons of CO2e [carbon dioxide equivalent] gas emissions per year. This amount is equivalent to the average emissions from 116 average-sized [500-megawatt] coal-fired power plants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>New opportunities\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Entrepreneurs have been tapping into growing public awareness about plastic waste. Dispatch Goods, a San Francisco-based start-up, is partnering with local restaurants, like Zuni Cafe and Mixt, to provide reusable takeout containers made of stainless steel. Customers must pay extra for the service, which includes picking up the used containers from their homes, but many do it willingly because it alleviates “eco-guilt,” said company CEO Lindsey Hoell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s like an “avocado upcharge,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have data showing that we’re driving business to restaurants that are making that shift,” she added. “It’s not just a sustainability decision, but it’s a good business decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]At Fillgood’s small storefront in Berkeley, customers can refill their own containers with common household products like dish detergent and shampoo, while LimeLoop, another Bay Area-based start-up, makes reusable packaging for shipping — among the growing number of novel business ventures offering alternatives to plastic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall, Californians will get to weigh in directly on just how much the state should regulate and limit plastic production and consumption. The \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Plastic_Waste_Reduction_Regulations_Initiative_(2022)\">California Plastic Waste Reduction Regulations Initiative\u003c/a>, which has qualified for the statewide ballot in November, would not only push through some of the efforts legislators failed to pass last year, but also levy a $0.01 fee — which critics call a tax — on all plastic packaging and disposable food service items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ACC’s Shestek said the ballot measure is “flawed” and hopes instead to work directly with lawmakers “to hash something out that gets to the same objective, but in a fashion that isn’t so punitive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Allen, the state lawmaker, sees the initiative as a good opportunity to advance his SB 54 legislation, banning single-use plastic products that aren’t recyclable or compostable. He’s confident, he said, the business community will work with him to avoid the costly political hurdle of winning a statewide vote. He’s already moved the bill out of the inactive file and back to the Senate floor to be considered during the 2022 legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The ballot measure polls very well. It’s very popular,” Allen said. “And while it’s true [that] industry could raise a lot of money and try to defeat it, I think there’s also going to be some serious money raised on the environmental side. It could really be a knock-down-drag-out fight at the end of the day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Crystal Consaul and Kat Shok contributed to this story. Want more? Check out our half-hour documentary on this topic, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bTCCB6wbks\">California’s Plastic Problem\u003c/a>. Are you a teacher? Here’s more about Jacqueline Omania’s \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/bennington.edu/plastic-free-planet/home?authuser=0\">curriculum\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Like much of the rest of the world, California uses and discards far more plastic than it has the capacity to recycle, with about 4.5 million tons ending up in landfills every year. But some state lawmakers and new business ventures are aiming to significantly reduce that amount of waste.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated Nov. 2, 2022: This story was originally published Jan. 24, 2022. Since then, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB54\">a version of Senate Bill 54\u003c/a>, covered in this article, was signed into law in June. The new law requires most single-use plastic packaging and foodware be reusable, compostable, refillable or recyclable by 2032 — with definitions for what is “recyclable” to be set by state agency CalRecycle. Plastic producers will also be required to pay into a plastic pollution mitigation fund. Because of the passage of SB 54, proponents of a voter initiative addressing very similar goals removed their measure from the November 2022 ballot.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original Article:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California dumps more than 12,000 tons of plastic into landfills every day — enough to fill 219 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/Details/1666\">CalRecycle\u003c/a>, the state’s recycling and waste management agency. The state boasts one of the highest recycling rates in the country, especially of cans and bottles, but despite decades of investment in infrastructure and machinery, the system remains overwhelmed by plastic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A trip to a recycling processing center helps explain why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside one of Republic Services’ massive facilities in Milpitas, an impressive array of high-tech machines sort through tons of material from residents’ recycling bins, separating metal from plastic from paper. Some of the machines use magnets, eddy currents or puffs of air blown through hundreds of nozzles to sort the materials; others identify different kinds of plastic with optical scanners. Whizzing conveyor belts ferry it all from one machine to the next, until the recyclables are sorted, baled, and eventually shipped and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Not all plastic is created equal\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>One of plastic recycling’s success stories is HDPE, or high-density polyethylene, the translucent plastic commonly used in milk jugs, shampoo bottles and cutting boards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In today’s marketplace, this is the most valuable commodity that we produce at this location,” said Pete Keller, the company’s vice president of sustainability. “These materials are non-pigmented, so any downstream consumer of this material could turn it into any color they want to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HDPE is currently fetching a price of $1 per pound, or over $2,000 per ton, according to Keller. “I wish we had more of it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That price is partially driven by demand resulting from so-called sustainability commitments major manufacturers have made to use recycled plastic. Naked Juice, for instance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nakedjuice.com/goodness-outside/\">makes its juice bottles\u003c/a> from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic, while Danone has \u003ca href=\"https://www.danone.com/impact/planet/packaging-positive-circular-economy.html\">pledged\u003c/a> to make all of its evian water bottles from 100% recycled plastic by 2025.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/-bTCCB6wbks'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/-bTCCB6wbks'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>In a push to boost demand for plastic that is recycled, like HDPE, California lawmakers in 2020 passed a “minimum recycled content” bill. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB793\">Assembly Bill 793\u003c/a>, which went into effect on Jan. 1, mandates that most plastic beverage bottles contain a minimum amount of recycled content. Specifically, all plastic bottles that can be redeemed for $0.05 or $0.10 must contain no less than:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>15% recycled plastic starting Jan. 1, 2022\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>25% recycled plastic starting Jan. 1, 2025\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>50% recycled plastic starting Jan. 1, 2030\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The law, one of the first of its kind in the nation, is targeted at bottle manufacturers, most of whom still use new plastic — or “virgin resin” — which is typically cheaper than recycled plastic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11901454\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11901454 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-800x450.jpeg\" alt=\"Workers in green safety jackets and helmets sort trash along a conveyor belt. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-800x450.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-1020x574.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52999_IMG_5331_v2-qut.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers at Recology’s San Francisco recycling facility pick out plastic that can’t be recycled, including plastic bags, on July 16, 2021. \u003ccite>(Monica Lam/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In addition to HDPE, PET plastic, or polyethylene terephthalate, can be recycled into clamshells — the clear boxes that strawberries are often packed in — or spun into polyester for clothing. Some denser plastics can also be recycled into pipes, plastic lumber, carpets or buckets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But current recycling markets only accept a fraction of the plastic that’s marked with the three-arrow recycling symbol. Until a few years ago, this problem was largely concealed because the U.S. shipped most of its plastic waste to China, where it was ostensibly being recycled. But in 2018, citing its own environmental concerns, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20741-9#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20China%20announced%20an,are%20enormous%20but%20yet%20unexamined\">China began banning imports of most solid materials\u003c/a>, including most plastics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s forcing domestic recyclers to confront the real challenges of recycling plastic. For one, plastic comes in a myriad of chemical formulations, densities, transparencies and colors. Many products are made of mixed materials: a bottle of hand soap, for example, might contain four different kinds of plastic, plus a metal spring nestled inside the pump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if there were markets for all these different kinds of plastic, sorting and separating them would be a gargantuan task.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s just so many types of plastic. We can’t recycle them all. We can’t manage them all,” said Robert Reed, public relations manager for Recology, which handles San Francisco’s waste and recycling. “You can’t recycle your way out of the larger plastic problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So most plastic — in fact, almost all of it — ends up in landfills: plastic forks and knives, coffee cups and takeout boxes, used cosmetics, styrofoam trays, and most kinds of plastic bags, from shopping bags to those used for frozen peas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11901455\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11901455 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-800x532.jpeg\" alt=\"Three men talk underneath an open-air canopy in a parking lot. \" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-800x532.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-1020x678.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut-1536x1021.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS53000_IMG_5387_edit_v3-qut.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State Assemblymember Phil Ting visits a prototype for a mobile recycling program that aims to bring recycling collection trucks to various San Francisco neighborhoods, on July 16, 2021. \u003ccite>(Monica Lam/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Legislative efforts bogged down\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Democratic Assemblymember Phil Ting, who introduced AB 793, has tried to expand the law’s reach by proposing a similar bill requiring the recycling of \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB478\">thermoform plastic\u003c/a>, a group of plastics formed using heat. That legislation, however, got bogged down last year over concerns that infrastructure wasn’t yet in place to accommodate an additional plastic recycling mandate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, many of the more ambitious plastic recycling-related bills floated last year didn’t survive, including \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1371\">AB 1371\u003c/a>, introduced by state Assemblymember Laura Friedman, D-Burbank, which would have banned the use of plastic packaging for online purchases. The bill failed to receive the 41 votes necessary to make it out of the Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Globally, the e-commerce industry uses nearly 2.1 billion, with a ‘B,’ pounds of plastic packaging. … With almost a third of the world’s population now buying online, the amount of plastic packaging generated is estimated to double by 2025,” Friedman told the Assembly Natural Resources Committee last April. “This is low-hanging fruit, members, and something that is really, really a scourge.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I can’t tell you and point to a particular member of the Legislature who’s been ‘bought,’ but I can tell you, we are deeply outgunned on the environmental front.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Even with our super-duper Democratic majority and consistently two-thirds of Californians saying this is a huge problem that needs to get addressed, we have really struggled to get enough votes,” said Jennifer Fearing, an environmental lobbyist who helped promote AB 1371.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, last year shelved \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB54\">SB 54\u003c/a>, his bill to ban all single-use plastic products that aren’t recyclable or compostable — opting to buy more time to work out details with various stakeholders, in the face of formidable industry opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘Deeply outgunned’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The list of trade groups that weighed in against the bill underscores the depth of plastic’s reach within multiple industries. During an early hearing on SB 54, associations representing farming and agriculture, pet food, personal care, household products and restaurants voiced their opposition — in addition to the Plastics Industry Association, the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment, and the Flexible Packaging Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can’t tell you and point to a particular member of the Legislature who’s been ‘bought,’” said Fearing. “But I can tell you, we are deeply outgunned on the environmental front.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>More incremental efforts to reduce plastic waste, however, have proved fruitful, including a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB343\">“Truth in Labeling” bill\u003c/a>, approved by lawmakers last year, which prohibits manufacturers from calling their products recyclable or using recycling symbols or other suggestions of recyclability unless they meet CalRecycle’s criteria. The agency has until Jan. 1, 2024, to formalize a list of products it deems recyclable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tim Shestek, the American Chemistry Council’s senior director of state affairs, said his organization opposed SB 54 and several other bills last year because they failed to recognize why so many businesses use plastic over other materials in the first place: its durability and value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Does it go too far? Does it provide opportunities for the business community to comply in a reasonable fashion?” Shestek said. “In our view, it didn’t take into account some of the other trade-offs that we like to discuss: lightweighting, fuel efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions associated with potential alternatives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Shestek acknowledged that more can be done to cut down on plastic waste. His group, for example, has \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanchemistry.com/chemistry-in-america/chemistry-sustainability/circularity\">set goals\u003c/a> for its members to produce 100% recyclable plastic packaging containing at least 30% recycled plastic by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our focus is trying to get that circular loop completely closed and to be part of the solution,” he said. “I think we recognize that we have a role to play.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11901452\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11901452 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-800x450.jpeg\" alt=\"Two women standing near the bay pour water samples.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-800x450.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-1020x574.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52997_DSC_1513_edit-qut.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rebecca Sutton, left, and Alicia Gilbreath of the San Francisco Estuary Institute strain water collected from the San Francisco Bay through two sieves to sample for microplastics. \u003ccite>(Monica Lam/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Microplastics and human health\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Since plastic was first invented in the mid-1800s, worldwide production has grown to an estimated 400 million tons annually. In the U.S., \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data\">less than 9%\u003c/a> of plastic gets recycled, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Meanwhile, the production of plastic, which is made from petroleum and natural gas, is projected to increase as the fossil-fuel industry faces competition from alternative energy sources. Dozens of plastic plants are currently being built or planned, most of them on the Gulf Coast and in the Ohio River Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a fair bit of attention has been paid to the impact of plastic pollution on marine animals, who often ingest it, research on human health has only recently started to ramp up. In 2018, California legislators directed the State Water Resources Control Board to \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1422\">start studying levels of microplastics\u003c/a> — plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters — detected in municipal drinking water supplies. Some microplastics, like those used in adhesives or paints, are manufactured at a small size, while some are generated when larger pieces of plastic degrade over time. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I think a better question would be, where have microplastics not been found? We’ve found them from Mount Everest to the Mariana Trench. … I’m not sure that there exists a place that is not impacted by plastic pollution.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“One of the reasons that plastic in drinking water has received recent attention, especially by California’s legislators, is that we know that the amount is increasing,” said Scott Coffin, a senior scientist with the state water board. “Additionally, plastic never goes away. So these two factors, they necessitate some concern.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffin’s team is tasked with eventually establishing safety thresholds for the level of microplastics in the state’s water supply. He estimates that there are more than \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c00976\">2,400 chemicals\u003c/a> commonly added to plastic that are potentially dangerous for human health, including known toxins like bisphenol A (commonly known as BPA), phthalates, and a class of flame retardants called \u003ca href=\"https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/pbde.html\">PBDEs\u003c/a>, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can think of plastic as a carrier for other chemicals, and in many ways, it’s like a sponge,” Coffin said. “Once it’s in the environment, it can pick up all of the other pollutants that are already there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some microplastics are even small enough to enter into our cells, he noted. \u003ca href=\"https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4923/13/7/921\">One German study\u003c/a> found microplastics in the placentas of pregnant women — on both the maternal and fetal side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The smaller the particle, the deeper it’s going to make it into our bodies, and the more likely it is to interact with our cells, causing toxicity,” Coffin said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One major \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfei.org/projects/microplastics\">study \u003c/a>published in 2019 by the San Francisco Estuary Institute found microplastics throughout the San Francisco Bay — in the water, the mud, and both stormwater runoff and treated wastewater. The study’s authors concluded that the bay likely has higher levels of microplastic pollution than most major water bodies in the United States because it’s surrounded by dense, urban areas and has a relatively restricted water flow. The two most common particles found were fibers from clothing and bits from tires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We found microplastics in just about every sample we collected,” said Rebecca Sutton, who led the three-year study. “This is pretty consistent with what you see all around the world. Pretty much everywhere you look for it, you are going to find microplastics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffin echoed that sentiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think a better question would be, where have microplastics not been found?” he said. “We’ve found them from Mount Everest to the Mariana Trench. Every organism that we’ve ever looked at, we’ve found some levels, and at this point, I’m not sure that there exists a place that is not impacted by plastic pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The climate change impact\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>With that grim assessment in mind, the students in Jacqueline Omania’s fifth grade class at Oxford Elementary in Berkeley have set themselves an ambitious goal: to make so little trash over the course of the school year that the entire class’s garbage fits into a tiny little container about the size of a jam jar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The larger issue is that these youth are growing up in a climate crisis,” said Omania.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The main type of trash that ends up in the class’s container is plastic, so for starters, every student brings a reusable cutlery kit to school to use while eating lunch. Inside the classroom, they use unpainted pencils so that the shavings can be composted. Birthday parties feature home-baked treats instead of anything that comes in a plastic wrapper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Omania’s students were part of a successful campaign to pass a citywide ordinance in 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleyside.org/2019/01/23/berkeley-says-good-riddance-mostly-to-disposable-plastic-foodware\">limiting single-use plastics in Berkeley restaurants\u003c/a>. Her students even showed city councilmembers the tiny container they were using as a garbage can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11901451\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11901451 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-800x450.jpeg\" alt=\"Three young people stand on a rock pile. One hands an orange bucket to another.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-800x450.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-1020x574.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/01/RS52996_Copy-of-beach-cleanup-2_edit-qut.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students Sam (left), Alina and Sasha pick up trash off the beach at the Berkeley Marina, Oct. 7, 2021. \u003ccite>(Rick Santangelo/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I believe the adults need to step up so we don’t make the environmental waste in the first place,” Oxford student Jae Marie Howard told a crowded council meeting on the night the ordinance was approved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More recently, Omania’s students helped successfully push the Berkeley Unified School District to include \u003ca href=\"https://www.dailycal.org/2021/11/04/berkeley-school-board-passes-65k-climate-literacy-resolution/\">climate literacy in the K-12 curriculum\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘The larger issue is that these youth are growing up in a climate crisis.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>An increasing number of studies draw a connection between the production of plastic and climate change. One \u003ca href=\"https://www.beyondplastics.org/plastics-and-climate\">report\u003c/a> from a Vermont-based environmental group found that “as of 2020, the U.S. plastics industry is responsible for at least 232 million tons of CO2e [carbon dioxide equivalent] gas emissions per year. This amount is equivalent to the average emissions from 116 average-sized [500-megawatt] coal-fired power plants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>New opportunities\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Entrepreneurs have been tapping into growing public awareness about plastic waste. Dispatch Goods, a San Francisco-based start-up, is partnering with local restaurants, like Zuni Cafe and Mixt, to provide reusable takeout containers made of stainless steel. Customers must pay extra for the service, which includes picking up the used containers from their homes, but many do it willingly because it alleviates “eco-guilt,” said company CEO Lindsey Hoell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s like an “avocado upcharge,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have data showing that we’re driving business to restaurants that are making that shift,” she added. “It’s not just a sustainability decision, but it’s a good business decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>At Fillgood’s small storefront in Berkeley, customers can refill their own containers with common household products like dish detergent and shampoo, while LimeLoop, another Bay Area-based start-up, makes reusable packaging for shipping — among the growing number of novel business ventures offering alternatives to plastic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall, Californians will get to weigh in directly on just how much the state should regulate and limit plastic production and consumption. The \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Plastic_Waste_Reduction_Regulations_Initiative_(2022)\">California Plastic Waste Reduction Regulations Initiative\u003c/a>, which has qualified for the statewide ballot in November, would not only push through some of the efforts legislators failed to pass last year, but also levy a $0.01 fee — which critics call a tax — on all plastic packaging and disposable food service items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ACC’s Shestek said the ballot measure is “flawed” and hopes instead to work directly with lawmakers “to hash something out that gets to the same objective, but in a fashion that isn’t so punitive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Allen, the state lawmaker, sees the initiative as a good opportunity to advance his SB 54 legislation, banning single-use plastic products that aren’t recyclable or compostable. He’s confident, he said, the business community will work with him to avoid the costly political hurdle of winning a statewide vote. He’s already moved the bill out of the inactive file and back to the Senate floor to be considered during the 2022 legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The ballot measure polls very well. It’s very popular,” Allen said. “And while it’s true [that] industry could raise a lot of money and try to defeat it, I think there’s also going to be some serious money raised on the environmental side. It could really be a knock-down-drag-out fight at the end of the day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Crystal Consaul and Kat Shok contributed to this story. Want more? Check out our half-hour documentary on this topic, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bTCCB6wbks\">California’s Plastic Problem\u003c/a>. Are you a teacher? Here’s more about Jacqueline Omania’s \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/bennington.edu/plastic-free-planet/home?authuser=0\">curriculum\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "This Science Editor Has a Real Ghost Story and It's Still Freaking Him Out",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3Wa2cGG\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pretend for a moment you’re a journalist. A former science editor. Someone who drove reporters to distraction with constant requests to double- and triple-check their interpretations of facts and data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now pretend you’re harboring a secret. Not that you participated in an intensely odd and unexplainable event many years ago — but that you still don’t know what to make of it and are mulling whether it might be indicative of something most rational people reject: life after death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year my mother died, right in front of me, in a horrific accidental death. But because of something that occurred almost 30 years ago, I could not shake this strange sense that it wasn’t the end of our relationship. And now I want to test this unlikely possibility out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which brings me to the fact that I have a ghost story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mean, a real one.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Ouija board\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the 1990s I was living in a small, one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. Among my possessions was something I had picked up on a whim at a flea market — a Ouija board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You may have come across one of these things, either as a kid or in horror movies like “The Exorcist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bxE-0b9pxk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board displays all the letters of the alphabet plus the numbers one through nine, and it comes with a heart-shaped piece of plastic with a translucent window, called a planchette, which two people are supposed to lightly touch in hopes a spirit will move it across the board so individual letters are displayed through the window. If enough of the right letters in a row come up, you’ve got yourself a message from a dead person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While I didn’t believe in ghosts or other entities who might hang around and surreptitiously steal a peek at me in my underwear, I wouldn’t say I was \u003cem>unmovable\u003c/em> on the issue. I’d been wanting to try the board out, but my friends weren’t much interested, mostly because they thought it was, you know, stupid. The board’s patent was then owned by Parker Brothers, which also made the games Monopoly and Clue. I mean, who did I think I was going to contact, Colonel Mustard? Even the box the board came in made no claims of being a conduit to the dead: “Explore the mysteries of mental telepathy and the subconscious with this time tested favorite,” it advised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, when my friend Mark and his girlfriend, whom I will call Kim, came for a visit, I thought I might have snared a couple of live ones. They’d shown up with big news: Mark had just proposed, and they were now engaged. High spirits ensued. When I suggested we give the board a go, they were game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So there we are, in my living room, with Kim and I sitting on the floor across the board from each other. We both close our eyes and tilt our heads toward the ceiling. Mark’s on the couch, watching. I start calling out to any spirits in the vicinity. “Hello? Anybody out there?” — that kind of thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some point, I feel the planchette start to move under my fingers. I’m not aware I’m applying pressure to it; it just feels like my fingers really know where they want to go. Move, stop, repeat. And while this is happening, Mark starts to talk, intermittently interjecting comments: “Uh-huh.” “OK.” “Got it.” It’s like he’s on the phone and I can only hear his side of the conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After maybe 20 minutes, we end the session, and I open my eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there is Mark. \u003cem>In tears.\u003c/em> He is, like, really rattled. He \u003cem>collapses\u003c/em> into Kim’s arms and, still crying, says with a shaky voice, “I think I just talked to a dead relative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To which Kim and I are all, “Wha?” You know, because our eyes had been closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Say hello to Raymond’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Since this event, Mark has never wavered from his account of what occurred. Here’s what he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kim’s and my fingers were darting around the board, we spelled out, three times in a row, M-O-I-S-H-E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moishe is the Yiddish name Mark was called at his bar mitzvah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he responded with, “What do you want to say?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letters “W-E-D R-E-B-B-E” followed. Rebbe means rabbi in Yiddish. Mark interpreted that as an instruction to use a rabbi for his upcoming nuptials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next on the board’s mind was a warning about his brother’s driving, notoriously substandard: “Danger car brother,” it spelled. Followed by — all of this \u003cem>letter for letter\u003c/em>, mind you — “Watch over him always.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then Kim and I spelled out the thing that sent Mark over the edge: “Say hello to Raymond.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raymond is Mark’s father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now truly freaked, he tried to end the session. “OK, goodbye,” he said. To which we and/or it spelled out: “W-H-Y.” So Mark answered — and I’ll never forget, with my eyes closed, hearing this — “\u003cem>Because I’m scared\u003c/em>.” And to that the board replied, “Friend.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Mark asked, “Who \u003cem>is\u003c/em> this?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>R-A-C-H-E-L.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel was Mark’s great-grandmother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I know, it sounds unlikely, to understate the obvious. Go ahead, make fun. But I can tell you, you couldn’t be in that room without feeling a sense of \u003cem>eerie awe\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event had a profound effect on Mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was a real skeptic,” he told me recently. “Like, you die and you just shut off like a f—ing machine. But after, it changed everything for me permanently.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The incident prompted Mark and Kim to name their daughter Rachel. And when Mark would get into an argument with his brother, Kim would say, “Remember, watch over him always.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to just say, ‘No, that’s all bullshit,’” Mark said. “And now I feel strongly … there’s nothing to explain it other than there’s something to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930152\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11930152\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"An aged photograph of a young woman with dark wavy hair in a dark green shirt. She stands sideways with a hand on one hip, looking at the camera. There are plants around her and a lyre on the wall.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alice Burton, mother of Jon Brooks, who died in 2021 at the age of 80. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jon Brooks)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Subjugated by grief\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Ouija board incident has been one of my go-to stories at bars and parties ever since, and from time to time, I liked to mull over alternatives to the dead-great-grandmother explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after my mother died, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After many decades obsessing over worst-case scenarios, my anxiety finally came to fruition last year. A mere two feet from me, my mother fell to the floor in a restaurant, clinically dead. Her heart was restarted by paramedics, but she never regained consciousness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighty and increasingly frail, she had suffocated to death on a piece of steak. My mom had Parkinson’s, a known risk factor for choking. We tried the Heimlich, naturally, but to no avail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When you’re practically subjugated by grief, you find yourself entertaining some strange ideas. I kept returning to my experience with the Ouija board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can we actually communicate with dead people?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Calling in a ghostbuster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I knew Mark as a grounded person. A cynical Brooklynite, he was professionally successful, irreligious and decidedly unspiritual. Could he have been lying all these years? Not a chance; those tears were real. Was he grossly mistaken? Possibly. Had Kim been secretly guiding our fingers to form particularly relevant messages? Perhaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a reporter came to me with this account, claiming it was proof of something paranormal, I’d ask them for the video and a release form from the deceased. I mean, it would not fly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When you have a paranormal story like this, who you gonna call? A ghostbuster like Michael Shermer, founding publisher of \u003ca href=\"https://www.skeptic.com/magazine/\">Skeptic magazine\u003c/a>, who teaches a course called “Skepticism 101: How to Think Like a Scientist” at Chapman University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So here we’re kind of faced with a ‘What’s more likely?’ question. I call it \u003ca href=\"https://iep.utm.edu/hume-causation/\">Hume’s challenge\u003c/a>,” Shermer said. “What’s more likely: the miracle happened, or the person misremembered or exaggerated what they \u003cem>think\u003c/em> happened?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He quickly cited the most well-documented explanation for mysterious incidents involving the Ouija board. Discovered in the 1850s, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.skepdic.com/ideomotor.html\">ideomotor effect\u003c/a> is routinely responsible for people affecting the movement of objects without realizing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can swear up and down you’re not intentionally moving anything,” Shermer said, “but subconsciously you may be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This common explanation for Ouija board messages would hold that Kim and I, unaware of our own agency, were unwittingly moving the planchette to letters that formed cogent messages dictated by our subconscious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Shermer acknowledged, this only pertains to participants who can see the board; research has shown it doesn’t apply when they can’t. This National Geographic program demonstrated how Ouija board users can produce coherent answers to specific questions when the letters are in plain sight, but not when they are blindfolded:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRo8TytvIDw\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This common explanation doesn’t faze Mark. He said he was on the lookout for the ideomotor effect, even if he didn’t know to call it by that name. He reaffirmed for me his belief in the reality of what occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This absolutely happened,” he said. “It’s not even questionable. It’s \u003cem>100%\u003c/em>. There was no peeking your head. You and Kim weren’t even facing forward. You were facing the ceiling the whole time. Your eyes were shut tight. I was monitoring you guys as much as I was looking at the board.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added: “It spoke to me. \u003cem>Silently\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All right. Then what about this:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How far away was he from the board?” asked Shermer. “You’d have to be pretty close to be sure you are on the letter A and not the letter B, for example, or if you’re in between those.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nope, said Mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because I was actually keeping up with the letters … It was fluidly writing. It wasn’t floating. It wasn’t near the W in the air. It was like swish, swish, swish, swish, swish. Like \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/LvS4Y9dGOGg?t=51\">air hockey\u003c/a>. I mean, its movements and what I saw — it was magical.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I \u003cem>know\u003c/em> I couldn’t see the letters. But what about Kim? Maybe she’d been pulling our leg? (They are now divorced, and I was unable to speak with her.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No chance, Mark said, because she would not have produced those specific messages\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She doesn’t know Yiddish from a hole in the wall,” he said. He asserts Kim has always been “absolutely certain” the experience was genuine, and that she couldn’t see the letters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark hasn’t gone anywhere near a Ouija board since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have a fear of Ouija boards,” he said. “Because I believe that they do what they’re expected to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Spirit communication devices\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>You can buy a Ouija board at a toy store or online for about $15. Not bad if you can manage to hook up with a dead person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board is now marketed as a game for children, but its pedigree actually harkens back to the last half of the 19th century, when people were seeking out ghosts in the confines of their own homes like we watch Netflix. As I learned from Brandon Hodge, an expert on the history of what’s known in the trade as \u003ca href=\"http://www.mysteriousplanchette.com/History/history1.html\">spirit communication devices\u003c/a>, the board was invented by two Maryland businessmen and patented in 1891 as part of a long evolution of contraptions growing out of the \u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofoc0002unse_h4m2/page/1464/mode/1up\">spiritualism movement\u003c/a>, which holds that demonstrable communication with the dead is possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930153\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11930153\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-800x1053.png\" alt=\"Black and white illustration demonstrating the use of a Ouija board\" width=\"800\" height=\"1053\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-800x1053.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-1020x1342.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-160x211.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-1167x1536.png 1167w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-1557x2048.png 1557w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-1920x2526.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The patent for the original Ouija board.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard to really overstate how incredibly popular and how big of a fad these devices, sort of in turn, were,” Hodge said. Initially, ghost seekers used \u003ca href=\"http://www.mysteriousplanchette.com/Gallery/gallery.html\">automatic writing planchettes\u003c/a>, heart-shaped wooden planks sitting atop two wheels, with a pencil sticking up through an aperture so spirits could write messages through an operator. Eventually alphabetic-based means like the Ouija board supplanted these.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spiritualism bubble began to deflate after the legendary escape artist Harry Houdini started exposing psychics and mediums as frauds in the 1920s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of them tended to fall on the con artist side of things,” Hodge said. “And so it’s not a good look when you have a religion that’s largely based on taking advantage of people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite — or because of — his study of spiritualism, Hodge doesn’t believe there’s anything paranormal going on with the Ouija board. He thinks stories like mine can be explained by the ideomotor response interacting with the subconscious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OK. But what about Mark’s testimony? “\u003cem>Say hello to Raymond\u003c/em>”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That account just rings so familiar to so many of the accounts that I have studied historically over the years,” Hodge said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has sat through some odd sessions with the board himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t until my own personal experience that I began to take these sorts of experiences and these stories and these anecdotes at closer to face value,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he stops short of believing in forces at work outside of the participants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t underestimate what the human mind and body is capable of and capable of doing when we’re not even aware of those actions and those thoughts,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His theory of the Rachel encounter is that Mark, Kim and I were unconsciously collaborating on the narrative of Mark’s kindly, Jewish great-grandmother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your friend was caught up in a paranormal moment, and you were in there facilitating that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Looking at the research\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Personally, if there’s life after death, I hope it’s optional. But I wanted very much to know: Is there \u003cem>any\u003c/em> evidence we continue on long after we have completed our last Wordle?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leslie Kean thinks so. She’s the journalist who is arguably most responsible for making UFOs a\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings-navy-pilots.html\"> legitimate topic\u003c/a> for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html\">media\u003c/a>, not to mention the \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/17/ufo-hearing-congress/\">United States government\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her most recent book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246583/surviving-death-by-leslie-kean/\">Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife\u003c/a>,” spawned a Netflix \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq5V9SgO1_A\">series\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know the scientific position, the materialist position, that none of these extraordinary events happen, ever, because they can’t happen,” she told me. “I know that that’s not true because I’ve witnessed them myself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said “volumes of research” validating paranormal phenomena have been conducted. Some of these reports, 100 years or more old, were produced by such luminaries as \u003ca href=\"https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/william-james-and-the-psychics/\">William James\u003c/a>, a major American philosopher and psychologist, and \u003ca href=\"https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/william-crookes\">William Crookes\u003c/a>, an eminent British chemist and physicist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That such research constitutes proof is a minority opinion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know all that literature, and I know what scientists think, and they’re skeptical for a good reason,” said Michael Shermer. “The evidence doesn’t … rise to the level of the extraordinariness of the claim.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, even a professional skeptic like Shermer says you can’t rule anything out. He’s even got \u003ca href=\"https://michaelshermer.com/tag/ghosts/\">his own story\u003c/a> that shook his entrenched skepticism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s always good to keep an open mind,” he said, surprising me a little. “We’re not omniscient. We don’t know for sure that these things aren’t true.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Trying to contact my mom\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“We don’t know for sure that these things aren’t true.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A thin reed to cling to if you’re trying to prove something entirely irrational, but a veritable lifeline if you are in the throes of grief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I decided to go back to my old apartment building, where Mark, Kim and I had Ouija-ed back in 1995. My idea was to try it again in the same place. I slipped a note hinting at what I wanted to do under the door of the present occupant, but when I rang him from outside the building, he hung up. Inviting a stranger into his home to contact a dead woman during a pandemic was not on his bucket list, apparently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I did have a plan B: do it at my place, with my own handpicked team of Let’s-Discredit-Public-Media ghost hunters. One nifty idea I had was to rope in my pal \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/kevinstark\">Kevin Stark\u003c/a>, senior editor of KQED Science, to work the board with me. If something unexplainable happened, what better participant than the guy who must soberly preside over Bay Area climate change coverage? Also in attendance: Olivia Allen-Price, senior editor of Bay Curious, and my old friend Julie-Anne.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To rule out the ideomotor effect, the people on the board were going to be saddled with blindfolds (sleep masks, actually). Leslie Kean had suggested I meditate before the event and ask my mom to “come through,” so before people arrived I spent a half hour looking at old photos, lapsing into tears, naturally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In my back room, I present to the team that same Ouija board on which great-grandma Rachel made such a splash decades ago. Unused since then, it looks decidedly unspooky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930155\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/TheRachelOuijaBoardWithCat-scaled-e1666744401703.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11930155\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/TheRachelOuijaBoardWithCat-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"An aged box with the words 'Ouija: Mystifying Oracle' on it, with an image of hands on a planchette. A black and white cat is gingerly sniffing the side of the box.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The box containing Jon Brooks’ Ouija board, which sat unused for 27 years until recently. In 1995, the board was used to contact the spirit of a friend’s great-grandmother … maybe. (Also pictured: Jon Brooks’ cat, Zoey.) \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jon Brooks)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kevin and I start on the board, blindfolds in place. Julie-Anne is watching; Olivia is recording for our podcast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Anyone who’s out there, who’s passed away, who wants to speak with us?” I begin, with a punctuating chuckle. This is, after all, kind of embarrassing. “Anyone from the dead population?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can tell I’m not fully committed. And yet, beneath my fingers, the planchette starts to \u003cem>move\u003c/em>. I ask Julie-Anne if we’re spelling anything that makes sense. Nothing that’s forming words, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin, at least, is impressed by one thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s some kind of sensation where it starts pulling you in one direction or another,” he says. “I would think, like, ‘OK, now stop.’ But it wouldn’t stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We transfer callout duties to Julie-Anne, who has met my mom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is there anyone out there that wants to speak to us?” she says. “We’re open to hear from you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there goes the planchette again. Its light scratching against the board at least \u003cem>sounds\u003c/em> like it’s trying to say something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just give us a sign. Anything,” says Julie-Anne, after the planchette has slid around the board a few times. “We need a few vowels … that might help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nothing. It’s time to bring in the big guns. Olivia’s voice has reached hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, so why not a few more who are dead?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Spirits come join us, we want to speak with you,” she says. “Come into this room. It’s a friendly room. With people who have open minds and hearts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The planchette again coaxes my fingers this way and that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a letter,” says Olivia. ”We can work with that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And up comes another one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Good. We’re listening. We’re listening really closely. You can do it. You can give us another letter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The planchette shuffles along the board’s surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Mom?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after a couple of minutes…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not getting much, guys,” Olivia reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reluctantly, she gives up the ghost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have failed to make contact. Nothing left to do but the postmortem, so to speak. I make a little speech to my ghost crew: We gave it a fair shot but didn’t get back anything even close to what Mark reported seeing. It doesn’t prove that experience wasn’t real, just that we couldn’t replicate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can only say that we were unable to come up with a result that was anything other than what the skeptics would say we would come up with, which is, basically, nothing,” I say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listening to the tape, I can hear the desolation of that last word, the rolling tumbleweeds and whistling wind of all our futures — just as I can hear in our vain attempts to conjure up a miracle how much we wanted to witness something transcendent, something remarkable — something, like Mark said, magical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll make the scientists happy in the audience,” I glumly summarize. “We’ll make everyone else sad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why did we fail? Well, maybe the departed didn’t want to talk to our particular group. Maybe the house wasn’t right. Maybe such manifestations occur only at times of great emotion, like on the day two people have decided to get married.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or, maybe, just maybe, we did not contact my mom … because she is \u003cem>dead\u003c/em>. She is gone. Shut off like a f—ing machine, in Mark’s words. Maybe my mother will never know how sorry I am about her last moments, because she can’t know \u003cem>anything\u003c/em> anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I envy Mark’s certainty about messages from a dead relative that night so long ago. I would never begrudge them to him. I just wish I’d seen them, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am going to have to come to terms with my mother’s death without her help. I wish I had been able to save her life. I wish our last, silent exchange had been one filled with love and not the panic of imminent death. But wishes are only those.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The author Umberto Eco once wrote something about the futility of mourning a happy time as something lost, and not celebrating it as something once possessed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mom, if you can hear me, and even if you can’t, I love you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That is not paranormal. That is as real as it gets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930174\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11930174 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"An aged color photograph of a woman with wavy brown hair. She is holding a grey and white striped cat. They are both looking at the camera. \" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alice Burton, mother of Jon Brooks, who died in 2021 at the age of 80. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jon Brooks)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Twenty-seven years after an uncanny experience with a Ouija board, science editor Jon Brooks attempts to get in contact with his mother's spirit using the same device.",
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"title": "This Science Editor Has a Real Ghost Story and It's Still Freaking Him Out | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3Wa2cGG\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pretend for a moment you’re a journalist. A former science editor. Someone who drove reporters to distraction with constant requests to double- and triple-check their interpretations of facts and data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now pretend you’re harboring a secret. Not that you participated in an intensely odd and unexplainable event many years ago — but that you still don’t know what to make of it and are mulling whether it might be indicative of something most rational people reject: life after death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year my mother died, right in front of me, in a horrific accidental death. But because of something that occurred almost 30 years ago, I could not shake this strange sense that it wasn’t the end of our relationship. And now I want to test this unlikely possibility out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which brings me to the fact that I have a ghost story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mean, a real one.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Ouija board\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the 1990s I was living in a small, one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. Among my possessions was something I had picked up on a whim at a flea market — a Ouija board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You may have come across one of these things, either as a kid or in horror movies like “The Exorcist.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/_bxE-0b9pxk'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/_bxE-0b9pxk'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The board displays all the letters of the alphabet plus the numbers one through nine, and it comes with a heart-shaped piece of plastic with a translucent window, called a planchette, which two people are supposed to lightly touch in hopes a spirit will move it across the board so individual letters are displayed through the window. If enough of the right letters in a row come up, you’ve got yourself a message from a dead person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While I didn’t believe in ghosts or other entities who might hang around and surreptitiously steal a peek at me in my underwear, I wouldn’t say I was \u003cem>unmovable\u003c/em> on the issue. I’d been wanting to try the board out, but my friends weren’t much interested, mostly because they thought it was, you know, stupid. The board’s patent was then owned by Parker Brothers, which also made the games Monopoly and Clue. I mean, who did I think I was going to contact, Colonel Mustard? Even the box the board came in made no claims of being a conduit to the dead: “Explore the mysteries of mental telepathy and the subconscious with this time tested favorite,” it advised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, when my friend Mark and his girlfriend, whom I will call Kim, came for a visit, I thought I might have snared a couple of live ones. They’d shown up with big news: Mark had just proposed, and they were now engaged. High spirits ensued. When I suggested we give the board a go, they were game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So there we are, in my living room, with Kim and I sitting on the floor across the board from each other. We both close our eyes and tilt our heads toward the ceiling. Mark’s on the couch, watching. I start calling out to any spirits in the vicinity. “Hello? Anybody out there?” — that kind of thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some point, I feel the planchette start to move under my fingers. I’m not aware I’m applying pressure to it; it just feels like my fingers really know where they want to go. Move, stop, repeat. And while this is happening, Mark starts to talk, intermittently interjecting comments: “Uh-huh.” “OK.” “Got it.” It’s like he’s on the phone and I can only hear his side of the conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After maybe 20 minutes, we end the session, and I open my eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there is Mark. \u003cem>In tears.\u003c/em> He is, like, really rattled. He \u003cem>collapses\u003c/em> into Kim’s arms and, still crying, says with a shaky voice, “I think I just talked to a dead relative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To which Kim and I are all, “Wha?” You know, because our eyes had been closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Say hello to Raymond’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Since this event, Mark has never wavered from his account of what occurred. Here’s what he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kim’s and my fingers were darting around the board, we spelled out, three times in a row, M-O-I-S-H-E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moishe is the Yiddish name Mark was called at his bar mitzvah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he responded with, “What do you want to say?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letters “W-E-D R-E-B-B-E” followed. Rebbe means rabbi in Yiddish. Mark interpreted that as an instruction to use a rabbi for his upcoming nuptials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next on the board’s mind was a warning about his brother’s driving, notoriously substandard: “Danger car brother,” it spelled. Followed by — all of this \u003cem>letter for letter\u003c/em>, mind you — “Watch over him always.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then Kim and I spelled out the thing that sent Mark over the edge: “Say hello to Raymond.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raymond is Mark’s father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now truly freaked, he tried to end the session. “OK, goodbye,” he said. To which we and/or it spelled out: “W-H-Y.” So Mark answered — and I’ll never forget, with my eyes closed, hearing this — “\u003cem>Because I’m scared\u003c/em>.” And to that the board replied, “Friend.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Mark asked, “Who \u003cem>is\u003c/em> this?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>R-A-C-H-E-L.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel was Mark’s great-grandmother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I know, it sounds unlikely, to understate the obvious. Go ahead, make fun. But I can tell you, you couldn’t be in that room without feeling a sense of \u003cem>eerie awe\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event had a profound effect on Mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was a real skeptic,” he told me recently. “Like, you die and you just shut off like a f—ing machine. But after, it changed everything for me permanently.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The incident prompted Mark and Kim to name their daughter Rachel. And when Mark would get into an argument with his brother, Kim would say, “Remember, watch over him always.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to just say, ‘No, that’s all bullshit,’” Mark said. “And now I feel strongly … there’s nothing to explain it other than there’s something to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930152\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11930152\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"An aged photograph of a young woman with dark wavy hair in a dark green shirt. She stands sideways with a hand on one hip, looking at the camera. There are plants around her and a lyre on the wall.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Alice-Burton-e1666743222604.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alice Burton, mother of Jon Brooks, who died in 2021 at the age of 80. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jon Brooks)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Subjugated by grief\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Ouija board incident has been one of my go-to stories at bars and parties ever since, and from time to time, I liked to mull over alternatives to the dead-great-grandmother explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after my mother died, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After many decades obsessing over worst-case scenarios, my anxiety finally came to fruition last year. A mere two feet from me, my mother fell to the floor in a restaurant, clinically dead. Her heart was restarted by paramedics, but she never regained consciousness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighty and increasingly frail, she had suffocated to death on a piece of steak. My mom had Parkinson’s, a known risk factor for choking. We tried the Heimlich, naturally, but to no avail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When you’re practically subjugated by grief, you find yourself entertaining some strange ideas. I kept returning to my experience with the Ouija board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can we actually communicate with dead people?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Calling in a ghostbuster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I knew Mark as a grounded person. A cynical Brooklynite, he was professionally successful, irreligious and decidedly unspiritual. Could he have been lying all these years? Not a chance; those tears were real. Was he grossly mistaken? Possibly. Had Kim been secretly guiding our fingers to form particularly relevant messages? Perhaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a reporter came to me with this account, claiming it was proof of something paranormal, I’d ask them for the video and a release form from the deceased. I mean, it would not fly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When you have a paranormal story like this, who you gonna call? A ghostbuster like Michael Shermer, founding publisher of \u003ca href=\"https://www.skeptic.com/magazine/\">Skeptic magazine\u003c/a>, who teaches a course called “Skepticism 101: How to Think Like a Scientist” at Chapman University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So here we’re kind of faced with a ‘What’s more likely?’ question. I call it \u003ca href=\"https://iep.utm.edu/hume-causation/\">Hume’s challenge\u003c/a>,” Shermer said. “What’s more likely: the miracle happened, or the person misremembered or exaggerated what they \u003cem>think\u003c/em> happened?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He quickly cited the most well-documented explanation for mysterious incidents involving the Ouija board. Discovered in the 1850s, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.skepdic.com/ideomotor.html\">ideomotor effect\u003c/a> is routinely responsible for people affecting the movement of objects without realizing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can swear up and down you’re not intentionally moving anything,” Shermer said, “but subconsciously you may be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This common explanation for Ouija board messages would hold that Kim and I, unaware of our own agency, were unwittingly moving the planchette to letters that formed cogent messages dictated by our subconscious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Shermer acknowledged, this only pertains to participants who can see the board; research has shown it doesn’t apply when they can’t. This National Geographic program demonstrated how Ouija board users can produce coherent answers to specific questions when the letters are in plain sight, but not when they are blindfolded:\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/PRo8TytvIDw'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/PRo8TytvIDw'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>This common explanation doesn’t faze Mark. He said he was on the lookout for the ideomotor effect, even if he didn’t know to call it by that name. He reaffirmed for me his belief in the reality of what occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This absolutely happened,” he said. “It’s not even questionable. It’s \u003cem>100%\u003c/em>. There was no peeking your head. You and Kim weren’t even facing forward. You were facing the ceiling the whole time. Your eyes were shut tight. I was monitoring you guys as much as I was looking at the board.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added: “It spoke to me. \u003cem>Silently\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All right. Then what about this:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How far away was he from the board?” asked Shermer. “You’d have to be pretty close to be sure you are on the letter A and not the letter B, for example, or if you’re in between those.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nope, said Mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because I was actually keeping up with the letters … It was fluidly writing. It wasn’t floating. It wasn’t near the W in the air. It was like swish, swish, swish, swish, swish. Like \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/LvS4Y9dGOGg?t=51\">air hockey\u003c/a>. I mean, its movements and what I saw — it was magical.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I \u003cem>know\u003c/em> I couldn’t see the letters. But what about Kim? Maybe she’d been pulling our leg? (They are now divorced, and I was unable to speak with her.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No chance, Mark said, because she would not have produced those specific messages\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She doesn’t know Yiddish from a hole in the wall,” he said. He asserts Kim has always been “absolutely certain” the experience was genuine, and that she couldn’t see the letters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark hasn’t gone anywhere near a Ouija board since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have a fear of Ouija boards,” he said. “Because I believe that they do what they’re expected to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Spirit communication devices\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>You can buy a Ouija board at a toy store or online for about $15. Not bad if you can manage to hook up with a dead person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board is now marketed as a game for children, but its pedigree actually harkens back to the last half of the 19th century, when people were seeking out ghosts in the confines of their own homes like we watch Netflix. As I learned from Brandon Hodge, an expert on the history of what’s known in the trade as \u003ca href=\"http://www.mysteriousplanchette.com/History/history1.html\">spirit communication devices\u003c/a>, the board was invented by two Maryland businessmen and patented in 1891 as part of a long evolution of contraptions growing out of the \u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofoc0002unse_h4m2/page/1464/mode/1up\">spiritualism movement\u003c/a>, which holds that demonstrable communication with the dead is possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930153\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11930153\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-800x1053.png\" alt=\"Black and white illustration demonstrating the use of a Ouija board\" width=\"800\" height=\"1053\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-800x1053.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-1020x1342.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-160x211.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-1167x1536.png 1167w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-1557x2048.png 1557w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/Ouija-Patent-Drawing-1891-1920x2526.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The patent for the original Ouija board.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard to really overstate how incredibly popular and how big of a fad these devices, sort of in turn, were,” Hodge said. Initially, ghost seekers used \u003ca href=\"http://www.mysteriousplanchette.com/Gallery/gallery.html\">automatic writing planchettes\u003c/a>, heart-shaped wooden planks sitting atop two wheels, with a pencil sticking up through an aperture so spirits could write messages through an operator. Eventually alphabetic-based means like the Ouija board supplanted these.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spiritualism bubble began to deflate after the legendary escape artist Harry Houdini started exposing psychics and mediums as frauds in the 1920s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of them tended to fall on the con artist side of things,” Hodge said. “And so it’s not a good look when you have a religion that’s largely based on taking advantage of people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite — or because of — his study of spiritualism, Hodge doesn’t believe there’s anything paranormal going on with the Ouija board. He thinks stories like mine can be explained by the ideomotor response interacting with the subconscious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OK. But what about Mark’s testimony? “\u003cem>Say hello to Raymond\u003c/em>”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That account just rings so familiar to so many of the accounts that I have studied historically over the years,” Hodge said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has sat through some odd sessions with the board himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t until my own personal experience that I began to take these sorts of experiences and these stories and these anecdotes at closer to face value,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he stops short of believing in forces at work outside of the participants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t underestimate what the human mind and body is capable of and capable of doing when we’re not even aware of those actions and those thoughts,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His theory of the Rachel encounter is that Mark, Kim and I were unconsciously collaborating on the narrative of Mark’s kindly, Jewish great-grandmother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your friend was caught up in a paranormal moment, and you were in there facilitating that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Looking at the research\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Personally, if there’s life after death, I hope it’s optional. But I wanted very much to know: Is there \u003cem>any\u003c/em> evidence we continue on long after we have completed our last Wordle?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leslie Kean thinks so. She’s the journalist who is arguably most responsible for making UFOs a\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings-navy-pilots.html\"> legitimate topic\u003c/a> for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html\">media\u003c/a>, not to mention the \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/17/ufo-hearing-congress/\">United States government\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her most recent book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246583/surviving-death-by-leslie-kean/\">Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife\u003c/a>,” spawned a Netflix \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq5V9SgO1_A\">series\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know the scientific position, the materialist position, that none of these extraordinary events happen, ever, because they can’t happen,” she told me. “I know that that’s not true because I’ve witnessed them myself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said “volumes of research” validating paranormal phenomena have been conducted. Some of these reports, 100 years or more old, were produced by such luminaries as \u003ca href=\"https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/william-james-and-the-psychics/\">William James\u003c/a>, a major American philosopher and psychologist, and \u003ca href=\"https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/william-crookes\">William Crookes\u003c/a>, an eminent British chemist and physicist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That such research constitutes proof is a minority opinion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know all that literature, and I know what scientists think, and they’re skeptical for a good reason,” said Michael Shermer. “The evidence doesn’t … rise to the level of the extraordinariness of the claim.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, even a professional skeptic like Shermer says you can’t rule anything out. He’s even got \u003ca href=\"https://michaelshermer.com/tag/ghosts/\">his own story\u003c/a> that shook his entrenched skepticism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s always good to keep an open mind,” he said, surprising me a little. “We’re not omniscient. We don’t know for sure that these things aren’t true.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Trying to contact my mom\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“We don’t know for sure that these things aren’t true.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A thin reed to cling to if you’re trying to prove something entirely irrational, but a veritable lifeline if you are in the throes of grief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I decided to go back to my old apartment building, where Mark, Kim and I had Ouija-ed back in 1995. My idea was to try it again in the same place. I slipped a note hinting at what I wanted to do under the door of the present occupant, but when I rang him from outside the building, he hung up. Inviting a stranger into his home to contact a dead woman during a pandemic was not on his bucket list, apparently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I did have a plan B: do it at my place, with my own handpicked team of Let’s-Discredit-Public-Media ghost hunters. One nifty idea I had was to rope in my pal \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/kevinstark\">Kevin Stark\u003c/a>, senior editor of KQED Science, to work the board with me. If something unexplainable happened, what better participant than the guy who must soberly preside over Bay Area climate change coverage? Also in attendance: Olivia Allen-Price, senior editor of Bay Curious, and my old friend Julie-Anne.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To rule out the ideomotor effect, the people on the board were going to be saddled with blindfolds (sleep masks, actually). Leslie Kean had suggested I meditate before the event and ask my mom to “come through,” so before people arrived I spent a half hour looking at old photos, lapsing into tears, naturally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In my back room, I present to the team that same Ouija board on which great-grandma Rachel made such a splash decades ago. Unused since then, it looks decidedly unspooky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930155\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/TheRachelOuijaBoardWithCat-scaled-e1666744401703.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11930155\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/TheRachelOuijaBoardWithCat-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"An aged box with the words 'Ouija: Mystifying Oracle' on it, with an image of hands on a planchette. A black and white cat is gingerly sniffing the side of the box.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The box containing Jon Brooks’ Ouija board, which sat unused for 27 years until recently. In 1995, the board was used to contact the spirit of a friend’s great-grandmother … maybe. (Also pictured: Jon Brooks’ cat, Zoey.) \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jon Brooks)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kevin and I start on the board, blindfolds in place. Julie-Anne is watching; Olivia is recording for our podcast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Anyone who’s out there, who’s passed away, who wants to speak with us?” I begin, with a punctuating chuckle. This is, after all, kind of embarrassing. “Anyone from the dead population?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can tell I’m not fully committed. And yet, beneath my fingers, the planchette starts to \u003cem>move\u003c/em>. I ask Julie-Anne if we’re spelling anything that makes sense. Nothing that’s forming words, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin, at least, is impressed by one thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s some kind of sensation where it starts pulling you in one direction or another,” he says. “I would think, like, ‘OK, now stop.’ But it wouldn’t stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We transfer callout duties to Julie-Anne, who has met my mom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is there anyone out there that wants to speak to us?” she says. “We’re open to hear from you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there goes the planchette again. Its light scratching against the board at least \u003cem>sounds\u003c/em> like it’s trying to say something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just give us a sign. Anything,” says Julie-Anne, after the planchette has slid around the board a few times. “We need a few vowels … that might help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nothing. It’s time to bring in the big guns. Olivia’s voice has reached hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, so why not a few more who are dead?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Spirits come join us, we want to speak with you,” she says. “Come into this room. It’s a friendly room. With people who have open minds and hearts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The planchette again coaxes my fingers this way and that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a letter,” says Olivia. ”We can work with that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And up comes another one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Good. We’re listening. We’re listening really closely. You can do it. You can give us another letter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The planchette shuffles along the board’s surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Mom?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after a couple of minutes…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not getting much, guys,” Olivia reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reluctantly, she gives up the ghost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have failed to make contact. Nothing left to do but the postmortem, so to speak. I make a little speech to my ghost crew: We gave it a fair shot but didn’t get back anything even close to what Mark reported seeing. It doesn’t prove that experience wasn’t real, just that we couldn’t replicate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can only say that we were unable to come up with a result that was anything other than what the skeptics would say we would come up with, which is, basically, nothing,” I say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listening to the tape, I can hear the desolation of that last word, the rolling tumbleweeds and whistling wind of all our futures — just as I can hear in our vain attempts to conjure up a miracle how much we wanted to witness something transcendent, something remarkable — something, like Mark said, magical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll make the scientists happy in the audience,” I glumly summarize. “We’ll make everyone else sad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why did we fail? Well, maybe the departed didn’t want to talk to our particular group. Maybe the house wasn’t right. Maybe such manifestations occur only at times of great emotion, like on the day two people have decided to get married.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or, maybe, just maybe, we did not contact my mom … because she is \u003cem>dead\u003c/em>. She is gone. Shut off like a f—ing machine, in Mark’s words. Maybe my mother will never know how sorry I am about her last moments, because she can’t know \u003cem>anything\u003c/em> anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I envy Mark’s certainty about messages from a dead relative that night so long ago. I would never begrudge them to him. I just wish I’d seen them, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am going to have to come to terms with my mother’s death without her help. I wish I had been able to save her life. I wish our last, silent exchange had been one filled with love and not the panic of imminent death. But wishes are only those.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The author Umberto Eco once wrote something about the futility of mourning a happy time as something lost, and not celebrating it as something once possessed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mom, if you can hear me, and even if you can’t, I love you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That is not paranormal. That is as real as it gets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11930174\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11930174 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"An aged color photograph of a woman with wavy brown hair. She is holding a grey and white striped cat. They are both looking at the camera. \" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/10/JonsMomWithCat-scaled-e1666803559487.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alice Burton, mother of Jon Brooks, who died in 2021 at the age of 80. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jon Brooks)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "When and Why Did the Bay Area Become So Liberal?",
"headTitle": "When and Why Did the Bay Area Become So Liberal? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This article first published on August 20, 2020. It has been updated to reflect recent events, including the death of Lawrence Ferlinghetti on February 22, 2021. You can find a transcript of this Bay Curious episode \u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3N6YHg3\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a little hard to believe today, but the GOP nominated perhaps their most conservative presidential candidate in modern history right here in the Bay Area — at the Cow Palace in Daly City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no question that today, the nine-county Bay Area is solidly blue. But the first thing you notice when you ask people \u003ci>when\u003c/i> that happened, is that you get a lot of different answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“San Francisco is the center of that progressive liberal ethos. And I think it begins with the origins of the city in the Gold Rush,” said former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would be like, \u003ci>18\u003c/i>50. But maybe it was more like the \u003ci>19\u003c/i>50s with the Beat Generation writers, like Allen Ginsburg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a sort of seminal moment, a turning point for the whole generation in the same way that Woodstock was for the hippies in that they basically saw that they existed, that there was this whole subculture of pot smoking, jazz loving, poetry, writing, painting-making people,” says writer Steve Silberman who came to San Francisco in 1979 and was friends with Ginsburg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or maybe it was 10 years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think if you had to look at the one seminal event that changed things, it was the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964,” said former Republican Party chair Duf Sundheim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s truth in all that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>New Arrivals Have Long Shaped Local Politics\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The seeds of San Francisco’s liberal leanings were planted early and those seeds have one thing in common, says a guy who was part of the Bay Area’s liberal arc — Art Agnos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the years, what I call a cultural ideology has evolved in San Francisco from that time where people come to this city seeking opportunity and freedom,” he said recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agnos was one of those people. Born in Springfield, Mass., he eventually got on a Greyhound bus and headed west.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then 10 years after I got off that bus, I was elected to the state Legislature. In 20 years. I’m the mayor of this magnificent city,” Agnos said. “Nowhere else in American could that happen. And so they want to change things. And San Francisco encourages that change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11765137\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11765137\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/agnos2-800x586.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"586\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/agnos2-800x586.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/agnos2-160x117.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/agnos2.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mayor Art Agnos fields questions during a news conference in 1989 announcing the city’s master plan on homelessness. \u003ccite>(Sam Forencich/SF Chronicle)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That story — leaving the place you were born and coming to San Francisco — has been repeated for 150 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see people who are not happy, not satisfied, express some kind of discomfort with the status quo from wherever they came from,” Agnos said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether that status quo is poverty, political oppression, homophobia or racism, San Francisco became a beacon for people who wanted something different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And a lot of those people — like Agnos — became very active in politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the brilliant politicians we see today, whether it’s Nancy Pelosi, whether it is Kamala Harris, Willie Brown, Leo McCarthy, Phil Burton, all of them \u003cem>came\u003c/em> to this city,” Agnos said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phil Burton is a key part of that. It was Burton’s brother, John, who pushed another newcomer to San Francisco toward politics: Willie Brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834223\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 501px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834223\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0358.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"501\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0358.jpg 501w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0358-160x128.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 501px) 100vw, 501px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblyman Leo T. McCarthy, Assemblyman Willie L. Brown, Congressman Phil Burton, and Art Agnos in the early 1980’s. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Brown came to have a huge influence on California and Bay Area politics — some say he still does — as Assembly Speaker and later as mayor. But when he got here in 1951?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was not an observer of what was going on politically in San Francisco, although I instantly became a member of the youth group of the NAACP,” Brown said. “They talked about things like Black people becoming police officers, Black people driving busses, Black people becoming deputy sheriffs, Black people becoming firemen. I heard all those things in the NAACP.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown enrolled at what is now San Francisco State University. That’s where he met a guy named John Burton. He was Phillip Burton’s brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I heard things about politics from Burton. As a matter of fact, I joined the Young Democrats because Burton encouraged me and invited me to join,” Brown says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834227\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-11834227 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Willie Brown addresses guests at the dedication to the Willie L. Brown Jr. Bridge (better known as the Bay Bridge) in 2014, \u003ccite>(Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Brown says then, the political division wasn’t left or right, red or blue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a separation of newcomers and old timers. We didn’t call them liberals and we didn’t call them conservatives. But there were newcomers and old timers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newcomers like him — and the Burtons.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Cultural Changes Drive Politics\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That was in the mid-50s. San Francisco still had a pretty vibrant Republican party. In 1955 the city elected a Republican, George Christopher, as the city’s mayor in a landslide. He was reelected four years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was an alternate cultural movement underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834513\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 322px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834513\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAD-2816.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"322\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAD-2816.jpg 322w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAD-2816-160x199.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 322px) 100vw, 322px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading poetry at The Coffee Gallery on Grant Avenue in 1959. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There was a lot of poetry and cultural ferment going on in the city at the time, in part because rents were still pretty low in neighborhoods like North Beach. City Lights Bookstore was already here, owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti,” said author \u003ca href=\"https://www.stevesilberman.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steve Silberman\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That ferment was a stew of alternate voices, writing and thinking in the Bay Area — a generation known as the Beats. They had art shows and readings, studied Buddhism and took a lot of drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thinking back on the 1950s, Silberman says, “It was a sort of seminal moment, a turning point for the whole generation … in that they basically saw that they existed, that there was this whole subculture of pot smoking, jazz loving, poetry, writing, painting-making people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834515\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 282px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834515\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/alan.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"282\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/alan.jpg 282w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/alan-160x227.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 282px) 100vw, 282px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poet Allen Ginsberg marching with a group of pickets protesting U.S. policies in Vietnam in 1963. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While that whole countercultural thing is happening, discrimination in the South created a great migration of Black Americans to the Bay Area and other parts of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were not run of the mill. These were the talented tenth, the best of the best. They came to the West Coast and it liberalized the Bay Area because it diversified it,” said USF political science professor James Taylor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834511\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 497px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834511\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/MOR-0681.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"497\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/MOR-0681.jpg 497w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/MOR-0681-160x129.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie with Republican Mayor George Christopher. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Taylor says you can’t talk about the Bay Area’s changing politics without mentioning the jazz scene that developed in the city’s Fillmore District. And the conductor of that cacophony of liberalization — that guy named Phillip Burton.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Burton Builds a Liberal Movement as Republicans Migrate Right\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the 1960s Phillip Burton, a gruff, plain spoken and passionate political strategist, begins pulling together a liberal movement involving a wide range of groups — including labor unions, Black people and gay folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although Burton’s name does not get mentioned as regularly as it used to. It hangs over the city because it set the foundation for what the power establishment in the city is right now, which is mainstream liberalism,” Taylor says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phil Burton helped Willie Brown, a young defense lawyer whose clients included prostitutes and pimps, get elected to the State Assembly in 1964.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That same year Republicans held their national convention at the Cow Palace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834514\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 475px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834514\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/protesters.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/protesters.jpg 475w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/protesters-160x135.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 475px) 100vw, 475px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Civil rights demonstrators blocked the an exit at the Cow Palace during the Republican National Convention in 1964. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There was a split between two wings of the party, with the more liberal segment supporting civil rights, while Sen. Barry Goldwater’s camp opposing it. Goldwater won out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He ultimately lost California and the nation to Lyndon B. Johnson in a landslide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By that time Democrats had almost 60% of registered voters in the nine-county Bay Area, compared to 40% for Republicans. There were still plenty of Republicans representing the Bay Area in Congress and the state legislature. But as Willie Brown notes, they were a different kind of Republican than the ones we think of today, especially in places like Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And it was not conservative, but it was Republican, period. It was traditional Republicans rather than the kind that Goldwater advocated,” Brown says, adding that at that point there weren’t huge partisan differences on the major issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Things like education, infrastructure or pollution — all those things were merged,” Brown says, meaning the two parties largely agreed or had modest disagreements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But social issues that would come to divide Democrats and Republicans more sharply were becoming more evident.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hippies Come to Town as Burton’s Influence Grows\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1967, thousands of young people from all over the country — hippies they were called — converged on Golden Gate Park and the Haight Ashbury neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The music, sex and drugs attracted a lot of free-spirited young people to San Francisco, and some stuck to channel their energy into causes like the environment and the women’s movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t any political party … It was activists creating the opportunity. And many of the people who embraced that early just happened have already been registered as Democrats,” said Willie Brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When San Francisco Mayor Joe Alioto went to the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 to introduced the party’s nominee, there was a lot of booing from Democrats opposed to the war. And representing the party’s anti-war faction? Congressman Phillip Burton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That progressive strain in the Bay Area, especially in San Francisco and Oakland, was became known as the Burton Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Burton machine was an assembly of people who shared what I’m calling in our discussion here, the cultural ideology of San Francisco, which they turned into politics,” said Agnos, who was part of that machine. “They brought together an assembly of people, activist volunteers, Civil Rights Act, all of that. And they hung together with a loyalty because of their common commitment to the issues that they all believed in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1974, the Burton Machine helped elect State Senator George Moscone as mayor of San Francisco. It ushered in a progressive era in the city which included the election of the first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk. It all came crashing down in 1978 when Moscone and Milk were murdered at City Hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834516\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 497px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834516\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0263.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"497\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0263.jpg 497w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0263-160x129.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A crowd gathers at City Hall after the murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The Birth of “San Francisco Democrats”\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After the assassinations, Dianne Feinstein set out to boost the city’s image by hosting the Democratic National Convention in 1984.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feinstein was on the cover of Time Magazine as one of two women being considered to be former Vice President Walter Mondale’s running mate. As it turned out the other woman on the cover — Geraldine Ferraro — was picked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides Ferraro, the first woman on a major party ticket, the talk of the convention was the keynote speech of New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who belittled President Reagan’s vision of America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOdIqKsv624&feature=youtu.be\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Out of that convention came a phrase that came to symbolize liberals: “San Francisco Democrats.” It was used by Republicans as shorthand for extreme and liberal … anti-war, pro-gay rights and supporting a woman’s access to an abortion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By then, the Bay Area had moved solidly to the left. The last Bay Area county carried by a Republican presidential candidate was Napa, carried by George Bush in 1988. Bill Clinton carried the state in 1992 and since then, it’s been sea of blue.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>National GOP Moves Further Right\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Duf Sundheim was chair of the California GOP when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. He says the 1990s were when Republicans fell off the cliff. Polling showed when California voters were asked who they thought of when they thought of Republican, most said GOP firebrand Newt Gingrich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And we asked them what their view was of a California Democrat. It was Bill Clinton. And it was very clear that people identified much more closely with Bill Clinton than they did with Newt Gingrich,” Sundheim said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon the national Republican party realized California was a lost cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once there was a sense that we couldn’t hold on to California, we couldn’t hold on to New England, then those more conservative views came to dominate the Republican Party. And more liberal areas like the Bay Area really went heavily Democratic,” Sundheim said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By then issues like immigration, gun control, gay rights and abortion were front and center. Sundheim remembers how hard it became to raise money from Bay Area corporations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The CEO would say, look, Duf, I’d love to write a check to the Republican Party, but if my wife ever sees that I write a check to the anti-abortion party, I’m gonna get divorced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 2001 there was just one Republican congressman from the Bay Area, moderate Tom Campbell. And the number of Bay Area Republicans in Sacramento was shrinking fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last Republican to represent the region in Sacramento was Catharine Baker, who won an Assembly seat in the East Bay in 2014.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I was in the legislature, I had a 100% score from Howard Jarvis and the California Taxpayers Association for my fiscal discipline,” Baker said recently. “The same year I had a 100% rating from Equality California and Planned Parenthood. That’s just the kind of Republican I was and continue to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baker sided with Democrats on issues like housing, LGBT rights and the environment. But by 2018, having that “R” next to her name was a scarlet letter. And she lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say 80% of the feedback we receive is ‘I know who you are. I like what you do and how you vote. But I cannot vote for a Republican.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today the entire Bay Area delegations to Sacramento and Washington are all Democrats. Registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans — who are essentially a third party now — there are now more voters registered no party preference than Republican. To Democrats, that’s a complete victory. Catharine Baker sees it differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think all the challenges that face our communities and California are best solved by both parties being in the room, even when you don’t have to have the votes of both parties,” Baker said. “You have longer lasting, better solutions. And that’s what we really need, not just now, but in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s hard to see Republicans making a comeback in California, let alone the liberal Bay Area any time soon, especially after four years of Donald Trump and his enduring impact on the Republican party nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "There’s no question that today, the nine-county Bay Area is solidly blue. But if you ask people when that happened, you get a lot of different answers.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This article first published on August 20, 2020. It has been updated to reflect recent events, including the death of Lawrence Ferlinghetti on February 22, 2021. You can find a transcript of this Bay Curious episode \u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3N6YHg3\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a little hard to believe today, but the GOP nominated perhaps their most conservative presidential candidate in modern history right here in the Bay Area — at the Cow Palace in Daly City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no question that today, the nine-county Bay Area is solidly blue. But the first thing you notice when you ask people \u003ci>when\u003c/i> that happened, is that you get a lot of different answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“San Francisco is the center of that progressive liberal ethos. And I think it begins with the origins of the city in the Gold Rush,” said former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would be like, \u003ci>18\u003c/i>50. But maybe it was more like the \u003ci>19\u003c/i>50s with the Beat Generation writers, like Allen Ginsburg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a sort of seminal moment, a turning point for the whole generation in the same way that Woodstock was for the hippies in that they basically saw that they existed, that there was this whole subculture of pot smoking, jazz loving, poetry, writing, painting-making people,” says writer Steve Silberman who came to San Francisco in 1979 and was friends with Ginsburg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or maybe it was 10 years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think if you had to look at the one seminal event that changed things, it was the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964,” said former Republican Party chair Duf Sundheim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s truth in all that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>New Arrivals Have Long Shaped Local Politics\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The seeds of San Francisco’s liberal leanings were planted early and those seeds have one thing in common, says a guy who was part of the Bay Area’s liberal arc — Art Agnos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the years, what I call a cultural ideology has evolved in San Francisco from that time where people come to this city seeking opportunity and freedom,” he said recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agnos was one of those people. Born in Springfield, Mass., he eventually got on a Greyhound bus and headed west.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then 10 years after I got off that bus, I was elected to the state Legislature. In 20 years. I’m the mayor of this magnificent city,” Agnos said. “Nowhere else in American could that happen. And so they want to change things. And San Francisco encourages that change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11765137\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11765137\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/agnos2-800x586.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"586\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/agnos2-800x586.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/agnos2-160x117.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/agnos2.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mayor Art Agnos fields questions during a news conference in 1989 announcing the city’s master plan on homelessness. \u003ccite>(Sam Forencich/SF Chronicle)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That story — leaving the place you were born and coming to San Francisco — has been repeated for 150 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see people who are not happy, not satisfied, express some kind of discomfort with the status quo from wherever they came from,” Agnos said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether that status quo is poverty, political oppression, homophobia or racism, San Francisco became a beacon for people who wanted something different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And a lot of those people — like Agnos — became very active in politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the brilliant politicians we see today, whether it’s Nancy Pelosi, whether it is Kamala Harris, Willie Brown, Leo McCarthy, Phil Burton, all of them \u003cem>came\u003c/em> to this city,” Agnos said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phil Burton is a key part of that. It was Burton’s brother, John, who pushed another newcomer to San Francisco toward politics: Willie Brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834223\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 501px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834223\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0358.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"501\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0358.jpg 501w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0358-160x128.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 501px) 100vw, 501px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblyman Leo T. McCarthy, Assemblyman Willie L. Brown, Congressman Phil Burton, and Art Agnos in the early 1980’s. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Brown came to have a huge influence on California and Bay Area politics — some say he still does — as Assembly Speaker and later as mayor. But when he got here in 1951?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was not an observer of what was going on politically in San Francisco, although I instantly became a member of the youth group of the NAACP,” Brown said. “They talked about things like Black people becoming police officers, Black people driving busses, Black people becoming deputy sheriffs, Black people becoming firemen. I heard all those things in the NAACP.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown enrolled at what is now San Francisco State University. That’s where he met a guy named John Burton. He was Phillip Burton’s brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I heard things about politics from Burton. As a matter of fact, I joined the Young Democrats because Burton encouraged me and invited me to join,” Brown says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834227\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-11834227 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/RS8643_IMG_2139.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Willie Brown addresses guests at the dedication to the Willie L. Brown Jr. Bridge (better known as the Bay Bridge) in 2014, \u003ccite>(Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Brown says then, the political division wasn’t left or right, red or blue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a separation of newcomers and old timers. We didn’t call them liberals and we didn’t call them conservatives. But there were newcomers and old timers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newcomers like him — and the Burtons.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Cultural Changes Drive Politics\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That was in the mid-50s. San Francisco still had a pretty vibrant Republican party. In 1955 the city elected a Republican, George Christopher, as the city’s mayor in a landslide. He was reelected four years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was an alternate cultural movement underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834513\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 322px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834513\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAD-2816.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"322\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAD-2816.jpg 322w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAD-2816-160x199.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 322px) 100vw, 322px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading poetry at The Coffee Gallery on Grant Avenue in 1959. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There was a lot of poetry and cultural ferment going on in the city at the time, in part because rents were still pretty low in neighborhoods like North Beach. City Lights Bookstore was already here, owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti,” said author \u003ca href=\"https://www.stevesilberman.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steve Silberman\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That ferment was a stew of alternate voices, writing and thinking in the Bay Area — a generation known as the Beats. They had art shows and readings, studied Buddhism and took a lot of drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thinking back on the 1950s, Silberman says, “It was a sort of seminal moment, a turning point for the whole generation … in that they basically saw that they existed, that there was this whole subculture of pot smoking, jazz loving, poetry, writing, painting-making people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834515\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 282px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834515\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/alan.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"282\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/alan.jpg 282w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/alan-160x227.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 282px) 100vw, 282px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poet Allen Ginsberg marching with a group of pickets protesting U.S. policies in Vietnam in 1963. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While that whole countercultural thing is happening, discrimination in the South created a great migration of Black Americans to the Bay Area and other parts of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were not run of the mill. These were the talented tenth, the best of the best. They came to the West Coast and it liberalized the Bay Area because it diversified it,” said USF political science professor James Taylor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834511\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 497px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834511\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/MOR-0681.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"497\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/MOR-0681.jpg 497w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/MOR-0681-160x129.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie with Republican Mayor George Christopher. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Taylor says you can’t talk about the Bay Area’s changing politics without mentioning the jazz scene that developed in the city’s Fillmore District. And the conductor of that cacophony of liberalization — that guy named Phillip Burton.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Burton Builds a Liberal Movement as Republicans Migrate Right\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the 1960s Phillip Burton, a gruff, plain spoken and passionate political strategist, begins pulling together a liberal movement involving a wide range of groups — including labor unions, Black people and gay folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although Burton’s name does not get mentioned as regularly as it used to. It hangs over the city because it set the foundation for what the power establishment in the city is right now, which is mainstream liberalism,” Taylor says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phil Burton helped Willie Brown, a young defense lawyer whose clients included prostitutes and pimps, get elected to the State Assembly in 1964.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That same year Republicans held their national convention at the Cow Palace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834514\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 475px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834514\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/protesters.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/protesters.jpg 475w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/protesters-160x135.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 475px) 100vw, 475px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Civil rights demonstrators blocked the an exit at the Cow Palace during the Republican National Convention in 1964. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There was a split between two wings of the party, with the more liberal segment supporting civil rights, while Sen. Barry Goldwater’s camp opposing it. Goldwater won out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He ultimately lost California and the nation to Lyndon B. Johnson in a landslide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By that time Democrats had almost 60% of registered voters in the nine-county Bay Area, compared to 40% for Republicans. There were still plenty of Republicans representing the Bay Area in Congress and the state legislature. But as Willie Brown notes, they were a different kind of Republican than the ones we think of today, especially in places like Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And it was not conservative, but it was Republican, period. It was traditional Republicans rather than the kind that Goldwater advocated,” Brown says, adding that at that point there weren’t huge partisan differences on the major issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Things like education, infrastructure or pollution — all those things were merged,” Brown says, meaning the two parties largely agreed or had modest disagreements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But social issues that would come to divide Democrats and Republicans more sharply were becoming more evident.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hippies Come to Town as Burton’s Influence Grows\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1967, thousands of young people from all over the country — hippies they were called — converged on Golden Gate Park and the Haight Ashbury neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The music, sex and drugs attracted a lot of free-spirited young people to San Francisco, and some stuck to channel their energy into causes like the environment and the women’s movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t any political party … It was activists creating the opportunity. And many of the people who embraced that early just happened have already been registered as Democrats,” said Willie Brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When San Francisco Mayor Joe Alioto went to the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 to introduced the party’s nominee, there was a lot of booing from Democrats opposed to the war. And representing the party’s anti-war faction? Congressman Phillip Burton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That progressive strain in the Bay Area, especially in San Francisco and Oakland, was became known as the Burton Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Burton machine was an assembly of people who shared what I’m calling in our discussion here, the cultural ideology of San Francisco, which they turned into politics,” said Agnos, who was part of that machine. “They brought together an assembly of people, activist volunteers, Civil Rights Act, all of that. And they hung together with a loyalty because of their common commitment to the issues that they all believed in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1974, the Burton Machine helped elect State Senator George Moscone as mayor of San Francisco. It ushered in a progressive era in the city which included the election of the first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk. It all came crashing down in 1978 when Moscone and Milk were murdered at City Hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11834516\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 497px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11834516\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0263.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"497\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0263.jpg 497w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/08/AAZ-0263-160x129.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A crowd gathers at City Hall after the murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The Birth of “San Francisco Democrats”\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After the assassinations, Dianne Feinstein set out to boost the city’s image by hosting the Democratic National Convention in 1984.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feinstein was on the cover of Time Magazine as one of two women being considered to be former Vice President Walter Mondale’s running mate. As it turned out the other woman on the cover — Geraldine Ferraro — was picked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides Ferraro, the first woman on a major party ticket, the talk of the convention was the keynote speech of New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who belittled President Reagan’s vision of America.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/kOdIqKsv624'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/kOdIqKsv624'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Out of that convention came a phrase that came to symbolize liberals: “San Francisco Democrats.” It was used by Republicans as shorthand for extreme and liberal … anti-war, pro-gay rights and supporting a woman’s access to an abortion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By then, the Bay Area had moved solidly to the left. The last Bay Area county carried by a Republican presidential candidate was Napa, carried by George Bush in 1988. Bill Clinton carried the state in 1992 and since then, it’s been sea of blue.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>National GOP Moves Further Right\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Duf Sundheim was chair of the California GOP when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. He says the 1990s were when Republicans fell off the cliff. Polling showed when California voters were asked who they thought of when they thought of Republican, most said GOP firebrand Newt Gingrich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And we asked them what their view was of a California Democrat. It was Bill Clinton. And it was very clear that people identified much more closely with Bill Clinton than they did with Newt Gingrich,” Sundheim said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon the national Republican party realized California was a lost cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once there was a sense that we couldn’t hold on to California, we couldn’t hold on to New England, then those more conservative views came to dominate the Republican Party. And more liberal areas like the Bay Area really went heavily Democratic,” Sundheim said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By then issues like immigration, gun control, gay rights and abortion were front and center. Sundheim remembers how hard it became to raise money from Bay Area corporations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The CEO would say, look, Duf, I’d love to write a check to the Republican Party, but if my wife ever sees that I write a check to the anti-abortion party, I’m gonna get divorced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 2001 there was just one Republican congressman from the Bay Area, moderate Tom Campbell. And the number of Bay Area Republicans in Sacramento was shrinking fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last Republican to represent the region in Sacramento was Catharine Baker, who won an Assembly seat in the East Bay in 2014.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I was in the legislature, I had a 100% score from Howard Jarvis and the California Taxpayers Association for my fiscal discipline,” Baker said recently. “The same year I had a 100% rating from Equality California and Planned Parenthood. That’s just the kind of Republican I was and continue to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baker sided with Democrats on issues like housing, LGBT rights and the environment. But by 2018, having that “R” next to her name was a scarlet letter. And she lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say 80% of the feedback we receive is ‘I know who you are. I like what you do and how you vote. But I cannot vote for a Republican.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today the entire Bay Area delegations to Sacramento and Washington are all Democrats. Registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans — who are essentially a third party now — there are now more voters registered no party preference than Republican. To Democrats, that’s a complete victory. Catharine Baker sees it differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think all the challenges that face our communities and California are best solved by both parties being in the room, even when you don’t have to have the votes of both parties,” Baker said. “You have longer lasting, better solutions. And that’s what we really need, not just now, but in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s hard to see Republicans making a comeback in California, let alone the liberal Bay Area any time soon, especially after four years of Donald Trump and his enduring impact on the Republican party nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3EY8NgW\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It bewilders Bay Area newcomers — at least, the ones who show up wearing sandals and sunglasses and quickly find themselves shopping for a sweatshirt. But as any local will attest, here you can enjoy clear skies and mild temperatures the same day you experience whipping winds and clammy fog, often just a few short miles apart. Microclimates are everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That got Bay Curious listener Scott wondering: “Bay area microclimates! Why are there so many? Where are they? How do they differ?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll get to all of that, as well as another listener question to do with weather, but first let’s define the word microclimate. Casually, it refers to the phenomenon of sometimes vastly different weather in what feels like adjacent zip codes, like how it’s routinely foggy in San Francisco’s Richmond District, while a few miles away the Mission enjoys sunshine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this usage of the term “microclimate” isn’t the most scientific, says Andrew Oliphant, who studies micrometeorology as a professor in the department of Geography and Environment at San Francisco State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we talk about microclimates of the Bay Area, we’re actually a little bit beyond the traditional scales of micro,” Oliphant says. A proper microclimate might range from less than a city block up to about half a mile. So when denizens of the Bay Area bemoan its microclimates, “we’re really talking more neighborhood-to-neighborhood scale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And these many variations don’t lend themselves to neat lines on a map. They’re more like fine gradations, making it tough for experts to pinpoint how many microclimates there are in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So why so much variation?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11827885\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11827885\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-1020x653.jpg\" alt=\"View of San Francisco from Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley.\" width=\"640\" height=\"410\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-1020x653.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-800x512.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-160x102.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-1536x984.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-2048x1311.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-1920x1229.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Because it’s surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco tends to enjoy relatively mild temperatures, but that benefit diminishes further inland, leading to disparate microclimates. \u003ccite>(Daniel Potter/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are a few reasons for our variable conditions, says Darrel Hess, who is the author of a physical geography textbook, as well as an instructor at City College of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One is our location next to the water,” he says. San Francisco, with water to its north, east and west, rarely gets much hotter or cooler than the ocean. The further inland you get, the less of that benefit you enjoy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As you go over each ridge in the coast ranges, as you move away from the ocean, the weather and climate becomes increasingly continental — in other words, you have less ocean influence,” Hess says. That’s why a city like Livermore, some 20 miles east of the Bay, can get downright hot in summer and chilly in winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Terrain is also a factor, as when a summer fog seeps from the ocean toward lower elevations around the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">One of the most beautiful pics of San Francisco I’ve ever seen, taken tonight by Renata Miller. \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/P4zIgBcAHx\">pic.twitter.com/P4zIgBcAHx\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/1158602313470107650?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 6, 2019\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“Almost always it comes in first right through the Golden Gate. That’s the only sea-level opening in the coast ranges,” Hess says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the same is true for rain. When a winter storm makes its way east from the ocean, mountains in the storm’s path are sure to get drenched, while the sheltered places behind them, not so much. The windward side of the Santa Cruz mountains might soak up several inches of rainfall while, further east, San Jose gets just a fraction of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We say San Jose’s in the rain shadow,” Hess says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hot city, weird weather?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our second question on weather came from Yvine, who asked, “Does the urban heat island have any influence on San Francisco Bay’s weather process?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Urban heat islands are sprawling cityscapes with lots of asphalt and not much greenery. They get and stay hotter on bright days, because buildings and parking lots tend to hold more heat from the sun than vegetation. And they can indeed affect the weather, at least in some places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, in Houston, Texas, a thunderstorm might be right on the edge of happening if the air gets just a little hotter. If the only place that’s quite hot enough is an urban heat island, a sudden storm could pop up just in that spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But does this happen in the Bay Area?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCblqHZgNKo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out, San Francisco isn’t a great example of an urban heat island. Being surrounded on three sides by water limits the requisite sprawl. But Oliphant says you can feel the difference it makes in a place like Golden Gate Park, where some days it might be seven degrees cooler than the surrounding neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the effect may be more pronounced in other parts of the Bay Area, like Oakland and the South Bay, says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with joint affiliations with UCLA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and The Nature Conservancy of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swain doubts heat islands affect the weather here much, but as someone who models the complex atmosphere, he says even small nudges can have surprising impacts, “so I would never say never.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wind tunnels and fog tendrils\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s built environment may also affect the weather, says Swain. He points to how wind is channeled between the growing number of tall buildings downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have wind blowing through these man-made canyons and tunnels, and then that causes the air near the surface to mix a lot with the air from above the surface,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That mixing has decent potential to influence the weather, at least slightly. As a thick fog creeps from the Financial District toward the Bay, it might just be enough to change which way a few tendrils of fog are headed next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3EY8NgW\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It bewilders Bay Area newcomers — at least, the ones who show up wearing sandals and sunglasses and quickly find themselves shopping for a sweatshirt. But as any local will attest, here you can enjoy clear skies and mild temperatures the same day you experience whipping winds and clammy fog, often just a few short miles apart. Microclimates are everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That got Bay Curious listener Scott wondering: “Bay area microclimates! Why are there so many? Where are they? How do they differ?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll get to all of that, as well as another listener question to do with weather, but first let’s define the word microclimate. Casually, it refers to the phenomenon of sometimes vastly different weather in what feels like adjacent zip codes, like how it’s routinely foggy in San Francisco’s Richmond District, while a few miles away the Mission enjoys sunshine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this usage of the term “microclimate” isn’t the most scientific, says Andrew Oliphant, who studies micrometeorology as a professor in the department of Geography and Environment at San Francisco State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we talk about microclimates of the Bay Area, we’re actually a little bit beyond the traditional scales of micro,” Oliphant says. A proper microclimate might range from less than a city block up to about half a mile. So when denizens of the Bay Area bemoan its microclimates, “we’re really talking more neighborhood-to-neighborhood scale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And these many variations don’t lend themselves to neat lines on a map. They’re more like fine gradations, making it tough for experts to pinpoint how many microclimates there are in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So why so much variation?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11827885\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11827885\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-1020x653.jpg\" alt=\"View of San Francisco from Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley.\" width=\"640\" height=\"410\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-1020x653.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-800x512.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-160x102.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-1536x984.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-2048x1311.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/2A-DP-Bay-view-1920x1229.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Because it’s surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco tends to enjoy relatively mild temperatures, but that benefit diminishes further inland, leading to disparate microclimates. \u003ccite>(Daniel Potter/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are a few reasons for our variable conditions, says Darrel Hess, who is the author of a physical geography textbook, as well as an instructor at City College of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One is our location next to the water,” he says. San Francisco, with water to its north, east and west, rarely gets much hotter or cooler than the ocean. The further inland you get, the less of that benefit you enjoy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As you go over each ridge in the coast ranges, as you move away from the ocean, the weather and climate becomes increasingly continental — in other words, you have less ocean influence,” Hess says. That’s why a city like Livermore, some 20 miles east of the Bay, can get downright hot in summer and chilly in winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Terrain is also a factor, as when a summer fog seeps from the ocean toward lower elevations around the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">One of the most beautiful pics of San Francisco I’ve ever seen, taken tonight by Renata Miller. \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/P4zIgBcAHx\">pic.twitter.com/P4zIgBcAHx\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/1158602313470107650?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 6, 2019\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“Almost always it comes in first right through the Golden Gate. That’s the only sea-level opening in the coast ranges,” Hess says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the same is true for rain. When a winter storm makes its way east from the ocean, mountains in the storm’s path are sure to get drenched, while the sheltered places behind them, not so much. The windward side of the Santa Cruz mountains might soak up several inches of rainfall while, further east, San Jose gets just a fraction of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We say San Jose’s in the rain shadow,” Hess says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hot city, weird weather?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our second question on weather came from Yvine, who asked, “Does the urban heat island have any influence on San Francisco Bay’s weather process?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Urban heat islands are sprawling cityscapes with lots of asphalt and not much greenery. They get and stay hotter on bright days, because buildings and parking lots tend to hold more heat from the sun than vegetation. And they can indeed affect the weather, at least in some places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, in Houston, Texas, a thunderstorm might be right on the edge of happening if the air gets just a little hotter. If the only place that’s quite hot enough is an urban heat island, a sudden storm could pop up just in that spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But does this happen in the Bay Area?\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/UCblqHZgNKo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/UCblqHZgNKo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>It turns out, San Francisco isn’t a great example of an urban heat island. Being surrounded on three sides by water limits the requisite sprawl. But Oliphant says you can feel the difference it makes in a place like Golden Gate Park, where some days it might be seven degrees cooler than the surrounding neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the effect may be more pronounced in other parts of the Bay Area, like Oakland and the South Bay, says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with joint affiliations with UCLA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and The Nature Conservancy of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swain doubts heat islands affect the weather here much, but as someone who models the complex atmosphere, he says even small nudges can have surprising impacts, “so I would never say never.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wind tunnels and fog tendrils\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s built environment may also affect the weather, says Swain. He points to how wind is channeled between the growing number of tall buildings downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have wind blowing through these man-made canyons and tunnels, and then that causes the air near the surface to mix a lot with the air from above the surface,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That mixing has decent potential to influence the weather, at least slightly. As a thick fog creeps from the Financial District toward the Bay, it might just be enough to change which way a few tendrils of fog are headed next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "transcript-prop-31-asks-should-californian-ban-the-sale-of-flavored-tobacco",
"title": "Transcript: Prop. 31 Asks Whether California Should Ban the Sale of Flavored Tobacco",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop Fest episode explaining Proposition 30 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oliva Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:00:05] Hey, hey, hey. You have made it to the final installment of this year’s Prop Fest series. Well done. We’ve been through six of the propositions on this year’s ballot, giving you the inside scoop, the ins and outs, the ups and downs for each one with some of the smartest reporters in the KQED newsroom. Today, we’re taking on the final measure on the ballot, Proposition 31. It’s all about flavored tobacco. But before we jump in, we want to make sure you’re caught up on some recent political happenings. Back in 2020, California lawmakers passed a bill that would have banned the sale of flavored tobacco products at retail stores. But before it could go into effect, tobacco companies stepped in and got enough signatures to put this issue on the ballot. So now it’s up to California voters to decide whether or not to ban the sale of flavored tobacco. Here’s the title you’ll see on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voice over [00:01:03] Proposition 31, a referendum on the 2020 law that would prohibit the retail sale of certain flavored tobacco products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oliva Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:01:11] If Californians choose to uphold the 2020 law banning flavored tobacco, it would be the fifth state in the U.S. to do so. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. You’re listening to the Big Curious Prop Fest series produced in partnership with the Bay. After the break, we’ll get into the nitty gritty on Proposition 31. To get the full story on Proposition 31, The Bay’s Erica Cruz Guevarra spoke with Lesley McClurg. She’s a health correspondent for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:01:50] Okay, let’s start super basic here. When we say flavored tobacco, what are we talking about exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:01:57] We are talking about the syrupy flavors that you can put in a vape pen so it can be gummy bear or honey or mango or raspberry or you’re talking about more traditional things like menthol cigarets. Companies try to lure you in by bright colors. Sometimes they look kind of like candy products. They have, you know, enticing pictures of palm trees or it’s kind of like a candy aisle, I guess is the best way to describe it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:02:25] And how aggressive has California been on fighting big tobacco, including more recently flavored tobacco?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:02:35] Yes, it’s kind of helpful to go back in history and will highlight that the specifically the Bay Area has been extremely kind of leading on fighting big tobacco. So if you go back into the eighties, the culture back then was very smoke friendly. Here in the Bay Area, even at the UCSF hospital, I learned that the dean of the hospital used to smoke and you could buy Cigarets in the gift shop there. Now, as kind of science began to show that, okay, maybe these things are not so healthy for you. City supervisors put forward in 1983 a bill that if a nonsmoker in the office wanted a space where they wouldn’t have to breathe cigaret smoke, then the office itself had to create a smoking area. The tobacco industry pushed back on that, and by a sweeping majority, city voters voted to uphold that and kind of protect the rights of the nonsmokers across the country. Similar bans unfolded and then eventually, obviously, you have you fast forward to today and you know, no one is smoking in any offices. Then that kind of brings us to 2018, where San Francisco put forward the first and most sweeping legislation to ban flavored tobacco. And that led to the beginning. The first domino kind of falling to now. Today, I think there’s 60 local bans across California banning flavored tobacco products. So then in 2020, there was an effort by State Senator Jerry Hill. He’s a Democrat in San Mateo to put forward a statewide ban against flavored tobacco products. So to take those products off store shelves. That was SB 793.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sound of legislature:\u003c/strong> [00:04:19] Bill 793 by Senator Hill, an act relating to tobacco products. Senator Hill, the floor is yours. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:04:25] The law did not apply to hookah premium cigars, loose leaf tobacco. These were all excluded. And you could still and can still buy flavored tobacco online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:04:35] What was the rationale behind this law back in 2020?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:04:39] It’s kind of the slippery slope. So flavored tobacco products are the beginning where kids may start their addiction to nicotine by picking up these, you know, vaping pens, etc., and then starting a habit that turns into regular cigaret smokers. So it’s the gateway drug, you might say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill:\u003c/strong> [00:04:58] The tobacco industry has already introduced the next fad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:05:01] The push by State Senator Jerry Hill at that time was, Hey, hey, if we need to ban these and get this these products off of store shelves to protect future generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill:\u003c/strong> [00:05:11] Well, I am disgusted by the youth e-cigarette epidemic. I am not surprised. It is in line with big tobacco’s long track record of destroying and devastating our communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:05:21] So, I mean, that’s pretty straightforward. The argument there behind that law. But how does it bring us to Prop 31?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:05:32] Right. So that law really never went into effect. It went into effect, I think, for, you know, a few days, three days after SB 793 went into effect. The tobacco industry proposed a referendum on that law. Here we are two years later with Proposition 31. And basically the tobacco industry is using this referendum to ensure that their flavored tobacco products stay on store shelves across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:05:57] So what are we voting on exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:06:00] If you vote yes, flavored tobacco products will be banned from store shelves. And these are products, like I’ve said, on, you know, convenience stores and vending machines. Those physical products you won’t be able to buy if you vote. No flavored tobacco will stay on store shelves. And again, either way, flavored tobacco products, you can still, you know, legally purchase those products online and any local bans across the state will remain in place. So you, you know, still wouldn’t be able to do it in, say, San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:06:35] In 2021. Federal data show that about 2 million high school students had used tobacco products in the last 30 days, with e-cigarettes being the most popular way of using it. Among those students, about 85% had used a flavored e-cigarette recently. Popularity among minors who can’t buy these products legally is a big reason why supporters of Prop 31 want things like flavored e-cigarettes off store shelves. So it sounds like voting yes means we would uphold the statewide ban, and voting no would mean that this ban is overturned. Who is arguing for Proposition 31 and what is their argument?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:07:22] So Jerry Hill is back at it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill:\u003c/strong> [00:07:24] When this legislative body passed SB 793 in 2020, it was even further proof that big tobacco doesn’t stand a chance against all the people of California and their elected representatives on both sides of the aisle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:07:37] He is retired, but he and other proponents of Proposition 31 say again. If you maintain these flavored tobacco bans, if you take these products off store shelves, then you’re really protecting kiddos from getting addicted to these products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill\u003c/strong>: [00:07:52] Tobacco companies use candy flavors to hide strong hits of nicotine. As we know, a highly addictive drug that is especially dangerous for kids harming brain development and impacting their attention, mood and impulse control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:08:07] You know, if you add fruit, mint menthol, they say it’s kind of a shameless tactic to lure in, you know, new users. And so if we ban these products, it’s kind of the best way to prevent a whole new generation from being addicted to nicotine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill:\u003c/strong> [00:08:21] With a yes on 31 vote. We can stop big tobacco from using flavors to get kids hooked on nicotine and profiting from addiction, disease and death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:08:33] There are some medical groups that support, you know, passing Proposition 31, like the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:08:42] The site also says lower income neighborhoods and communities of color have been disproportionately affected by the tobacco industry’s tactics. Those for the ban say the history of marketing targeting African-American neighborhoods has led to more smoking related illness and death and that the ban is necessary to stop the industry’s influence. So it’s pretty clear to me, I think, who is behind this referendum, the tobacco industry. And it is kind of confusing. But they do want you to vote no on Prop 31, which would overturn the ban on flavored tobacco. What is the know sides argument against this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:09:26] Right. So people who are against this say it really unfairly blocks kind of preferred products by millions of adults and they underline adults over and over and over. So Joe Lang, who’s a lobbyist, says, quote, Prop 31 is not a ban on flavored tobacco for children. That’s already illegal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Lang:\u003c/strong> [00:09:45] It’s a ban on legal regulated sales to adult consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:09:49] And they also kind of underline that the ban could also hurt convenience stores. And I did in my reporting talked to convenience store owners. And, you know, they do say this is a substantial part of their sales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:10:00] And I know they’re also making this argument that a ban could lead to sort of an underground market. Can you talk a little bit about that argument?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Lang:\u003c/strong> [00:10:08] Illicit markets are a real problem for Californians. They’re bad for public health precisely because they are made, distributed and sold outside of the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:10:17] Joe Lang says that would mean that we would not be able to regulate it and we would also lose out on the tax revenue from it. And when you’re not regulating something, you kind of lose control and mostly kids are going to do it anyways. And so we might as well, you know, be regulating it and have some control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:10:35] And make money off it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:10:37] Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Lang:\u003c/strong> [00:10:38] Principles of harm reduction, whether in the context of drugs or any other, dictate that the best way to change harmful adult behavior isn’t to criminalize it, but to provide support, information and choice. In our view, Prop 31 will send California in the wrong direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:02] Well, let’s move on now, Leslie, to the money behind this and support who is spending and how much has been spent on the yes side versus the no side of this proposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:11:17] So on the yes side, Michael Bloomberg is kind of leading this effort. Around 8.7 million is the total for the yes side. And then on the no side, it’s about $1.8 million, and that’s led by tobacco companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:30] Lesley, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:11:32] Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:35] In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 31 means you want to uphold the 2020 law that bans the retail sale of certain flavored tobacco products. Under the ban, hookah, premium cigars and loose leaf tobacco can still be sold in stores. A vote no means you want to repeal the 2020 law. Keeping the sale of flavored tobacco legal in California, however it is you vote, you can still buy flavored tobacco legally online and local bans won’t be going anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oliva Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:12:14] Okay. Friends, that is a wrap on prop fest. I hope he gave you the answers that you came looking for and even answered some questions that you didn’t know to ask. If you found the series helpful, please share it with your friends, your family, your colleagues, your acquaintances, even. We think that informed voters make the best decisions. So please spread the love. If you missed an episode, you can find them all in our podcast feed or at KQED.org/PropFest. And KQED also has a voter guide with information about all sorts of other races that you’re going to see on your ballot. Find it at KQED.org/VoterGuide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oliva Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:12:58] Prop Fest is made by us at Bay Curious. That’s Katrina Schwartz, Brendan Willard, Darren Tu. Amanda Font and me, Olivia Allen-Price. And the folks who make The Bay: Alan Montecello, maria Esquinca and Erika Cruz Guevarra. Both shows are a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. Best of luck to you as you fill out your ballot. You got this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Prop Fest 2022 breaks down all the statewide propositions on your ballot. Proposition 31 is a referendum on a law California legislators passed in 2020 that would ban the sale of favored tobacco products in retail outlets.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop Fest episode explaining Proposition 30 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oliva Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:00:05] Hey, hey, hey. You have made it to the final installment of this year’s Prop Fest series. Well done. We’ve been through six of the propositions on this year’s ballot, giving you the inside scoop, the ins and outs, the ups and downs for each one with some of the smartest reporters in the KQED newsroom. Today, we’re taking on the final measure on the ballot, Proposition 31. It’s all about flavored tobacco. But before we jump in, we want to make sure you’re caught up on some recent political happenings. Back in 2020, California lawmakers passed a bill that would have banned the sale of flavored tobacco products at retail stores. But before it could go into effect, tobacco companies stepped in and got enough signatures to put this issue on the ballot. So now it’s up to California voters to decide whether or not to ban the sale of flavored tobacco. Here’s the title you’ll see on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voice over [00:01:03] Proposition 31, a referendum on the 2020 law that would prohibit the retail sale of certain flavored tobacco products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oliva Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:01:11] If Californians choose to uphold the 2020 law banning flavored tobacco, it would be the fifth state in the U.S. to do so. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. You’re listening to the Big Curious Prop Fest series produced in partnership with the Bay. After the break, we’ll get into the nitty gritty on Proposition 31. To get the full story on Proposition 31, The Bay’s Erica Cruz Guevarra spoke with Lesley McClurg. She’s a health correspondent for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:01:50] Okay, let’s start super basic here. When we say flavored tobacco, what are we talking about exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:01:57] We are talking about the syrupy flavors that you can put in a vape pen so it can be gummy bear or honey or mango or raspberry or you’re talking about more traditional things like menthol cigarets. Companies try to lure you in by bright colors. Sometimes they look kind of like candy products. They have, you know, enticing pictures of palm trees or it’s kind of like a candy aisle, I guess is the best way to describe it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:02:25] And how aggressive has California been on fighting big tobacco, including more recently flavored tobacco?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:02:35] Yes, it’s kind of helpful to go back in history and will highlight that the specifically the Bay Area has been extremely kind of leading on fighting big tobacco. So if you go back into the eighties, the culture back then was very smoke friendly. Here in the Bay Area, even at the UCSF hospital, I learned that the dean of the hospital used to smoke and you could buy Cigarets in the gift shop there. Now, as kind of science began to show that, okay, maybe these things are not so healthy for you. City supervisors put forward in 1983 a bill that if a nonsmoker in the office wanted a space where they wouldn’t have to breathe cigaret smoke, then the office itself had to create a smoking area. The tobacco industry pushed back on that, and by a sweeping majority, city voters voted to uphold that and kind of protect the rights of the nonsmokers across the country. Similar bans unfolded and then eventually, obviously, you have you fast forward to today and you know, no one is smoking in any offices. Then that kind of brings us to 2018, where San Francisco put forward the first and most sweeping legislation to ban flavored tobacco. And that led to the beginning. The first domino kind of falling to now. Today, I think there’s 60 local bans across California banning flavored tobacco products. So then in 2020, there was an effort by State Senator Jerry Hill. He’s a Democrat in San Mateo to put forward a statewide ban against flavored tobacco products. So to take those products off store shelves. That was SB 793.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sound of legislature:\u003c/strong> [00:04:19] Bill 793 by Senator Hill, an act relating to tobacco products. Senator Hill, the floor is yours. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:04:25] The law did not apply to hookah premium cigars, loose leaf tobacco. These were all excluded. And you could still and can still buy flavored tobacco online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:04:35] What was the rationale behind this law back in 2020?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:04:39] It’s kind of the slippery slope. So flavored tobacco products are the beginning where kids may start their addiction to nicotine by picking up these, you know, vaping pens, etc., and then starting a habit that turns into regular cigaret smokers. So it’s the gateway drug, you might say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill:\u003c/strong> [00:04:58] The tobacco industry has already introduced the next fad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:05:01] The push by State Senator Jerry Hill at that time was, Hey, hey, if we need to ban these and get this these products off of store shelves to protect future generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill:\u003c/strong> [00:05:11] Well, I am disgusted by the youth e-cigarette epidemic. I am not surprised. It is in line with big tobacco’s long track record of destroying and devastating our communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:05:21] So, I mean, that’s pretty straightforward. The argument there behind that law. But how does it bring us to Prop 31?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:05:32] Right. So that law really never went into effect. It went into effect, I think, for, you know, a few days, three days after SB 793 went into effect. The tobacco industry proposed a referendum on that law. Here we are two years later with Proposition 31. And basically the tobacco industry is using this referendum to ensure that their flavored tobacco products stay on store shelves across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:05:57] So what are we voting on exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:06:00] If you vote yes, flavored tobacco products will be banned from store shelves. And these are products, like I’ve said, on, you know, convenience stores and vending machines. Those physical products you won’t be able to buy if you vote. No flavored tobacco will stay on store shelves. And again, either way, flavored tobacco products, you can still, you know, legally purchase those products online and any local bans across the state will remain in place. So you, you know, still wouldn’t be able to do it in, say, San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:06:35] In 2021. Federal data show that about 2 million high school students had used tobacco products in the last 30 days, with e-cigarettes being the most popular way of using it. Among those students, about 85% had used a flavored e-cigarette recently. Popularity among minors who can’t buy these products legally is a big reason why supporters of Prop 31 want things like flavored e-cigarettes off store shelves. So it sounds like voting yes means we would uphold the statewide ban, and voting no would mean that this ban is overturned. Who is arguing for Proposition 31 and what is their argument?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:07:22] So Jerry Hill is back at it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill:\u003c/strong> [00:07:24] When this legislative body passed SB 793 in 2020, it was even further proof that big tobacco doesn’t stand a chance against all the people of California and their elected representatives on both sides of the aisle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:07:37] He is retired, but he and other proponents of Proposition 31 say again. If you maintain these flavored tobacco bans, if you take these products off store shelves, then you’re really protecting kiddos from getting addicted to these products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill\u003c/strong>: [00:07:52] Tobacco companies use candy flavors to hide strong hits of nicotine. As we know, a highly addictive drug that is especially dangerous for kids harming brain development and impacting their attention, mood and impulse control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:08:07] You know, if you add fruit, mint menthol, they say it’s kind of a shameless tactic to lure in, you know, new users. And so if we ban these products, it’s kind of the best way to prevent a whole new generation from being addicted to nicotine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jerry Hill:\u003c/strong> [00:08:21] With a yes on 31 vote. We can stop big tobacco from using flavors to get kids hooked on nicotine and profiting from addiction, disease and death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:08:33] There are some medical groups that support, you know, passing Proposition 31, like the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:08:42] The site also says lower income neighborhoods and communities of color have been disproportionately affected by the tobacco industry’s tactics. Those for the ban say the history of marketing targeting African-American neighborhoods has led to more smoking related illness and death and that the ban is necessary to stop the industry’s influence. So it’s pretty clear to me, I think, who is behind this referendum, the tobacco industry. And it is kind of confusing. But they do want you to vote no on Prop 31, which would overturn the ban on flavored tobacco. What is the know sides argument against this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:09:26] Right. So people who are against this say it really unfairly blocks kind of preferred products by millions of adults and they underline adults over and over and over. So Joe Lang, who’s a lobbyist, says, quote, Prop 31 is not a ban on flavored tobacco for children. That’s already illegal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Lang:\u003c/strong> [00:09:45] It’s a ban on legal regulated sales to adult consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:09:49] And they also kind of underline that the ban could also hurt convenience stores. And I did in my reporting talked to convenience store owners. And, you know, they do say this is a substantial part of their sales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:10:00] And I know they’re also making this argument that a ban could lead to sort of an underground market. Can you talk a little bit about that argument?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Lang:\u003c/strong> [00:10:08] Illicit markets are a real problem for Californians. They’re bad for public health precisely because they are made, distributed and sold outside of the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:10:17] Joe Lang says that would mean that we would not be able to regulate it and we would also lose out on the tax revenue from it. And when you’re not regulating something, you kind of lose control and mostly kids are going to do it anyways. And so we might as well, you know, be regulating it and have some control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:10:35] And make money off it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:10:37] Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Lang:\u003c/strong> [00:10:38] Principles of harm reduction, whether in the context of drugs or any other, dictate that the best way to change harmful adult behavior isn’t to criminalize it, but to provide support, information and choice. In our view, Prop 31 will send California in the wrong direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:02] Well, let’s move on now, Leslie, to the money behind this and support who is spending and how much has been spent on the yes side versus the no side of this proposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:11:17] So on the yes side, Michael Bloomberg is kind of leading this effort. Around 8.7 million is the total for the yes side. And then on the no side, it’s about $1.8 million, and that’s led by tobacco companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:30] Lesley, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> [00:11:32] Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erica Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:35] In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 31 means you want to uphold the 2020 law that bans the retail sale of certain flavored tobacco products. Under the ban, hookah, premium cigars and loose leaf tobacco can still be sold in stores. A vote no means you want to repeal the 2020 law. Keeping the sale of flavored tobacco legal in California, however it is you vote, you can still buy flavored tobacco legally online and local bans won’t be going anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oliva Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:12:14] Okay. Friends, that is a wrap on prop fest. I hope he gave you the answers that you came looking for and even answered some questions that you didn’t know to ask. If you found the series helpful, please share it with your friends, your family, your colleagues, your acquaintances, even. We think that informed voters make the best decisions. So please spread the love. If you missed an episode, you can find them all in our podcast feed or at KQED.org/PropFest. And KQED also has a voter guide with information about all sorts of other races that you’re going to see on your ballot. Find it at KQED.org/VoterGuide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oliva Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:12:58] Prop Fest is made by us at Bay Curious. That’s Katrina Schwartz, Brendan Willard, Darren Tu. Amanda Font and me, Olivia Allen-Price. And the folks who make The Bay: Alan Montecello, maria Esquinca and Erika Cruz Guevarra. Both shows are a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. Best of luck to you as you fill out your ballot. You got this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop Fest episode explaining Proposition 30 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Hey, hey, hey. I’m Olivia Allen Price. And welcome back to Prop Fest, our deep dive into this year’s California Propositions. Today, we take a closer look at Prop 30, the taxes and air quality proposition. Here’s how it will read when you see it on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ballot read:\u003c/strong> [00:00:19] Proposition 30 provides funding for programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing tax on personal income over $2 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> So, rob from the rich and give to Mother Earth, or is this properly a handout for the ride-hailing company Lyft? I’ll say this. You know, it’s going to get interesting when Governor Gavin Newsom and conservative groups in California are on the same side of an issue. We’ll dig into it all today on Prop Fest, a podcast series made by us here at Bay, Curious and our friends at the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here to help us cut through the noise on Prop 30 is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/kevinstark\">Kevin Stark\u003c/a>, senior editor of KQED’s Climate Desk. Welcome, Kevin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: [\u003c/strong>00:01:05] Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:01:06] So let’s start with this. At a high level, what are voters being asked to decide on in Prop 30?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:01:11] So Proposition 30 is a climate measure. It’s meant to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and fight air pollution. So the way it would work is it would raise the state income tax for people who earn more than $2 million a year by 1.75%. And this would generate between $3 billion and $4.5 billion dollars each year. That’s according to an analysis from the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The money would go into a trust fund that could be used for three things: EV car rebates, chargers for those vehicles and wildfire suppression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:01:46] Kevin, Let’s dive into those three buckets a little bit more, starting with getting more zero-emissions vehicles on the road, which is where I understand 45% of the money made from this tax increase would go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:01:57] When a person goes out to buy a car, they get a tax rebate. It would offset the price of the car. California already has some rebates and the governor just invested another $6 billion from the state’s budget surplus into EVs. But Prop 30 creates a pot of money that can’t be raided by the general fund. It ensures continued investment over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:02:17] And we should add, this money could also be used for zero-emissions public buses, agricultural and construction vehicles and even bikes, adding in more bike lanes or increasing bike-share access. Okay, let’s get into the second part of this fund, which would get a 35% cut of the new tax.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:02:34] Money would also be spent on chargers and infrastructure to help support all those new electric vehicles that are out on the road. A key detail here is that this investment is targeted at communities with less money and high air pollution. They would be getting these chargers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:02:47] So more car charging at apartment buildings and low-income single-family homes and more fast charging stations in publicly accessible places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:02:56] And the rest of the money would go to firefighting and suppression programs, you know, training and hiring firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:03:05] You know, the goal of this measure is to help combat climate change. Is focusing on zero-emissions vehicles really the best way to do that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:03:14] California’s top source of greenhouse gas emissions is transportation. So overhauling how we get around is the change that we can make that will have the largest impact. You know, toxic smog, while it’s a lot better than it was in the 1960s, is a problem that California has never been able to solve. There’s one group, Move LA, that has been working on this for years. Back in 2020, they convened a bunch of California’s climate intelligentsia, climate leaders, and said they asked them this question: If you had $30 billion to spend fighting climate change, what would you do? And I covered this event at the time. Kevin de Leon, he’s a former leader of the state Senate. He’s running for mayor of L.A. He spoke and made the case that, you know, L.A. is still, for many years in a row, the most polluted city in America. Here he is speaking at that move L.A. event back in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin De Leon:\u003c/strong> [00:04:03] And we know that these very consequential health impacts have a disproportionate impact on children, especially children of color, those of the lowest economic mean. So what I would do is first order of business is get diesel trucks off the road. Got to get diesel trucks off the road. Second is you got to build out charging infrastructure for passenger cars. The infrastructure has to be there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:04:29] So, ideas from this event seeded, what would become Proposition 30. You know, to answer that question, how would you spend $30 billion to fight climate change? It was EV rebates and chargers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:04:41] And I understand there’s a pretty broad coalition of groups supporting this prop. And we’ll get to those in just a minute. But the involvement of one group has raised some eyebrows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:04:51] I am fairly certain that you’re referring to Lyft the ride hailing giant. They are essentially bankrolling this campaign right now and have donated or loaned the campaign about $15 million so far, at least at the time that we’re taping this in early September. The no campaign hasn’t received any donations yet, but I think that is surely going to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:05:12] Why is Lyft pouring money into this prop, which we should know that they did not put on the ballot themselves?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:05:17] I would say that Lyft is under a lot of pressure to increase its electric vehicles. Last year, the state mandated that they increase the rides from electric vehicles by the end of this decade, which is, you know, seven years from now, something like 90% of Lyft miles need to be with an electric vehicle. Lyft has said it’s onboard with this plan, but it wants the state to invest in chargers to make this possible. And you see that their support here is probably a part of that. The majority of Lyft drivers buy their own vehicles, so the company will have an easier time meeting this goal if EVs are more affordable for their workforce, you know, which is everyday Californians. Lyft also needs the charging infrastructure. I should note that the governor, Gavin Newsom, is opposing Prop 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gavin Newsom:\u003c/strong> Fellow Californians, I need to warn you about Proposition 30, one company’s cynical scheme to grab a huge taxpayer-funded subsidy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> He’s painted this as a corporate bailout and he called it a special interest carve out devised by a single corporation to funnel state income tax revenue to their company. Of course, the insinuation there is that he’s talking about Lyft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:06:12] Mm. So Newsom sees this as like, instead of Lyft investing its own money to buy more EVs or help their employees buy more EVs, they’re kind of getting this help from California taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:06:23] I think that might be good politics if you’re going to oppose something like this, to paint it as a corporate bailout, but I think it’s a cynical and disingenuous take on this measure, which was actually devised by transit and environmental justice groups around Los Angeles. I was a little bit surprised that Newsom made this statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:06:43] Help me understand why, you know, this puts the governor at odds with his own party, environmentalists, lots of other left leaning groups. Like, what is, what’s behind this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:06:54] I can’t say for sure what Newsom’s thinking is on this, but there are a few theories. One, people have questioned if he’s getting pressured by rich donors to his campaign who don’t want to see their taxes increased. You know, raising taxes is not a popular idea nationally, so if he’s setting himself up for some kind of national campaign, not a good idea. The second is, I think, I bit more charitable, which is that he just spent $6 billion of a budget surplus on electric vehicles. That money is going to roll out over the next five years. So, Prop 30 would add to that, but it does it through a proposition system that sort of locks the state into this spending plan and it’s really uncertain. Like, this is tied to income tax, tax from the state’s richest people, if we go into a recession, the state might be expecting money, might create programs to spend money on electric vehicles that all of a sudden isn’t there. So, it gets into the idea that this is an unstable source of revenue. The last theory is that the governor is just trying to line up with the California teachers. You know, California Teachers Union is a huge financial supporter, tons of political power in this state, and they helped him beat his recall last year. The teachers union is against Prop 30 because they’re generally against measures that might mean less money in the general fund, which is where schools get a lot of their funding from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:07:56] Joining Lyft in supporting this prop are a host of environmental groups and some unions who stand to gain from the green jobs that this prop would create or support. Tell us about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:08:07] It’s a really wild, broad coalition. It has groups like Youth versus Apocalypse, which is a high school Bay Area environmental justice group. You know, I see them out staging direct actions. They’re shutting down the streets of San Francisco. They’re staging die-ins at congressional leaders’ offices. But then there’s Sacramento Democrats and scientists and, yeah, a company like Lyft, it’s kind of this, like, Frankenstein coalition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:08:36] But at the end of the day, Prop 30 is a tax increase. So not everybody is a fan of that 1.75% increase on people who are earning more than $2 million. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:08:47] Absolutely. There are the groups that always oppose taxes, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, there’s California Republicans, there’s, you know, the California Chamber of Commerce. They argue against this plan just on the fact that it would raise taxes. Jennifer Barrera is the chamber’s CEO. She told me, you know, they would always oppose a new tax probably. But now, given high inflation and high gas prices, it is a bad time. And she also noted that the state has already the highest personal income tax rate in the country. Here’s what she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jennifer Barrera:\u003c/strong> [00:09:20] We have a huge concern on increasing that personal income tax rate even more, what that impact would have to our competitiveness, what that impact would have on our general fund. And so that is the primary reason why we oppose this initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:09:35] So people who make more than $2 million a year in California pay more income tax than they would in any other state. For some context, Oregon and New York also have high taxes, but their rates are just below 10%. If this passes, people would be taxed at around 14%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:09:53] I found it kind of interesting that wildfire funding was sort of lumped into this prop that is primarily about electric vehicles and I get the relationship sort of between the two. But still, it makes me think back to 2020 when wildfire funding was a part of Proposition 19, which was largely about property taxes. And it kind of has me wondering, like, why is wildfire funding being kind of tossed into these props that might on the surface not seem related?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong>: [00:10:23] Yeah, I think it’s a great question. So I think there’s two ways of looking at that. Let’s take a compassionate view to start. Wildfire smoke is the top source of air pollution in the West. And increasingly, this is how the vast majority of Californians are touched by climate change. You know, you probably remember back in 2020 the lightning fires that we had. You know, we had firestorms all across the Bay Area. We had 30 straight days where we had toxic air, which has never happened before in modern history. So this in some ways is about air pollution. And it makes sense if you’re going to be fighting smog, you know, reducing carbon emissions, also reducing the pollution. You could see how all of this is connected. The sort of cynical, political way of looking at this is that firefighters are an incredibly powerful political group in California, and it’s really hard to vote against tax rebates for people that want to buy electric cars and money to hire firefighters. So as organizers are building a coalition for this measure, I could see a situation in which they’re trying to bring together the most groups that would make this successful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:11:31] Kevin, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:11:32] Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:11:33] Kevin Stark is a climate editor at KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 30 means you want to increase taxes on Californians with incomes of more than $2 million a year. With that money going towards getting more zero emission vehicles on the road, building green infrastructure and supporting wildfire suppression and prevention programs. A vote no means you’d like things to stay as they are right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s it for Prop 30. You can find more prop fest episodes at baycurious.org. And if you want the lowdown on more state and local races, check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide\">KQED Voter Guide\u003c/a>. We’ll put a link in the show notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Propfest is a collaboration between two KQED podcasts, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">The Bay\u003c/a> and Bay Curious. Find us both wherever you listen and hit that subscribe button. We’ll be back tomorrow with our final prop fest episode on Prop 31, the flavored tobacco prop. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. We’ll see you tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop Fest episode explaining Proposition 30 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Hey, hey, hey. I’m Olivia Allen Price. And welcome back to Prop Fest, our deep dive into this year’s California Propositions. Today, we take a closer look at Prop 30, the taxes and air quality proposition. Here’s how it will read when you see it on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ballot read:\u003c/strong> [00:00:19] Proposition 30 provides funding for programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing tax on personal income over $2 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> So, rob from the rich and give to Mother Earth, or is this properly a handout for the ride-hailing company Lyft? I’ll say this. You know, it’s going to get interesting when Governor Gavin Newsom and conservative groups in California are on the same side of an issue. We’ll dig into it all today on Prop Fest, a podcast series made by us here at Bay, Curious and our friends at the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here to help us cut through the noise on Prop 30 is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/kevinstark\">Kevin Stark\u003c/a>, senior editor of KQED’s Climate Desk. Welcome, Kevin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: [\u003c/strong>00:01:05] Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:01:06] So let’s start with this. At a high level, what are voters being asked to decide on in Prop 30?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:01:11] So Proposition 30 is a climate measure. It’s meant to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and fight air pollution. So the way it would work is it would raise the state income tax for people who earn more than $2 million a year by 1.75%. And this would generate between $3 billion and $4.5 billion dollars each year. That’s according to an analysis from the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The money would go into a trust fund that could be used for three things: EV car rebates, chargers for those vehicles and wildfire suppression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:01:46] Kevin, Let’s dive into those three buckets a little bit more, starting with getting more zero-emissions vehicles on the road, which is where I understand 45% of the money made from this tax increase would go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:01:57] When a person goes out to buy a car, they get a tax rebate. It would offset the price of the car. California already has some rebates and the governor just invested another $6 billion from the state’s budget surplus into EVs. But Prop 30 creates a pot of money that can’t be raided by the general fund. It ensures continued investment over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:02:17] And we should add, this money could also be used for zero-emissions public buses, agricultural and construction vehicles and even bikes, adding in more bike lanes or increasing bike-share access. Okay, let’s get into the second part of this fund, which would get a 35% cut of the new tax.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:02:34] Money would also be spent on chargers and infrastructure to help support all those new electric vehicles that are out on the road. A key detail here is that this investment is targeted at communities with less money and high air pollution. They would be getting these chargers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:02:47] So more car charging at apartment buildings and low-income single-family homes and more fast charging stations in publicly accessible places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:02:56] And the rest of the money would go to firefighting and suppression programs, you know, training and hiring firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:03:05] You know, the goal of this measure is to help combat climate change. Is focusing on zero-emissions vehicles really the best way to do that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:03:14] California’s top source of greenhouse gas emissions is transportation. So overhauling how we get around is the change that we can make that will have the largest impact. You know, toxic smog, while it’s a lot better than it was in the 1960s, is a problem that California has never been able to solve. There’s one group, Move LA, that has been working on this for years. Back in 2020, they convened a bunch of California’s climate intelligentsia, climate leaders, and said they asked them this question: If you had $30 billion to spend fighting climate change, what would you do? And I covered this event at the time. Kevin de Leon, he’s a former leader of the state Senate. He’s running for mayor of L.A. He spoke and made the case that, you know, L.A. is still, for many years in a row, the most polluted city in America. Here he is speaking at that move L.A. event back in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin De Leon:\u003c/strong> [00:04:03] And we know that these very consequential health impacts have a disproportionate impact on children, especially children of color, those of the lowest economic mean. So what I would do is first order of business is get diesel trucks off the road. Got to get diesel trucks off the road. Second is you got to build out charging infrastructure for passenger cars. The infrastructure has to be there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:04:29] So, ideas from this event seeded, what would become Proposition 30. You know, to answer that question, how would you spend $30 billion to fight climate change? It was EV rebates and chargers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:04:41] And I understand there’s a pretty broad coalition of groups supporting this prop. And we’ll get to those in just a minute. But the involvement of one group has raised some eyebrows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:04:51] I am fairly certain that you’re referring to Lyft the ride hailing giant. They are essentially bankrolling this campaign right now and have donated or loaned the campaign about $15 million so far, at least at the time that we’re taping this in early September. The no campaign hasn’t received any donations yet, but I think that is surely going to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:05:12] Why is Lyft pouring money into this prop, which we should know that they did not put on the ballot themselves?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:05:17] I would say that Lyft is under a lot of pressure to increase its electric vehicles. Last year, the state mandated that they increase the rides from electric vehicles by the end of this decade, which is, you know, seven years from now, something like 90% of Lyft miles need to be with an electric vehicle. Lyft has said it’s onboard with this plan, but it wants the state to invest in chargers to make this possible. And you see that their support here is probably a part of that. The majority of Lyft drivers buy their own vehicles, so the company will have an easier time meeting this goal if EVs are more affordable for their workforce, you know, which is everyday Californians. Lyft also needs the charging infrastructure. I should note that the governor, Gavin Newsom, is opposing Prop 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gavin Newsom:\u003c/strong> Fellow Californians, I need to warn you about Proposition 30, one company’s cynical scheme to grab a huge taxpayer-funded subsidy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> He’s painted this as a corporate bailout and he called it a special interest carve out devised by a single corporation to funnel state income tax revenue to their company. Of course, the insinuation there is that he’s talking about Lyft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:06:12] Mm. So Newsom sees this as like, instead of Lyft investing its own money to buy more EVs or help their employees buy more EVs, they’re kind of getting this help from California taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:06:23] I think that might be good politics if you’re going to oppose something like this, to paint it as a corporate bailout, but I think it’s a cynical and disingenuous take on this measure, which was actually devised by transit and environmental justice groups around Los Angeles. I was a little bit surprised that Newsom made this statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:06:43] Help me understand why, you know, this puts the governor at odds with his own party, environmentalists, lots of other left leaning groups. Like, what is, what’s behind this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:06:54] I can’t say for sure what Newsom’s thinking is on this, but there are a few theories. One, people have questioned if he’s getting pressured by rich donors to his campaign who don’t want to see their taxes increased. You know, raising taxes is not a popular idea nationally, so if he’s setting himself up for some kind of national campaign, not a good idea. The second is, I think, I bit more charitable, which is that he just spent $6 billion of a budget surplus on electric vehicles. That money is going to roll out over the next five years. So, Prop 30 would add to that, but it does it through a proposition system that sort of locks the state into this spending plan and it’s really uncertain. Like, this is tied to income tax, tax from the state’s richest people, if we go into a recession, the state might be expecting money, might create programs to spend money on electric vehicles that all of a sudden isn’t there. So, it gets into the idea that this is an unstable source of revenue. The last theory is that the governor is just trying to line up with the California teachers. You know, California Teachers Union is a huge financial supporter, tons of political power in this state, and they helped him beat his recall last year. The teachers union is against Prop 30 because they’re generally against measures that might mean less money in the general fund, which is where schools get a lot of their funding from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:07:56] Joining Lyft in supporting this prop are a host of environmental groups and some unions who stand to gain from the green jobs that this prop would create or support. Tell us about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:08:07] It’s a really wild, broad coalition. It has groups like Youth versus Apocalypse, which is a high school Bay Area environmental justice group. You know, I see them out staging direct actions. They’re shutting down the streets of San Francisco. They’re staging die-ins at congressional leaders’ offices. But then there’s Sacramento Democrats and scientists and, yeah, a company like Lyft, it’s kind of this, like, Frankenstein coalition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:08:36] But at the end of the day, Prop 30 is a tax increase. So not everybody is a fan of that 1.75% increase on people who are earning more than $2 million. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:08:47] Absolutely. There are the groups that always oppose taxes, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, there’s California Republicans, there’s, you know, the California Chamber of Commerce. They argue against this plan just on the fact that it would raise taxes. Jennifer Barrera is the chamber’s CEO. She told me, you know, they would always oppose a new tax probably. But now, given high inflation and high gas prices, it is a bad time. And she also noted that the state has already the highest personal income tax rate in the country. Here’s what she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jennifer Barrera:\u003c/strong> [00:09:20] We have a huge concern on increasing that personal income tax rate even more, what that impact would have to our competitiveness, what that impact would have on our general fund. And so that is the primary reason why we oppose this initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:09:35] So people who make more than $2 million a year in California pay more income tax than they would in any other state. For some context, Oregon and New York also have high taxes, but their rates are just below 10%. If this passes, people would be taxed at around 14%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:09:53] I found it kind of interesting that wildfire funding was sort of lumped into this prop that is primarily about electric vehicles and I get the relationship sort of between the two. But still, it makes me think back to 2020 when wildfire funding was a part of Proposition 19, which was largely about property taxes. And it kind of has me wondering, like, why is wildfire funding being kind of tossed into these props that might on the surface not seem related?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong>: [00:10:23] Yeah, I think it’s a great question. So I think there’s two ways of looking at that. Let’s take a compassionate view to start. Wildfire smoke is the top source of air pollution in the West. And increasingly, this is how the vast majority of Californians are touched by climate change. You know, you probably remember back in 2020 the lightning fires that we had. You know, we had firestorms all across the Bay Area. We had 30 straight days where we had toxic air, which has never happened before in modern history. So this in some ways is about air pollution. And it makes sense if you’re going to be fighting smog, you know, reducing carbon emissions, also reducing the pollution. You could see how all of this is connected. The sort of cynical, political way of looking at this is that firefighters are an incredibly powerful political group in California, and it’s really hard to vote against tax rebates for people that want to buy electric cars and money to hire firefighters. So as organizers are building a coalition for this measure, I could see a situation in which they’re trying to bring together the most groups that would make this successful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:11:31] Kevin, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:11:32] Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:11:33] Kevin Stark is a climate editor at KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 30 means you want to increase taxes on Californians with incomes of more than $2 million a year. With that money going towards getting more zero emission vehicles on the road, building green infrastructure and supporting wildfire suppression and prevention programs. A vote no means you’d like things to stay as they are right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s it for Prop 30. You can find more prop fest episodes at baycurious.org. And if you want the lowdown on more state and local races, check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide\">KQED Voter Guide\u003c/a>. We’ll put a link in the show notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Propfest is a collaboration between two KQED podcasts, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">The Bay\u003c/a> and Bay Curious. Find us both wherever you listen and hit that subscribe button. We’ll be back tomorrow with our final prop fest episode on Prop 31, the flavored tobacco prop. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. We’ll see you tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop Fest episode explaining Proposition 29 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:00] Hello. Hello. I’m \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ohubertallen\">Olivia Allen Price\u003c/a>. And this is KQED’s Prop Fest, a podcast series brought to you by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> and our friends at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">The Bay\u003c/a>. Today, we’re taking a closer look at Proposition 29, the dialysis prop on your ballot. It reads like this. Prop 29 requires an onsite licensed medical professional at kidney dialysis clinics and establishes other state requirements. This proposition may have you feeling deja vu because this is our third time seeing a dialysis proposition on the ballot since 2018, and they all look kind of similar. We’ll get into why this keeps coming back and unpack what Proposition 29 would do. Just ahead. Stick around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED science editor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/kevinstark\">Kevin Stark\u003c/a> is here to help us dig in on what is going on with Proposition 29. Kevin, thanks for stopping by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:00:57] Absolutely. Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:59] Let’s take a closer read on this one. What exactly would Proposition 29 do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:01:04] So Prop 29 is aimed at improving care at the dialysis clinics in California. There’s roughly 650 of them. And this would impose new regulations and rules. The biggest significant change here is that it would require that there be some kind of care provider onsite with patients as they’re receiving treatment. That’s a change from how it works. Now there are technicians onsite at all times and there’s doctors that supervise, but they only come in occasionally and there isn’t one always in the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:34] If you’re not familiar. Dialysis is for people with kidney failure. Our kidneys clean toxins from our blood. So when they’re not working, people need dialysis treatment to stay alive. Patients usually go three times a week and the procedure last three or 4 hours. So being on dialysis is really disruptive to someone’s life, even more so if they’re having to travel to a clinic far away. Kidney failure is caused by a number of health conditions, but most often diabetes or high blood pressure, because people of color are more likely to experience those conditions. They’re more likely to be on dialysis. Proposition 29 is going to feel super familiar to people who have voted in previous elections here in California, because this is the third time that voters are being asked to weigh in on how dialysis clinics should run. Kevin, why do we keep seeing dialysis on the ballot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:02:27] You’re absolutely right. Californians voted on this twice recently, Proposition eight in 2018 and Proposition 23 in 2020. Behind the scenes, here is a labor dispute. SEIU UHW, West is one of the largest health care unions in the state, and they have been trying for nearly a decade now to organize workers at dialysis clinics. The major companies that own these clinics, DaVita, Fresenius, have pushed back on this effort. And in fact, they’ve dumped tens of millions of dollars into fighting all of the propositions. If you talk to the companies, they will tell you that this is the unions really kind of putting the screw on them. They’re trying to bleed them of money. This is all about that fight for unionization. And if they were to come to an agreement on that, that maybe you wouldn’t be seeing the propositions. So basically, in a nutshell, they’re arguing that the unions are taking advantage of California’s proposition system. The unions have a completely different view of this. Obviously, they say this is about improving the care for patients. You know, they say that they after the last propositions failed, they went back. They listen to the criticism. They actually talked with researchers to figure out ways to improve the policy. And this is the result, Proposition 29. I asked SEIU’s David Miller to respond exactly to the criticism that this is not about the clinics, but it’s about a larger fight over unionization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Miller\u003c/strong> [00:03:54] Where movement of workers and also of patients. And we seek to improve care across the spectrum. We are seeking to do stuff in the broad interests so that this is not about some narrow play to sort of get dialysis. We see this is actually part of our mandate that we want to improve staffing in these clinics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:04:12] So is Prop 29 the same thing we voted on in 2020?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:04:17] The No on Prop 29 campaign would argue that this is a carbon copy of that policy, and they say that voters have already rejected it. Not entirely true. There is a core idea here that is really the same and that’s, you know, having a physician or a care provider onsite at all times when patients are receiving care, there’s not a lot of difference there. There’s a lot of smaller nuances and changes in the edges of this policy. The union expanded the definition of care providers here. It used to be that it was exclusively doctors. Now it’s nurse practitioners as well as physician assistants, also capitalizing on the pandemic and this expansion of telehealth. There’s also a stipulation in here that if there was no one available to be onsite, they could have someone that, you know, a doctor or a nurse that’s available over telehealth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:05:07] A key question here is does having a physician or nurse practitioner onsite at a dialysis clinic make patients safer? KQED health reporter April Dembosky had something interesting to say about this in our Prop Fest episode from 2020, which is the last time we voted on a similar measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:05:26] So health care is complicated, and it’s hard to know if this would really help patients or if it might have unintended consequences. So patients already have their own doctors. They come see them in the clinics once a month or once a week to check on their dialysis prescription and medications to monitor their labs. And researchers have studied whether the frequency of doctor’s visits makes a difference in patient’s health. Back in 2004, Medicare, the government health program that pays for most dialysis treatment created a new incentive to encourage doctors to visit their dialysis patients more often. So instead of one or two times a month, it pushed them to visit four or more times per month. Well, after more than ten years of doing this, it turns out seeing your doctor more often has no impact on health outcomes. In fact, patients who were seen less often by their doctor actually had better survival rates. So the government was paying doctors more money for more services with no conclusive benefits to show for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:06:34] Kevin What would happen in the event of an emergency? You know, imagine having a physician or a nurse practitioner, there would be a good thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:06:41] That is exactly the argument that the unions make, you know, in an emergency. Let’s say a patient faints, their heart stops. If that happens while in the clinic, someone has to perform CPR, call 911 to have paramedics take them to the hospital. Advocates say having a doctor, a nurse practitioner or physician on site would absolutely help here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:06:59] But it’s worth noting that this proposition moves in the opposite direction of a lot of other health policy changes that have happened recently. You know, generally California and the rest of the nation have been changing laws so that physicians aren’t having to do everything. There’s sort of been this wider recognition that a lot of health care duties don’t require the expertize of a doctor or a nurse practitioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:07:22] Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. And I think if you talk to the companies that manage all these clinics, they would say, you know, you don’t need a doctor in the clinic to perform CPR and to call 911. This is something that a technician can do. And then I think the addition of the telehealth argument into this proposition might be a way for the union to try and get around this idea itself. Like, you know, I think they’re saying basically, okay, maybe you don’t need someone on site, but you need someone that’s there that’s supervising. And then I think I would also note that the clinics do have doctors that work for them. They just don’t happen to always be on site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:07:54] Now, there are a few other regulations in this prop that aren’t getting as much attention. Tell me about those.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:08:00] So the unions added that clinics would need to report any infection that happens during treatment to the state. You know, the companies say they already are required to do this. Individuals without insurance would not be able to be denied care. Again, you know, the companies say that it’s not something that happens. Clinics would have to report additional information to state regulators and they would also actually have to get the consent of state health officials before they would close a clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:08:32] One thing the No on 29 campaign has been saying in campaign ads is that these new regulations could cause clinics to close. Is that a real threat?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:08:41] Well, I think that’s the argument that the companies that run these clinics are making. State analysts projected it would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with these regulations if they were to pass. Here’s Bryan Wong, who’s a medical director for DaVita in Oakland. He says clinics there might actually need to close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bryan Wong\u003c/strong> [00:08:57] Those that are in the rural area, probably even worse because those in a rural area. They probably have a huge amount of medical only patients, and those are the patients that are at most risk of getting harm. Why? Because the density of dialysis clinics in rural areas is much, much less than in urban areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:09:20] So I would just temper that and just keep this in mind about any talk about clinics closing is that the companies that run these dialysis clinics are, by and large hugely profitable businesses. And if their costs do increase, they likely would pass them on to insurance companies or find other ways to make it up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:09:36] I’m curious, how do dialysis patients feel about this proposition?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:09:40] There’s a key argument against Prop 29, which is basically that health care is just incredibly complicated, that the regulations should be crafted by lawmakers in a very nuanced way. And, you know, putting that responsibility onto voters with a really blunt instrument like a proposition is just not the way to do it. April, when she was reporting on this, you know, she talked to one patient, DeWayne Cox, and he made this point explicitly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DeWayne Cox\u003c/strong> [00:10:06] When I see these propositions that are put before the voters, who have no idea what we go through and what’s necessary to keep us alive. It makes me angry because they’re playing politics for whatever their reasons are, but they’re putting patients like me in the middle of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:10:37] I want to transition us now to talk about campaign spending. What do things look like for Prop 39 right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:10:43] Wow. Expensive and completely lopsided. In the first week of September when we’re recording this divide, it just dropped to 8 million into the No on 29 campaign. The companies had already spent, you know, tens of millions of dollars on this. SEIU is putting up some money on this as well, but it’s really just a fraction of what DaVita and Fresenius have spent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:11:02] So it’s interesting that the union is pushing on this, keeps pushing on this topic, but then gets outgunned every time on the funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:11:10] You know, if you’re looking at it from the sort of course political lens like this is where the leverage on the union fight is. Like this is now the third time they’ve done this. Each time the companies are dumping in tens of millions of dollars to fight it, and that’s a check that they are going to have to keep writing until they sort this out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:11:31] All right, KQED science editor Kevin Stark. Thanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:11:35] Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:11:39] In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 29 says you want dialysis clinics to follow these new requirements, including having a physician or nurse practitioner on site while patients are being treated. A vote no would keep things the way they are right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s it for today’s episode of Prop Fest. If you’re just tuning in, be sure to check out all our other episodes in our podcast feed. You can find transcripts of those episodes at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfesthttps://www.kqed.org/propfest\">Bay Curious.org/Propfest\u003c/a>. If you’re new to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious podcast\u003c/a>, welcome. Every Thursday we drop episodes that explore listener questions about the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s a lot of fun and we always learn so much. So if you’re diggin’ Prop Fest, I think you’ll enjoy our other work too. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prop Fest is produced by Katrina Schwartz. Amanda Font, Darren Tu, Brendan Willard and me Olivia Allen-Price in partnership with the team behind the Bay, Allan Montecillo, Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Maria Esquinca. Our show is made in San Francisco at member supported KQED. We’ll be back tomorrow with Kevin talking about Proposition 30, which would tax the richest Californians and use the money for green transportation initiatives. You don’t want to miss it. I’ll see you then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Prop Fest 2022 breaks down all the statewide propositions on your ballot. Proposition 29 would change how dialysis clinics in California are regulated.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop Fest episode explaining Proposition 29 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:00] Hello. Hello. I’m \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ohubertallen\">Olivia Allen Price\u003c/a>. And this is KQED’s Prop Fest, a podcast series brought to you by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> and our friends at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">The Bay\u003c/a>. Today, we’re taking a closer look at Proposition 29, the dialysis prop on your ballot. It reads like this. Prop 29 requires an onsite licensed medical professional at kidney dialysis clinics and establishes other state requirements. This proposition may have you feeling deja vu because this is our third time seeing a dialysis proposition on the ballot since 2018, and they all look kind of similar. We’ll get into why this keeps coming back and unpack what Proposition 29 would do. Just ahead. Stick around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED science editor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/kevinstark\">Kevin Stark\u003c/a> is here to help us dig in on what is going on with Proposition 29. Kevin, thanks for stopping by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:00:57] Absolutely. Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:59] Let’s take a closer read on this one. What exactly would Proposition 29 do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:01:04] So Prop 29 is aimed at improving care at the dialysis clinics in California. There’s roughly 650 of them. And this would impose new regulations and rules. The biggest significant change here is that it would require that there be some kind of care provider onsite with patients as they’re receiving treatment. That’s a change from how it works. Now there are technicians onsite at all times and there’s doctors that supervise, but they only come in occasionally and there isn’t one always in the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:34] If you’re not familiar. Dialysis is for people with kidney failure. Our kidneys clean toxins from our blood. So when they’re not working, people need dialysis treatment to stay alive. Patients usually go three times a week and the procedure last three or 4 hours. So being on dialysis is really disruptive to someone’s life, even more so if they’re having to travel to a clinic far away. Kidney failure is caused by a number of health conditions, but most often diabetes or high blood pressure, because people of color are more likely to experience those conditions. They’re more likely to be on dialysis. Proposition 29 is going to feel super familiar to people who have voted in previous elections here in California, because this is the third time that voters are being asked to weigh in on how dialysis clinics should run. Kevin, why do we keep seeing dialysis on the ballot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:02:27] You’re absolutely right. Californians voted on this twice recently, Proposition eight in 2018 and Proposition 23 in 2020. Behind the scenes, here is a labor dispute. SEIU UHW, West is one of the largest health care unions in the state, and they have been trying for nearly a decade now to organize workers at dialysis clinics. The major companies that own these clinics, DaVita, Fresenius, have pushed back on this effort. And in fact, they’ve dumped tens of millions of dollars into fighting all of the propositions. If you talk to the companies, they will tell you that this is the unions really kind of putting the screw on them. They’re trying to bleed them of money. This is all about that fight for unionization. And if they were to come to an agreement on that, that maybe you wouldn’t be seeing the propositions. So basically, in a nutshell, they’re arguing that the unions are taking advantage of California’s proposition system. The unions have a completely different view of this. Obviously, they say this is about improving the care for patients. You know, they say that they after the last propositions failed, they went back. They listen to the criticism. They actually talked with researchers to figure out ways to improve the policy. And this is the result, Proposition 29. I asked SEIU’s David Miller to respond exactly to the criticism that this is not about the clinics, but it’s about a larger fight over unionization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Miller\u003c/strong> [00:03:54] Where movement of workers and also of patients. And we seek to improve care across the spectrum. We are seeking to do stuff in the broad interests so that this is not about some narrow play to sort of get dialysis. We see this is actually part of our mandate that we want to improve staffing in these clinics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:04:12] So is Prop 29 the same thing we voted on in 2020?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:04:17] The No on Prop 29 campaign would argue that this is a carbon copy of that policy, and they say that voters have already rejected it. Not entirely true. There is a core idea here that is really the same and that’s, you know, having a physician or a care provider onsite at all times when patients are receiving care, there’s not a lot of difference there. There’s a lot of smaller nuances and changes in the edges of this policy. The union expanded the definition of care providers here. It used to be that it was exclusively doctors. Now it’s nurse practitioners as well as physician assistants, also capitalizing on the pandemic and this expansion of telehealth. There’s also a stipulation in here that if there was no one available to be onsite, they could have someone that, you know, a doctor or a nurse that’s available over telehealth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:05:07] A key question here is does having a physician or nurse practitioner onsite at a dialysis clinic make patients safer? KQED health reporter April Dembosky had something interesting to say about this in our Prop Fest episode from 2020, which is the last time we voted on a similar measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:05:26] So health care is complicated, and it’s hard to know if this would really help patients or if it might have unintended consequences. So patients already have their own doctors. They come see them in the clinics once a month or once a week to check on their dialysis prescription and medications to monitor their labs. And researchers have studied whether the frequency of doctor’s visits makes a difference in patient’s health. Back in 2004, Medicare, the government health program that pays for most dialysis treatment created a new incentive to encourage doctors to visit their dialysis patients more often. So instead of one or two times a month, it pushed them to visit four or more times per month. Well, after more than ten years of doing this, it turns out seeing your doctor more often has no impact on health outcomes. In fact, patients who were seen less often by their doctor actually had better survival rates. So the government was paying doctors more money for more services with no conclusive benefits to show for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:06:34] Kevin What would happen in the event of an emergency? You know, imagine having a physician or a nurse practitioner, there would be a good thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:06:41] That is exactly the argument that the unions make, you know, in an emergency. Let’s say a patient faints, their heart stops. If that happens while in the clinic, someone has to perform CPR, call 911 to have paramedics take them to the hospital. Advocates say having a doctor, a nurse practitioner or physician on site would absolutely help here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:06:59] But it’s worth noting that this proposition moves in the opposite direction of a lot of other health policy changes that have happened recently. You know, generally California and the rest of the nation have been changing laws so that physicians aren’t having to do everything. There’s sort of been this wider recognition that a lot of health care duties don’t require the expertize of a doctor or a nurse practitioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:07:22] Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. And I think if you talk to the companies that manage all these clinics, they would say, you know, you don’t need a doctor in the clinic to perform CPR and to call 911. This is something that a technician can do. And then I think the addition of the telehealth argument into this proposition might be a way for the union to try and get around this idea itself. Like, you know, I think they’re saying basically, okay, maybe you don’t need someone on site, but you need someone that’s there that’s supervising. And then I think I would also note that the clinics do have doctors that work for them. They just don’t happen to always be on site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:07:54] Now, there are a few other regulations in this prop that aren’t getting as much attention. Tell me about those.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:08:00] So the unions added that clinics would need to report any infection that happens during treatment to the state. You know, the companies say they already are required to do this. Individuals without insurance would not be able to be denied care. Again, you know, the companies say that it’s not something that happens. Clinics would have to report additional information to state regulators and they would also actually have to get the consent of state health officials before they would close a clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:08:32] One thing the No on 29 campaign has been saying in campaign ads is that these new regulations could cause clinics to close. Is that a real threat?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:08:41] Well, I think that’s the argument that the companies that run these clinics are making. State analysts projected it would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with these regulations if they were to pass. Here’s Bryan Wong, who’s a medical director for DaVita in Oakland. He says clinics there might actually need to close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bryan Wong\u003c/strong> [00:08:57] Those that are in the rural area, probably even worse because those in a rural area. They probably have a huge amount of medical only patients, and those are the patients that are at most risk of getting harm. Why? Because the density of dialysis clinics in rural areas is much, much less than in urban areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:09:20] So I would just temper that and just keep this in mind about any talk about clinics closing is that the companies that run these dialysis clinics are, by and large hugely profitable businesses. And if their costs do increase, they likely would pass them on to insurance companies or find other ways to make it up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:09:36] I’m curious, how do dialysis patients feel about this proposition?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:09:40] There’s a key argument against Prop 29, which is basically that health care is just incredibly complicated, that the regulations should be crafted by lawmakers in a very nuanced way. And, you know, putting that responsibility onto voters with a really blunt instrument like a proposition is just not the way to do it. April, when she was reporting on this, you know, she talked to one patient, DeWayne Cox, and he made this point explicitly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DeWayne Cox\u003c/strong> [00:10:06] When I see these propositions that are put before the voters, who have no idea what we go through and what’s necessary to keep us alive. It makes me angry because they’re playing politics for whatever their reasons are, but they’re putting patients like me in the middle of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:10:37] I want to transition us now to talk about campaign spending. What do things look like for Prop 39 right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:10:43] Wow. Expensive and completely lopsided. In the first week of September when we’re recording this divide, it just dropped to 8 million into the No on 29 campaign. The companies had already spent, you know, tens of millions of dollars on this. SEIU is putting up some money on this as well, but it’s really just a fraction of what DaVita and Fresenius have spent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:11:02] So it’s interesting that the union is pushing on this, keeps pushing on this topic, but then gets outgunned every time on the funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark\u003c/strong> [00:11:10] You know, if you’re looking at it from the sort of course political lens like this is where the leverage on the union fight is. Like this is now the third time they’ve done this. Each time the companies are dumping in tens of millions of dollars to fight it, and that’s a check that they are going to have to keep writing until they sort this out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:11:31] All right, KQED science editor Kevin Stark. Thanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark:\u003c/strong> [00:11:35] Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:11:39] In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 29 says you want dialysis clinics to follow these new requirements, including having a physician or nurse practitioner on site while patients are being treated. A vote no would keep things the way they are right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s it for today’s episode of Prop Fest. If you’re just tuning in, be sure to check out all our other episodes in our podcast feed. You can find transcripts of those episodes at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfesthttps://www.kqed.org/propfest\">Bay Curious.org/Propfest\u003c/a>. If you’re new to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious podcast\u003c/a>, welcome. Every Thursday we drop episodes that explore listener questions about the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s a lot of fun and we always learn so much. So if you’re diggin’ Prop Fest, I think you’ll enjoy our other work too. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prop Fest is produced by Katrina Schwartz. Amanda Font, Darren Tu, Brendan Willard and me Olivia Allen-Price in partnership with the team behind the Bay, Allan Montecillo, Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Maria Esquinca. Our show is made in San Francisco at member supported KQED. We’ll be back tomorrow with Kevin talking about Proposition 30, which would tax the richest Californians and use the money for green transportation initiatives. You don’t want to miss it. I’ll see you then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:00:17] Hey there! I’m Olivia Allen-Price and I want to welcome to episode three in the Bay Curious Prop Fest series. If you’re just tuning in, we are partway through our journey into the seven propositions on the California ballot this fall. Last week we explored Props 1, 26 and 27 – about abortion and sports betting. If you missed those be sure to go give them a listen in the Bay Curious podcast feed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’re back with our friends at The Bay to understand Proposition 28 … all about education funding. Ready to hit the books? Here’s how it will read on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voicer \u003c/strong>[00:00:45] Prop. 28 provides additional funding from State General Fund for Arts and Music, Education and all K through 12 public schools, including charter schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong>[00:00:56] Today we’ll dive in and discuss: Should we spend roughly $1 billion annually on arts education? That’s all just ahead on Prop Fest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> KQED’s Julia McEvoy has been covering education at KQED for years. She spoke with The Bay’s Ericka Cruz Guevarra about Proposition 28.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> How does arts education work in California right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:01:22] The State Education Code requires schools to offer courses of study in four arts disciplines to all California K-through-12 students. But it just really isn’t happening across the board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:01:42] There’s been some improvement, there’s been some more money, but it really hasn’t changed a whole lot. Mainly elementary schools and schools serving high numbers of children from low-income families. They have less access to art instruction. They even have trouble getting access to instruction at all. And they’re less likely to have dedicated rooms with specialized equipment for the arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angelee Montances:\u003c/strong> [00:02:07] I do think about that and it says something I’m really, really passionate about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:02:10] I think this is what Angelee Montances sees. She’s this student I met at Richmond High School in the East Bay, and she’s in the Advanced Orchestra class there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angelee Montances:\u003c/strong> [00:02:21] Like, over the years, I’ve noticed, like communities like mine, Richmond High, where it’s predominantly brown kids, we don’t get the same opportunity as in like Hercules, which is, you know, predominantly Asian kids and white kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:02:32] You know, when she sees kids from the Hercules High Orchestra going to Disneyland, you know, at a cost of like 20 grand and her music instructor, Mr. Wilkie, says he gets just $1400 a year total for supplies and that’s like uniforms and instruments for 140 kids. And so Angela sees this and she she feels it’s unfair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:02:54] So that’s interesting. Arts education is required in California, but it doesn’t sound like it’s necessarily guaranteed, and especially not equally. How did the pandemic affect arts education?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:03:08] There’s this organization called the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, which serves kids from the Richmond area. And they offer free arts for kids in Richmond and there, they partner with schools to help fill the gaps in arts education because the schools can’t afford a full time arts teacher, so they’ll do an after school program and they’ll contract with this organization and say, ‘Please send in some arts instructors and we’ll give our kids some art.’ And there’s a woman there named Andrea Landin, and she’s the director of programs. And she says this past year she had so many principals calling from throughout the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Andrea Landin:\u003c/strong> [00:03:43] Saying that my students have been sitting in front of a screen for a year and a half. They need to sing, they need to move, they need to express themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:03:53] And I think that’s then sort of the universal, like cry that you have seen and maybe even helped prompt this proposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:04:07] Can you tell me the backstory behind this prop? Why is it on the ballot in the first place?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:04:13] So Austin Beutner is the former superintendent of L.A. Unified and he is the person who put forth this measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Beutner:\u003c/strong> [00:04:21] Arts is not the sprinkles that one puts on top of an ice cream sundae, arts is the central part of a good education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:04:26] And he says basically that as an education leader of the state’s largest district, L.A. Unified, he saw firsthand the value of arts education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Beutner:\u003c/strong> [00:04:36] The superintendent, when I visit schools, I would invariably ask, what can I do to help? Always on the top three was more arts and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:04:44] You know, I think most people think of arts education just as music classes. And I think what Beutner is trying to say is that when the arts are done well, it’s much more than that. It’s culture. The art can affect kids’ well-being. Kids can see themselves reflected in music, theater, dance. And those kids’ families see and feel this when they come to witness the performances in schools, and they also become inspired and can see themselves validated. So, it can be a powerful sort of instrument for the community to come together. Beutner makes the point that arts and music education improves cognitive development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Beutner:\u003c/strong> [00:05:18] We know from the research students who participate in arts and music and have proper arts music education will do better in school, do better in math, will do better in reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:05:29] So like all of these things, he feels like really matter right now, especially coming out of the pandemic. And he declares that, you know, California is behind when it comes to providing schools with funding for arts and music education. And then he kind of makes this other point that, like, it’s really ironic in California, which is like the capital of the world’s creative economy, right? Supporting 2.6 million jobs in the state. And yet we only have one in five public schools in California that has a dedicated teacher for traditional arts programs, you know, like music and dance, theater and art, or let alone computer graphics and animation coding and costume design and filmmaking. Beutner want to do something about this. He wanted to change this picture, and it led him to put forth this measure, Prop. 28.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:06:10] Well, let’s talk about what Prop. 28 does exactly. How would this proposition provide support for arts education where we haven’t so far?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:06:21] It’s pretty big. I mean, Proposition 28 would roughly double the amount of funding California gives schools for arts and music education, 30% of that money would go to schools that serve students from low-income communities. Voters would also be locking in that funding stream for the future since Proposition 28 requires that the annual amount be equal to at minimum, 1% of the amount allocated for public education. It’s not going to raise taxes. This comes out of the general fund. And what that means is these are the funds that are raised primarily through income sales, corporate and capital gains taxes. And that’s combined with local property tax revenues. And so that’s where this funding for this measure would come out of that general fund. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated this could raise about between $800 million and $1 billion for the arts. On the other hand, we’re now already having more money going to schools than ever before. In June this year, California passed a state budget that increases the base funding for local control funding formula. And that’s the mechanism through which most of the state’s public schools are funded. And it increased by 9 billion or 13%. This was the largest single year increase to the formula since its inception in 2013. So, the truth is schools do already have a lot more money than they’ve had in years past. Right. And they’re trying to figure out how to spend that money right now to improve students’ well-being and academic outcomes. And you could argue, well, they can use this money on the arts. Right. The central tenet of this proposition is like when budgets do contract, that’s when the arts always get cut. They’re saying, we’re going to guarantee this amount every year. So, if there’s a recession and schools have to cut, they won’t have to necessarily cut the arts first. This money will be there. This measure says no matter what, there will be a guaranteed money for full time arts teachers in public schools. And that’s a real commitment. It’s a new commitment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jazz Monique Hudson:\u003c/strong> [00:08:29] I specifically started teaching in the arts, in the juvenile justice system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:08:34] That interviewed a woman named Jazz Monique Hudson. And I met her in Castro Valley High School, right as kids were coming back into school and she was teaching spoken word poetry there. And it was really this empowering, liberating, creative expression for students who were processing the trauma of the pandemic. It was, it was really impressive. And when I caught up with her last week, she said, ‘oh, I don’t teach spoken word anymore.’ And I’m like, ‘What? Why?’ And she goes, ‘Well, I just wasn’t getting enough work. Like the Oakland Public Schools canceled the Youth Speak.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jazz Monique Hudson:\u003c/strong> [00:09:07] Youth Speaks is very prominent in San Francisco. However, they have not been able to maintain and sustain their partnerships with Oakland schools due to funding. I was set to teach at Elmhurst Middle School this semester but could not teach in the teaching art program because there wasn’t enough funding for the spoken word program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:09:30] And she just like felt like it was too uncertain and she couldn’t do it anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jazz Monique Hudson:\u003c/strong> [00:09:34] I’m no longer doing direct service with young people, and it’s partially because of the pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:09:40] And she’s really excited about Prop. 28. She thinks like this is so needed. And I have a feeling that if this came through and she could be hired as a full-time arts teacher, she would. And a lot of kids would benefit from a woman like that in their classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jazz Monique Hudson:\u003c/strong> [00:09:58] And keeping the funding and bringing more funding, increased funding to public schools. I believe you will see a decrease in truancy, a decrease in expulsion, a decrease in depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:10:21] Well, Julia, I want to move into who is for and against this prop. Apart from the former L.A. superintendent who supports this proposition, what groups?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:10:35] Well, the California Teachers Association and, you know, again, we’re talking about doubling the number of full-time arts teachers. So that certainly helps their ranks. We also have the former secretary of education under President Obama, his, this man’s name is Arne Duncan, and he’s, he wrote the op ed with Austin Beutner supporting this. He’s definitely one of the supporters. And then there’s a lot of Hollywood celebs like Dr. Dre and Christina Aguilera, Common and for us, oldsters, Bonnie Raitt, you know, people like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:08] I feel like I have a pretty good sense, Julia, of the rationale behind Prop. 28. Is there any organized opposition around Prop. 28?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:11:18] No, there is not. But there have been a couple of op-ed pieces in a couple of newspapers that have said this is not a good idea. This is called ballot box budgeting locks legislators in and the budget is flush right now. Sure. But there’s concern that if and when the economy contracts, the state will be locked into, right? This funding for the arts in schools. And that could end up forcing cuts in other programs, and it, they say it ties the hands of legislators, essentially the folks we elect, to make these decisions for us. But nothing official.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:52] So how much money has been poured into the campaign for this prop and also against. Do we know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:12:00] Well, so far, $9.8 million has come in in support of the measure. And $4.2 million of that is from Beutner, another million like from Fender musical Instruments, and another million from the California Teachers Association. And at this point, nothing has been spent against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:12:19] Well, if that is the case, what do we know, Julia, about how likely this is to pass in California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:12:27] I don’t know how voters are going to feel when they get in here and read this. It’s such a feel-good measure, right? You’d think like, ‘oh, yeah, more money for arts. Why not?’ But, you know, I think there’s probably some people who might associate it with tax increases, maybe wrongly. It’s not a tax increase to pay for this. But they may feel that and they may say, ‘oh, I’m not sure about that.’ I haven’t seen very much polling around it yet. I anticipate that we’ll see that pretty soon. Maybe we’ll have a better idea than.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:12:56] Well. Julia, thank you so much for breaking this down. I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:13:00] So fun to do this with you, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:13:04] In a nutshell, a vote ‘yes’ on Prop. 28 means that the state will guarantee additional funding for arts education in K-through-12 public schools. A vote ‘no’ means funding for arts and education will continue to depend on whether the state and local districts want to spend that money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong>That was the Bay’s Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Julia McEvoy, a Senior Editor at KQED who covers education. That’s it for Prop Fest today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s it for Prop Fest today. If you’ve been enjoying the series, share it with a friend! You’ll find everything you need at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfest\">KQED.org/PropFest\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The series is made by the team behind The Bay: Alan Monticello, Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Maria Esquinca … and us here at Bay Curious: Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font, Brendan Willard and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Darren Tu is our social video intern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks also to Robin Epley from the Sacramento Bee who did that interview you heard with former LA superintendent Austin Beutner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re coming at you again tomorrow, with our episode on Proposition 29 – the dialysis prop. I’ll see ya then!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Prop Fest is a series of podcast episodes explaining the statewide propositions on the California ballot. Proposition 28 would guarantee a set amount of funding from the general fund goes to arts education.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:00:17] Hey there! I’m Olivia Allen-Price and I want to welcome to episode three in the Bay Curious Prop Fest series. If you’re just tuning in, we are partway through our journey into the seven propositions on the California ballot this fall. Last week we explored Props 1, 26 and 27 – about abortion and sports betting. If you missed those be sure to go give them a listen in the Bay Curious podcast feed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’re back with our friends at The Bay to understand Proposition 28 … all about education funding. Ready to hit the books? Here’s how it will read on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voicer \u003c/strong>[00:00:45] Prop. 28 provides additional funding from State General Fund for Arts and Music, Education and all K through 12 public schools, including charter schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong>[00:00:56] Today we’ll dive in and discuss: Should we spend roughly $1 billion annually on arts education? That’s all just ahead on Prop Fest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> KQED’s Julia McEvoy has been covering education at KQED for years. She spoke with The Bay’s Ericka Cruz Guevarra about Proposition 28.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> How does arts education work in California right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:01:22] The State Education Code requires schools to offer courses of study in four arts disciplines to all California K-through-12 students. But it just really isn’t happening across the board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:01:42] There’s been some improvement, there’s been some more money, but it really hasn’t changed a whole lot. Mainly elementary schools and schools serving high numbers of children from low-income families. They have less access to art instruction. They even have trouble getting access to instruction at all. And they’re less likely to have dedicated rooms with specialized equipment for the arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angelee Montances:\u003c/strong> [00:02:07] I do think about that and it says something I’m really, really passionate about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:02:10] I think this is what Angelee Montances sees. She’s this student I met at Richmond High School in the East Bay, and she’s in the Advanced Orchestra class there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angelee Montances:\u003c/strong> [00:02:21] Like, over the years, I’ve noticed, like communities like mine, Richmond High, where it’s predominantly brown kids, we don’t get the same opportunity as in like Hercules, which is, you know, predominantly Asian kids and white kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:02:32] You know, when she sees kids from the Hercules High Orchestra going to Disneyland, you know, at a cost of like 20 grand and her music instructor, Mr. Wilkie, says he gets just $1400 a year total for supplies and that’s like uniforms and instruments for 140 kids. And so Angela sees this and she she feels it’s unfair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:02:54] So that’s interesting. Arts education is required in California, but it doesn’t sound like it’s necessarily guaranteed, and especially not equally. How did the pandemic affect arts education?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:03:08] There’s this organization called the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, which serves kids from the Richmond area. And they offer free arts for kids in Richmond and there, they partner with schools to help fill the gaps in arts education because the schools can’t afford a full time arts teacher, so they’ll do an after school program and they’ll contract with this organization and say, ‘Please send in some arts instructors and we’ll give our kids some art.’ And there’s a woman there named Andrea Landin, and she’s the director of programs. And she says this past year she had so many principals calling from throughout the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Andrea Landin:\u003c/strong> [00:03:43] Saying that my students have been sitting in front of a screen for a year and a half. They need to sing, they need to move, they need to express themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:03:53] And I think that’s then sort of the universal, like cry that you have seen and maybe even helped prompt this proposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:04:07] Can you tell me the backstory behind this prop? Why is it on the ballot in the first place?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:04:13] So Austin Beutner is the former superintendent of L.A. Unified and he is the person who put forth this measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Beutner:\u003c/strong> [00:04:21] Arts is not the sprinkles that one puts on top of an ice cream sundae, arts is the central part of a good education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:04:26] And he says basically that as an education leader of the state’s largest district, L.A. Unified, he saw firsthand the value of arts education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Beutner:\u003c/strong> [00:04:36] The superintendent, when I visit schools, I would invariably ask, what can I do to help? Always on the top three was more arts and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:04:44] You know, I think most people think of arts education just as music classes. And I think what Beutner is trying to say is that when the arts are done well, it’s much more than that. It’s culture. The art can affect kids’ well-being. Kids can see themselves reflected in music, theater, dance. And those kids’ families see and feel this when they come to witness the performances in schools, and they also become inspired and can see themselves validated. So, it can be a powerful sort of instrument for the community to come together. Beutner makes the point that arts and music education improves cognitive development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Austin Beutner:\u003c/strong> [00:05:18] We know from the research students who participate in arts and music and have proper arts music education will do better in school, do better in math, will do better in reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:05:29] So like all of these things, he feels like really matter right now, especially coming out of the pandemic. And he declares that, you know, California is behind when it comes to providing schools with funding for arts and music education. And then he kind of makes this other point that, like, it’s really ironic in California, which is like the capital of the world’s creative economy, right? Supporting 2.6 million jobs in the state. And yet we only have one in five public schools in California that has a dedicated teacher for traditional arts programs, you know, like music and dance, theater and art, or let alone computer graphics and animation coding and costume design and filmmaking. Beutner want to do something about this. He wanted to change this picture, and it led him to put forth this measure, Prop. 28.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:06:10] Well, let’s talk about what Prop. 28 does exactly. How would this proposition provide support for arts education where we haven’t so far?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:06:21] It’s pretty big. I mean, Proposition 28 would roughly double the amount of funding California gives schools for arts and music education, 30% of that money would go to schools that serve students from low-income communities. Voters would also be locking in that funding stream for the future since Proposition 28 requires that the annual amount be equal to at minimum, 1% of the amount allocated for public education. It’s not going to raise taxes. This comes out of the general fund. And what that means is these are the funds that are raised primarily through income sales, corporate and capital gains taxes. And that’s combined with local property tax revenues. And so that’s where this funding for this measure would come out of that general fund. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated this could raise about between $800 million and $1 billion for the arts. On the other hand, we’re now already having more money going to schools than ever before. In June this year, California passed a state budget that increases the base funding for local control funding formula. And that’s the mechanism through which most of the state’s public schools are funded. And it increased by 9 billion or 13%. This was the largest single year increase to the formula since its inception in 2013. So, the truth is schools do already have a lot more money than they’ve had in years past. Right. And they’re trying to figure out how to spend that money right now to improve students’ well-being and academic outcomes. And you could argue, well, they can use this money on the arts. Right. The central tenet of this proposition is like when budgets do contract, that’s when the arts always get cut. They’re saying, we’re going to guarantee this amount every year. So, if there’s a recession and schools have to cut, they won’t have to necessarily cut the arts first. This money will be there. This measure says no matter what, there will be a guaranteed money for full time arts teachers in public schools. And that’s a real commitment. It’s a new commitment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jazz Monique Hudson:\u003c/strong> [00:08:29] I specifically started teaching in the arts, in the juvenile justice system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:08:34] That interviewed a woman named Jazz Monique Hudson. And I met her in Castro Valley High School, right as kids were coming back into school and she was teaching spoken word poetry there. And it was really this empowering, liberating, creative expression for students who were processing the trauma of the pandemic. It was, it was really impressive. And when I caught up with her last week, she said, ‘oh, I don’t teach spoken word anymore.’ And I’m like, ‘What? Why?’ And she goes, ‘Well, I just wasn’t getting enough work. Like the Oakland Public Schools canceled the Youth Speak.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jazz Monique Hudson:\u003c/strong> [00:09:07] Youth Speaks is very prominent in San Francisco. However, they have not been able to maintain and sustain their partnerships with Oakland schools due to funding. I was set to teach at Elmhurst Middle School this semester but could not teach in the teaching art program because there wasn’t enough funding for the spoken word program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:09:30] And she just like felt like it was too uncertain and she couldn’t do it anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jazz Monique Hudson:\u003c/strong> [00:09:34] I’m no longer doing direct service with young people, and it’s partially because of the pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julia McEvoy:\u003c/strong> [00:09:40] And she’s really excited about Prop. 28. She thinks like this is so needed. And I have a feeling that if this came through and she could be hired as a full-time arts teacher, she would. And a lot of kids would benefit from a woman like that in their classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jazz Monique Hudson:\u003c/strong> [00:09:58] And keeping the funding and bringing more funding, increased funding to public schools. I believe you will see a decrease in truancy, a decrease in expulsion, a decrease in depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:10:21] Well, Julia, I want to move into who is for and against this prop. Apart from the former L.A. superintendent who supports this proposition, what groups?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:10:35] Well, the California Teachers Association and, you know, again, we’re talking about doubling the number of full-time arts teachers. So that certainly helps their ranks. We also have the former secretary of education under President Obama, his, this man’s name is Arne Duncan, and he’s, he wrote the op ed with Austin Beutner supporting this. He’s definitely one of the supporters. And then there’s a lot of Hollywood celebs like Dr. Dre and Christina Aguilera, Common and for us, oldsters, Bonnie Raitt, you know, people like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:08] I feel like I have a pretty good sense, Julia, of the rationale behind Prop. 28. Is there any organized opposition around Prop. 28?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:11:18] No, there is not. But there have been a couple of op-ed pieces in a couple of newspapers that have said this is not a good idea. This is called ballot box budgeting locks legislators in and the budget is flush right now. Sure. But there’s concern that if and when the economy contracts, the state will be locked into, right? This funding for the arts in schools. And that could end up forcing cuts in other programs, and it, they say it ties the hands of legislators, essentially the folks we elect, to make these decisions for us. But nothing official.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:11:52] So how much money has been poured into the campaign for this prop and also against. Do we know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:12:00] Well, so far, $9.8 million has come in in support of the measure. And $4.2 million of that is from Beutner, another million like from Fender musical Instruments, and another million from the California Teachers Association. And at this point, nothing has been spent against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:12:19] Well, if that is the case, what do we know, Julia, about how likely this is to pass in California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:12:27] I don’t know how voters are going to feel when they get in here and read this. It’s such a feel-good measure, right? You’d think like, ‘oh, yeah, more money for arts. Why not?’ But, you know, I think there’s probably some people who might associate it with tax increases, maybe wrongly. It’s not a tax increase to pay for this. But they may feel that and they may say, ‘oh, I’m not sure about that.’ I haven’t seen very much polling around it yet. I anticipate that we’ll see that pretty soon. Maybe we’ll have a better idea than.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:12:56] Well. Julia, thank you so much for breaking this down. I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia McEvoy [00:13:00] So fun to do this with you, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> [00:13:04] In a nutshell, a vote ‘yes’ on Prop. 28 means that the state will guarantee additional funding for arts education in K-through-12 public schools. A vote ‘no’ means funding for arts and education will continue to depend on whether the state and local districts want to spend that money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong>That was the Bay’s Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Julia McEvoy, a Senior Editor at KQED who covers education. That’s it for Prop Fest today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s it for Prop Fest today. If you’ve been enjoying the series, share it with a friend! You’ll find everything you need at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfest\">KQED.org/PropFest\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The series is made by the team behind The Bay: Alan Monticello, Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Maria Esquinca … and us here at Bay Curious: Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font, Brendan Willard and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Darren Tu is our social video intern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks also to Robin Epley from the Sacramento Bee who did that interview you heard with former LA superintendent Austin Beutner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re coming at you again tomorrow, with our episode on Proposition 29 – the dialysis prop. I’ll see ya then!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop Fest episode explaining Propositions 26 and 27 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:01] I’m Olivia Allen-Price. You’re listening to Prop Fest, a collaborative series from Bay Curious and The Bay. Today, we’re talking Propositions 26 and 27, which affect sports betting at tribal casinos and online. They’re among the most expensive ballot measures in California history. Even more has been spent on Prop 27 than that uber expensive Uber prop from back in 2020. Big money shows up in California elections when there is big money on the line. Here’s how 26 and 27 will read in part on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice reading ballot\u003c/strong> [00:00:38] Prop 26 allows federally recognized Native American tribes to operate roulette, dice games and sports wagering on tribal lands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Different voice reading ballot\u003c/strong> [00:00:46] Proposition 27 proposes a constitutional amendment and statute to authorize a gaming tribe to operate online sports betting for individuals 21 years of age or older in the state, but outside of Indian lands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:59] It’s a two for one Prop Fest episode all about changing the state’s gambling laws. We’ll begin just ahead on Prop Fest. I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:12] So Propositions 26 and 27 will affect the way sports betting and some other forms of gambling are handled in the state of California. Here to help us make sense of it all is KQED political reporter Guy Marzorati. Hey, Guy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:01:25] Hey, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:26] So kick us off with where things are with gambling in California today. What’s allowed and what’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:01:31] So right now, sports betting is illegal in California. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. There’s a huge black market of sports gambling. But right now, you can’t use an app legally to bet on sports. You can’t go to a casino and place a bet on a game. You can do other things at tribal casinos in California, like playing a slot machine or playing blackjack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:52] Now, you mentioned tribal casinos, and I think to give this conversation a good foundation, we should learn why tribes and gambling are linked in California. So, could you walk us through that history a little bit?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:02:04] Tribal governments, through the long kind of genocidal history of federal policy, state policy, in a lot of cases were pushed to parts of the state where there weren’t tons of economic opportunities like large scale agricultural, for example. And so starting in the eighties, a lot of tribal governments started pushing for more gaming opportunities, and they were aided by two big events. One was the Supreme Court ruling in 1987 that said California cannot block tribes from offering gaming. And a law that was passed the next year in Congress that kind of set the ground rules nationally. So that set up this decade of the nineties where California tribes were supposed to come to compact agreements with the state government. Those kind of set the rules of the road for gaming, how much revenue get shared with the state, how much get shared with tribes that don’t run casinos because state tax rules don’t apply to these tribes, they’re sovereign. But during the nineties, the tribes, former Governor Pete Wilson, they couldn’t agree on compacts. So, tribes basically continued to offer games kind of at the legal margins. And then ultimately the breakthrough came when tribes went to the voters passing perhaps in 1998 and 2000 to basically secure their position as the state’s top gaming operator. For reference, today there are around 110 federally recognized tribes in California. Sixty-four of them operate casinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:03:25] We’re talking about these props together because on the surface, they seem to essentially cover two different ways that people can bet on sports. One of them in a casino and the other online. But let’s talk about what’s distinct in each one. Let’s start with Prop 26. What would that do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:03:41] So Prop 26 really does three key things. The first is legalize sports betting in California, but only in tribal casinos and the four horse horseracing tracks around the state. The second thing is allowing roulette and craps at tribal casinos. These are games that if you went to Las Vegas, you’d be able to play there. But you can’t right now in California. Tribes have wanted to do that for a long time. They would get those games legalized if Prop 26 passes. And then the third thing is probably the most complex. It would let an individual file a lawsuit to enforce gambling laws in California instead of leaving that just to the attorney general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:04:16] We’re going to dig in a lot more on that in just a minute. But first, let’s get to know the broad strokes of Prop 27 and how is it different from Prop 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:04:24] So the main difference between Prop 27 and Prop 26 is Prop 27 would legalize online sports betting. So, you wouldn’t have to go to any physical location to, say, place a bet on the Warriors beating the Lakers. You could do that on your phone. You could do that on your computer, on an app and place a bet that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:04:41] So when I first read these props, I figured it would kind of break down into two groups like people who want sports betting would vote, you know. Yes, on both because they want sports betting, however they can get it. And people who don’t want sports betting would vote another way. And for some voters, it might be that simple. But this one gets a lot more complicated when you take a closer look at where the money goes. That’s kind of the crux of these two props, Guy. Can you walk us through that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:05:06] Yeah. So, it kind of breaks down beyond what you say, what you might see it at first glance, which is how do you want to legalize sports gambling? Do you want to legalize sports gambling? And it gets into a lot of the issues at play between the groups backing these initiatives. So, I’ll start out with Proposition 26. Who would really benefit from this are California’s Native American Indian tribes. They put Proposition 26 on the ballot, and they argue that by getting revenue from sports betting, by getting revenue from craps roulette, this would continue to provide an economic uplift to tribes. Jacob Mejia is vice president of public affairs for the Pechanga Tribe in Southern California. He kind of gave an overview of the benefits currently brought to tribes in the state by virtue of having those casinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacob Mejia\u003c/strong> [00:05:47] 150,000 jobs are created by tribal gaming, tens of billions of dollars in overall economic activity, hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of taxes that are generated, not to mention revenue sharing or sharing agreements between tribes and local governments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:06:01] So if Proposition 26 were to pass, it would require each tribe to go and renegotiate their compact with the state to incorporate sports betting. The state has these agreements with around 75 tribal governments that lay out the rules for gaming as it currently exists in California. Those would have to be amended to figure out, you know, how much money is going to be shared with the state, with local governments, kind of lay out the rules of the road for sports gambling at tribal casinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:06:27] Got it. So, for Prop 26, the lion’s share of money goes to California’s tribes. Who benefits financially from Proposition 27?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:06:36] So Proposition 27 was put on the ballot by gambling companies that operate nationally. You might have heard of them FanDuel, DraftKings, MGM, they’re putting this measure forward to legalize this online marketplace in California, and that could bring in billions and billions of dollars for these companies. This is a huge economic opportunity for them, but it’s also an economic opportunity for some tribes because under Proposition 27, every gambling company that launches an app in California needs to partner with the tribe here. So, you could see some tribes really, really benefiting if Proposition 27 passes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:07:10] We’re hearing a lot of ads that mention homelessness with Prop 27. What’s the connection there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:07:15] If Proposition 27 passes, these betting platforms would be taxed. Ten percent of their gambling revenue would go to the state, with most of that earmarked for a problem that Californians care a lot about, which is homelessness. That 10% tax is kind of in line with a lot of the other states that have already legalized sports betting, like Arizona and Colorado, though we have seen states like Nevada have gone lower with their tax rate. And New York set their tax at a whopping 51% of gross spending revenue. So, under Proposition 27, the tax would be at 10%. Eighty-five percent of that tax money would go to local governments to fund housing, homeless services, mental health services. And then 15% of the money would go to tribes that are not participating in this brand new online gambling market. And it’s the homelessness funding in Prop 27 that’s really drawn the support of mayors like Libby Schaaf in Oakland, Darrell Steinberg in Sacramento. They’ve gotten behind the Yes on 27 campaign, along with some homeless advocates, though it’s worth noting other homeless service providers have kind of stayed away from this. They’ve said they don’t want to wade into this debate about sports betting and take a yes or no position on Prop 27. But when we’re comparing these two props, Prop 26, Prop 27, the key thing with 27 is that it would bring in a lot more money because online betting is just a lot more popular than folks driving to a casino, placing a bet there. The Legislative Analyst’s Office says Prop 27 would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars for the state a year. And as Prop 27 spokesman Nathan Klick says finally create a dedicated stream of funding to tackle homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nathan Click\u003c/strong> [00:08:47] Right now, the state is using one time money for that. This the homelessness advocates who are supporting our measure will attest, will help create permanent solutions to homelessness, help build more housing, help finance more housing, help create mental health services that help get folks off the streets and into housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:09:11] That was a lot. So here’s a quick recap. Prop 26 is backed by California tribal governments. The money made from expanded gambling would benefit tribes that operate casinos. They pay into a fund that gives money to non-gaming tribes as well. Some money will go to the state and local governments, but the details of that will get worked out in compact agreements that haven’t been made yet. Prop 27 is backed by national gambling companies. They pay a 10% tax on everything they make. 85% of that tax is earmarked for homeless services, and 15% will go into a bucket of money that is shared among California’s tribes that don’t participate in sports betting. Does that make sense? I really hope so. Okay. Back to the conversation, Guy. The campaign ads that I’m seeing kind of makes it seem like it’s smaller tribes being pitted against larger tribes in this debate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:10:08] Yeah. So that’s something that you could easily get confused about seeing all of these ads on TV messaging around these two props. The vast majority of California tribes who have weighed in are on the side of Prop 26, and the props do different things as far as promising tribes money. Obviously, Prop 26 would focus sports gambling in tribal casinos. So through that, those casinos would get money for tribes and also more money would go through to this trust fund. That money gets allocated for tribes that don’t have big gaming operations. There are a few tribes that are backing Prop 27, most notably the Middletown Rancheria Pomo Indians of California. Their tribal chairman is actually appeared in a lot of the ads for Prop 27. But if 27 were to pass, every company that comes into California to participate in the sports betting market would have to partner with a tribe. So, you might see, you know, three, four or five different tribes participate out of the roughly 75 right now that have gambling operations in compacts with the state. Everyone else would have to draw out of that pool of money set aside for tribes that don’t have a sports betting app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:11:12] There’s also one smaller but important group that has a stake in this — local cardrooms. That’s places like Artichoke Joe’s in San Bruno or Casino M8trix in San Jose. These are businesses where you can play games like poker. There are 84 of these cardrooms around the state. And they’re worried about Proposition 26. Guy, can you explain why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:11:34] So this is where things get a little complicated. The opposition of cardrooms to Prop 26 is based on a provision in the measure that would let individuals bring civil lawsuits to enforce state gaming law. So, the backdrop to this is a longstanding disagreement between tribes and cardrooms over a state rule that says only tribal casinos can offer games in which the house serves as the bank, meaning it has a stake against the players like blackjack. Tribes say cardrooms use different tactics to get around this and offer blackjack. They filed lawsuits, but in some cases, the tribes have lacked standing to actually bring the suit. So, if Prop 26 passes, any individual could hypothetically take these cardrooms to court. Where this gets beyond just a struggle between different gambling operators is that some cities in California really rely heavily on tax revenue from cardrooms. The most well-known example is in Hawaiian Gardens in L.A. County, that small city gets like 70% of its tax revenue from the local cardroom. But we see that even in San Jose, it gets $15 million a year from local cardroom revenue. So that’s why those cities and then some of the municipal employee unions in the cities have come out against Prop 26. They’re afraid of the long-term economic impact if cardrooms start getting sued left and right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:12:50] We’re not the first state in the country to be considering sports betting. All of our neighboring states have allowed it sort of writ large. Where are the rest of the states at on it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:13:00] Yeah, there’s been an explosion of states doing this. Ever since 2018, the Supreme Court ended the federal ban on sports betting. We’ve seen 33 states now offer some form of legalized sports gambling, and we’ve seen that in many cases take the form of online mobile betting. And honestly, as a sports fan, you can’t watch a game these days without seeing either an ad for these gambling companies, even like features, segments within sports shows often integrate gambling and sports betting. So, it’s really just in a matter of a few years, totally reshaped in some ways the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:13:36] And I think that’s the perfect segue way to talk about the money flying around on both of these props, because there’s a lot of money at stake here. We’re having this conversation in mid-September. And so even though a ton of spending has already happened, we know more is coming down the pike. Who is spending to help these props pass?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:13:54] On the Proposition 26 side, we have the tribal governments who are really bankrolling the campaign. So far, over 120 million has been contributed in support of Prop 26. 43 million raised against it. Really, the bigger money at this point is coming with Proposition 27. There you have these gambling companies pitching in roughly $170 million so far in support. And many of the same tribal governments that are pushing Prop 26, they’re opposing Prop 27. They’ve shelled out over $90 million so far against that measure. So just by itself, Prop 27 is the most expensive ballot measure campaign in California history and in American history. And if you put both of these campaigns together, we’re talking over $420 million raised. It’s like nothing the state has ever seen before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:14:41] Now, one question I know you’ve gotten and I had myself had is, you know, are voters going to vote typically, yes for both of these or no for both of these, will people be split? How are we expecting this to shake out with two props that in some ways overlap?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:14:56] Yeah, that’s a great question and something I’m really curious to see how it plays out. Do people take different approaches on the two, reject them altogether? And then there’s the legal question of what happens if voters approve both of these propositions. In all likelihood, that would end up in the courts. And figuring out which initiative can actually take place, can they both go into effect? It may end up which one gets more votes takes precedent. That all could be sorted out in the weeks after Election Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:15:23] Wow. Well, this one is gnarly, guy. Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:15:29] My pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:15:34] All right, let me see if I can put a cap on this one. A vote yes on Prop 26 says you think that sports betting, roulette and dice games should be legal at American Indian gaming casinos in California; sports betting should be allowed at racetracks; and individuals should be able to bring lawsuits against gaming operators if they’re breaking state law. Money made from this expanded gambling would mostly go to tribal governments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A vote yes on Prop 27 means you support legalizing online and mobile sports betting for people 21 and older. Money made from the passage of this prop would largely go to gambling companies and the tribes they partner with. The tax money they pay would be earmarked for homelessness services and tribes that don’t have an online app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A vote no on both props means you think things should stay the way they are now. And if you mix it up a vote yes on one and no on the other. You’d like to see sports betting allowed in some ways, but not all the ways. Or maybe you want to see funding go to one group and not the other. I really hope we helped all that make sense. It has been a doozy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re a new listener, just tuning in for our Prop Fest series, be sure to subscribe to the Bay Curious podcast. Every Thursday, we drop episodes that explore listener questions about the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s a lot of fun and we always learn so much. So, if you’re digging Prop Fest, I think you’ll enjoy our other work too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prop Fest is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Brendan Willard, Amanda Font, Darren Tu and me Olivia Allen-Price in partnership with the team behind The Bay – Alan Montecillo, Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Maria Equinca. You can find audio and transcripts for the series at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfest\">Baycurious.org/PropFest\u003c/a>. Our show is made in San Francisco at member supported KQED. Set your alarms because we’ll be back on Monday with an episode on Prop 28, the education funding Prop. I’ll see you then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Prop Fest 2022 breaks down all the statewide propositions on your ballot. Propositions 26 and 27 will affect the way sports betting, and some other forms of gambling, are handled in the state of California.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop Fest episode explaining Propositions 26 and 27 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:01] I’m Olivia Allen-Price. You’re listening to Prop Fest, a collaborative series from Bay Curious and The Bay. Today, we’re talking Propositions 26 and 27, which affect sports betting at tribal casinos and online. They’re among the most expensive ballot measures in California history. Even more has been spent on Prop 27 than that uber expensive Uber prop from back in 2020. Big money shows up in California elections when there is big money on the line. Here’s how 26 and 27 will read in part on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice reading ballot\u003c/strong> [00:00:38] Prop 26 allows federally recognized Native American tribes to operate roulette, dice games and sports wagering on tribal lands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Different voice reading ballot\u003c/strong> [00:00:46] Proposition 27 proposes a constitutional amendment and statute to authorize a gaming tribe to operate online sports betting for individuals 21 years of age or older in the state, but outside of Indian lands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:59] It’s a two for one Prop Fest episode all about changing the state’s gambling laws. We’ll begin just ahead on Prop Fest. I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:12] So Propositions 26 and 27 will affect the way sports betting and some other forms of gambling are handled in the state of California. Here to help us make sense of it all is KQED political reporter Guy Marzorati. Hey, Guy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:01:25] Hey, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:26] So kick us off with where things are with gambling in California today. What’s allowed and what’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:01:31] So right now, sports betting is illegal in California. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. There’s a huge black market of sports gambling. But right now, you can’t use an app legally to bet on sports. You can’t go to a casino and place a bet on a game. You can do other things at tribal casinos in California, like playing a slot machine or playing blackjack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:52] Now, you mentioned tribal casinos, and I think to give this conversation a good foundation, we should learn why tribes and gambling are linked in California. So, could you walk us through that history a little bit?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:02:04] Tribal governments, through the long kind of genocidal history of federal policy, state policy, in a lot of cases were pushed to parts of the state where there weren’t tons of economic opportunities like large scale agricultural, for example. And so starting in the eighties, a lot of tribal governments started pushing for more gaming opportunities, and they were aided by two big events. One was the Supreme Court ruling in 1987 that said California cannot block tribes from offering gaming. And a law that was passed the next year in Congress that kind of set the ground rules nationally. So that set up this decade of the nineties where California tribes were supposed to come to compact agreements with the state government. Those kind of set the rules of the road for gaming, how much revenue get shared with the state, how much get shared with tribes that don’t run casinos because state tax rules don’t apply to these tribes, they’re sovereign. But during the nineties, the tribes, former Governor Pete Wilson, they couldn’t agree on compacts. So, tribes basically continued to offer games kind of at the legal margins. And then ultimately the breakthrough came when tribes went to the voters passing perhaps in 1998 and 2000 to basically secure their position as the state’s top gaming operator. For reference, today there are around 110 federally recognized tribes in California. Sixty-four of them operate casinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:03:25] We’re talking about these props together because on the surface, they seem to essentially cover two different ways that people can bet on sports. One of them in a casino and the other online. But let’s talk about what’s distinct in each one. Let’s start with Prop 26. What would that do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:03:41] So Prop 26 really does three key things. The first is legalize sports betting in California, but only in tribal casinos and the four horse horseracing tracks around the state. The second thing is allowing roulette and craps at tribal casinos. These are games that if you went to Las Vegas, you’d be able to play there. But you can’t right now in California. Tribes have wanted to do that for a long time. They would get those games legalized if Prop 26 passes. And then the third thing is probably the most complex. It would let an individual file a lawsuit to enforce gambling laws in California instead of leaving that just to the attorney general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:04:16] We’re going to dig in a lot more on that in just a minute. But first, let’s get to know the broad strokes of Prop 27 and how is it different from Prop 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:04:24] So the main difference between Prop 27 and Prop 26 is Prop 27 would legalize online sports betting. So, you wouldn’t have to go to any physical location to, say, place a bet on the Warriors beating the Lakers. You could do that on your phone. You could do that on your computer, on an app and place a bet that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:04:41] So when I first read these props, I figured it would kind of break down into two groups like people who want sports betting would vote, you know. Yes, on both because they want sports betting, however they can get it. And people who don’t want sports betting would vote another way. And for some voters, it might be that simple. But this one gets a lot more complicated when you take a closer look at where the money goes. That’s kind of the crux of these two props, Guy. Can you walk us through that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:05:06] Yeah. So, it kind of breaks down beyond what you say, what you might see it at first glance, which is how do you want to legalize sports gambling? Do you want to legalize sports gambling? And it gets into a lot of the issues at play between the groups backing these initiatives. So, I’ll start out with Proposition 26. Who would really benefit from this are California’s Native American Indian tribes. They put Proposition 26 on the ballot, and they argue that by getting revenue from sports betting, by getting revenue from craps roulette, this would continue to provide an economic uplift to tribes. Jacob Mejia is vice president of public affairs for the Pechanga Tribe in Southern California. He kind of gave an overview of the benefits currently brought to tribes in the state by virtue of having those casinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacob Mejia\u003c/strong> [00:05:47] 150,000 jobs are created by tribal gaming, tens of billions of dollars in overall economic activity, hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of taxes that are generated, not to mention revenue sharing or sharing agreements between tribes and local governments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:06:01] So if Proposition 26 were to pass, it would require each tribe to go and renegotiate their compact with the state to incorporate sports betting. The state has these agreements with around 75 tribal governments that lay out the rules for gaming as it currently exists in California. Those would have to be amended to figure out, you know, how much money is going to be shared with the state, with local governments, kind of lay out the rules of the road for sports gambling at tribal casinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:06:27] Got it. So, for Prop 26, the lion’s share of money goes to California’s tribes. Who benefits financially from Proposition 27?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:06:36] So Proposition 27 was put on the ballot by gambling companies that operate nationally. You might have heard of them FanDuel, DraftKings, MGM, they’re putting this measure forward to legalize this online marketplace in California, and that could bring in billions and billions of dollars for these companies. This is a huge economic opportunity for them, but it’s also an economic opportunity for some tribes because under Proposition 27, every gambling company that launches an app in California needs to partner with the tribe here. So, you could see some tribes really, really benefiting if Proposition 27 passes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:07:10] We’re hearing a lot of ads that mention homelessness with Prop 27. What’s the connection there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:07:15] If Proposition 27 passes, these betting platforms would be taxed. Ten percent of their gambling revenue would go to the state, with most of that earmarked for a problem that Californians care a lot about, which is homelessness. That 10% tax is kind of in line with a lot of the other states that have already legalized sports betting, like Arizona and Colorado, though we have seen states like Nevada have gone lower with their tax rate. And New York set their tax at a whopping 51% of gross spending revenue. So, under Proposition 27, the tax would be at 10%. Eighty-five percent of that tax money would go to local governments to fund housing, homeless services, mental health services. And then 15% of the money would go to tribes that are not participating in this brand new online gambling market. And it’s the homelessness funding in Prop 27 that’s really drawn the support of mayors like Libby Schaaf in Oakland, Darrell Steinberg in Sacramento. They’ve gotten behind the Yes on 27 campaign, along with some homeless advocates, though it’s worth noting other homeless service providers have kind of stayed away from this. They’ve said they don’t want to wade into this debate about sports betting and take a yes or no position on Prop 27. But when we’re comparing these two props, Prop 26, Prop 27, the key thing with 27 is that it would bring in a lot more money because online betting is just a lot more popular than folks driving to a casino, placing a bet there. The Legislative Analyst’s Office says Prop 27 would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars for the state a year. And as Prop 27 spokesman Nathan Klick says finally create a dedicated stream of funding to tackle homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nathan Click\u003c/strong> [00:08:47] Right now, the state is using one time money for that. This the homelessness advocates who are supporting our measure will attest, will help create permanent solutions to homelessness, help build more housing, help finance more housing, help create mental health services that help get folks off the streets and into housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:09:11] That was a lot. So here’s a quick recap. Prop 26 is backed by California tribal governments. The money made from expanded gambling would benefit tribes that operate casinos. They pay into a fund that gives money to non-gaming tribes as well. Some money will go to the state and local governments, but the details of that will get worked out in compact agreements that haven’t been made yet. Prop 27 is backed by national gambling companies. They pay a 10% tax on everything they make. 85% of that tax is earmarked for homeless services, and 15% will go into a bucket of money that is shared among California’s tribes that don’t participate in sports betting. Does that make sense? I really hope so. Okay. Back to the conversation, Guy. The campaign ads that I’m seeing kind of makes it seem like it’s smaller tribes being pitted against larger tribes in this debate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:10:08] Yeah. So that’s something that you could easily get confused about seeing all of these ads on TV messaging around these two props. The vast majority of California tribes who have weighed in are on the side of Prop 26, and the props do different things as far as promising tribes money. Obviously, Prop 26 would focus sports gambling in tribal casinos. So through that, those casinos would get money for tribes and also more money would go through to this trust fund. That money gets allocated for tribes that don’t have big gaming operations. There are a few tribes that are backing Prop 27, most notably the Middletown Rancheria Pomo Indians of California. Their tribal chairman is actually appeared in a lot of the ads for Prop 27. But if 27 were to pass, every company that comes into California to participate in the sports betting market would have to partner with a tribe. So, you might see, you know, three, four or five different tribes participate out of the roughly 75 right now that have gambling operations in compacts with the state. Everyone else would have to draw out of that pool of money set aside for tribes that don’t have a sports betting app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:11:12] There’s also one smaller but important group that has a stake in this — local cardrooms. That’s places like Artichoke Joe’s in San Bruno or Casino M8trix in San Jose. These are businesses where you can play games like poker. There are 84 of these cardrooms around the state. And they’re worried about Proposition 26. Guy, can you explain why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:11:34] So this is where things get a little complicated. The opposition of cardrooms to Prop 26 is based on a provision in the measure that would let individuals bring civil lawsuits to enforce state gaming law. So, the backdrop to this is a longstanding disagreement between tribes and cardrooms over a state rule that says only tribal casinos can offer games in which the house serves as the bank, meaning it has a stake against the players like blackjack. Tribes say cardrooms use different tactics to get around this and offer blackjack. They filed lawsuits, but in some cases, the tribes have lacked standing to actually bring the suit. So, if Prop 26 passes, any individual could hypothetically take these cardrooms to court. Where this gets beyond just a struggle between different gambling operators is that some cities in California really rely heavily on tax revenue from cardrooms. The most well-known example is in Hawaiian Gardens in L.A. County, that small city gets like 70% of its tax revenue from the local cardroom. But we see that even in San Jose, it gets $15 million a year from local cardroom revenue. So that’s why those cities and then some of the municipal employee unions in the cities have come out against Prop 26. They’re afraid of the long-term economic impact if cardrooms start getting sued left and right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:12:50] We’re not the first state in the country to be considering sports betting. All of our neighboring states have allowed it sort of writ large. Where are the rest of the states at on it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:13:00] Yeah, there’s been an explosion of states doing this. Ever since 2018, the Supreme Court ended the federal ban on sports betting. We’ve seen 33 states now offer some form of legalized sports gambling, and we’ve seen that in many cases take the form of online mobile betting. And honestly, as a sports fan, you can’t watch a game these days without seeing either an ad for these gambling companies, even like features, segments within sports shows often integrate gambling and sports betting. So, it’s really just in a matter of a few years, totally reshaped in some ways the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:13:36] And I think that’s the perfect segue way to talk about the money flying around on both of these props, because there’s a lot of money at stake here. We’re having this conversation in mid-September. And so even though a ton of spending has already happened, we know more is coming down the pike. Who is spending to help these props pass?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:13:54] On the Proposition 26 side, we have the tribal governments who are really bankrolling the campaign. So far, over 120 million has been contributed in support of Prop 26. 43 million raised against it. Really, the bigger money at this point is coming with Proposition 27. There you have these gambling companies pitching in roughly $170 million so far in support. And many of the same tribal governments that are pushing Prop 26, they’re opposing Prop 27. They’ve shelled out over $90 million so far against that measure. So just by itself, Prop 27 is the most expensive ballot measure campaign in California history and in American history. And if you put both of these campaigns together, we’re talking over $420 million raised. It’s like nothing the state has ever seen before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:14:41] Now, one question I know you’ve gotten and I had myself had is, you know, are voters going to vote typically, yes for both of these or no for both of these, will people be split? How are we expecting this to shake out with two props that in some ways overlap?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:14:56] Yeah, that’s a great question and something I’m really curious to see how it plays out. Do people take different approaches on the two, reject them altogether? And then there’s the legal question of what happens if voters approve both of these propositions. In all likelihood, that would end up in the courts. And figuring out which initiative can actually take place, can they both go into effect? It may end up which one gets more votes takes precedent. That all could be sorted out in the weeks after Election Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:15:23] Wow. Well, this one is gnarly, guy. Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati\u003c/strong> [00:15:29] My pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:15:34] All right, let me see if I can put a cap on this one. A vote yes on Prop 26 says you think that sports betting, roulette and dice games should be legal at American Indian gaming casinos in California; sports betting should be allowed at racetracks; and individuals should be able to bring lawsuits against gaming operators if they’re breaking state law. Money made from this expanded gambling would mostly go to tribal governments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A vote yes on Prop 27 means you support legalizing online and mobile sports betting for people 21 and older. Money made from the passage of this prop would largely go to gambling companies and the tribes they partner with. The tax money they pay would be earmarked for homelessness services and tribes that don’t have an online app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A vote no on both props means you think things should stay the way they are now. And if you mix it up a vote yes on one and no on the other. You’d like to see sports betting allowed in some ways, but not all the ways. Or maybe you want to see funding go to one group and not the other. I really hope we helped all that make sense. It has been a doozy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re a new listener, just tuning in for our Prop Fest series, be sure to subscribe to the Bay Curious podcast. Every Thursday, we drop episodes that explore listener questions about the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s a lot of fun and we always learn so much. So, if you’re digging Prop Fest, I think you’ll enjoy our other work too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prop Fest is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Brendan Willard, Amanda Font, Darren Tu and me Olivia Allen-Price in partnership with the team behind The Bay – Alan Montecillo, Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Maria Equinca. You can find audio and transcripts for the series at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfest\">Baycurious.org/PropFest\u003c/a>. Our show is made in San Francisco at member supported KQED. Set your alarms because we’ll be back on Monday with an episode on Prop 28, the education funding Prop. I’ll see you then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"headTitle": "Transcript: California Has Strong Abortion Access Laws, but Prop. 1 Would Make Abortion Constitutional | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop. Fest episode explaining Proposition 1 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:01] Hello, hello everyone and welcome to the kick off episode of KQED’s Prop Fest 2022. Today we begin the podcast series brought to you by Bay Curious and our friends at the Bay, where we call up our smart reporter friends at KQED to help us break down the propositions we’ll be voting on this fall. Ballots will start arriving in your mailboxes in early October. So, yes, even though it’s only September, election season is very much here. But if you’ve been watching TV or have a mailbox, you probably already knew that. I know I, for one, am drowning in campaign ads. Today we’re starting Prop Fest by looking at Proposition 1, which would solidify abortion and reproductive rights into the state constitution. Here’s an excerpt from the amendment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Reading Proposition\u003c/strong> [00:00:48] The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:05] If you thought abortion was already protected in California, you’re not wrong. But today, we’ll learn why the California lawmakers who placed this on our ballot want to take things a step further and we’ll dig into the details that have opponents concerned. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ohubertallen\">I’m Olivia Alan Price\u003c/a>. We’ll get going right after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To get the whole picture on Proposition 1, the Bay’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ecruzguevarra\">Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/a> spoke with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/adembosky\">KQED health correspondent April Dembosky\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:01:38] So April, back when Roe v Wade was overturned, I remember it was just such an emotional time. Is this prop a direct result of the decision to end federal abortion rights? Can you tell us about how this sort of came to be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:01:54] It is a direct result after the Supreme Court decision was leaked. Pretty much immediately lawmakers went to work drafting the constitutional amendment that would eventually become Proposition 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sound from California Assembly floor\u003c/strong> [00:02:10] Senate Constitutional Amendment ten by Senator Akins and others. And I believe in two fundamental rights. Mr. Speaker, you may 11. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Members, colleagues (fades under).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:02:19] The very last vote which occurred on the floor of the Assembly actually took place three days after the official decision came down. So even though people had been anticipating it, the reality of it actually happening just really clearly hit people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christina Garcia\u003c/strong> [00:02:37] The last 72 hours has taught us anything is that we can’t assume a right we’ve had for 50 years will be available for us in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:02:46] One of the lawmakers who spoke is Assembly member Christina Garcia. She represents the L.A. area and she’s one of the coauthors on the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christina Garcia\u003c/strong> [00:02:53] We struggle with those feelings of anger, disappointment, disillusionment, whatever else it might be. I’m proud that I live in California. And so we must fight to ensure that we are a beacon of hope. We must fight to ensure that we are a role model for the rest of the states out there and for Congress. And we must fight because this is this, right? But tomorrow it’ll be something else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:03:14] So let’s talk more about Prop 1. What would it do exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:03:18] At the simplest level, lawmakers just wanted to say loud and clear, we want to give abortion and contraception rights the strongest protection we can. And we’re going to do that by explicitly naming those rights in our state constitution. So it’s basically saying, you know, if someday in the future, the political tides in California were to change, and suddenly we had an influx of lawmakers who were not as favorable to abortion rights, and they tried to change some of our laws to be more restrictive, this amendment will make it a lot harder to do that. It will also do the same for contraception. There’s some concern that the way the U.S. Supreme Court is thinking about abortion, saying that it’s no longer a federal right, they may use a similar reasoning in the future to weaken the right to contraception. So, Prop 1 includes a right to choose contraception. It also includes a right to refuse contraception. And that refers to some dark history in California. California has a really terrible track record of forced sterilizations. Women of color, Native American women, people who are incarcerated, basically being sterilized so they can never have children again. And this was happening against their will, sometimes even without their knowledge. And so there’s an attempt at reproductive and racial justice included in Proposition 1 as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:04:50] Let’s get into who is for and against this proposition. Tell me which groups again are for and against this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:04:59] So the groups that are for this are a range of health groups. Planned Parenthood affiliates of California is leading the charge, but there’s a list of other women’s health organizations, doctors groups. You’ve got the California Medical Association, the California Nurses Association, other reproductive justice groups and civil rights groups. Those are the groups that are for it. And then on the other side, the groups that are opposing it are more religious based groups. The California Conference of Catholic Bishops, the California Family Council, as well as fiscal conservative groups. So groups who are, you know, just sort of complaining about the amount of taxpayer money that goes toward supporting abortion services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:05:49] Who’s funding the for and against campaigns and how much money has been spent on this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:05:56] On the yes side, there’s a campaign committee put together by Planned Parenthood and State Senator Toni Atkins. She’s the primary author of the amendment. And they’ve raised about $8.8 million. The no side has raised less than $400,000 so far, and that’s mainly coming from churches and individuals. So, it’s pretty lopsided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:06:23] Now, I want to get into the arguments here. Let’s talk about the no side. What happens if this proposition fails and what’s the argument against passing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:06:35] If the proposition goes down there isn’t any immediate change for anybody in California. We still have really strong protections for abortion and contraception services. And so what you hear from the no side is actually “Prop 1 is unnecessary. We don’t need it.” But they also raise some concerns because they say that, you know, the measure doesn’t just enshrine the status quo. It actually expands abortion rights. You know, one of the things that’s pointed out is that the constitutional amendment doesn’t say anything about viability. Viability is, in the simplest terms, a reference to when a fetus is able to survive outside the womb without any kind of heroic medical interventions. Historically, people have put a number on that. And in California, it’s 24 weeks. After that, in California, women can still get abortions if their health or life is in danger or if something goes wrong with the fetus. But the language of Proposition 1, if you read it, there’s no mention of viability and there’s no number of weeks in there. There’s no time limit mentioned. The opponents are concerned about this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Keller\u003c/strong> [00:07:57] Our large concern with Proposition 1 is that even if it represents a small percentage of overall abortions, it really is just an extreme position that is out of step with the majority of California voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:08:09] I talked to Jonathan Keller. He’s the head of the California Family Council. He and other opponents are interpreting Proposition 1 to mean you can’t place any restrictions on abortion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Keller\u003c/strong> [00:08:23] We already have currently abortion up to 24 weeks. Why do we need to push it beyond that? Why do we need to go beyond the point of viability? Why do we need to go up to potentially the moment of birth? Aren’t able to say that that is a step too far even for California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:08:44] They may be opposed to abortion altogether, but their arguments on Prop 1 are really specified toward this question of viability, this question of at what point does a fetus become a person?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Gallagher\u003c/strong> [00:08:58] My twin boys are alive and they are people. And they were alive and they were people at 18 weeks. At 30 weeks, they did come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:09:07] You know, Republicans like James Gallagher, he was one of the people who testified on the Assembly floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Gallagher\u003c/strong> [00:09:14] And so babies like my twins at 30 weeks, their lives could be taken. And I don’t think that’s the right balance, folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:09:25] Their view that they’ve come to is that these are people, you know, they’re alive, they’re babies, and they deserve to be protected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:09:38] It sounds like some people are concerned that without specific guidance on how late into a pregnancy an abortion can be performed there’s this sort of fear that this opens the door for all these abortions at any point in pregnancy. What do supporters of Prop 1 have to say about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:09:58] To be honest, the authors of the amendment had trouble answering this question. They had trouble answering it conclusively for sure, but sometimes didn’t know how to answer it at all. But then, in the last couple of months, some of the supporters of the bill have come out and said, no, no, no, no. This is this is just about enshrining current law. It doesn’t change anything about the viability rules. So, if you read in your voter guide, you know, that’s mailed out to all the voters in that rebuttal section, it actually says, no, we’re just preserving the status quo. But several legal scholars that I’ve talked to have said, no, it does open the door. It may actually get rid of the viability standard. And the thing is, is that some of these legal scholars, as well as doctors will say and what’s wrong with that? In other words, that’s actually the point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Pratima Gupta\u003c/strong> [00:10:51] Every pregnancy is individual and it’s a continuum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:10:56] So one of the doctors I talked to is Doctor Pratima Gupta. She practices in the San Diego area and she was also involved in drafting the constitutional amendment. And she says, straight up, we left it out on purpose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Pratima Gupta\u003c/strong> [00:11:10] They updated some of the language and the specific word viability was removed, and that was in conjunction with ACOG and medical experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:11:21] So Dr. Gupta basically explains, you know, if you want to talk about viability in in more scientific terms, it’s nothing that can be determined based on gestational age limit alone, that there’s a whole host of factors that go into determining whether a fetus can live outside the womb.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Pratima Gupta\u003c/strong> [00:11:40] So whether somebody has resources and their health status entering their pregnancy, such as anemia, their preexisting medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity that they might have prior to entering the pregnancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:11:56] And so, you know, one fetus who may be able to survive at 23 weeks, another may not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Pratima Gupta\u003c/strong> [00:12:03] Put a specific gestational age limit, it doesn’t truly represent our medical practice. And viability is really nuanced. You know, we as physicians are medically and ethically obligated to practice within the scope of the law and treat each patient individually and incorporate their own individual experiences and medical issues into their care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:12:30] Doctors are basically saying it doesn’t make sense to put a number on it, that it makes sense to leave it up to the doctor’s judgment. And, in fact, this whole line of thinking, it’s not just, you know, one doctor in southern California, this is actually coming from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which is the, you know, advisory group for all OB-GYNs in the country. And that group themselves has removed the word viability from the guidance that it gives out to doctors. And it says, you know, look at all these range of factors if you are helping a woman decide if abortion is the right choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:13:13] Well, April, we’ve been talking so much about this one word or the absence of it in this proposition, “viability,” and sort of the arguments for and against this proposition because of that word. Do you think voters are going to be reading that deep into the nitty gritty of this, given just the fact that so many Californians seem to be generally supportive of protecting abortion rights?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:13:43] I think we have to take all of this in the context of what is happening more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Ziegler\u003c/strong> [00:13:48] Why you’re seeing such tremendous support for Prop 1 is in part because the stakes are so much higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:13:56] I talked to Mary Ziegler. She is a law professor at UC Davis and she’s also a historian of the abortion debate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Ziegler\u003c/strong> [00:14:03] Californians, I think, quite strongly support that basic idea that there is a right to reproductive autonomy, that abortion bans are unacceptable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:14:11] She points out, first of all, polling for Proposition 1 is pretty high. And even though there are polls that say that Californians generally favor restrictions on abortion later in pregnancy, she’s basically suggesting, you know, maybe people’s feelings have changed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Ziegler\u003c/strong> [00:14:30] Before, anti-abortion groups could say, you know, there’s already this federal right to choose abortion. So why do you need even more? Anti-abortion groups can’t say that anymore. And not only can they not say that anymore. There are concerns that other states are going to be trying to affect what Californians do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:14:47] If people look around and see bans, you know, happening in other states, if, you know, they’re thinking about the federal right to abortion being erased, maybe they’re not interested in quibbling about some of these viability arguments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Ziegler\u003c/strong> [00:15:01] And in a world where there is no Roe, I think what you’re seeing is California legislators trying to write into law or asking voters to vote into our state constitution, you know, a kind of blank slate, better idea of what reproductive autonomy could be. That isn’t just, you know, Roe part two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:15:19] Do we know the chances that this will pass?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:15:22] Polls from August say that 71% of Californians say they’re going to vote for it. That’s a pretty wide margin. I think that might be difficult to chip away at even in the last month or so of the campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:15:41] April. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:15:42] Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:15:45] That was the Bay’s Erica Cruz Guevara in conversation with KQED health correspondent April Dembosky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll be back tomorrow with what may be the most eagerly awaited episode of Prop Fest ever. I’ll be breaking down Props 26 and 27 with Guy Marzorati. Those are the sports gambling props that you almost certainly have been seeing campaign ads for. It’s a doozy, but we will get through it together. That’s tomorrow on Prop Fest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Be sure you’re subscribed to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> so you don’t miss it. Prop Fest is a production of the Bay. That’s Ericka Cruz Guevarra, Allen Montecillo and Maria Esquinca, and us here at Bay Curious — Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font, Brendan Willard and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Darren Tu is creating video versions of our Prop Fest series. Follow at KQED on Instagram and TikTok so you catch them when they land. I’m Olivia Allen Price. Thank you for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Prop. Fest 2022 breaks down all the statewide propositions on your ballot. Proposition 1 would solidify abortion and reproductive rights in the state by adding a constitutional amendment. If you thought abortion was already protected in California, you're not wrong. But today we'll learn why the California lawmakers who placed this on our ballot want to take things a step further, and we'll dig into the details that have opponents concerned.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a transcript of the Prop. Fest episode explaining Proposition 1 on the 2022 California ballot. Check out \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/\">KQED’s Voter Guide\u003c/a> for more information on local and state races.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:00:01] Hello, hello everyone and welcome to the kick off episode of KQED’s Prop Fest 2022. Today we begin the podcast series brought to you by Bay Curious and our friends at the Bay, where we call up our smart reporter friends at KQED to help us break down the propositions we’ll be voting on this fall. Ballots will start arriving in your mailboxes in early October. So, yes, even though it’s only September, election season is very much here. But if you’ve been watching TV or have a mailbox, you probably already knew that. I know I, for one, am drowning in campaign ads. Today we’re starting Prop Fest by looking at Proposition 1, which would solidify abortion and reproductive rights into the state constitution. Here’s an excerpt from the amendment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Reading Proposition\u003c/strong> [00:00:48] The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:01:05] If you thought abortion was already protected in California, you’re not wrong. But today, we’ll learn why the California lawmakers who placed this on our ballot want to take things a step further and we’ll dig into the details that have opponents concerned. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ohubertallen\">I’m Olivia Alan Price\u003c/a>. We’ll get going right after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To get the whole picture on Proposition 1, the Bay’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ecruzguevarra\">Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/a> spoke with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/adembosky\">KQED health correspondent April Dembosky\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:01:38] So April, back when Roe v Wade was overturned, I remember it was just such an emotional time. Is this prop a direct result of the decision to end federal abortion rights? Can you tell us about how this sort of came to be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:01:54] It is a direct result after the Supreme Court decision was leaked. Pretty much immediately lawmakers went to work drafting the constitutional amendment that would eventually become Proposition 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sound from California Assembly floor\u003c/strong> [00:02:10] Senate Constitutional Amendment ten by Senator Akins and others. And I believe in two fundamental rights. Mr. Speaker, you may 11. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Members, colleagues (fades under).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:02:19] The very last vote which occurred on the floor of the Assembly actually took place three days after the official decision came down. So even though people had been anticipating it, the reality of it actually happening just really clearly hit people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christina Garcia\u003c/strong> [00:02:37] The last 72 hours has taught us anything is that we can’t assume a right we’ve had for 50 years will be available for us in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:02:46] One of the lawmakers who spoke is Assembly member Christina Garcia. She represents the L.A. area and she’s one of the coauthors on the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christina Garcia\u003c/strong> [00:02:53] We struggle with those feelings of anger, disappointment, disillusionment, whatever else it might be. I’m proud that I live in California. And so we must fight to ensure that we are a beacon of hope. We must fight to ensure that we are a role model for the rest of the states out there and for Congress. And we must fight because this is this, right? But tomorrow it’ll be something else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:03:14] So let’s talk more about Prop 1. What would it do exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:03:18] At the simplest level, lawmakers just wanted to say loud and clear, we want to give abortion and contraception rights the strongest protection we can. And we’re going to do that by explicitly naming those rights in our state constitution. So it’s basically saying, you know, if someday in the future, the political tides in California were to change, and suddenly we had an influx of lawmakers who were not as favorable to abortion rights, and they tried to change some of our laws to be more restrictive, this amendment will make it a lot harder to do that. It will also do the same for contraception. There’s some concern that the way the U.S. Supreme Court is thinking about abortion, saying that it’s no longer a federal right, they may use a similar reasoning in the future to weaken the right to contraception. So, Prop 1 includes a right to choose contraception. It also includes a right to refuse contraception. And that refers to some dark history in California. California has a really terrible track record of forced sterilizations. Women of color, Native American women, people who are incarcerated, basically being sterilized so they can never have children again. And this was happening against their will, sometimes even without their knowledge. And so there’s an attempt at reproductive and racial justice included in Proposition 1 as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:04:50] Let’s get into who is for and against this proposition. Tell me which groups again are for and against this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:04:59] So the groups that are for this are a range of health groups. Planned Parenthood affiliates of California is leading the charge, but there’s a list of other women’s health organizations, doctors groups. You’ve got the California Medical Association, the California Nurses Association, other reproductive justice groups and civil rights groups. Those are the groups that are for it. And then on the other side, the groups that are opposing it are more religious based groups. The California Conference of Catholic Bishops, the California Family Council, as well as fiscal conservative groups. So groups who are, you know, just sort of complaining about the amount of taxpayer money that goes toward supporting abortion services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:05:49] Who’s funding the for and against campaigns and how much money has been spent on this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:05:56] On the yes side, there’s a campaign committee put together by Planned Parenthood and State Senator Toni Atkins. She’s the primary author of the amendment. And they’ve raised about $8.8 million. The no side has raised less than $400,000 so far, and that’s mainly coming from churches and individuals. So, it’s pretty lopsided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:06:23] Now, I want to get into the arguments here. Let’s talk about the no side. What happens if this proposition fails and what’s the argument against passing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:06:35] If the proposition goes down there isn’t any immediate change for anybody in California. We still have really strong protections for abortion and contraception services. And so what you hear from the no side is actually “Prop 1 is unnecessary. We don’t need it.” But they also raise some concerns because they say that, you know, the measure doesn’t just enshrine the status quo. It actually expands abortion rights. You know, one of the things that’s pointed out is that the constitutional amendment doesn’t say anything about viability. Viability is, in the simplest terms, a reference to when a fetus is able to survive outside the womb without any kind of heroic medical interventions. Historically, people have put a number on that. And in California, it’s 24 weeks. After that, in California, women can still get abortions if their health or life is in danger or if something goes wrong with the fetus. But the language of Proposition 1, if you read it, there’s no mention of viability and there’s no number of weeks in there. There’s no time limit mentioned. The opponents are concerned about this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Keller\u003c/strong> [00:07:57] Our large concern with Proposition 1 is that even if it represents a small percentage of overall abortions, it really is just an extreme position that is out of step with the majority of California voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:08:09] I talked to Jonathan Keller. He’s the head of the California Family Council. He and other opponents are interpreting Proposition 1 to mean you can’t place any restrictions on abortion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Keller\u003c/strong> [00:08:23] We already have currently abortion up to 24 weeks. Why do we need to push it beyond that? Why do we need to go beyond the point of viability? Why do we need to go up to potentially the moment of birth? Aren’t able to say that that is a step too far even for California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:08:44] They may be opposed to abortion altogether, but their arguments on Prop 1 are really specified toward this question of viability, this question of at what point does a fetus become a person?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Gallagher\u003c/strong> [00:08:58] My twin boys are alive and they are people. And they were alive and they were people at 18 weeks. At 30 weeks, they did come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:09:07] You know, Republicans like James Gallagher, he was one of the people who testified on the Assembly floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Gallagher\u003c/strong> [00:09:14] And so babies like my twins at 30 weeks, their lives could be taken. And I don’t think that’s the right balance, folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:09:25] Their view that they’ve come to is that these are people, you know, they’re alive, they’re babies, and they deserve to be protected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:09:38] It sounds like some people are concerned that without specific guidance on how late into a pregnancy an abortion can be performed there’s this sort of fear that this opens the door for all these abortions at any point in pregnancy. What do supporters of Prop 1 have to say about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:09:58] To be honest, the authors of the amendment had trouble answering this question. They had trouble answering it conclusively for sure, but sometimes didn’t know how to answer it at all. But then, in the last couple of months, some of the supporters of the bill have come out and said, no, no, no, no. This is this is just about enshrining current law. It doesn’t change anything about the viability rules. So, if you read in your voter guide, you know, that’s mailed out to all the voters in that rebuttal section, it actually says, no, we’re just preserving the status quo. But several legal scholars that I’ve talked to have said, no, it does open the door. It may actually get rid of the viability standard. And the thing is, is that some of these legal scholars, as well as doctors will say and what’s wrong with that? In other words, that’s actually the point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Pratima Gupta\u003c/strong> [00:10:51] Every pregnancy is individual and it’s a continuum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:10:56] So one of the doctors I talked to is Doctor Pratima Gupta. She practices in the San Diego area and she was also involved in drafting the constitutional amendment. And she says, straight up, we left it out on purpose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Pratima Gupta\u003c/strong> [00:11:10] They updated some of the language and the specific word viability was removed, and that was in conjunction with ACOG and medical experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:11:21] So Dr. Gupta basically explains, you know, if you want to talk about viability in in more scientific terms, it’s nothing that can be determined based on gestational age limit alone, that there’s a whole host of factors that go into determining whether a fetus can live outside the womb.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Pratima Gupta\u003c/strong> [00:11:40] So whether somebody has resources and their health status entering their pregnancy, such as anemia, their preexisting medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity that they might have prior to entering the pregnancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:11:56] And so, you know, one fetus who may be able to survive at 23 weeks, another may not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Pratima Gupta\u003c/strong> [00:12:03] Put a specific gestational age limit, it doesn’t truly represent our medical practice. And viability is really nuanced. You know, we as physicians are medically and ethically obligated to practice within the scope of the law and treat each patient individually and incorporate their own individual experiences and medical issues into their care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:12:30] Doctors are basically saying it doesn’t make sense to put a number on it, that it makes sense to leave it up to the doctor’s judgment. And, in fact, this whole line of thinking, it’s not just, you know, one doctor in southern California, this is actually coming from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which is the, you know, advisory group for all OB-GYNs in the country. And that group themselves has removed the word viability from the guidance that it gives out to doctors. And it says, you know, look at all these range of factors if you are helping a woman decide if abortion is the right choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:13:13] Well, April, we’ve been talking so much about this one word or the absence of it in this proposition, “viability,” and sort of the arguments for and against this proposition because of that word. Do you think voters are going to be reading that deep into the nitty gritty of this, given just the fact that so many Californians seem to be generally supportive of protecting abortion rights?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:13:43] I think we have to take all of this in the context of what is happening more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Ziegler\u003c/strong> [00:13:48] Why you’re seeing such tremendous support for Prop 1 is in part because the stakes are so much higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:13:56] I talked to Mary Ziegler. She is a law professor at UC Davis and she’s also a historian of the abortion debate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Ziegler\u003c/strong> [00:14:03] Californians, I think, quite strongly support that basic idea that there is a right to reproductive autonomy, that abortion bans are unacceptable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:14:11] She points out, first of all, polling for Proposition 1 is pretty high. And even though there are polls that say that Californians generally favor restrictions on abortion later in pregnancy, she’s basically suggesting, you know, maybe people’s feelings have changed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Ziegler\u003c/strong> [00:14:30] Before, anti-abortion groups could say, you know, there’s already this federal right to choose abortion. So why do you need even more? Anti-abortion groups can’t say that anymore. And not only can they not say that anymore. There are concerns that other states are going to be trying to affect what Californians do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:14:47] If people look around and see bans, you know, happening in other states, if, you know, they’re thinking about the federal right to abortion being erased, maybe they’re not interested in quibbling about some of these viability arguments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mary Ziegler\u003c/strong> [00:15:01] And in a world where there is no Roe, I think what you’re seeing is California legislators trying to write into law or asking voters to vote into our state constitution, you know, a kind of blank slate, better idea of what reproductive autonomy could be. That isn’t just, you know, Roe part two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:15:19] Do we know the chances that this will pass?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:15:22] Polls from August say that 71% of Californians say they’re going to vote for it. That’s a pretty wide margin. I think that might be difficult to chip away at even in the last month or so of the campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong> [00:15:41] April. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky\u003c/strong> [00:15:42] Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/strong> [00:15:45] That was the Bay’s Erica Cruz Guevara in conversation with KQED health correspondent April Dembosky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll be back tomorrow with what may be the most eagerly awaited episode of Prop Fest ever. I’ll be breaking down Props 26 and 27 with Guy Marzorati. Those are the sports gambling props that you almost certainly have been seeing campaign ads for. It’s a doozy, but we will get through it together. That’s tomorrow on Prop Fest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Be sure you’re subscribed to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> so you don’t miss it. Prop Fest is a production of the Bay. That’s Ericka Cruz Guevarra, Allen Montecillo and Maria Esquinca, and us here at Bay Curious — Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font, Brendan Willard and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Darren Tu is creating video versions of our Prop Fest series. Follow at KQED on Instagram and TikTok so you catch them when they land. I’m Olivia Allen Price. Thank you for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Wanna Try Roller-Skating in San Francisco? Better Head to Church",
"headTitle": "Wanna Try Roller-Skating in San Francisco? Better Head to Church | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3BW439Q\">\u003cem>Read the transcript of this episode of Bay Curious.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is filled with unique things to do — you could find a porcelain treasure on a beach covered in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11831229/the-unassuming-east-bay-beach-with-hidden-ceramic-treasures\">70-year-old ceramics\u003c/a>, visit a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11495697/whats-with-the-bison-in-golden-gate-park\">herd of bison\u003c/a> in Golden Gate Park or, as Bay Curious listener Katie Talda discovered, go to a roller disco in an old Catholic church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katie and friends recently visited the \u003ca href=\"http://www.churchof8wheels.com/\">Church of 8 Wheels\u003c/a>, San Francisco’s only indoor skating rink. She said it’s not what she expected to find based on the outside of the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a huge open space and you expect to walk in and, I don’t know, go see an opera,” she said. “But instead there’s people rolling around in circles. Then you get all the fun music playing and lots of cool lighting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The novelty of this experience left her wondering: When did the building go from being an active church to a roller-skating rink?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11926394\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11926394\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skaters make their way around the rink while classic disco and soul plays at the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco on Sept. 20, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The Godfather of Skate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Church of 8 Wheels roller disco is run by David G. Miles Jr., a legend in the Bay Area’s skate scene. To many he’s known as “The Godfather of Skate.” As Miles says, “Skating is my entire life.” Miles grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and learned to skate as a kid, taught by his older sisters. He says his family went to the roller rink often: “We went roller-skating like, you know, people go to the movies,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was moving to San Francisco that really set him on the path to becoming a roller-skating devotee. Miles arrived in the late ’70s, when skating had exploded all over the city, especially in Golden Gate Park. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://goldengatepark.com/6th-avenue-skate-park.html#:~:text=When%20John%20F,to%20park%20visitors.\">park’s own estimates\u003c/a>, in the summer of 1979, anywhere between 15,000 and 20,000 skaters would show up to cruise along JFK Drive on Sundays. Miles quickly became part of the scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSXFjjpi-1g&ab_channel=DavidMilesJr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The boom in skating also caused contention with city residents, who pushed for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXh54oVNCKo&t=1s&ab_channel=DavidMilesJr.\">total ban on skating\u003c/a> in San Francisco. Miles joined the Golden Gate Park Skate Patrol, a skating ambassador group formed to keep skaters in the park safe and in designated areas. They skated all the way from San Francisco to Sacramento to make their case to the state of California that cities should be allowed to regulate, but not outright ban, roller-skating. They won.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the late ’80s, Miles was making a living exclusively with skate lessons and events. In 2000, he attended Burning Man for the first time — it would become a regular occurrence for him. He’s part of the camp that builds the Black Rock Roller Disco, which they run 24 hours a day the whole week of Burning Man. There is clearly Burning Man influence in Miles’ skating outfits, too, and in the space that would become the Church of 8 Wheels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11926391\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11926391\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Miles skates back to his DJ booth at the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco on Sept. 20, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>From church to roller disco\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The building that now houses the roller rink, at 554 Fillmore Street, is part of what was formerly the Sacred Heart Catholic Church complex, consisting of the church, the rectory, the convent and a school. The church was designed by architect \u003ca href=\"https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/6153/\">Thomas \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/6153/\">John \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/6153/\">Welsh\u003c/a>, who designed many other Catholic churches and schools in the Bay Area. Built in 1897, it survived the 1906 earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925341\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 548px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Sacred-Heart-1939.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925341\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Sacred-Heart-1939.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"548\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Sacred-Heart-1939.jpg 548w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Sacred-Heart-1939-160x117.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 548px) 100vw, 548px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sacred Heart Catholic Church, on the corner of Fell and Fillmore streets in San Francisco, 1939. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2004, the Archdiocese of San Francisco announced the church would be closed, due to the high cost of seismic repairs. The property was \u003ca href=\"https://hoodline.com/2015/05/sacred-heart-church-could-be-designated-a-landmark/\">sold to a private buyer\u003c/a>. The building has since been designated a historic landmark in the National Register of Historic Places.[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]Miles says the roller disco in the church started out as a one-night party. In 2013, a friend of his suggested he get in contact with the owner of the empty church to see if they could host a skate night there. The owner agreed, on the condition that Miles help clean up the inside of the building first. They hosted the party, and it was a success. Miles says he even had a rope light up in the shape of an 8, perhaps anticipating the future Church of 8 Wheels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the success of the first party, the skating night became a weekly event. Now they’re up to four nights a week, and Miles said recently they’ve made their agreement in the space more permanent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we’re basically here forever,” he said, “It’s better than [winning] the lottery. It’s so fun. People call it a job, but it’s not a job. I would never stop doing this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11926410\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11926410\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Miles announces that skaters will change direction at the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco on Sept. 20, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over the years they’ve made more improvements to the building, refinishing the floor into a smooth surface for skating, and installing a ton of disco lights and a professional sound system. Where the church’s main altar once stood, now there’s a DJ booth. The Godfather of Skate is usually there playing a collection of disco and soul hits while wearing one of his signature colorful top hats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miles also continues to champion skating everywhere in the city. Outside of the church, Miles and his fellow skaters are often found at the now-permanent “Skatin’ Place” in Golden Gate Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What you have at [Golden Gate Park] is like my masterpiece outdoor roller rink,” said Miles. “I’ve nurtured it from 1984 all the way up to now. [The city] just improved it. They enlarged it 7,000 more square feet. And to top that off, they did a mural — \u003ca href=\"https://secretsanfrancisco.com/psychedelic-skating-ground-mural/\">93 feet long\u003c/a> — that commemorates roller-skating in the park forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quite the change of heart from the city’s stance in the 1970s — in part thanks to the Godfather of Skate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11926409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11926409\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skaters make their way around the rink while classic disco and soul plays at the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco on Sept. 20, 2022.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3BW439Q\">\u003cem>Read the transcript of this episode of Bay Curious.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is filled with unique things to do — you could find a porcelain treasure on a beach covered in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11831229/the-unassuming-east-bay-beach-with-hidden-ceramic-treasures\">70-year-old ceramics\u003c/a>, visit a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11495697/whats-with-the-bison-in-golden-gate-park\">herd of bison\u003c/a> in Golden Gate Park or, as Bay Curious listener Katie Talda discovered, go to a roller disco in an old Catholic church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katie and friends recently visited the \u003ca href=\"http://www.churchof8wheels.com/\">Church of 8 Wheels\u003c/a>, San Francisco’s only indoor skating rink. She said it’s not what she expected to find based on the outside of the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a huge open space and you expect to walk in and, I don’t know, go see an opera,” she said. “But instead there’s people rolling around in circles. Then you get all the fun music playing and lots of cool lighting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The novelty of this experience left her wondering: When did the building go from being an active church to a roller-skating rink?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11926394\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11926394\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58787_024_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skaters make their way around the rink while classic disco and soul plays at the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco on Sept. 20, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The Godfather of Skate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Church of 8 Wheels roller disco is run by David G. Miles Jr., a legend in the Bay Area’s skate scene. To many he’s known as “The Godfather of Skate.” As Miles says, “Skating is my entire life.” Miles grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and learned to skate as a kid, taught by his older sisters. He says his family went to the roller rink often: “We went roller-skating like, you know, people go to the movies,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was moving to San Francisco that really set him on the path to becoming a roller-skating devotee. Miles arrived in the late ’70s, when skating had exploded all over the city, especially in Golden Gate Park. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://goldengatepark.com/6th-avenue-skate-park.html#:~:text=When%20John%20F,to%20park%20visitors.\">park’s own estimates\u003c/a>, in the summer of 1979, anywhere between 15,000 and 20,000 skaters would show up to cruise along JFK Drive on Sundays. Miles quickly became part of the scene.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/iSXFjjpi-1g'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/iSXFjjpi-1g'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The boom in skating also caused contention with city residents, who pushed for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXh54oVNCKo&t=1s&ab_channel=DavidMilesJr.\">total ban on skating\u003c/a> in San Francisco. Miles joined the Golden Gate Park Skate Patrol, a skating ambassador group formed to keep skaters in the park safe and in designated areas. They skated all the way from San Francisco to Sacramento to make their case to the state of California that cities should be allowed to regulate, but not outright ban, roller-skating. They won.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the late ’80s, Miles was making a living exclusively with skate lessons and events. In 2000, he attended Burning Man for the first time — it would become a regular occurrence for him. He’s part of the camp that builds the Black Rock Roller Disco, which they run 24 hours a day the whole week of Burning Man. There is clearly Burning Man influence in Miles’ skating outfits, too, and in the space that would become the Church of 8 Wheels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11926391\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11926391\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58797_030_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Miles skates back to his DJ booth at the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco on Sept. 20, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>From church to roller disco\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The building that now houses the roller rink, at 554 Fillmore Street, is part of what was formerly the Sacred Heart Catholic Church complex, consisting of the church, the rectory, the convent and a school. The church was designed by architect \u003ca href=\"https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/6153/\">Thomas \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/6153/\">John \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/6153/\">Welsh\u003c/a>, who designed many other Catholic churches and schools in the Bay Area. Built in 1897, it survived the 1906 earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925341\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 548px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Sacred-Heart-1939.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925341\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Sacred-Heart-1939.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"548\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Sacred-Heart-1939.jpg 548w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Sacred-Heart-1939-160x117.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 548px) 100vw, 548px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sacred Heart Catholic Church, on the corner of Fell and Fillmore streets in San Francisco, 1939. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2004, the Archdiocese of San Francisco announced the church would be closed, due to the high cost of seismic repairs. The property was \u003ca href=\"https://hoodline.com/2015/05/sacred-heart-church-could-be-designated-a-landmark/\">sold to a private buyer\u003c/a>. The building has since been designated a historic landmark in the National Register of Historic Places.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Miles says the roller disco in the church started out as a one-night party. In 2013, a friend of his suggested he get in contact with the owner of the empty church to see if they could host a skate night there. The owner agreed, on the condition that Miles help clean up the inside of the building first. They hosted the party, and it was a success. Miles says he even had a rope light up in the shape of an 8, perhaps anticipating the future Church of 8 Wheels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the success of the first party, the skating night became a weekly event. Now they’re up to four nights a week, and Miles said recently they’ve made their agreement in the space more permanent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we’re basically here forever,” he said, “It’s better than [winning] the lottery. It’s so fun. People call it a job, but it’s not a job. I would never stop doing this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11926410\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11926410\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58798_036_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Miles announces that skaters will change direction at the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco on Sept. 20, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over the years they’ve made more improvements to the building, refinishing the floor into a smooth surface for skating, and installing a ton of disco lights and a professional sound system. Where the church’s main altar once stood, now there’s a DJ booth. The Godfather of Skate is usually there playing a collection of disco and soul hits while wearing one of his signature colorful top hats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miles also continues to champion skating everywhere in the city. Outside of the church, Miles and his fellow skaters are often found at the now-permanent “Skatin’ Place” in Golden Gate Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What you have at [Golden Gate Park] is like my masterpiece outdoor roller rink,” said Miles. “I’ve nurtured it from 1984 all the way up to now. [The city] just improved it. They enlarged it 7,000 more square feet. And to top that off, they did a mural — \u003ca href=\"https://secretsanfrancisco.com/psychedelic-skating-ground-mural/\">93 feet long\u003c/a> — that commemorates roller-skating in the park forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quite the change of heart from the city’s stance in the 1970s — in part thanks to the Godfather of Skate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11926409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11926409\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58794_028_KQED_ChurchOf8WheelsSF_09202022-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skaters make their way around the rink while classic disco and soul plays at the Church of 8 Wheels in San Francisco on Sept. 20, 2022.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Purissima: The Ghost Town Hidden Near Half Moon Bay",
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"headTitle": "Purissima: The Ghost Town Hidden Near Half Moon Bay | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Read the transcript\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3TO7JkR\"> here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most people who visit Half Moon Bay today head to the beach for surf, sand and a snack. But another, spooky adventure awaits those who peel off Highway 1 and take a windy road up into the hills, especially on one of those days when the fog hangs low.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’ll find working farms and ranches and old homes from the 19th century — some still lived in, others not so much. And if you drive up Verde Road just a little ways, not even a quarter mile, there’s a cemetery that used to be part of a town that no longer exists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What happened to the ghost town of Purissima? I know that it was intended to be a much bigger town, but the railroad didn’t go all the way there, or something?” asks Julia Thollaug of Montara, on the coast. She’s a local teacher and choreographer who’s been aware of the cemetery for years, but not its backstory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know anything about who lived there, or why they left,” she said. “That’s the thing that’s so interesting to me. Because Pescadero is still there [on the San Mateo County coast]. Half Moon Bay is there. So, like, why did they leave?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924294\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924294\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-scaled.jpg\" alt='A small sign that says \"Purissima Cemetery\" sits on a free-standing gate amidst hedgerows of poison oak.' width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A small sign that says ‘Purissima Cemetery’ sits on a freestanding gate amid hedgerows of poison oak. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you weren’t looking for the Purissima Cemetery, you would probably fly right past the signs facing the road. Even if you did stop, by then you’d already have passed the town!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mitch Postel, president of the \u003ca href=\"https://historysmc.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Mateo County Historical Association\u003c/a>, joined me on a tour of Purissima Cemetery on an unseasonably wet August day. We started by reading from a plaque laid here in the 1960s by the Yerba Buena chapter of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ecvyb1.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">E Clampus Vitus\u003c/a>, a fraternal organization dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of the American West:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The town with stores, school, hotel, saloon, dance hall, harness, shop and blacksmith shop flourished from the early 1860s until the age of the motorcar.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“Actually, I would say it was just a little bit of an exaggeration to say ‘flourished’ from the early 1860s until the age of the motorcar, because it was certainly up and down,” Postel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924295\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924295\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"An older man stands in a creepy cemetery\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mitch Postel, president of the San Mateo County Historical Association, stands in Purissima Cemetery. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Purissima was pretty much washed up by the turn of the 20th century, though it was not entirely abandoned until the late 1930s, sometime before World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first written mention of the area was by Spaniards on the Portolá expedition of 1769:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The country had a gloomy aspect; the hills were bare and treeless, and, consequently, without fire-wood. On the northern side of this stream there were some abandoned Indian huts.\u003cbr>\n— Diary of Miguel Costansó\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>By the time these men explored what we now know as San Mateo County, the huts were already abandoned. The Ramaytush Ohlone peoples who lived in them were already gone. They might have left for any number of reasons: key people in the settlement dying, leaving to marry, opting for better fishing down the coast. But it wasn’t long before a bunch of European-style villages sprang up on or near the coast, wherever there was a creek, often on the very spots where the Chiguan and Cotegen who lived in this area had been. And when I say villages, I mean a clutch of farmhouses and barns and maybe a school or a stagecoach stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924296\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924296\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Orange lichen crowns an old tombstone.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Dobbel family tombstone sits in a field of cracked cement in Purissima Cemetery. Multiple family members might be buried under the same stone. Each side of the obelisk is engraved with details about a different Dobbel. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Around 1868, a German immigrant named Henry Dobbel bought 1,000 acres and built a mansion on the south bank of Purissima Creek. This place was huge and opulent: 17 large rooms, indoor plumbing, imported carpets, even a ballroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There isn’t much in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastsidebuzz.com/history-lecture-the-lost-town-of-purissima/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">historical records\u003c/a> about Dobbel’s personality, or that of his wife, but it is widely believed Dobbel made his money off the first restaurant to serve waffles in San Francisco. What we do know is that he built many of the buildings in Purissima, like the saloon across the way from the mansion. Also, the Dobbels employed 50 men to farm wheat, barley and potatoes. The waffle king was essentially the economic pillar of Purissima during its founding years. South of Half Moon Bay, the little town appealed to more folks than Dobbel’s family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Half Moon Bay was known as Spanish Town because that was a place where a lot of people that were of Mexican heritage, Spanish heritage [lived],” Postel said. “They wanted to get away from what was happening with the Anglo-ization of California, so forth. They wanted to have a place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A diverse group of people moved to Half Moon Bay in the years that followed, many of them Roman Catholics, and — it’s a tale as old as California — when the Protestants made their way to the coast, “they didn’t feel quite comfortable in Spanish Town. So they created another place just a little bit further south, but right on a creek, a little bit inland,” Postel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924297\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924297\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"A huge Monterey cypress in the foreground dwarfs a rotting 19th century structure in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-1920x1440.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Up Verde Road a ways and across from the cemetery, this rotting wood structure is believed by some to be one of two schools built in Purissima. But nobody knows for sure. It looks to me like a barn. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over the years that followed, the people of Purissima farmed, and logged redwoods, in the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains. Some oil was discovered, but it\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11658023/oil-beneath-san-mateo-county-you-betcha\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> wasn’t enough to make anybody rich\u003c/a>. And there were several, devastating crop failures, not to mention the time the Purissima Creek flooded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Henry Dobbel, still the town’s biggest employer, went bankrupt. He was forced to sell his estate in 1890, and he died in 1891. Both he and his wife are buried in the village cemetery, along with a sobering number of people who died young.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What killed people back then at such young ages? “A lot of the young women that you might see that are buried here could have died in childbirth,” Postel said. There were also workplace injuries, he said: “Farming accidents. Logging accidents. But I think most of it was disease. You know, medical assistance was very sparse. There was a town doctor in Half Moon Bay. There was one in Pescadero, too. But that’s a lot of miles between some of these remote farmhouses and a doctor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, Purissima lasted all of 70 years, give or take. Because the town was never officially incorporated, we don’t know the population figures. The gravestones feature some of the big-for-the-coast Protestant names of the 19th century, though: Dobbel, of course, and Hutch, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.johnstonhouse.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Johnston\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924302\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2011px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924302\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2.jpg\" alt=\"A 1930s era photograph of a saloon.\" width=\"2011\" height=\"1459\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2.jpg 2011w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-800x580.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-1020x740.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-160x116.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-1536x1114.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-1920x1393.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2011px) 100vw, 2011px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Mateo County’s archives contain a student monograph written by Blair Hyde, a 1939 student at San Mateo Junior College. At that time, there were a number of abandoned buildings still standing in Purissima. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Heads up to our question asker, Julia: The Ocean Shore Railroad, which took locals up to San Francisco and back in the early 20th century, did include a stop here. Highway 1 used to run through here, until it didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I paid a visit to the San Mateo County archives in downtown Redwood City, where I read a student report on Purissima by Blair Hyde of San Mateo Junior College, written in 1939. Back then, the buildings were still standing, but Hyde explains that the people of Purissima gradually came to the inevitable conclusion that Half Moon Bay was the better place to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, the Coastside Land Trust owns much of what used to be the town. The 5-acre cemetery was acquired by Ed Bixby of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.steelmantowncemetery.com/purissima_cemetery.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steelmantown Cemetery Company\u003c/a>, which has provided natural burials on the site for a number of years now, having cleared away enough poison oak to make space for them. There are now clear paths around the old gravestones, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924300\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924300\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A grave festooned with living, planted flowers and carefully arranged pinecones.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Purissima Cemetery was acquired by the Steelmantown Cemetery Company, which provides natural burials in a number of cemeteries nationwide. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "All that's left of the ghostly town of Purissima in San Mateo County is a 5-acre cemetery by the side of Verde Road near Highway 1.",
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"title": "Purissima: The Ghost Town Hidden Near Half Moon Bay | KQED",
"description": "All that's left of the ghostly town of Purissima in San Mateo County is a 5-acre cemetery by the side of Verde Road near Highway 1.",
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"headline": "Purissima: The Ghost Town Hidden Near Half Moon Bay",
"datePublished": "2022-09-08T03:01:02-07:00",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Read the transcript\u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3TO7JkR\"> here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most people who visit Half Moon Bay today head to the beach for surf, sand and a snack. But another, spooky adventure awaits those who peel off Highway 1 and take a windy road up into the hills, especially on one of those days when the fog hangs low.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’ll find working farms and ranches and old homes from the 19th century — some still lived in, others not so much. And if you drive up Verde Road just a little ways, not even a quarter mile, there’s a cemetery that used to be part of a town that no longer exists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What happened to the ghost town of Purissima? I know that it was intended to be a much bigger town, but the railroad didn’t go all the way there, or something?” asks Julia Thollaug of Montara, on the coast. She’s a local teacher and choreographer who’s been aware of the cemetery for years, but not its backstory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know anything about who lived there, or why they left,” she said. “That’s the thing that’s so interesting to me. Because Pescadero is still there [on the San Mateo County coast]. Half Moon Bay is there. So, like, why did they leave?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924294\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924294\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-scaled.jpg\" alt='A small sign that says \"Purissima Cemetery\" sits on a free-standing gate amidst hedgerows of poison oak.' width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-9-45-21-AM-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A small sign that says ‘Purissima Cemetery’ sits on a freestanding gate amid hedgerows of poison oak. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you weren’t looking for the Purissima Cemetery, you would probably fly right past the signs facing the road. Even if you did stop, by then you’d already have passed the town!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mitch Postel, president of the \u003ca href=\"https://historysmc.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Mateo County Historical Association\u003c/a>, joined me on a tour of Purissima Cemetery on an unseasonably wet August day. We started by reading from a plaque laid here in the 1960s by the Yerba Buena chapter of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ecvyb1.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">E Clampus Vitus\u003c/a>, a fraternal organization dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of the American West:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The town with stores, school, hotel, saloon, dance hall, harness, shop and blacksmith shop flourished from the early 1860s until the age of the motorcar.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“Actually, I would say it was just a little bit of an exaggeration to say ‘flourished’ from the early 1860s until the age of the motorcar, because it was certainly up and down,” Postel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924295\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924295\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"An older man stands in a creepy cemetery\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-33-39-AM-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mitch Postel, president of the San Mateo County Historical Association, stands in Purissima Cemetery. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Purissima was pretty much washed up by the turn of the 20th century, though it was not entirely abandoned until the late 1930s, sometime before World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first written mention of the area was by Spaniards on the Portolá expedition of 1769:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The country had a gloomy aspect; the hills were bare and treeless, and, consequently, without fire-wood. On the northern side of this stream there were some abandoned Indian huts.\u003cbr>\n— Diary of Miguel Costansó\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>By the time these men explored what we now know as San Mateo County, the huts were already abandoned. The Ramaytush Ohlone peoples who lived in them were already gone. They might have left for any number of reasons: key people in the settlement dying, leaving to marry, opting for better fishing down the coast. But it wasn’t long before a bunch of European-style villages sprang up on or near the coast, wherever there was a creek, often on the very spots where the Chiguan and Cotegen who lived in this area had been. And when I say villages, I mean a clutch of farmhouses and barns and maybe a school or a stagecoach stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924296\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924296\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Orange lichen crowns an old tombstone.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-25-17-AM-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Dobbel family tombstone sits in a field of cracked cement in Purissima Cemetery. Multiple family members might be buried under the same stone. Each side of the obelisk is engraved with details about a different Dobbel. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Around 1868, a German immigrant named Henry Dobbel bought 1,000 acres and built a mansion on the south bank of Purissima Creek. This place was huge and opulent: 17 large rooms, indoor plumbing, imported carpets, even a ballroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There isn’t much in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastsidebuzz.com/history-lecture-the-lost-town-of-purissima/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">historical records\u003c/a> about Dobbel’s personality, or that of his wife, but it is widely believed Dobbel made his money off the first restaurant to serve waffles in San Francisco. What we do know is that he built many of the buildings in Purissima, like the saloon across the way from the mansion. Also, the Dobbels employed 50 men to farm wheat, barley and potatoes. The waffle king was essentially the economic pillar of Purissima during its founding years. South of Half Moon Bay, the little town appealed to more folks than Dobbel’s family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Half Moon Bay was known as Spanish Town because that was a place where a lot of people that were of Mexican heritage, Spanish heritage [lived],” Postel said. “They wanted to get away from what was happening with the Anglo-ization of California, so forth. They wanted to have a place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A diverse group of people moved to Half Moon Bay in the years that followed, many of them Roman Catholics, and — it’s a tale as old as California — when the Protestants made their way to the coast, “they didn’t feel quite comfortable in Spanish Town. So they created another place just a little bit further south, but right on a creek, a little bit inland,” Postel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924297\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924297\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"A huge Monterey cypress in the foreground dwarfs a rotting 19th century structure in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/rghfn4Zo-1920x1440.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Up Verde Road a ways and across from the cemetery, this rotting wood structure is believed by some to be one of two schools built in Purissima. But nobody knows for sure. It looks to me like a barn. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over the years that followed, the people of Purissima farmed, and logged redwoods, in the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains. Some oil was discovered, but it\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11658023/oil-beneath-san-mateo-county-you-betcha\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> wasn’t enough to make anybody rich\u003c/a>. And there were several, devastating crop failures, not to mention the time the Purissima Creek flooded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Henry Dobbel, still the town’s biggest employer, went bankrupt. He was forced to sell his estate in 1890, and he died in 1891. Both he and his wife are buried in the village cemetery, along with a sobering number of people who died young.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What killed people back then at such young ages? “A lot of the young women that you might see that are buried here could have died in childbirth,” Postel said. There were also workplace injuries, he said: “Farming accidents. Logging accidents. But I think most of it was disease. You know, medical assistance was very sparse. There was a town doctor in Half Moon Bay. There was one in Pescadero, too. But that’s a lot of miles between some of these remote farmhouses and a doctor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, Purissima lasted all of 70 years, give or take. Because the town was never officially incorporated, we don’t know the population figures. The gravestones feature some of the big-for-the-coast Protestant names of the 19th century, though: Dobbel, of course, and Hutch, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.johnstonhouse.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Johnston\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924302\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2011px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924302\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2.jpg\" alt=\"A 1930s era photograph of a saloon.\" width=\"2011\" height=\"1459\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2.jpg 2011w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-800x580.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-1020x740.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-160x116.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-1536x1114.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Jun-17-10-16-52-AM-2-1920x1393.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2011px) 100vw, 2011px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Mateo County’s archives contain a student monograph written by Blair Hyde, a 1939 student at San Mateo Junior College. At that time, there were a number of abandoned buildings still standing in Purissima. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Heads up to our question asker, Julia: The Ocean Shore Railroad, which took locals up to San Francisco and back in the early 20th century, did include a stop here. Highway 1 used to run through here, until it didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I paid a visit to the San Mateo County archives in downtown Redwood City, where I read a student report on Purissima by Blair Hyde of San Mateo Junior College, written in 1939. Back then, the buildings were still standing, but Hyde explains that the people of Purissima gradually came to the inevitable conclusion that Half Moon Bay was the better place to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, the Coastside Land Trust owns much of what used to be the town. The 5-acre cemetery was acquired by Ed Bixby of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.steelmantowncemetery.com/purissima_cemetery.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steelmantown Cemetery Company\u003c/a>, which has provided natural burials on the site for a number of years now, having cleared away enough poison oak to make space for them. There are now clear paths around the old gravestones, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11924300\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11924300\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A grave festooned with living, planted flowers and carefully arranged pinecones.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/Photo-Aug-01-10-28-23-AM-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Purissima Cemetery was acquired by the Steelmantown Cemetery Company, which provides natural burials in a number of cemeteries nationwide. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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},
"baycurious": {
"id": "baycurious",
"title": "Bay Curious",
"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.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Bay-Curious-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/baycurious",
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"order": 3
},
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},
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"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/BBC-World-Service-p455581/",
"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
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},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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}
},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"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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"meta": {
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},
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"commonwealth-club": {
"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.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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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",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"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.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"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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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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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. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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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/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"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"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"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": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"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",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"
}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
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