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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Right now, when you cast a ballot in California, you don’t need to show identification. Prop 39 seeks to change that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is one of the most hotly contested issues on this year’s ballot, in part because President Donald Trump has also been talking about new voter ID laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Donald Trump:\u003c/strong> It’s very simple, all voters must show voter ID.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Is this a common sense way to make voting more secure or an attempt to suppress the vote? That’s for you to decide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> This is how Proposition 39 reads on your ballot. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voiceover:\u003c/strong> Proposition 39 prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government issued identification. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> We are back with another edition of PropFest, where our teams break down each statewide proposition on the California ballot. Way to hang in there this week. We talked about a lot of ballot measures.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> But there’s one last one to talk about this week before we head into the weekend. And it’s one of the most contentious. Here to help us understand Prop 39 is reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics desk. Welcome, Izzy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Hi.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Proposition 39 is an amendment to the state constitution about how we vote in the state. Before we dive into specifics, who put us on the ballot and why now? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Nationally, we’ve seen a lot of conversations in recent years about election integrity, especially from President Donald Trump and his allies, who are pushing voter ID requirements nationally and attempting to restrict mail-in voting. So this was put on the ballot by Republican lawmakers in California who want to increase voter confidence in elections by adding new ID requirements. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Break down for us what exactly Prop 39 would do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> So the measure would amend the state constitution to require Californians present a government-issued ID when voting in person. So that would be something like a driver’s license or a social security number. Or if they’re voting by mail, they would need to write the last four digits of an ID number on their ballot envelope. Right now, California only requires ID or social security numbers when registering to vote. It would also require the Secretary of State and county election officials to verify voters’ citizenship and report every year what percentage of their voter rolls they’ve verified. And in odd years, the state auditor would have to audit counties on how well they’re complying with the law and recommend changes. Lastly, the initiative says that any voter can request a new free state-issued ID at no cost, but when you designate at registration which ID you’re using, you have to stick to that number every time you vote or else your ballot could be invalidated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Why do proponents say this measure is necessary? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Backers of the measure are really trying to distance themselves from accusations that this is an extension of Trump’s agenda, given how blue the state votes. Their main argument is this is a common sense reform that both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of. They say nearly half the signatures they gathered to qualify for the ballot were from Democrats and Independents. Also one of the bill’s authors, Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, says whether there is or isn’t fraud going on. It’s undeniable that voter confidence in elections is incredibly low, and this is just an easy way to give people greater trust in the election system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Assemblymember Carl DeMaio:\u003c/strong> Because we’ve seen a dramatic drop in public trust and confidence in our elections. We’ve also seen very destructive and dishonest conspiracy theories on both sides. And so what we need to do is make sure that we always conduct our elections with the best safeguards and the highest integrity. And voters have said they want voter ID. It’s common sense.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Another argument that Senator Tony Strickland, who is also one of the bill’s authors, made is that 36 other states and many other countries already have voter ID requirements.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Senator Tony Strickland:\u003c/strong> ID is part of your everyday life. I had to use my idea a few times just today. You need an ID to get on a plane. You need ID to get prescription medication. You use the ID to open up a bank account. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t require ID to actually go out and vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> And Strickland says voter participation has actually increased in states like Georgia after introducing voter ID. But opponents say motivation is really hard to measure, and it’s just as likely due to voter mobilization efforts. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Do we have a problem with voter fraud in California? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Most studies say the rates of voter fraud are minuscule. But there’s certainly a narrative out there that it’s too easy to take advantage of the system. This year, I think a lot of concerns about fraud came from California’s slow vote count. And one of the talking points you’ll hear a lot from Republicans is how there was a dog registered to vote in Orange County. Democrats respond to that saying, actually this shows the system is working because the dog’s owner, who’s a registered Republican, was caught and prosecuted.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’ll pause the conversation here for a moment. More on Prop 39 when we return. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back talking about Proposition 39 with KQED’s Izzy Bloom. Izzy, what are the current rules around citizenship and voting in California?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Right now, when you register to vote in California, you have to prove that you’re legally allowed to vote by showing ID or a social security number, and it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in California. Jenny Farrell is the executive director for the League of Women Voters in California and she says, you know, California already has voter ID laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Voters sign the roster and impersonating another voter is a crime. And then for mail ballots, every ballot goes through a signature verification against the voter’s registration record before it is counted with a process to cure mismatches. No matter how you vote, citizenship is already attested to under penalty of perjure when someone registers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> For mail-in ballots, they say it’s not very different to sign an envelope and verify that signature versus writing down a number and verifying that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Tell me more about that citizenship verification process. What happens now with voter rolls and how would this be different?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>It’s already part of state law that voter roles are maintained and updated. So for example, if someone goes to prison or dies and can no longer vote, government agencies send those names to the Secretary of State and the roles are updated. When it comes to citizenship status, that’s checked when a person registers to vote currently, and it’s considered perjury for a non-citizen to lie and sign up to vote anyway. So this measure is really aiming to make everything stricter. It’s not really clear what best efforts to verify citizenship means. That’s probably something the state legislature would have to determine if this passes. But in general, the measure is adding more steps to ensure you are who you say you are when you go to vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, we’ve heard from supporters on this, who is opposing this prop and what are their arguments?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> As you can imagine, this has become a pretty partisan fight. The California Democratic Party and gubernatorial candidate Javier Becerra are against it. And then there’s also groups including the ACLU of Northern California, the League of Women Voters, California Common Cause also against the measure. And they argue the system isn’t broken. There’s very little, if any, election fraud right now. And all this will do is make it harder to vote. Here’s Farrell again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Prop 39 would actually affect every California voter, but we know that additional ID requirements don’t fall equally on everyone. There are large gaps in terms of who possesses current valid ID with, you know, the current name and address. Voters in Black, Latino, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities are less likely to have that current valid ID. These ID laws also present particular challenges for young voters, low-income voters, voters with disabilities, and folks who have changed their names, including women who have changed their name due to marriage and transgender folks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Also, Farrell says it creates new identity theft problems because it requires voters write the last four digits of a government-issued ID on the outside of their mail-in envelope, and that already has your name and address on it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>The measure itself does not require a secrecy flap or some other covering over that number. And then election officials retain those envelopes for as long as 22 months.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> The initiative seems clear on its face, but there are a lot of details that still need to be hashed out if it passes. For instance, it’s unclear what kinds of government-issued ID would qualify, like tribal ID, student ID, public housing ID, gun registration ID, and whichever forms of ID are allowed could privilege certain racial, age, and socioeconomic groups. The opposition also points out that this could cost the state a bunch of money. The Legislative Analyst’s office estimated tens of millions to the low hundreds of millions of dollars to issue all those free state IDs and additional workload for state and county election officials and the state auditor. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does campaign spending look like for this measure? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>As of early September, the yes on Prop 39 side has far outspent the no side to tune of $15 million. The spending here isn’t nearly as big as we’re seeing in some of the other contentious measures, like the billionaire tax, but polling does show it’s underwater. The most recent Berkeley IGS poll from September shows 52% of likely voters plan to vote no versus 39% planning to vote yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was Izzy Bloom, a reporter with KQED’s Politics Desk. Thanks so much, Izzy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 39 would require people to show a government-issued ID when voting in person or provide the last four digits of a government issued ID designated during voter registration for mail-in voting. It would also require election officials to maintain accurate voter registration lists and to try to verify citizenship of voters using government data. And it would also require the state auditor to audit government compliance with these requirements. A vote no on Prop 39 would keep things as they are now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong>: That’s it for our episode on Proposition 39. We’ll be back next week with explainers on the remaining six propositions on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Bay Curious is produced by Erika Cruz Guevarra, Alan Monticello, Gabriella Glick, Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. I’m Olivia Allen-Price and I’m Ericka Cruz Guavarra. Have a lovely weekend.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Right now, when you cast a ballot in California, you don’t need to show identification. Prop 39 seeks to change that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Right now, when you cast a ballot in California, you don’t need to show identification. Prop 39 seeks to change that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is one of the most hotly contested issues on this year’s ballot, in part because President Donald Trump has also been talking about new voter ID laws.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is one of the most hotly contested issues on this year’s ballot, in part because President Donald Trump has also been talking about new voter ID laws.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Donald Trump:\u003c/strong> It’s very simple, all voters must show voter ID.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Donald Trump:\u003c/strong> It’s very simple, all voters must show voter ID.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Is this a common sense way to make voting more secure or an attempt to suppress the vote? That’s for you to decide.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Is this a common sense way to make voting more secure or an attempt to suppress the vote? That’s for you to decide.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> This is how Proposition 39 reads on your ballot. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> This is how Proposition 39 reads on your ballot. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voiceover:\u003c/strong> Proposition 39 prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government issued identification. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voiceover:\u003c/strong> Proposition 39 prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government issued identification. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> We are back with another edition of PropFest, where our teams break down each statewide proposition on the California ballot. Way to hang in there this week. We talked about a lot of ballot measures.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> We are back with another edition of PropFest, where our teams break down each statewide proposition on the California ballot. Way to hang in there this week. We talked about a lot of ballot measures.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> But there’s one last one to talk about this week before we head into the weekend. And it’s one of the most contentious. Here to help us understand Prop 39 is reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics desk. Welcome, Izzy. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> But there’s one last one to talk about this week before we head into the weekend. And it’s one of the most contentious. Here to help us understand Prop 39 is reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics desk. Welcome, Izzy. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Hi.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Hi.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Proposition 39 is an amendment to the state constitution about how we vote in the state. Before we dive into specifics, who put us on the ballot and why now? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Proposition 39 is an amendment to the state constitution about how we vote in the state. Before we dive into specifics, who put us on the ballot and why now? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Nationally, we’ve seen a lot of conversations in recent years about election integrity, especially from President Donald Trump and his allies, who are pushing voter ID requirements nationally and attempting to restrict mail-in voting. So this was put on the ballot by Republican lawmakers in California who want to increase voter confidence in elections by adding new ID requirements. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Nationally, we’ve seen a lot of conversations in recent years about election integrity, especially from President Donald Trump and his allies, who are pushing voter ID requirements nationally and attempting to restrict mail-in voting. So this was put on the ballot by Republican lawmakers in California who want to increase voter confidence in elections by adding new ID requirements. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Break down for us what exactly Prop 39 would do. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Break down for us what exactly Prop 39 would do. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> So the measure would amend the state constitution to require Californians present a government-issued ID when voting in person. So that would be something like a driver’s license or a social security number. Or if they’re voting by mail, they would need to write the last four digits of an ID number on their ballot envelope. Right now, California only requires ID or social security numbers when registering to vote. It would also require the Secretary of State and county election officials to verify voters’ citizenship and report every year what percentage of their voter rolls they’ve verified. And in odd years, the state auditor would have to audit counties on how well they’re complying with the law and recommend changes. Lastly, the initiative says that any voter can request a new free state-issued ID at no cost, but when you designate at registration which ID you’re using, you have to stick to that number every time you vote or else your ballot could be invalidated.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> So the measure would amend the state constitution to require Californians present a government-issued ID when voting in person. So that would be something like a driver’s license or a social security number. Or if they’re voting by mail, they would need to write the last four digits of an ID number on their ballot envelope. Right now, California only requires ID or social security numbers when registering to vote. It would also require the Secretary of State and county election officials to verify voters’ citizenship and report every year what percentage of their voter rolls they’ve verified. And in odd years, the state auditor would have to audit counties on how well they’re complying with the law and recommend changes. Lastly, the initiative says that any voter can request a new free state-issued ID at no cost, but when you designate at registration which ID you’re using, you have to stick to that number every time you vote or else your ballot could be invalidated.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Why do proponents say this measure is necessary? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Backers of the measure are really trying to distance themselves from accusations that this is an extension of Trump’s agenda, given how blue the state votes. Their main argument is this is a common sense reform that both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of. They say nearly half the signatures they gathered to qualify for the ballot were from Democrats and Independents. Also one of the bill’s authors, Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, says whether there is or isn’t fraud going on. It’s undeniable that voter confidence in elections is incredibly low, and this is just an easy way to give people greater trust in the election system.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Backers of the measure are really trying to distance themselves from accusations that this is an extension of Trump’s agenda, given how blue the state votes. Their main argument is this is a common sense reform that both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of. They say nearly half the signatures they gathered to qualify for the ballot were from Democrats and Independents. Also one of the bill’s authors, Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, says whether there is or isn’t fraud going on. It’s undeniable that voter confidence in elections is incredibly low, and this is just an easy way to give people greater trust in the election system.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Assemblymember Carl DeMaio:\u003c/strong> Because we’ve seen a dramatic drop in public trust and confidence in our elections. We’ve also seen very destructive and dishonest conspiracy theories on both sides. And so what we need to do is make sure that we always conduct our elections with the best safeguards and the highest integrity. And voters have said they want voter ID. It’s common sense.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Assemblymember Carl DeMaio:\u003c/strong> Because we’ve seen a dramatic drop in public trust and confidence in our elections. We’ve also seen very destructive and dishonest conspiracy theories on both sides. And so what we need to do is make sure that we always conduct our elections with the best safeguards and the highest integrity. And voters have said they want voter ID. It’s common sense.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Another argument that Senator Tony Strickland, who is also one of the bill’s authors, made is that 36 other states and many other countries already have voter ID requirements.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Another argument that Senator Tony Strickland, who is also one of the bill’s authors, made is that 36 other states and many other countries already have voter ID requirements.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Senator Tony Strickland:\u003c/strong> ID is part of your everyday life. I had to use my idea a few times just today. You need an ID to get on a plane. You need ID to get prescription medication. You use the ID to open up a bank account. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t require ID to actually go out and vote.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Senator Tony Strickland:\u003c/strong> ID is part of your everyday life. I had to use my idea a few times just today. You need an ID to get on a plane. You need ID to get prescription medication. You use the ID to open up a bank account. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t require ID to actually go out and vote.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> And Strickland says voter participation has actually increased in states like Georgia after introducing voter ID. But opponents say motivation is really hard to measure, and it’s just as likely due to voter mobilization efforts. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> And Strickland says voter participation has actually increased in states like Georgia after introducing voter ID. But opponents say motivation is really hard to measure, and it’s just as likely due to voter mobilization efforts. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Do we have a problem with voter fraud in California? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Do we have a problem with voter fraud in California? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Most studies say the rates of voter fraud are minuscule. But there’s certainly a narrative out there that it’s too easy to take advantage of the system. This year, I think a lot of concerns about fraud came from California’s slow vote count. And one of the talking points you’ll hear a lot from Republicans is how there was a dog registered to vote in Orange County. Democrats respond to that saying, actually this shows the system is working because the dog’s owner, who’s a registered Republican, was caught and prosecuted.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Most studies say the rates of voter fraud are minuscule. But there’s certainly a narrative out there that it’s too easy to take advantage of the system. This year, I think a lot of concerns about fraud came from California’s slow vote count. And one of the talking points you’ll hear a lot from Republicans is how there was a dog registered to vote in Orange County. Democrats respond to that saying, actually this shows the system is working because the dog’s owner, who’s a registered Republican, was caught and prosecuted.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’ll pause the conversation here for a moment. More on Prop 39 when we return. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’ll pause the conversation here for a moment. More on Prop 39 when we return. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back talking about Proposition 39 with KQED’s Izzy Bloom. Izzy, what are the current rules around citizenship and voting in California?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back talking about Proposition 39 with KQED’s Izzy Bloom. Izzy, what are the current rules around citizenship and voting in California?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Right now, when you register to vote in California, you have to prove that you’re legally allowed to vote by showing ID or a social security number, and it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in California. Jenny Farrell is the executive director for the League of Women Voters in California and she says, you know, California already has voter ID laws.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Right now, when you register to vote in California, you have to prove that you’re legally allowed to vote by showing ID or a social security number, and it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in California. Jenny Farrell is the executive director for the League of Women Voters in California and she says, you know, California already has voter ID laws.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Voters sign the roster and impersonating another voter is a crime. And then for mail ballots, every ballot goes through a signature verification against the voter’s registration record before it is counted with a process to cure mismatches. No matter how you vote, citizenship is already attested to under penalty of perjure when someone registers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Voters sign the roster and impersonating another voter is a crime. And then for mail ballots, every ballot goes through a signature verification against the voter’s registration record before it is counted with a process to cure mismatches. No matter how you vote, citizenship is already attested to under penalty of perjure when someone registers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> For mail-in ballots, they say it’s not very different to sign an envelope and verify that signature versus writing down a number and verifying that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> For mail-in ballots, they say it’s not very different to sign an envelope and verify that signature versus writing down a number and verifying that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Tell me more about that citizenship verification process. What happens now with voter rolls and how would this be different?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Tell me more about that citizenship verification process. What happens now with voter rolls and how would this be different?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>It’s already part of state law that voter roles are maintained and updated. So for example, if someone goes to prison or dies and can no longer vote, government agencies send those names to the Secretary of State and the roles are updated. When it comes to citizenship status, that’s checked when a person registers to vote currently, and it’s considered perjury for a non-citizen to lie and sign up to vote anyway. So this measure is really aiming to make everything stricter. It’s not really clear what best efforts to verify citizenship means. That’s probably something the state legislature would have to determine if this passes. But in general, the measure is adding more steps to ensure you are who you say you are when you go to vote.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>It’s already part of state law that voter roles are maintained and updated. So for example, if someone goes to prison or dies and can no longer vote, government agencies send those names to the Secretary of State and the roles are updated. When it comes to citizenship status, that’s checked when a person registers to vote currently, and it’s considered perjury for a non-citizen to lie and sign up to vote anyway. So this measure is really aiming to make everything stricter. It’s not really clear what best efforts to verify citizenship means. That’s probably something the state legislature would have to determine if this passes. But in general, the measure is adding more steps to ensure you are who you say you are when you go to vote.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, we’ve heard from supporters on this, who is opposing this prop and what are their arguments?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, we’ve heard from supporters on this, who is opposing this prop and what are their arguments?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> As you can imagine, this has become a pretty partisan fight. The California Democratic Party and gubernatorial candidate Javier Becerra are against it. And then there’s also groups including the ACLU of Northern California, the League of Women Voters, California Common Cause also against the measure. And they argue the system isn’t broken. There’s very little, if any, election fraud right now. And all this will do is make it harder to vote. Here’s Farrell again.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> As you can imagine, this has become a pretty partisan fight. The California Democratic Party and gubernatorial candidate Javier Becerra are against it. And then there’s also groups including the ACLU of Northern California, the League of Women Voters, California Common Cause also against the measure. And they argue the system isn’t broken. There’s very little, if any, election fraud right now. And all this will do is make it harder to vote. Here’s Farrell again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Prop 39 would actually affect every California voter, but we know that additional ID requirements don’t fall equally on everyone. There are large gaps in terms of who possesses current valid ID with, you know, the current name and address. Voters in Black, Latino, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities are less likely to have that current valid ID. These ID laws also present particular challenges for young voters, low-income voters, voters with disabilities, and folks who have changed their names, including women who have changed their name due to marriage and transgender folks.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Prop 39 would actually affect every California voter, but we know that additional ID requirements don’t fall equally on everyone. There are large gaps in terms of who possesses current valid ID with, you know, the current name and address. Voters in Black, Latino, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities are less likely to have that current valid ID. These ID laws also present particular challenges for young voters, low-income voters, voters with disabilities, and folks who have changed their names, including women who have changed their name due to marriage and transgender folks.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Also, Farrell says it creates new identity theft problems because it requires voters write the last four digits of a government-issued ID on the outside of their mail-in envelope, and that already has your name and address on it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Also, Farrell says it creates new identity theft problems because it requires voters write the last four digits of a government-issued ID on the outside of their mail-in envelope, and that already has your name and address on it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>The measure itself does not require a secrecy flap or some other covering over that number. And then election officials retain those envelopes for as long as 22 months.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>The measure itself does not require a secrecy flap or some other covering over that number. And then election officials retain those envelopes for as long as 22 months.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> The initiative seems clear on its face, but there are a lot of details that still need to be hashed out if it passes. For instance, it’s unclear what kinds of government-issued ID would qualify, like tribal ID, student ID, public housing ID, gun registration ID, and whichever forms of ID are allowed could privilege certain racial, age, and socioeconomic groups. The opposition also points out that this could cost the state a bunch of money. The Legislative Analyst’s office estimated tens of millions to the low hundreds of millions of dollars to issue all those free state IDs and additional workload for state and county election officials and the state auditor. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> The initiative seems clear on its face, but there are a lot of details that still need to be hashed out if it passes. For instance, it’s unclear what kinds of government-issued ID would qualify, like tribal ID, student ID, public housing ID, gun registration ID, and whichever forms of ID are allowed could privilege certain racial, age, and socioeconomic groups. The opposition also points out that this could cost the state a bunch of money. The Legislative Analyst’s office estimated tens of millions to the low hundreds of millions of dollars to issue all those free state IDs and additional workload for state and county election officials and the state auditor. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does campaign spending look like for this measure? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does campaign spending look like for this measure? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>As of early September, the yes on Prop 39 side has far outspent the no side to tune of $15 million. The spending here isn’t nearly as big as we’re seeing in some of the other contentious measures, like the billionaire tax, but polling does show it’s underwater. The most recent Berkeley IGS poll from September shows 52% of likely voters plan to vote no versus 39% planning to vote yes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>As of early September, the yes on Prop 39 side has far outspent the no side to tune of $15 million. The spending here isn’t nearly as big as we’re seeing in some of the other contentious measures, like the billionaire tax, but polling does show it’s underwater. The most recent Berkeley IGS poll from September shows 52% of likely voters plan to vote no versus 39% planning to vote yes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was Izzy Bloom, a reporter with KQED’s Politics Desk. Thanks so much, Izzy. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was Izzy Bloom, a reporter with KQED’s Politics Desk. Thanks so much, Izzy. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 39 would require people to show a government-issued ID when voting in person or provide the last four digits of a government issued ID designated during voter registration for mail-in voting. It would also require election officials to maintain accurate voter registration lists and to try to verify citizenship of voters using government data. And it would also require the state auditor to audit government compliance with these requirements. A vote no on Prop 39 would keep things as they are now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 39 would require people to show a government-issued ID when voting in person or provide the last four digits of a government issued ID designated during voter registration for mail-in voting. It would also require election officials to maintain accurate voter registration lists and to try to verify citizenship of voters using government data. And it would also require the state auditor to audit government compliance with these requirements. A vote no on Prop 39 would keep things as they are now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong>: That’s it for our episode on Proposition 39. We’ll be back next week with explainers on the remaining six propositions on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong>: That’s it for our episode on Proposition 39. We’ll be back next week with explainers on the remaining six propositions on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Bay Curious is produced by Erika Cruz Guevarra, Alan Monticello, Gabriella Glick, Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Bay Curious is produced by Erika Cruz Guevarra, Alan Monticello, Gabriella Glick, Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. I’m Olivia Allen-Price and I’m Ericka Cruz Guavarra. Have a lovely weekend.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. I’m Olivia Allen-Price and I’m Ericka Cruz Guavarra. Have a lovely weekend.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Right now, when you cast a ballot in California, you don’t need to show identification. Prop 39 seeks to change that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is one of the most hotly contested issues on this year’s ballot, in part because President Donald Trump has also been talking about new voter ID laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Donald Trump:\u003c/strong> It’s very simple, all voters must show voter ID.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Is this a common sense way to make voting more secure or an attempt to suppress the vote? That’s for you to decide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> This is how Proposition 39 reads on your ballot. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voiceover:\u003c/strong> Proposition 39 prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government issued identification. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra:\u003c/strong> We are back with another edition of PropFest, where our teams break down each statewide proposition on the California ballot. Way to hang in there this week. We talked about a lot of ballot measures.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> But there’s one last one to talk about this week before we head into the weekend. And it’s one of the most contentious. Here to help us understand Prop 39 is reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics desk. Welcome, Izzy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Hi.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Proposition 39 is an amendment to the state constitution about how we vote in the state. Before we dive into specifics, who put us on the ballot and why now? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Nationally, we’ve seen a lot of conversations in recent years about election integrity, especially from President Donald Trump and his allies, who are pushing voter ID requirements nationally and attempting to restrict mail-in voting. So this was put on the ballot by Republican lawmakers in California who want to increase voter confidence in elections by adding new ID requirements. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Break down for us what exactly Prop 39 would do. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> So the measure would amend the state constitution to require Californians present a government-issued ID when voting in person. So that would be something like a driver’s license or a social security number. Or if they’re voting by mail, they would need to write the last four digits of an ID number on their ballot envelope. Right now, California only requires ID or social security numbers when registering to vote. It would also require the Secretary of State and county election officials to verify voters’ citizenship and report every year what percentage of their voter rolls they’ve verified. And in odd years, the state auditor would have to audit counties on how well they’re complying with the law and recommend changes. Lastly, the initiative says that any voter can request a new free state-issued ID at no cost, but when you designate at registration which ID you’re using, you have to stick to that number every time you vote or else your ballot could be invalidated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Why do proponents say this measure is necessary? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Backers of the measure are really trying to distance themselves from accusations that this is an extension of Trump’s agenda, given how blue the state votes. Their main argument is this is a common sense reform that both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of. They say nearly half the signatures they gathered to qualify for the ballot were from Democrats and Independents. Also one of the bill’s authors, Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, says whether there is or isn’t fraud going on. It’s undeniable that voter confidence in elections is incredibly low, and this is just an easy way to give people greater trust in the election system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Assemblymember Carl DeMaio:\u003c/strong> Because we’ve seen a dramatic drop in public trust and confidence in our elections. We’ve also seen very destructive and dishonest conspiracy theories on both sides. And so what we need to do is make sure that we always conduct our elections with the best safeguards and the highest integrity. And voters have said they want voter ID. It’s common sense.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Another argument that Senator Tony Strickland, who is also one of the bill’s authors, made is that 36 other states and many other countries already have voter ID requirements.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Senator Tony Strickland:\u003c/strong> ID is part of your everyday life. I had to use my idea a few times just today. You need an ID to get on a plane. You need ID to get prescription medication. You use the ID to open up a bank account. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t require ID to actually go out and vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> And Strickland says voter participation has actually increased in states like Georgia after introducing voter ID. But opponents say motivation is really hard to measure, and it’s just as likely due to voter mobilization efforts. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Do we have a problem with voter fraud in California? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Most studies say the rates of voter fraud are minuscule. But there’s certainly a narrative out there that it’s too easy to take advantage of the system. This year, I think a lot of concerns about fraud came from California’s slow vote count. And one of the talking points you’ll hear a lot from Republicans is how there was a dog registered to vote in Orange County. Democrats respond to that saying, actually this shows the system is working because the dog’s owner, who’s a registered Republican, was caught and prosecuted.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’ll pause the conversation here for a moment. More on Prop 39 when we return. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back talking about Proposition 39 with KQED’s Izzy Bloom. Izzy, what are the current rules around citizenship and voting in California?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> Right now, when you register to vote in California, you have to prove that you’re legally allowed to vote by showing ID or a social security number, and it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in California. Jenny Farrell is the executive director for the League of Women Voters in California and she says, you know, California already has voter ID laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Voters sign the roster and impersonating another voter is a crime. And then for mail ballots, every ballot goes through a signature verification against the voter’s registration record before it is counted with a process to cure mismatches. No matter how you vote, citizenship is already attested to under penalty of perjure when someone registers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> For mail-in ballots, they say it’s not very different to sign an envelope and verify that signature versus writing down a number and verifying that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Tell me more about that citizenship verification process. What happens now with voter rolls and how would this be different?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>It’s already part of state law that voter roles are maintained and updated. So for example, if someone goes to prison or dies and can no longer vote, government agencies send those names to the Secretary of State and the roles are updated. When it comes to citizenship status, that’s checked when a person registers to vote currently, and it’s considered perjury for a non-citizen to lie and sign up to vote anyway. So this measure is really aiming to make everything stricter. It’s not really clear what best efforts to verify citizenship means. That’s probably something the state legislature would have to determine if this passes. But in general, the measure is adding more steps to ensure you are who you say you are when you go to vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, we’ve heard from supporters on this, who is opposing this prop and what are their arguments?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> As you can imagine, this has become a pretty partisan fight. The California Democratic Party and gubernatorial candidate Javier Becerra are against it. And then there’s also groups including the ACLU of Northern California, the League of Women Voters, California Common Cause also against the measure. And they argue the system isn’t broken. There’s very little, if any, election fraud right now. And all this will do is make it harder to vote. Here’s Farrell again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Prop 39 would actually affect every California voter, but we know that additional ID requirements don’t fall equally on everyone. There are large gaps in terms of who possesses current valid ID with, you know, the current name and address. Voters in Black, Latino, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities are less likely to have that current valid ID. These ID laws also present particular challenges for young voters, low-income voters, voters with disabilities, and folks who have changed their names, including women who have changed their name due to marriage and transgender folks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Also, Farrell says it creates new identity theft problems because it requires voters write the last four digits of a government-issued ID on the outside of their mail-in envelope, and that already has your name and address on it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>The measure itself does not require a secrecy flap or some other covering over that number. And then election officials retain those envelopes for as long as 22 months.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom:\u003c/strong> The initiative seems clear on its face, but there are a lot of details that still need to be hashed out if it passes. For instance, it’s unclear what kinds of government-issued ID would qualify, like tribal ID, student ID, public housing ID, gun registration ID, and whichever forms of ID are allowed could privilege certain racial, age, and socioeconomic groups. The opposition also points out that this could cost the state a bunch of money. The Legislative Analyst’s office estimated tens of millions to the low hundreds of millions of dollars to issue all those free state IDs and additional workload for state and county election officials and the state auditor. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does campaign spending look like for this measure? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>As of early September, the yes on Prop 39 side has far outspent the no side to tune of $15 million. The spending here isn’t nearly as big as we’re seeing in some of the other contentious measures, like the billionaire tax, but polling does show it’s underwater. The most recent Berkeley IGS poll from September shows 52% of likely voters plan to vote no versus 39% planning to vote yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was Izzy Bloom, a reporter with KQED’s Politics Desk. Thanks so much, Izzy. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 39 would require people to show a government-issued ID when voting in person or provide the last four digits of a government issued ID designated during voter registration for mail-in voting. It would also require election officials to maintain accurate voter registration lists and to try to verify citizenship of voters using government data. And it would also require the state auditor to audit government compliance with these requirements. A vote no on Prop 39 would keep things as they are now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra\u003c/strong>: That’s it for our episode on Proposition 39. We’ll be back next week with explainers on the remaining six propositions on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Bay Curious is produced by Erika Cruz Guevarra, Alan Monticello, Gabriella Glick, Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. I’m Olivia Allen-Price and I’m Ericka Cruz Guavarra. Have a lovely weekend.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Prop 37: Creates Middle-Income Homebuying Program",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>For would-be homebuyers in California, there are a seemingly endless number of hurdles to jump over. But perhaps the biggest one for most people is saving for the down payment. When homes cost as much as they do in California, coming up with that initial chunk of cash hurts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It’s pretty standard to put down 20% of the cost of a home for a down payment. And if you can’t, you may be required to get mortgage insurance, which is just one more extra fee. The median cost of a single-family home in California is $980,000. That means you’ll need $200,000 for a down payment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And of course most homes here in the Bay Area where we’re recording cost way, way more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It’s this issue that the proponents of Proposition 37 set out to tackle. Here’s how the measure reads on your ballot. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over: \u003c/strong>Proposition37 creates a loan program for middle-income buyers of qualified new homes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious. Today, we continue on with PropFest, breaking down each of the 14 initiatives on the statewide ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You heard that right, 14. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Direct democracy, baby. Here we go. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today, we’re going through Proposition 37, a $25 billion bond to fund a program to help moderate income Californians buy homes. Here to walk us through it is KQED’s housing reporter, Adhiti Bandlamudi. Welcome, Adhiti. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Hey Olivia, I’m ready to talk bonds. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Let’s do it. Let’s start big picture on this one. What’s the context for Prop 37 and why is it on our ballot?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, California has one of the lowest rates of homeownership compared to other states. The national average is 66 percent, but California’s is 10 percent lower. It’s like 56 percent. That’s largely because the homes here are so expensive. More than half of Californians don’t own a home until they’re in their late 40s. And for a lot of people, the down payment is the sticking point. They could make a mortgage, but they don’t have enough savings to get into the game. And what could Prop 37 do to help that situation? So it directs the California Housing Finance Agency, also called Cal HFA, to create a middle-class home buyer down payment assistance program funded with up to $25 billion in revenue bonds, which means the bond would be paid back by mortgage payments home buyers make, not by taxpayers who aren’t buying homes. There’s an interesting catch here though. This program only applies to newly constructed homes. So on the whole, this bond is trying to do two things, help middle-class home buyers buy homes and also jumpstart the housing construction industry. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, so unlike Prop 1, the other housing bond on this year’s ballot, which we talked about the other day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>I’m familiar with it, yes. Yes, \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Which funds all sorts of programs. This one is specifically targeting that middle income group of people who often don’t qualify for other programs from the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Correct, and we should be clear, the way that this bond defines middle class is a bit tricky. So it’s defined as making 200% of area median income. Another way of thinking about that is that it’s roughly double of what a typical family in the area makes. Now, because it’s tied to what local incomes are in a particular place, qualifying for this program is going to vary greatly depending on where you are living in California. The California Budget Center has a really nice breakdown of what this would mean on a county level for a family of one, two, three, four. So let’s take a family four. This would mean that in San Francisco, for example, the family could make up to $342,000 and still qualify. If the family lived in San Mateo, that number would be a little bit higher. In Solano County, on the other hand, that number would be about $100,000 lower. So again, qualifying for this program really depends on where you live in the state. And this proposition really focuses on connecting new homeowners to new housing by helping people come up with the money for a down payment, which is really interesting to watch if this passes because it can only be used for newly constructed homes, which also means that it’s gonna take time for people to use this program to buy a home because the homes have to be built.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And really it will be more useful for potential home buyers in certain places where new homes can be built.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Exactly. It’s really going to depend on the cities and the counties that are willing to build more homes, that have space to build, more homes that have public political pressure to build more homes. So it’ll be interesting to watch. Walk me through how this would actually work from the homebuyers’ perspective. Okay, so here are the mechanics of it. So buyers would have to put down at least 3% of the down payment themselves. The bond would basically allow the state to cover 17% of home price. So 17 plus three, we got 20% down, which is the standard amount needed to avoid paying mortgage insurance. Now, the bond would require that home buyers pay back that 17% down payment assistance with interest, which means they’d be paying that back along with their monthly mortgage payments. What’s required of homebuyers who want to take part in this program? Unlike other down payment assistance programs, it doesn’t require the applicant to be a first-time or first-generation homebuyer. And it also doesn’t have any rules that would mean the homebuyer owes the state any equity gained on the house. Homebuyers have to qualify for a mortgage, meet the income requirements, occupy the home as their primary residence, make monthly payments, and they would have to fully repay their loans. What’s all this going to cost taxpayers? This would not cost taxpayers anything because the interest payments homebuyers would make to the state would cover the interest on the bond.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’ve got to hit pause for a minute, but when we return, more on Prop 37, including who’s behind it and what supporters and opponents say. Stay with us. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Welcome back to PropFest. We’re talking about Proposition 37. Arati, this measure was placed on the ballot by a group, not the state legislature. Who’s behind it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Bob Hertzberg, he is the former state Senate majority leader. He’s now retired from the legislature, but he still gets involved with causes he cares about. He started thinking about this bill back in 2008, right after the financial crash. He saw that we immediately stopped building homes, and there weren’t a lot of incentives for developers to build middle class housing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bob Hertzberg: \u003c/strong>You know, so many things we do in government either help the super wealthy and powerful or the people that are otherwise in trouble in so many ways, and it’s the right thing to do, but the middle class feels like they’re out of the loop.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In addition to Hertzberg, who else is supporting this measure? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There’s a lot of broad support for this proposition. The Democratic Party, various construction and realtor groups have also shown support, as well as Javier Becerra, who’s running for governor. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Hmm. And what about opponents? What do they have to say, and who are they? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So there are no official opponents to this bill, but there are some arguments for why it may not have its intended effect. So first off, there’s a real question right now as to whether home ownership in a state like California is still the most advantageous path. The premium to buy a house, like all those extra fees and things like insurance and interest, they can outweigh the historical benefit of buying a home and owning one. Second, while this proposition states an intent to keep the interest rate on the down payment loans low, it doesn’t guarantee it. Critics argue that because home buyers would be paying their mortgage and paying back the down payment assistance loan, it’s a second mortgage. And investors could see that as more risky and in turn that could lead to higher interest rates. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Also, some people say that this could actually exacerbate racial disparities in home ownership because there are barriers to participating. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the median amount in Californians’ checking and savings accounts was just over $18,000 in 2025. This means that a 3% down payment could still almost or entirely wipe out the savings of what an average family has. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Third, California already has several down payment assistance programs. There are estate ones, there are ones run by counties, by local banks. Does it really need another one, especially one that’s so focused on newly built homes? And also, while we’re on the topic of newly built homes, right now, home building is pretty slow going with borrowing costs, labor costs, materials, all being really expensive. So while this bond is trying to provide incentives, there’s no guarantee that developers will bite and actually build the homes. Reform California has come out against it. Carl DeMaio is a Republican assembly member from San Diego, and he says it’s a lot of money to be borrowing right now. And he’s also worried that this bond isn’t really for home buyers, but for developers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl DeMaio: \u003c/strong>This bond program basically becomes a subsidy for rich developers who give campaign contributions back to politicians. It really only helps a few people when it comes to housing, the lucky few that might win the lottery. This is not the approach for affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does spending look like for Prop 37?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Supporters of the proposition have raised $12.7 million as of this taping. The opposition hasn’t spent any money on this measure. All right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Aditi Bandlamudi, thank you for breaking Prop 37 down for us. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, thanks for having me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 37 gives the state permission to borrow up to $25 billion to create a down-payment assistance program for middle-income people. It would be repaid by people who receive those loans. A vote no means you do not want the state to borrow up to 25 billion dollars to create this program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s it for PropFest today. We’ll be back tomorrow with an explainer on Proposition 38, another bond, this time for immunology and immunotherapy research, and Proposition 39 about voter ID.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’re dropping episodes every weekday from now until October 9th on the Bay and Bay Curious podcast feeds. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>PropFest is a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It’s produced by Alan Montecillo, Gabriella Glueck, Pauline Bartolone, Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme, and me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Ethan Tovan Lindsey, Maha Sanad, and the whole KQED family. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can find audio and transcripts for this series at kqed.org slash prop fest. Some members of the KQEd podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Our show is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. If you value podcasts like this one, please consider becoming a sustaining KQed member. Learn more at donate.kqed.org. I’m Olivia Ellen Price. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Erika Cruz-Gavarra. We’ll see you tomorrow. Bye!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It’s this issue that the proponents of Proposition 37 set out to tackle. Here’s how the measure reads on your ballot. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over: \u003c/strong>Proposition37 creates a loan program for middle-income buyers of qualified new homes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over: \u003c/strong>Proposition37 creates a loan program for middle-income buyers of qualified new homes. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious. Today, we continue on with PropFest, breaking down each of the 14 initiatives on the statewide ballot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious. Today, we continue on with PropFest, breaking down each of the 14 initiatives on the statewide ballot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You heard that right, 14. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You heard that right, 14. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Direct democracy, baby. Here we go. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Direct democracy, baby. Here we go. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Today, we’re going through Proposition 37, a $25 billion bond to fund a program to help moderate income Californians buy homes. Here to walk us through it is KQED’s housing reporter, Adhiti Bandlamudi. Welcome, Adhiti. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Today, we’re going through Proposition 37, a $25 billion bond to fund a program to help moderate income Californians buy homes. Here to walk us through it is KQED’s housing reporter, Adhiti Bandlamudi. Welcome, Adhiti. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Hey Olivia, I’m ready to talk bonds. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Hey Olivia, I’m ready to talk bonds. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Let’s do it. Let’s start big picture on this one. What’s the context for Prop 37 and why is it on our ballot?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Let’s do it. Let’s start big picture on this one. What’s the context for Prop 37 and why is it on our ballot?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, California has one of the lowest rates of homeownership compared to other states. The national average is 66 percent, but California’s is 10 percent lower. It’s like 56 percent. That’s largely because the homes here are so expensive. More than half of Californians don’t own a home until they’re in their late 40s. And for a lot of people, the down payment is the sticking point. They could make a mortgage, but they don’t have enough savings to get into the game. And what could Prop 37 do to help that situation? So it directs the California Housing Finance Agency, also called Cal HFA, to create a middle-class home buyer down payment assistance program funded with up to $25 billion in revenue bonds, which means the bond would be paid back by mortgage payments home buyers make, not by taxpayers who aren’t buying homes. There’s an interesting catch here though. This program only applies to newly constructed homes. So on the whole, this bond is trying to do two things, help middle-class home buyers buy homes and also jumpstart the housing construction industry. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, California has one of the lowest rates of homeownership compared to other states. The national average is 66 percent, but California’s is 10 percent lower. It’s like 56 percent. That’s largely because the homes here are so expensive. More than half of Californians don’t own a home until they’re in their late 40s. And for a lot of people, the down payment is the sticking point. They could make a mortgage, but they don’t have enough savings to get into the game. And what could Prop 37 do to help that situation? So it directs the California Housing Finance Agency, also called Cal HFA, to create a middle-class home buyer down payment assistance program funded with up to $25 billion in revenue bonds, which means the bond would be paid back by mortgage payments home buyers make, not by taxpayers who aren’t buying homes. There’s an interesting catch here though. This program only applies to newly constructed homes. So on the whole, this bond is trying to do two things, help middle-class home buyers buy homes and also jumpstart the housing construction industry. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, so unlike Prop 1, the other housing bond on this year’s ballot, which we talked about the other day. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, so unlike Prop 1, the other housing bond on this year’s ballot, which we talked about the other day. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>I’m familiar with it, yes. Yes, \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>I’m familiar with it, yes. Yes, \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Which funds all sorts of programs. This one is specifically targeting that middle income group of people who often don’t qualify for other programs from the state.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Which funds all sorts of programs. This one is specifically targeting that middle income group of people who often don’t qualify for other programs from the state.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Correct, and we should be clear, the way that this bond defines middle class is a bit tricky. So it’s defined as making 200% of area median income. Another way of thinking about that is that it’s roughly double of what a typical family in the area makes. Now, because it’s tied to what local incomes are in a particular place, qualifying for this program is going to vary greatly depending on where you are living in California. The California Budget Center has a really nice breakdown of what this would mean on a county level for a family of one, two, three, four. So let’s take a family four. This would mean that in San Francisco, for example, the family could make up to $342,000 and still qualify. If the family lived in San Mateo, that number would be a little bit higher. In Solano County, on the other hand, that number would be about $100,000 lower. So again, qualifying for this program really depends on where you live in the state. And this proposition really focuses on connecting new homeowners to new housing by helping people come up with the money for a down payment, which is really interesting to watch if this passes because it can only be used for newly constructed homes, which also means that it’s gonna take time for people to use this program to buy a home because the homes have to be built.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Correct, and we should be clear, the way that this bond defines middle class is a bit tricky. So it’s defined as making 200% of area median income. Another way of thinking about that is that it’s roughly double of what a typical family in the area makes. Now, because it’s tied to what local incomes are in a particular place, qualifying for this program is going to vary greatly depending on where you are living in California. The California Budget Center has a really nice breakdown of what this would mean on a county level for a family of one, two, three, four. So let’s take a family four. This would mean that in San Francisco, for example, the family could make up to $342,000 and still qualify. If the family lived in San Mateo, that number would be a little bit higher. In Solano County, on the other hand, that number would be about $100,000 lower. So again, qualifying for this program really depends on where you live in the state. And this proposition really focuses on connecting new homeowners to new housing by helping people come up with the money for a down payment, which is really interesting to watch if this passes because it can only be used for newly constructed homes, which also means that it’s gonna take time for people to use this program to buy a home because the homes have to be built.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And really it will be more useful for potential home buyers in certain places where new homes can be built.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And really it will be more useful for potential home buyers in certain places where new homes can be built.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Exactly. It’s really going to depend on the cities and the counties that are willing to build more homes, that have space to build, more homes that have public political pressure to build more homes. So it’ll be interesting to watch. Walk me through how this would actually work from the homebuyers’ perspective. Okay, so here are the mechanics of it. So buyers would have to put down at least 3% of the down payment themselves. The bond would basically allow the state to cover 17% of home price. So 17 plus three, we got 20% down, which is the standard amount needed to avoid paying mortgage insurance. Now, the bond would require that home buyers pay back that 17% down payment assistance with interest, which means they’d be paying that back along with their monthly mortgage payments. What’s required of homebuyers who want to take part in this program? Unlike other down payment assistance programs, it doesn’t require the applicant to be a first-time or first-generation homebuyer. And it also doesn’t have any rules that would mean the homebuyer owes the state any equity gained on the house. Homebuyers have to qualify for a mortgage, meet the income requirements, occupy the home as their primary residence, make monthly payments, and they would have to fully repay their loans. What’s all this going to cost taxpayers? This would not cost taxpayers anything because the interest payments homebuyers would make to the state would cover the interest on the bond.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Exactly. It’s really going to depend on the cities and the counties that are willing to build more homes, that have space to build, more homes that have public political pressure to build more homes. So it’ll be interesting to watch. Walk me through how this would actually work from the homebuyers’ perspective. Okay, so here are the mechanics of it. So buyers would have to put down at least 3% of the down payment themselves. The bond would basically allow the state to cover 17% of home price. So 17 plus three, we got 20% down, which is the standard amount needed to avoid paying mortgage insurance. Now, the bond would require that home buyers pay back that 17% down payment assistance with interest, which means they’d be paying that back along with their monthly mortgage payments. What’s required of homebuyers who want to take part in this program? Unlike other down payment assistance programs, it doesn’t require the applicant to be a first-time or first-generation homebuyer. And it also doesn’t have any rules that would mean the homebuyer owes the state any equity gained on the house. Homebuyers have to qualify for a mortgage, meet the income requirements, occupy the home as their primary residence, make monthly payments, and they would have to fully repay their loans. What’s all this going to cost taxpayers? This would not cost taxpayers anything because the interest payments homebuyers would make to the state would cover the interest on the bond.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’ve got to hit pause for a minute, but when we return, more on Prop 37, including who’s behind it and what supporters and opponents say. Stay with us. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’ve got to hit pause for a minute, but when we return, more on Prop 37, including who’s behind it and what supporters and opponents say. Stay with us. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Welcome back to PropFest. We’re talking about Proposition 37. Arati, this measure was placed on the ballot by a group, not the state legislature. Who’s behind it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Welcome back to PropFest. We’re talking about Proposition 37. Arati, this measure was placed on the ballot by a group, not the state legislature. Who’s behind it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Bob Hertzberg, he is the former state Senate majority leader. He’s now retired from the legislature, but he still gets involved with causes he cares about. He started thinking about this bill back in 2008, right after the financial crash. He saw that we immediately stopped building homes, and there weren’t a lot of incentives for developers to build middle class housing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Bob Hertzberg, he is the former state Senate majority leader. He’s now retired from the legislature, but he still gets involved with causes he cares about. He started thinking about this bill back in 2008, right after the financial crash. He saw that we immediately stopped building homes, and there weren’t a lot of incentives for developers to build middle class housing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bob Hertzberg: \u003c/strong>You know, so many things we do in government either help the super wealthy and powerful or the people that are otherwise in trouble in so many ways, and it’s the right thing to do, but the middle class feels like they’re out of the loop.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bob Hertzberg: \u003c/strong>You know, so many things we do in government either help the super wealthy and powerful or the people that are otherwise in trouble in so many ways, and it’s the right thing to do, but the middle class feels like they’re out of the loop.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In addition to Hertzberg, who else is supporting this measure? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In addition to Hertzberg, who else is supporting this measure? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There’s a lot of broad support for this proposition. The Democratic Party, various construction and realtor groups have also shown support, as well as Javier Becerra, who’s running for governor. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There’s a lot of broad support for this proposition. The Democratic Party, various construction and realtor groups have also shown support, as well as Javier Becerra, who’s running for governor. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Hmm. And what about opponents? What do they have to say, and who are they? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Hmm. And what about opponents? What do they have to say, and who are they? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So there are no official opponents to this bill, but there are some arguments for why it may not have its intended effect. So first off, there’s a real question right now as to whether home ownership in a state like California is still the most advantageous path. The premium to buy a house, like all those extra fees and things like insurance and interest, they can outweigh the historical benefit of buying a home and owning one. Second, while this proposition states an intent to keep the interest rate on the down payment loans low, it doesn’t guarantee it. Critics argue that because home buyers would be paying their mortgage and paying back the down payment assistance loan, it’s a second mortgage. And investors could see that as more risky and in turn that could lead to higher interest rates. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So there are no official opponents to this bill, but there are some arguments for why it may not have its intended effect. So first off, there’s a real question right now as to whether home ownership in a state like California is still the most advantageous path. The premium to buy a house, like all those extra fees and things like insurance and interest, they can outweigh the historical benefit of buying a home and owning one. Second, while this proposition states an intent to keep the interest rate on the down payment loans low, it doesn’t guarantee it. Critics argue that because home buyers would be paying their mortgage and paying back the down payment assistance loan, it’s a second mortgage. And investors could see that as more risky and in turn that could lead to higher interest rates. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Also, some people say that this could actually exacerbate racial disparities in home ownership because there are barriers to participating. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the median amount in Californians’ checking and savings accounts was just over $18,000 in 2025. This means that a 3% down payment could still almost or entirely wipe out the savings of what an average family has. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Also, some people say that this could actually exacerbate racial disparities in home ownership because there are barriers to participating. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the median amount in Californians’ checking and savings accounts was just over $18,000 in 2025. This means that a 3% down payment could still almost or entirely wipe out the savings of what an average family has. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Third, California already has several down payment assistance programs. There are estate ones, there are ones run by counties, by local banks. Does it really need another one, especially one that’s so focused on newly built homes? And also, while we’re on the topic of newly built homes, right now, home building is pretty slow going with borrowing costs, labor costs, materials, all being really expensive. So while this bond is trying to provide incentives, there’s no guarantee that developers will bite and actually build the homes. Reform California has come out against it. Carl DeMaio is a Republican assembly member from San Diego, and he says it’s a lot of money to be borrowing right now. And he’s also worried that this bond isn’t really for home buyers, but for developers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Third, California already has several down payment assistance programs. There are estate ones, there are ones run by counties, by local banks. Does it really need another one, especially one that’s so focused on newly built homes? And also, while we’re on the topic of newly built homes, right now, home building is pretty slow going with borrowing costs, labor costs, materials, all being really expensive. So while this bond is trying to provide incentives, there’s no guarantee that developers will bite and actually build the homes. Reform California has come out against it. Carl DeMaio is a Republican assembly member from San Diego, and he says it’s a lot of money to be borrowing right now. And he’s also worried that this bond isn’t really for home buyers, but for developers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl DeMaio: \u003c/strong>This bond program basically becomes a subsidy for rich developers who give campaign contributions back to politicians. It really only helps a few people when it comes to housing, the lucky few that might win the lottery. This is not the approach for affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl DeMaio: \u003c/strong>This bond program basically becomes a subsidy for rich developers who give campaign contributions back to politicians. It really only helps a few people when it comes to housing, the lucky few that might win the lottery. This is not the approach for affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does spending look like for Prop 37?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does spending look like for Prop 37?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Supporters of the proposition have raised $12.7 million as of this taping. The opposition hasn’t spent any money on this measure. All right.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Supporters of the proposition have raised $12.7 million as of this taping. The opposition hasn’t spent any money on this measure. All right.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Aditi Bandlamudi, thank you for breaking Prop 37 down for us. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Aditi Bandlamudi, thank you for breaking Prop 37 down for us. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, thanks for having me. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, thanks for having me. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 37 gives the state permission to borrow up to $25 billion to create a down-payment assistance program for middle-income people. It would be repaid by people who receive those loans. A vote no means you do not want the state to borrow up to 25 billion dollars to create this program.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 37 gives the state permission to borrow up to $25 billion to create a down-payment assistance program for middle-income people. It would be repaid by people who receive those loans. A vote no means you do not want the state to borrow up to 25 billion dollars to create this program.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s it for PropFest today. We’ll be back tomorrow with an explainer on Proposition 38, another bond, this time for immunology and immunotherapy research, and Proposition 39 about voter ID.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s it for PropFest today. We’ll be back tomorrow with an explainer on Proposition 38, another bond, this time for immunology and immunotherapy research, and Proposition 39 about voter ID.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’re dropping episodes every weekday from now until October 9th on the Bay and Bay Curious podcast feeds. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss out.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>For would-be homebuyers in California, there are a seemingly endless number of hurdles to jump over. But perhaps the biggest one for most people is saving for the down payment. When homes cost as much as they do in California, coming up with that initial chunk of cash hurts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It’s pretty standard to put down 20% of the cost of a home for a down payment. And if you can’t, you may be required to get mortgage insurance, which is just one more extra fee. The median cost of a single-family home in California is $980,000. That means you’ll need $200,000 for a down payment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And of course most homes here in the Bay Area where we’re recording cost way, way more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It’s this issue that the proponents of Proposition 37 set out to tackle. Here’s how the measure reads on your ballot. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over: \u003c/strong>Proposition37 creates a loan program for middle-income buyers of qualified new homes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious. Today, we continue on with PropFest, breaking down each of the 14 initiatives on the statewide ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You heard that right, 14. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Direct democracy, baby. Here we go. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today, we’re going through Proposition 37, a $25 billion bond to fund a program to help moderate income Californians buy homes. Here to walk us through it is KQED’s housing reporter, Adhiti Bandlamudi. Welcome, Adhiti. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Hey Olivia, I’m ready to talk bonds. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Let’s do it. Let’s start big picture on this one. What’s the context for Prop 37 and why is it on our ballot?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, California has one of the lowest rates of homeownership compared to other states. The national average is 66 percent, but California’s is 10 percent lower. It’s like 56 percent. That’s largely because the homes here are so expensive. More than half of Californians don’t own a home until they’re in their late 40s. And for a lot of people, the down payment is the sticking point. They could make a mortgage, but they don’t have enough savings to get into the game. And what could Prop 37 do to help that situation? So it directs the California Housing Finance Agency, also called Cal HFA, to create a middle-class home buyer down payment assistance program funded with up to $25 billion in revenue bonds, which means the bond would be paid back by mortgage payments home buyers make, not by taxpayers who aren’t buying homes. There’s an interesting catch here though. This program only applies to newly constructed homes. So on the whole, this bond is trying to do two things, help middle-class home buyers buy homes and also jumpstart the housing construction industry. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, so unlike Prop 1, the other housing bond on this year’s ballot, which we talked about the other day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>I’m familiar with it, yes. Yes, \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Which funds all sorts of programs. This one is specifically targeting that middle income group of people who often don’t qualify for other programs from the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Correct, and we should be clear, the way that this bond defines middle class is a bit tricky. So it’s defined as making 200% of area median income. Another way of thinking about that is that it’s roughly double of what a typical family in the area makes. Now, because it’s tied to what local incomes are in a particular place, qualifying for this program is going to vary greatly depending on where you are living in California. The California Budget Center has a really nice breakdown of what this would mean on a county level for a family of one, two, three, four. So let’s take a family four. This would mean that in San Francisco, for example, the family could make up to $342,000 and still qualify. If the family lived in San Mateo, that number would be a little bit higher. In Solano County, on the other hand, that number would be about $100,000 lower. So again, qualifying for this program really depends on where you live in the state. And this proposition really focuses on connecting new homeowners to new housing by helping people come up with the money for a down payment, which is really interesting to watch if this passes because it can only be used for newly constructed homes, which also means that it’s gonna take time for people to use this program to buy a home because the homes have to be built.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And really it will be more useful for potential home buyers in certain places where new homes can be built.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Exactly. It’s really going to depend on the cities and the counties that are willing to build more homes, that have space to build, more homes that have public political pressure to build more homes. So it’ll be interesting to watch. Walk me through how this would actually work from the homebuyers’ perspective. Okay, so here are the mechanics of it. So buyers would have to put down at least 3% of the down payment themselves. The bond would basically allow the state to cover 17% of home price. So 17 plus three, we got 20% down, which is the standard amount needed to avoid paying mortgage insurance. Now, the bond would require that home buyers pay back that 17% down payment assistance with interest, which means they’d be paying that back along with their monthly mortgage payments. What’s required of homebuyers who want to take part in this program? Unlike other down payment assistance programs, it doesn’t require the applicant to be a first-time or first-generation homebuyer. And it also doesn’t have any rules that would mean the homebuyer owes the state any equity gained on the house. Homebuyers have to qualify for a mortgage, meet the income requirements, occupy the home as their primary residence, make monthly payments, and they would have to fully repay their loans. What’s all this going to cost taxpayers? This would not cost taxpayers anything because the interest payments homebuyers would make to the state would cover the interest on the bond.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’ve got to hit pause for a minute, but when we return, more on Prop 37, including who’s behind it and what supporters and opponents say. Stay with us. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Welcome back to PropFest. We’re talking about Proposition 37. Arati, this measure was placed on the ballot by a group, not the state legislature. Who’s behind it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Bob Hertzberg, he is the former state Senate majority leader. He’s now retired from the legislature, but he still gets involved with causes he cares about. He started thinking about this bill back in 2008, right after the financial crash. He saw that we immediately stopped building homes, and there weren’t a lot of incentives for developers to build middle class housing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bob Hertzberg: \u003c/strong>You know, so many things we do in government either help the super wealthy and powerful or the people that are otherwise in trouble in so many ways, and it’s the right thing to do, but the middle class feels like they’re out of the loop.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In addition to Hertzberg, who else is supporting this measure? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There’s a lot of broad support for this proposition. The Democratic Party, various construction and realtor groups have also shown support, as well as Javier Becerra, who’s running for governor. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Hmm. And what about opponents? What do they have to say, and who are they? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So there are no official opponents to this bill, but there are some arguments for why it may not have its intended effect. So first off, there’s a real question right now as to whether home ownership in a state like California is still the most advantageous path. The premium to buy a house, like all those extra fees and things like insurance and interest, they can outweigh the historical benefit of buying a home and owning one. Second, while this proposition states an intent to keep the interest rate on the down payment loans low, it doesn’t guarantee it. Critics argue that because home buyers would be paying their mortgage and paying back the down payment assistance loan, it’s a second mortgage. And investors could see that as more risky and in turn that could lead to higher interest rates. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Also, some people say that this could actually exacerbate racial disparities in home ownership because there are barriers to participating. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the median amount in Californians’ checking and savings accounts was just over $18,000 in 2025. This means that a 3% down payment could still almost or entirely wipe out the savings of what an average family has. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Third, California already has several down payment assistance programs. There are estate ones, there are ones run by counties, by local banks. Does it really need another one, especially one that’s so focused on newly built homes? And also, while we’re on the topic of newly built homes, right now, home building is pretty slow going with borrowing costs, labor costs, materials, all being really expensive. So while this bond is trying to provide incentives, there’s no guarantee that developers will bite and actually build the homes. Reform California has come out against it. Carl DeMaio is a Republican assembly member from San Diego, and he says it’s a lot of money to be borrowing right now. And he’s also worried that this bond isn’t really for home buyers, but for developers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl DeMaio: \u003c/strong>This bond program basically becomes a subsidy for rich developers who give campaign contributions back to politicians. It really only helps a few people when it comes to housing, the lucky few that might win the lottery. This is not the approach for affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does spending look like for Prop 37?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Supporters of the proposition have raised $12.7 million as of this taping. The opposition hasn’t spent any money on this measure. All right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Aditi Bandlamudi, thank you for breaking Prop 37 down for us. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, thanks for having me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 37 gives the state permission to borrow up to $25 billion to create a down-payment assistance program for middle-income people. It would be repaid by people who receive those loans. A vote no means you do not want the state to borrow up to 25 billion dollars to create this program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s it for PropFest today. We’ll be back tomorrow with an explainer on Proposition 38, another bond, this time for immunology and immunotherapy research, and Proposition 39 about voter ID.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’re dropping episodes every weekday from now until October 9th on the Bay and Bay Curious podcast feeds. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>PropFest is a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It’s produced by Alan Montecillo, Gabriella Glueck, Pauline Bartolone, Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme, and me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Ethan Tovan Lindsey, Maha Sanad, and the whole KQED family. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can find audio and transcripts for this series at kqed.org slash prop fest. Some members of the KQEd podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Our show is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. If you value podcasts like this one, please consider becoming a sustaining KQed member. Learn more at donate.kqed.org. I’m Olivia Ellen Price. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Erika Cruz-Gavarra. We’ll see you tomorrow. Bye!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>If you want to get elected to office in California, it’s no big secret that you’ll need to raise money.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And in some cases, a lot of money. State legislative campaigns can run into the million.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That puts candidates who don’t come from money or have rich connections at a disadvantage, some say. And that’s the issue that creators of Proposition 4 are trying to address. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it reads on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over:\u003c/strong> Proposition four, repeals prohibition against public funding of election campaigns. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen Price. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Erika Cruz Guevara. This is Prop Fest, a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious, where we break down the propositions on the statewide ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>It’s a marathon this year with 14 initiatives. So let’s get right to it, shall we? Here to talk campaign finance with us is reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics desk. Welcome, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Hi, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, so Prop 4 would repeal part of a proposition that was passed by voters back in 1988. What was the deal with that prop?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>So,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>in 1988, there was a feeling very similar to right now that there’s too much money in politics, especially corporate money, special interest money. On top of that, the mood in the 80s when Reagan was president was very pro-business, anti-tax, anti-spending. So in 1988, Prop 73 banned public funds for campaign expenses. Basically, that meant governments can’t allow politicians to use taxpayer money for their campaigns. And then that proposition did a second thing, which is set new limits on campaign contributions. But a few years later, a federal judge threw out that second tenant, and just the public financing ban remained. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>So then how do we get from there to Prop 4? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>So state Senator Tom Umberg wrote the bill that ended up becoming Prop 4. It’s similarly a response to this growing feeling that big money and corporate interests and super PACs have too much influence in politics. And that public financing helps candidates who don’t have a ton of personal wealth or access to those special interests. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Let’s look under the hood. How does this actually work if passed? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>What it does is repeal the ban from Prop 73 to allow state and local governments to set up public financing programs for election campaigns. Candidates would have to meet certain eligibility criteria and agree to spending limits. And the initiative also spells out that the funds could not be used for legal defense costs, fines, or repayment of personal loans. It also has this provision that allows the legislature to amend the rules about how public financing works, like the mechanics and eligibility requirements without needing to go back to the ballot and ask voters to approve it again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Does this mean that automatically there will be a pool of money for political candidates to pull from?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>No, it’s basically just allowing governments to create programs and they will have, you know, specific eligibility requirements that they’ll have to decide for themselves, like raising a certain amount of small dollar donations or not accepting PAC money or capping how many personal funds they donate to their campaigns.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>But I understand that there are some cities that have already been providing public funding for campaigns. Is that true? And if so, like how?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so there’s an exception in Prop 73 for charter cities, which have their own constitution and that gives the state less authority over them. A lot of the biggest cities in California are charter cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley. And so they already have public financing programs. Supporters of this initiative point to the success of candidates like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karen Bass: \u003c/strong>Thanks to L.A.’s Supermatch program, every qualified donation from Los Angeles residents is matched 6-1 by the city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani who accessed public finance systems and won their elections.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Us through how one of these programs works so we can kind of get a sense for it. Let’s take a look at San Francisco, for example.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>There are a lot of hurdles a candidate has to pass to qualify for the money. So a candidate for mayor in San Francisco can receive up to $1.2 million in public funds. There are minimum qualifying contributions. So you have to show you have support from actual voters. You need to be opposed by a candidate who raises or spends at least $50,000. You have to agree to a spending limit of roughly $1,500,000 and agree to limits on how much. You donate to your own campaign. And then it’s a match program in San Francisco. That’s a lot, but essentially there are many rules and you need to prove you’re a serious candidate. And the program can’t favor candidates in one party over the other.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Is that how all the programs in California would look if Proposition 4 passes? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>No, there’s a lot of different ways a state or local government could set up a program like this. Like in Seattle, Washington, they have democracy vouchers, giving residents $100. They get to decide which candidates to distribute that money to. And that’s supposed to encourage candidates to engage with the people they hope to represent instead of appealing to special interests.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>While we pause for a quick break, won’t you consider becoming a member of KQED? Donate whatever works for your budget at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. One-time gifts, ongoing donations, we are here for it all. Thanks! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back talking about proposition four, the public funding for campaigns prop with KQED’s Izzy Bloom. Izzy, who is supporting this measure and why?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>This measure is supported by the California Democratic Party, California Common Cause, the League of Women Voters of California, California Clean Money Campaign. Jenny Farrell, the executive director of the League for Women Voters of California said this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Public financing can make it possible for someone who is deeply connected to their community, but doesn’t have a Rolodex full of wealthy donors to run a viable campaign. Before public financing, women made up a minority of Los Angeles City Council. Once Los Angeles put public financing in place, 14 or 15 of the members were elected using matching funds, and a majority of members now are women, a majority members are people of color. And it’s the most diverse city council in the city’s history.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Who is opposing this measure and why? Anti-tax groups like the California Taxpayers Association, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association, as well as the PAC Reform California run by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a former chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission, Dan Schnurr, and they all argue that the measure is written too broadly. It leaves each government to set its own eligibility criteria and spending limits, and that makes the system vulnerable to abuse. David Kline is spokesperson for the California Taxpayers Association, and he thinks taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used for campaigns.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Kline: \u003c/strong>The whole idea on its face is bad. Tax dollars should be used to help the taxpayers, to help constituents by promoting reasonable, efficient government services. Not to give money to a candidate to then put out a hit piece mailer on an opponent, and not to flood our mailboxes with even more junk mail from campaigns every election season.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Also, candidates already have to file campaign finance reports disclosing contributions and expenditures, which Kline says creates a lot of transparency around where big money is putting their influence and voters can decide for themselves whether they support that or not. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does spending look like on this spending prop? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Not much spending on this initiative, just $7,500 in opposition from Reform California. As for the cost to the state, the Nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it could cost the state a few hundred thousand dollars a year just to cover the additional hours and staffing for the Fair Political Practices Commission to answer state and local government’s questions about the programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s Politics Desk, thank you for walking us through this one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 4 means you want to remove the ban on public funding for election campaigns, opening the door for state or local governments to create new programs. A vote no means you wanna keep the ban in place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s all for our episode on Prop Four. Also in your podcast feed today is our show on Prop Five, which takes on statewide recalls. And we’ll be back with even more tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>PropFest is a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It’s produced by Erica Cruz Guevarra, Alan Montecillo, Gabriella Glueck,Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme and me, Olivia Allen Price. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Katie Springer, Jen Chien, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, and everyone on Team KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Some members of the KQD podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen Price. And I’m Erika Cruz-Gavarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>If you want to get elected to office in California, it’s no big secret that you’ll need to raise money.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>If you want to get elected to office in California, it’s no big secret that you’ll need to raise money.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And in some cases, a lot of money. State legislative campaigns can run into the million.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And in some cases, a lot of money. State legislative campaigns can run into the million.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That puts candidates who don’t come from money or have rich connections at a disadvantage, some say. And that’s the issue that creators of Proposition 4 are trying to address. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That puts candidates who don’t come from money or have rich connections at a disadvantage, some say. And that’s the issue that creators of Proposition 4 are trying to address. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it reads on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it reads on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over:\u003c/strong> Proposition four, repeals prohibition against public funding of election campaigns. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over:\u003c/strong> Proposition four, repeals prohibition against public funding of election campaigns. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen Price. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen Price. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Erika Cruz Guevara. This is Prop Fest, a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious, where we break down the propositions on the statewide ballot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Erika Cruz Guevara. This is Prop Fest, a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious, where we break down the propositions on the statewide ballot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>It’s a marathon this year with 14 initiatives. So let’s get right to it, shall we? Here to talk campaign finance with us is reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics desk. Welcome, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>It’s a marathon this year with 14 initiatives. So let’s get right to it, shall we? Here to talk campaign finance with us is reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics desk. Welcome, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Hi, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Hi, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, so Prop 4 would repeal part of a proposition that was passed by voters back in 1988. What was the deal with that prop?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, so Prop 4 would repeal part of a proposition that was passed by voters back in 1988. What was the deal with that prop?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>So,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>in 1988, there was a feeling very similar to right now that there’s too much money in politics, especially corporate money, special interest money. On top of that, the mood in the 80s when Reagan was president was very pro-business, anti-tax, anti-spending. So in 1988, Prop 73 banned public funds for campaign expenses. Basically, that meant governments can’t allow politicians to use taxpayer money for their campaigns. And then that proposition did a second thing, which is set new limits on campaign contributions. But a few years later, a federal judge threw out that second tenant, and just the public financing ban remained. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>So,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>in 1988, there was a feeling very similar to right now that there’s too much money in politics, especially corporate money, special interest money. On top of that, the mood in the 80s when Reagan was president was very pro-business, anti-tax, anti-spending. So in 1988, Prop 73 banned public funds for campaign expenses. Basically, that meant governments can’t allow politicians to use taxpayer money for their campaigns. And then that proposition did a second thing, which is set new limits on campaign contributions. But a few years later, a federal judge threw out that second tenant, and just the public financing ban remained. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>So then how do we get from there to Prop 4? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>So then how do we get from there to Prop 4? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>So state Senator Tom Umberg wrote the bill that ended up becoming Prop 4. It’s similarly a response to this growing feeling that big money and corporate interests and super PACs have too much influence in politics. And that public financing helps candidates who don’t have a ton of personal wealth or access to those special interests. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>So state Senator Tom Umberg wrote the bill that ended up becoming Prop 4. It’s similarly a response to this growing feeling that big money and corporate interests and super PACs have too much influence in politics. And that public financing helps candidates who don’t have a ton of personal wealth or access to those special interests. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Let’s look under the hood. How does this actually work if passed? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Let’s look under the hood. How does this actually work if passed? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>What it does is repeal the ban from Prop 73 to allow state and local governments to set up public financing programs for election campaigns. Candidates would have to meet certain eligibility criteria and agree to spending limits. And the initiative also spells out that the funds could not be used for legal defense costs, fines, or repayment of personal loans. It also has this provision that allows the legislature to amend the rules about how public financing works, like the mechanics and eligibility requirements without needing to go back to the ballot and ask voters to approve it again.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>What it does is repeal the ban from Prop 73 to allow state and local governments to set up public financing programs for election campaigns. Candidates would have to meet certain eligibility criteria and agree to spending limits. And the initiative also spells out that the funds could not be used for legal defense costs, fines, or repayment of personal loans. It also has this provision that allows the legislature to amend the rules about how public financing works, like the mechanics and eligibility requirements without needing to go back to the ballot and ask voters to approve it again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Does this mean that automatically there will be a pool of money for political candidates to pull from?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Does this mean that automatically there will be a pool of money for political candidates to pull from?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>No, it’s basically just allowing governments to create programs and they will have, you know, specific eligibility requirements that they’ll have to decide for themselves, like raising a certain amount of small dollar donations or not accepting PAC money or capping how many personal funds they donate to their campaigns.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>No, it’s basically just allowing governments to create programs and they will have, you know, specific eligibility requirements that they’ll have to decide for themselves, like raising a certain amount of small dollar donations or not accepting PAC money or capping how many personal funds they donate to their campaigns.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>But I understand that there are some cities that have already been providing public funding for campaigns. Is that true? And if so, like how?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>But I understand that there are some cities that have already been providing public funding for campaigns. Is that true? And if so, like how?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so there’s an exception in Prop 73 for charter cities, which have their own constitution and that gives the state less authority over them. A lot of the biggest cities in California are charter cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley. And so they already have public financing programs. Supporters of this initiative point to the success of candidates like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so there’s an exception in Prop 73 for charter cities, which have their own constitution and that gives the state less authority over them. A lot of the biggest cities in California are charter cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley. And so they already have public financing programs. Supporters of this initiative point to the success of candidates like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karen Bass: \u003c/strong>Thanks to L.A.’s Supermatch program, every qualified donation from Los Angeles residents is matched 6-1 by the city.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karen Bass: \u003c/strong>Thanks to L.A.’s Supermatch program, every qualified donation from Los Angeles residents is matched 6-1 by the city.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani who accessed public finance systems and won their elections.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani who accessed public finance systems and won their elections.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Us through how one of these programs works so we can kind of get a sense for it. Let’s take a look at San Francisco, for example.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Us through how one of these programs works so we can kind of get a sense for it. Let’s take a look at San Francisco, for example.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>There are a lot of hurdles a candidate has to pass to qualify for the money. So a candidate for mayor in San Francisco can receive up to $1.2 million in public funds. There are minimum qualifying contributions. So you have to show you have support from actual voters. You need to be opposed by a candidate who raises or spends at least $50,000. You have to agree to a spending limit of roughly $1,500,000 and agree to limits on how much. You donate to your own campaign. And then it’s a match program in San Francisco. That’s a lot, but essentially there are many rules and you need to prove you’re a serious candidate. And the program can’t favor candidates in one party over the other.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>There are a lot of hurdles a candidate has to pass to qualify for the money. So a candidate for mayor in San Francisco can receive up to $1.2 million in public funds. There are minimum qualifying contributions. So you have to show you have support from actual voters. You need to be opposed by a candidate who raises or spends at least $50,000. You have to agree to a spending limit of roughly $1,500,000 and agree to limits on how much. You donate to your own campaign. And then it’s a match program in San Francisco. That’s a lot, but essentially there are many rules and you need to prove you’re a serious candidate. And the program can’t favor candidates in one party over the other.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Is that how all the programs in California would look if Proposition 4 passes? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Is that how all the programs in California would look if Proposition 4 passes? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>No, there’s a lot of different ways a state or local government could set up a program like this. Like in Seattle, Washington, they have democracy vouchers, giving residents $100. They get to decide which candidates to distribute that money to. And that’s supposed to encourage candidates to engage with the people they hope to represent instead of appealing to special interests.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>No, there’s a lot of different ways a state or local government could set up a program like this. Like in Seattle, Washington, they have democracy vouchers, giving residents $100. They get to decide which candidates to distribute that money to. And that’s supposed to encourage candidates to engage with the people they hope to represent instead of appealing to special interests.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>While we pause for a quick break, won’t you consider becoming a member of KQED? Donate whatever works for your budget at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. One-time gifts, ongoing donations, we are here for it all. Thanks! \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>While we pause for a quick break, won’t you consider becoming a member of KQED? Donate whatever works for your budget at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. One-time gifts, ongoing donations, we are here for it all. Thanks! \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back talking about proposition four, the public funding for campaigns prop with KQED’s Izzy Bloom. Izzy, who is supporting this measure and why?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back talking about proposition four, the public funding for campaigns prop with KQED’s Izzy Bloom. Izzy, who is supporting this measure and why?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>This measure is supported by the California Democratic Party, California Common Cause, the League of Women Voters of California, California Clean Money Campaign. Jenny Farrell, the executive director of the League for Women Voters of California said this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>This measure is supported by the California Democratic Party, California Common Cause, the League of Women Voters of California, California Clean Money Campaign. Jenny Farrell, the executive director of the League for Women Voters of California said this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Public financing can make it possible for someone who is deeply connected to their community, but doesn’t have a Rolodex full of wealthy donors to run a viable campaign. Before public financing, women made up a minority of Los Angeles City Council. Once Los Angeles put public financing in place, 14 or 15 of the members were elected using matching funds, and a majority of members now are women, a majority members are people of color. And it’s the most diverse city council in the city’s history.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Public financing can make it possible for someone who is deeply connected to their community, but doesn’t have a Rolodex full of wealthy donors to run a viable campaign. Before public financing, women made up a minority of Los Angeles City Council. Once Los Angeles put public financing in place, 14 or 15 of the members were elected using matching funds, and a majority of members now are women, a majority members are people of color. And it’s the most diverse city council in the city’s history.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Who is opposing this measure and why? Anti-tax groups like the California Taxpayers Association, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association, as well as the PAC Reform California run by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a former chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission, Dan Schnurr, and they all argue that the measure is written too broadly. It leaves each government to set its own eligibility criteria and spending limits, and that makes the system vulnerable to abuse. David Kline is spokesperson for the California Taxpayers Association, and he thinks taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used for campaigns.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Who is opposing this measure and why? Anti-tax groups like the California Taxpayers Association, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association, as well as the PAC Reform California run by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a former chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission, Dan Schnurr, and they all argue that the measure is written too broadly. It leaves each government to set its own eligibility criteria and spending limits, and that makes the system vulnerable to abuse. David Kline is spokesperson for the California Taxpayers Association, and he thinks taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used for campaigns.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Kline: \u003c/strong>The whole idea on its face is bad. Tax dollars should be used to help the taxpayers, to help constituents by promoting reasonable, efficient government services. Not to give money to a candidate to then put out a hit piece mailer on an opponent, and not to flood our mailboxes with even more junk mail from campaigns every election season.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Kline: \u003c/strong>The whole idea on its face is bad. Tax dollars should be used to help the taxpayers, to help constituents by promoting reasonable, efficient government services. Not to give money to a candidate to then put out a hit piece mailer on an opponent, and not to flood our mailboxes with even more junk mail from campaigns every election season.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Also, candidates already have to file campaign finance reports disclosing contributions and expenditures, which Kline says creates a lot of transparency around where big money is putting their influence and voters can decide for themselves whether they support that or not. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Also, candidates already have to file campaign finance reports disclosing contributions and expenditures, which Kline says creates a lot of transparency around where big money is putting their influence and voters can decide for themselves whether they support that or not. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does spending look like on this spending prop? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Not much spending on this initiative, just $7,500 in opposition from Reform California. As for the cost to the state, the Nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it could cost the state a few hundred thousand dollars a year just to cover the additional hours and staffing for the Fair Political Practices Commission to answer state and local government’s questions about the programs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Not much spending on this initiative, just $7,500 in opposition from Reform California. As for the cost to the state, the Nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it could cost the state a few hundred thousand dollars a year just to cover the additional hours and staffing for the Fair Political Practices Commission to answer state and local government’s questions about the programs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s Politics Desk, thank you for walking us through this one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s Politics Desk, thank you for walking us through this one.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 4 means you want to remove the ban on public funding for election campaigns, opening the door for state or local governments to create new programs. A vote no means you wanna keep the ban in place.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 4 means you want to remove the ban on public funding for election campaigns, opening the door for state or local governments to create new programs. A vote no means you wanna keep the ban in place.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s all for our episode on Prop Four. Also in your podcast feed today is our show on Prop Five, which takes on statewide recalls. And we’ll be back with even more tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s all for our episode on Prop Four. Also in your podcast feed today is our show on Prop Five, which takes on statewide recalls. And we’ll be back with even more tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>PropFest is a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It’s produced by Erica Cruz Guevarra, Alan Montecillo, Gabriella Glueck,Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme and me, Olivia Allen Price. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>PropFest is a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It’s produced by Erica Cruz Guevarra, Alan Montecillo, Gabriella Glueck,Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme and me, Olivia Allen Price. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Katie Springer, Jen Chien, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, and everyone on Team KQED. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Katie Springer, Jen Chien, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, and everyone on Team KQED. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Some members of the KQD podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Some members of the KQD podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen Price. And I’m Erika Cruz-Gavarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen Price. And I’m Erika Cruz-Gavarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"excerpt": "Proposition 4 would overturn a prior ban on publicly funded financing programs for political candidates.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>If you want to get elected to office in California, it’s no big secret that you’ll need to raise money.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And in some cases, a lot of money. State legislative campaigns can run into the million.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That puts candidates who don’t come from money or have rich connections at a disadvantage, some say. And that’s the issue that creators of Proposition 4 are trying to address. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it reads on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over:\u003c/strong> Proposition four, repeals prohibition against public funding of election campaigns. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen Price. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Erika Cruz Guevara. This is Prop Fest, a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious, where we break down the propositions on the statewide ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>It’s a marathon this year with 14 initiatives. So let’s get right to it, shall we? Here to talk campaign finance with us is reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s politics desk. Welcome, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Hi, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Okay, so Prop 4 would repeal part of a proposition that was passed by voters back in 1988. What was the deal with that prop?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>So,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>in 1988, there was a feeling very similar to right now that there’s too much money in politics, especially corporate money, special interest money. On top of that, the mood in the 80s when Reagan was president was very pro-business, anti-tax, anti-spending. So in 1988, Prop 73 banned public funds for campaign expenses. Basically, that meant governments can’t allow politicians to use taxpayer money for their campaigns. And then that proposition did a second thing, which is set new limits on campaign contributions. But a few years later, a federal judge threw out that second tenant, and just the public financing ban remained. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>So then how do we get from there to Prop 4? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>So state Senator Tom Umberg wrote the bill that ended up becoming Prop 4. It’s similarly a response to this growing feeling that big money and corporate interests and super PACs have too much influence in politics. And that public financing helps candidates who don’t have a ton of personal wealth or access to those special interests. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Let’s look under the hood. How does this actually work if passed? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>What it does is repeal the ban from Prop 73 to allow state and local governments to set up public financing programs for election campaigns. Candidates would have to meet certain eligibility criteria and agree to spending limits. And the initiative also spells out that the funds could not be used for legal defense costs, fines, or repayment of personal loans. It also has this provision that allows the legislature to amend the rules about how public financing works, like the mechanics and eligibility requirements without needing to go back to the ballot and ask voters to approve it again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Does this mean that automatically there will be a pool of money for political candidates to pull from?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>No, it’s basically just allowing governments to create programs and they will have, you know, specific eligibility requirements that they’ll have to decide for themselves, like raising a certain amount of small dollar donations or not accepting PAC money or capping how many personal funds they donate to their campaigns.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>But I understand that there are some cities that have already been providing public funding for campaigns. Is that true? And if so, like how?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so there’s an exception in Prop 73 for charter cities, which have their own constitution and that gives the state less authority over them. A lot of the biggest cities in California are charter cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley. And so they already have public financing programs. Supporters of this initiative point to the success of candidates like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karen Bass: \u003c/strong>Thanks to L.A.’s Supermatch program, every qualified donation from Los Angeles residents is matched 6-1 by the city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani who accessed public finance systems and won their elections.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Us through how one of these programs works so we can kind of get a sense for it. Let’s take a look at San Francisco, for example.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>There are a lot of hurdles a candidate has to pass to qualify for the money. So a candidate for mayor in San Francisco can receive up to $1.2 million in public funds. There are minimum qualifying contributions. So you have to show you have support from actual voters. You need to be opposed by a candidate who raises or spends at least $50,000. You have to agree to a spending limit of roughly $1,500,000 and agree to limits on how much. You donate to your own campaign. And then it’s a match program in San Francisco. That’s a lot, but essentially there are many rules and you need to prove you’re a serious candidate. And the program can’t favor candidates in one party over the other.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Is that how all the programs in California would look if Proposition 4 passes? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>No, there’s a lot of different ways a state or local government could set up a program like this. Like in Seattle, Washington, they have democracy vouchers, giving residents $100. They get to decide which candidates to distribute that money to. And that’s supposed to encourage candidates to engage with the people they hope to represent instead of appealing to special interests.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>While we pause for a quick break, won’t you consider becoming a member of KQED? Donate whatever works for your budget at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. One-time gifts, ongoing donations, we are here for it all. Thanks! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back talking about proposition four, the public funding for campaigns prop with KQED’s Izzy Bloom. Izzy, who is supporting this measure and why?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>This measure is supported by the California Democratic Party, California Common Cause, the League of Women Voters of California, California Clean Money Campaign. Jenny Farrell, the executive director of the League for Women Voters of California said this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jenny Farrell: \u003c/strong>Public financing can make it possible for someone who is deeply connected to their community, but doesn’t have a Rolodex full of wealthy donors to run a viable campaign. Before public financing, women made up a minority of Los Angeles City Council. Once Los Angeles put public financing in place, 14 or 15 of the members were elected using matching funds, and a majority of members now are women, a majority members are people of color. And it’s the most diverse city council in the city’s history.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Who is opposing this measure and why? Anti-tax groups like the California Taxpayers Association, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association, as well as the PAC Reform California run by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a former chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission, Dan Schnurr, and they all argue that the measure is written too broadly. It leaves each government to set its own eligibility criteria and spending limits, and that makes the system vulnerable to abuse. David Kline is spokesperson for the California Taxpayers Association, and he thinks taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used for campaigns.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Kline: \u003c/strong>The whole idea on its face is bad. Tax dollars should be used to help the taxpayers, to help constituents by promoting reasonable, efficient government services. Not to give money to a candidate to then put out a hit piece mailer on an opponent, and not to flood our mailboxes with even more junk mail from campaigns every election season.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Also, candidates already have to file campaign finance reports disclosing contributions and expenditures, which Kline says creates a lot of transparency around where big money is putting their influence and voters can decide for themselves whether they support that or not. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>What does spending look like on this spending prop? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Not much spending on this initiative, just $7,500 in opposition from Reform California. As for the cost to the state, the Nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it could cost the state a few hundred thousand dollars a year just to cover the additional hours and staffing for the Fair Political Practices Commission to answer state and local government’s questions about the programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Reporter Izzy Bloom from KQED’s Politics Desk, thank you for walking us through this one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Izzy Bloom: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 4 means you want to remove the ban on public funding for election campaigns, opening the door for state or local governments to create new programs. A vote no means you wanna keep the ban in place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s all for our episode on Prop Four. Also in your podcast feed today is our show on Prop Five, which takes on statewide recalls. And we’ll be back with even more tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>PropFest is a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It’s produced by Erica Cruz Guevarra, Alan Montecillo, Gabriella Glueck,Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme and me, Olivia Allen Price. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from Katie Springer, Jen Chien, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, and everyone on Team KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Some members of the KQD podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen Price. And I’m Erika Cruz-Gavarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How the Church of Satan Was Born in San Francisco",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was first published October 20, 2023. We’re bringing it back for spooky season.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has long been associated with countercultural movements — whether it was the Beats of the 1950s, the hippies of the 1960s or the Black Panthers of the 1970s. But often overlooked in that long tradition of local subcultures is the emergence of America’s first official satanic church, which was founded right here in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From its beginnings in a black Victorian house in the Richmond District, to its rapid growth that may have helped kick off a wave of “satanic panic” across the country, the story of the Church of Satan is filled with lust, intrigue and a fair amount of theatrics.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A born showman\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>You can’t describe the \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/\">Church of Satan\u003c/a> without talking about the man who was its founder and central figure for decades, and who even posthumously is probably still the most iconic Satanist. Anton Szandor LaVey was born Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago in 1930. His family moved to the Bay Area when he was still a child, and he \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20120314024245/http://www.pacificsun.com/story.php?story_id=2313\">supposedly attended Tamalpais High School\u003c/a> in Mill Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a young age, LaVey had an interest in magic, the supernatural, and the idea of trickery. In a 1993 documentary about him called “\u003ca href=\"https://mubi.com/en/us/films/speak-of-the-devil\">Speak of the Devil\u003c/a>,” LaVey describes how fascinated he was as a little kid when a friend showed him a copy of the Johnson and Smith Company’s \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Smith_Company\">novelty catalog\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[It was] filled with all of these jokes, tricks, and books on forbidden subjects,” LaVey said. “It had all the most horrid examples of man’s inhumanity to man, all of course presented in the form of good fun and entertainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey got his own copy of the catalog, and ordered several novelty trick toys from it, including a ‘recorder box’ that would stab a sharp needle into the finger of an unsuspecting victim when a button was pushed. LaVey said he felt the trick was too mean to play on his own friends, but he didn’t feel bad about handing the toy over to a bully. That distinction was perhaps a precursor to the later development of his satanic philosophy, which advocates for bestowing kindness on those who deserve it, but seeking revenge on those who wrong you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That curious nature led LaVey to pursue somewhat unusual jobs. He claimed to have joined the circus at 16, where he said he’d worked with the big cats as a “cage boy.” Likewise, he said he’d done stints as a psychic investigator, paranormal researcher, and hypnotist. He also claimed to have briefly been a crime scene photographer for the SFPD, although there are no official records to back that up.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan\"]‘All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.’[/pullquote]Some have suggested that LaVey may have embellished some details of his early life, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/history-anton-szandor-lavey/\">The Church of Satan, on its site, contends it has evidence\u003c/a> to support his claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey is also known to have worked as an organist and musician and performed at clubs around San Francisco beginning in the late 1940s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the early 1950s, he was already cultivating the kind of dark aesthetic and occult interests that would lead him to found his church. In 1956, he purchased a Victorian house at 6114 California Street, a few blocks from the edge of the Presidio near the center of San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood, and painted it black. The house had a brick staircase leading up to the front door, with a parlor and a bar downstairs. The room that would become the primary ritual chamber contained a large mantle piece, one that would be featured prominently in future ceremonies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Church of Satan sort of grew out of what he called the Magic Circle,” said Blanche Barton, who is the current \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/history-blanche-barton/\">Magistra Templi Rex\u003c/a> — a ranking member — of the Church of Satan, and one of \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Satanist-Authorized-Biography/dp/1627310029/churchofsatan\">LaVey’s biographers\u003c/a> and a former lover, with whom he had his only son: Satan Xerxes Carnacki LaVey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton says LaVey surrounded himself with friends who shared similar interests. “They were all intrigued by the weird and the unexplained. They started having soirées and that sort of led into ritualizing to see, practically, what happens or if anything happens,” she said. “[LaVey] started presenting seminars on the various topics that he was interested in, from vampires to cannibalism — everything weird and wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964952\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11964952 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white close up image of a man wearing a hooded cloak with devil horns. He is holding the point of a sword in front of his face. He casts a shadow onto the wall behind him, which features a large pentagram.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1020x683.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1536x1028.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-2048x1370.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1920x1285.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey poses in his Black House in 1967. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘First year of the reign of Satan’\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the spring of 1966, the Church of Satan was officially launched and its congregation was comprised of a handful of people in LaVey’s inner circle. They gathered in his home — which was by then known as “The Black House” — on the night of April 30 to celebrate Walpurgisnacht, a German holiday with pagan origins that’s sometimes called the “night of the witches.” The holiday is, ironically, on the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, which commemorates the saint who is believed to offer protection from witchcraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey ritualistically shaved his head in the tradition of medieval executioners and dark magicians and declared 1966 to be the “first year of the reign of Satan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To attract followers to the church outside of his exclusive group of like-minded parishioners, LaVey quickly began spreading word of his satanic philosophy through public speaking engagements and by inviting reporters — and whoever else had interest — into his Black House to witness satanic rituals and masses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rituals themselves were a highly theatrical affair, akin to performance art, featuring satanic iconography and moody organ music. LaVey would wear a hooded cloak with devil horns and a pentagram medallion while invoking the many names of the devil. He’d often wield a sword or sometimes a large snake while a nude woman was draped over an altar in the house’s ritual chamber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blanche Barton says the aesthetics of Satanism were rooted in LaVey’s artistic nature: He was a painter, sculptor and musician, who just happened to have a penchant for dark things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Examples of the early rituals he led can be seen in the 1970 documentary, “\u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/satanis-the-devils-mass-1970\">Satanis: The Devil’s Mass,\u003c/a>” which chronicles the early years of the church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the most amusing parts of the film, almost endearing, is when they go out and talk to the neighbors,” Barton said. “And it’s pretty funny. You know, they say that they see the nude people dancing around in the front. And they saw the lion … eating something! Really quite devilish and intriguing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964956\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964956\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-800x759.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white image of a man with dark curly hair and a goatee seated cross legged on the floor of a room. In front of him is a lion cub, which looks at the camera.\" width=\"800\" height=\"759\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-800x759.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-1020x967.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-160x152.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-1536x1457.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey, founder and self-proclaimed high priest of the Church of Satan, is photographed at home in San Francisco with his pet lion on June 26, 1964. \u003ccite>(Art Frisch/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s right — LaVey actually owned a 500-pound pet lion named Togare, who he’d raised from a cub, and who lived with him in the Black House and slept in his bedroom at night. In the late 1960s, when his neighbors successfully petitioned to have the lion removed, Lavey ended up giving his oversized pet to actress Tippi Hedren, who starred in “The Birds,” and had founded (and apparently still lives on) \u003ca href=\"https://www.shambala.org/about.htm\">a big cat sanctuary\u003c/a> in Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey soon became a well-known personality throughout California and increasingly nationwide, largely supporting himself by collecting church initiation fees and doing paid public speaking engagements. He was frequently interviewed in print publications and on TV, including on \u003cem>The Tonight Show\u003c/em>. Even people who seemed to despise his ideology wanted to talk to him — as is evident in this interview with antagonistic talk show host Joe Pyne:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/Kqb54soKU8M?si=mX0JQztCFy7tjOj2\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A wide variety of people were drawn to LaVey’s dark charm and hedonistic philosophy that promoted a guilt-free, indulgent lifestyle. The church is rumored to have drawn in several notable celebrities in its early years, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey also \u003ca href=\"https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4718112/Hollywood-Satanist-Bizarre-Jayne-Mansfield-Anton-LaVey.html\">developed a friendship\u003c/a> with blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield, an actress, nightclub entertainer and Playboy playmate, and the mother of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit star Mariska Hargitay. There was even speculation that Mansfield’s death in 1967, a year after meeting LaVey, was the result of a curse he is believed to have placed on the driver of the car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, LaVey openly courted controversy. In 1967, he \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/SFGate/videos/anton-lavey-oversees-a-satanic-wedding-ceremony-in-san-francisco/10156878589425594/\">publicized and officiated a satanic wedding\u003c/a> between a New York socialite and a journalist. He also performed satanic funerals for servicemen in the Bay Area, at the request of their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time he started the church, LaVey had divorced his first wife and became involved with another woman, with whom he had a daughter, his second child. In 1967, he baptized the 3-year-old girl into the church, dedicating her to Satan as she sat in a hooded robe next to the nude altar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964962\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964962\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-800x923.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a hooded devil costume kneels in front of a large brick fireplace. A blonde woman kneels to his right. They are both reaching up towards a small girl wearing a hooded robe, who sits on the edge of the mantle, over which is draped a nude woman. A large pentagram featuring the head of Baphomet is painted on the wall behind them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"923\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-800x923.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1020x1176.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-160x185.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1332x1536.jpg 1332w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1776x2048.jpg 1776w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton Szandor LaVey, the leader of the First Church of Satan, taps his gum-chewing 3-year-old daughter, Zeena Galatea LaVey, on the head with a sword during “baptism ceremonies” in San Francisco on May 23, 1967. A naked woman reclines on the altar during the anti-religious ceremony. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Satanic Bible\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1969, LaVey published \u003ca href=\"https://www.harvard.com/book/the_satanic_bible/\">The Satanic Bible\u003c/a>, outlining his philosophy and detailing the official tenets of his church. At the core are \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/nine-satanic-statements/\">the 9 Satanic Statements\u003c/a>, the last of which is: “Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here LaVey refers to the Christian Church, which he said he found hypocritical for its denial of human nature. “No religion had ever been based on man’s carnal needs or his fleshly pursuits,” he said, in a 1970 interview. “All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The word Satan means adversary, he explained. “I’m supplying a much-needed opposition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the nine statements begin with “Satan represents…” Many people incorrectly assume that Satanists worship the devil. In fact, the Church of Satan’s official position is that the devil doesn’t exist at all. It’s an atheistic religion — really more like a philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship,” Blanche Barton, his biographer and former lover, said. “There is no dogma.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey’s philosophy grew in popularity throughout the 1970s. But even as the church continued to openly insist that it didn’t worship or believe in the devil, a centuries-old fear inevitably came bubbling to the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The satanic panic\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Beginning in the 1980s, and lasting through the 1990s, LaVey’s church spurred a national wave of fear and conspiracy theories around “satanic cults,” resulting in over 12,000 unsubstantiated claims of satanic ritual abuse and crimes, many centered around children, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/us/satanic-panic.html\">according to the New York Times\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A series of high-profile court cases drew national headlines during this period of “satanic panic.” One notorious case in the early 1980s — the \u003ca href=\"https://famous-trials.com/mcmartin/902-home\">McMartin Preschool trial\u003c/a> in Manhattan Beach in Southern California — originated from a mother’s claim that her son had been sexually abused by his preschool, which she accused of being run by Satanists.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Blanche Barton, LaVey's biographer (and former lover)\"]‘What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship. There is no dogma.’[/pullquote]That incited a set of increasingly bizarre claims of satanic child abuse and led to hundreds of children being interrogated by state investigators over allegations that they had been forced to do things like drink the blood of sacrificed animals or dig up graves. The mother who made the initial claim was later found to be prone to schizophrenic delusions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tapes of the children’s interviews were reviewed by a clinical psychologist who said they were coercive and extremely suggestive, leading children to give the answers the interviewers wanted to hear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two separate trials over the course of seven years resulted in no convictions. And at a cost of $15 million, it became the most expensive criminal trial in U.S. history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other similar cases resulted in actual convictions, a large number of them in the state of Texas. Most, however, were ultimately \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/08/24/accused-of-satanism-they-spent-21-years-in-prison-they-were-just-declared-innocent-and-were-paid-millions/\">overturned\u003c/a> due to lack of evidence, sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/10/26/how-satanic-panic-led-a-10-year-old-son-to-falsely-accuse-his-father/\">decades later\u003c/a> after the convicted parties had served \u003ca href=\"https://www.tpr.org/criminal-justice/2023-04-11/after-30-years-a-father-is-exonerated-in-satanic-panic-case\">years in prison\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Accusations weren’t lobbed directly at the Church of Satan, but the group was sometimes cited by police as having an influence on the spread of the ideology — as is the case in this \u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/LawEnforcementGuideToSatanicCults1994VHSOccultHilarity\">police training video\u003c/a>. Filmed in San Francisco in the early 1990s, the video includes stereotypical claims about crimes Satanists might commit, from cannibalism and necrophilia to corpse theft and black market baby sales — despite any evidence of the church ever doing or condoning such things.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Fate of the Black House\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blanche Barton moved to San Francisco in 1984 at the age of 22 and became romantically involved with LaVey that same year. Five years later, Barton moved into the Black House with LaVey, who sold it to pay off debts, but continued renting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton says, like so many other San Francisco Victorians, the house itself had a long and interesting history dating back to its construction in 1887.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It had trapdoors and it had been used as a [brothel] and a speakeasy,” she said, “It had a bar downstairs. It had secret passageways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964959\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964959\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-800x532.jpg\" alt=\"A mean in a hooded devil costume and cloak emerges from a secret passage way in the fireplace of a a room in his house. There are bookshelves above hi, and a human skeleton mounted in a large display case on the wall to the right.\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, rises out from a hidden corridor behind a false fireplace in his study in 1967. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>LaVey died from heart disease on Oct. 29, 1997, at the age of 67, although according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/11/09/anton-s-lavey-dies-at-67/c546b323-acb9-463e-ad96-7da298f9e4d8/\">obituary in \u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, his death certificate listed him as dying several days later, on Halloween. He left behind three children, all from different women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leadership of the church was eventually turned over to longtime church member Peter Gilmore, who still serves as its high priest. The church’s headquarters have since been moved to New York state, where Gilmore and his partner Peggy Nadramia built a new “Black House.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton said she and a group of followers attempted to raise money to buy LaVey’s house back so that it could be preserved as a museum, but those efforts ultimately failed, and the house was eventually sold and torn down in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was so much a part of his soul,” said Barton, “And as he said, ‘The roots went all the way to hell.’ So he was able to be there until the last, which was great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What now stands in its place is a rather normal-looking beige apartment building, devoid of any signs that it was once the site of a satanic sanctuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>If you visited San Francisco’s Richmond District before 2001, and made your way to 6114 California Street, you would have found yourself facing a tall Victorian house that was entirely \u003ci>black.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An attention grabbing paint scheme for sure. But it’s what happened inside The Black House that truly intrigued curious San Francsicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was the first headquarters of the Church of Satan … and the personal home of its founder Anton LaVey. His theatrical nature, and controversial beliefs, turned him into a kind of celebrity… here he is in an interview in 1970…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Pyne:\u003c/b> Who ordained you a atanic priest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey:\u003c/b> I would say, probably, I received the call. Just as any fundamentalist—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Well most of us do, but we fight it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Why fight it? This is, of course, the whole principle of my religion. All—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> What do you mean you received the call? You mean one day the devil said “Go out, Anton Szandor LaVey, and give people hell!” [audience laughs]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> That’s about it. That’s about it. Because people like to have a hell of a time, don’t they?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Spooky music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OAP: This is Bay Curious, I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Should I say it? I have to say it. Spooky season is here… and if you’ve been listening to the show for a while you know we love to bring you stories with a certain vibe around this time of year. Today, we are dusting off an episode from 2023 that explores what was going on inside that Black House. And who, really, was Anton LaVey? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr />\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[spooky laugh]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b> We sent producer Amanda Font to make a deal with the devil…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>The Bay Area is often associated with countercultural movements. You had the beat poets of the 1950s getting arrested for protesting censorship, the free-loving hippies of the 1960s dropping acid in the park, and the Black Panthers in the 1970s fighting back against institutional racism. What you don’t often hear about alongside those other cultural phenomena is that the late 1960s in San Francisco also gave rise to the notorious, indulgent, and wickedly provocative Church of Satan. [\u003ci>demonic vocal effect on “Church of Satan”]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>In this case, when we use the word “church,” it might not be exactly what you’re picturing. They do describe themselves as a religious organization, but there aren’t a lot of physical church buildings associated with Satanism. It’s more like an organization of like-minded people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, the black heart of the church, and perhaps still the most recognizable Satanist, was its founder Anton Szandor LaVey. He was born Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago in 1930, and later his family moved to the Bay Area. From a young age, he had a fascination with the supernatural, magic and the idea of trickery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]: \u003c/b>When I was about 5 years old, I had a friend that had a catalog from the Johnson and Smith company, filled with all of these jokes, tricks, and books on forbidden subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is a clip of LaVey from a 1993 documentary about him called “Speak of the Devil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> It had all the most horrid examples of man’s inhumanity to man, all of course presented in the form of good fun and entertainment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Like a toy “recorder box,” that, when you pushed a button, would stab a sharp needle into the finger of an unsuspecting victim. LaVey recalls he didn’t want to play such a mean trick on his friends… but he didn’t mind if it was a kid who was a bully. A similar thought came into play later, when he developed his satanic philosophy. It’s big on the idea of being kind to those who deserve it, but seeking revenge on those who wrong you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As he got older, LaVey’s curious nature led him to pursue somewhat unusual jobs. In his early life, he claimed to have worked in a circus with big cats, as a psychic investigator, an organist, a hypnotist, and to have been a police photographer for the SFPD (although there are no official records to back that last one.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1956, a decade before he officially created the Church of Satan, he was already cultivating the kind of dark aesthetic that people would come to know him for. LaVey bought the Victorian house at 6114 California Street and painted it black.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> And as he said, the roots went all The way to hell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b> This is Blanche Barton…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> I am the current Magistra Templi Rex of the Church of Satan. I’ve been a member of the organization. Wow, almost 50 years now. And I was a high priestess for a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>She also was Anton LaVey’s romantic partner for 13 years, and they had a child together. Blanche, or Magistra Barton has written two books about the Church of Satan, including a biography of Anton LaVey called “The Secret Life of a Satanist,” and “The Church of Satan: A History of the World’s Most Notorious Religion.” Blanche says even before the house became a satanic sanctuary, like so many old San Francisco Victorians, the house itself had an interesting history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> It was Built in 1887, as far as the stories go, by a Scottish sea captain. And there were timbers in the lower levels that had come to San Francisco During the gold rush, and it had trapdoors and it had been used as a whorehouse and a speakeasy. It had a bar downstairs. It had secret passageways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>When he purchased the house in ‘56, LaVey lived there with his first wife and their young daughter, Karla. And as his interests in the supernatural deepened, he surrounded himself with a group of friends who were curious about the same things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>The Church of Satan, sort of grew out of what he called the Magic Circle. They were all intrigued by the weird and the unexplained. They started sort of having soirees and that sort of led into ritualizing, to see, practically, what happens or if anything happens. He started presenting seminars on the various topics that he was interested in from, vampires to cannibalism. Everything weird and wonderful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[spooky music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> And in 1966, the people in that magic circle became the first members of the Church of Satan… picture it… a dark night, April 30th, Walpurgisnacht — a German holiday with Pagan origins, sometimes called “The night of the witches.” On that night Anton LaVey ritualistically shaved his head in the tradition of medieval executioners and dark magicians, adopting the look he’d have for the rest of his life, and declared 1966 to be the first year of the reign of Satan, thus founding America’s first official Satanic church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And from there, it became a kind of hit…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[swinging music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey claimed that the church had hundreds of members in San Francisco and thousands throughout the world. He was a natural showman, with his shiny polished bald head, black goatee, and intense eyes. He wore all black, a long cloak, large rings, a pentagram medallion, and would make appearances wearing a hooded devil costume with little horns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had a 500-pound pet lion named Togare who he’d raised from a cub, that slept in his bedroom at night. He invited reporters and the public inside the Black House to attend Satanic Mass…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Archival recording of Satanic Mass]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>…Where he’d invoke the devil while wielding a large sword or sometimes a boa constrictor while a nude woman was draped across the altar in the ritual chamber. He even married people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip of LaVey marrying couple:\u003c/b> “Former New York socialite Judith Chase and John Raymond were joined in unholy wedlock before a live altar, a nude redhead. Self-ordained sorcerer/minister Anton Levey presided at the San Francisco ceremony.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>The media absolutely ate it up. They started calling him the Black Pope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip of LaVey marrying couple:\u003c/b> “As the worst man looks on, the blessings of Lucifer and Beelzebub are invoked. The elaborate rite smacked of publicity, because next day the bride and groom secured a conventional wedding license”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey was charismatic and people seemed to gravitate to him. He became a kind of overnight celebrity. He was interviewed on national television, in magazines, people across the country were seeing his face. Even people who seemed to \u003ci>hate\u003c/i> him wanted to interview him… Like talk show host Joe Pyne…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Are you married?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Oh yes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> You have any little devils?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Oh yes. I have two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb> Pyne: \u003c/b>Are you gonna raise them as satanic kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Certainly, but not to go around chopping people up as sacrificing human beings just to—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne: \u003c/b> That would be the greatest reward of all. If your kids some night would creep in and set fire to you and your lion, then dance around with pitchforks saying “Hey look at daddy, look at daddy!” (audience laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>But it seemed like all kinds of people were at least curious about the church. At one time, Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace were linked to the Church of Satan. In 1966 the actress Jayne Mansfield met LaVey at a film festival in San Francisco and they began an unlikely friendship. There are numerous photos of them together, even performing a ritual at Mansfield’s home, though Mansfield said she was a Catholic and simply found LaVey intriguing. Some people blame her untimely death in a car crash a year later on an alleged curse LaVey put on the driver of the car… but who’s to say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> When we return, more controversy for Anton LeVey and the Satanic Panic… stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anton LeVey was no stranger to bad press. The media was infatuated with his dark styling and outlandish comments … and LeVey seemed to relish the attention. Here’s Amanda Font again…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Famously, in 1967 he baptized his then 3-year-old daughter Zeena into the church, dedicating her to Satan while her mother, LaVey’s 2nd partner Diane Hegarty, looked on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival clip of LaVey baptizing Zeena: \u003c/b>In the name of our great god, Satan Lucifer, I command thee to come forth an bestow these blessings upon us…(fades down and LaVey continues)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>So how much of LaVey’s highly theatrical image was serious? Well, while much of the ritualizing was akin to performance art, he was sincere in his philosophy. LaVey published “The Satanic Bible,” which by now has sold over a million copies, outlining his beliefs. The number one sin in Satanism is stupidity or willful ignorance. Herd conformity is also up there. He founded the Church of Satan as an alternative to what he saw as the repression of many other mainstream religions. Denying human nature, he said, was the real sin. Indulgence is key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> No religion had ever been based on man’s carnal needs or his fleshly pursuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is a clip of LaVey from a documentary filmed in those first few years of the church called “Satanis: The Devil’s Mass”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Not everyone was a fan, of course. He was telling people to embrace their animal nature… give in to their dark and lustful desires. Christian groups were appalled, obviously, and what about the neighbors? Here’s Blanche Barton again…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> One of the most amusing parts of the film, almost endearing, is when they go out and talk to the neighbors. And it’s pretty funny. You know, they say that they see the nude people dancing around in the front. And they saw the lion — eating something! Really quite, quite devilish and intriguing. (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip from ‘Satanis: The Devil’s Mass]\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 1:\u003c/b> He’s been in the neighborhood about 14 years and I always knew him as Tony. Just a nice ordinary — well — a little more dramatic than most men in the neighborhood, perhaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 2:\u003c/b> Actually I don’t know what kind of man he is. As soon as you meet him, you think he’s a very very nice man, you know. I just had a feeling I can trust him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 3:\u003c/b> (grumbling) A very undesirable type of a neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Neighbors successfully petitioned to have LaVey’s pet lion relocated in the late 60s. He first landed in a zoo, then ended up at a big cat sanctuary in Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the goings on at the church, the nude rituals, wild events, blaspheming…well, freedom of religion! They weren’t doing anything illegal. Still, by the 70s, LaVey had stopped inviting the press in for all the rituals, instead focusing more on cultivating new members. He was living in a world of his own aesthetic making, which is a primary tenet of his satanic philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> Anton Levey was first and foremost an artist. He felt that aesthetics, whatever you are most drawn to, is what you should use. If you’re really excited about Frankenstein or if you are very drawn to technology. Because what you do in the ritual chamber is you’re evoking your emotions. Nothing comes from outside. It’s not coming from Satan or demons or anything. But we know the power that Humans have for creating a world and a life for yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey was making a living through the church, taking speaking engagements and charging initiation fees for new members. He also sometimes worked as an organist at local clubs. He spent more of his time making art, and music, another passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>He got the most joy out of playing. Keyboards because he could control the entire orchestra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Clip of Anton LaVey playing keyboards]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>He even pressed a record. Much of it includes recordings of early satanic masses, but also just, you know, some songs…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Anton LaVey singing a song called ‘Honolulu Baby’]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>His specific aesthetics were very much in the forties. A lot of the precepts of Satanism that he developed are very much, sort of, grounded in his creative self.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Anton LaVey singing, music fades out]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> And then in the Eighties, there was the Satanic Panic going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> In the 1980s and through the 90s there was a national wave of fear that “Satanic Cults” were taking over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video: \u003c/b>Anton LaVey, perhaps the best-known Satanist in America compiled his years of cult knowledge into two books: the Satanic Bible, and the Satanic Rituals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is from an hourlong police training video from 1993, filmed in San Francisco, that was created to teach law enforcement how to spot satanic symbols and investigate “satanic crimes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video:\u003c/b> Now remember, not all satanic people commit crimes. Some of their activities may be perfectly legal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>It has all the highly stereotypical suggestions about what kinds of \u003ci>illegal\u003c/i> activities Satanists might engage in….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video: \u003c/b>Murder, which might include human sacrifice, or mass murders or cannibalism…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Some of them, frankly, are pretty macabre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video:\u003c/b> Corpse theft, cemetery vandalism, black market sales of bones and skulls, black market baby selling…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Dramatic music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>To be clear, these things weren’t happening. It’s kind of funny now, especially set to\u003ci> that \u003c/i>music, but at that time the fear that these things \u003ci>were actually\u003c/i> happening was intense. Through the 80s and 90s upwards of 10-thousand unsubstantiated claims of ritualistic abuse by supposed satanic cults were made, though not directly against the Church of Satan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was happening in California, and all over the United States. It was like the witch trials all over again. There were numerous high-profile cases where people were convicted of satanic crimes, only to be exonerated after serving years, sometimes decades, in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> But at the same time, there was a real excitement. From younger people who were. Sort of discovering Satanism because of the satanic. Panic. You know, people were jumping up and down and. Saying, “Oh, this is so evil, this is so. Bad.” And yet they would. Publish the satanic statements and the young kids would say, Well, that seems pretty sensible. To me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Because, here’s the thing a lot of people get wrong about The Church of Satan. Satanists don’t worship the devil. They don’t drink blood, sacrifice babies or animals. They don’t even believe in the literal devil. They’re atheists. Satanism is more of a philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship. There is no dogma. You know, we honor animals. We honor children. It’s against self-deceit, kindness to those who deserve it rather than love wasted on ingrates. And the last one, of course, people get a chuckle out of because we say, we recognize that Satan is the best friend that the church has ever had…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> The devil is the guy that’s kept the church in business for many many years. Without him, and the concept of evil, where would the church be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> Using a satanic adversary to represent an ideology of personal freedom and indulging without guilt… Blanche says it’s really more of a style choice. That’s what drew her in…She wanted to embrace her dark and sensual side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> I was looking for a philosophy that really represented women and a freedom for women and their lust. And their desires and their habits and their beauty and their wisdom. And I felt that most organized religions just did not have a voice for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Blanche had been following the Church of Satan through her teenage years and early 20s in Southern California, even coming to San Francisco to meet Anton LaVey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> From our first meeting we felt a draw to each other. And from that time we spent a lot of time on the phone and corresponding back and forth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Less than a year later in 1984, just after graduating college, she moves to San Francisco at the age of 22. Shortly thereafter they became romantically involved. Blanche moved into the Black House in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>We had a wonderful life together. It had a rhythm. Of course, he was very nocturnal. So a lot of times we would get up at four or five in the evening and meet people. Play music, converse, maybe watch a Movie And then we would go to sleep around dawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Rituals were no longer public, but occasional private events. LaVey wasn’t willing to present the Church of Satan as just a curiosity anymore. In 1993, Blanche gave birth to their son, his third child, Satan Xerxes. At that point, LaVey was 63 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MUSIC\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Pyne:\u003c/b> So is it necessary to drive a stake through your heart to kill you, or would an ordinary knock on the head do it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> I will never die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> You won’t?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> No, of course not. I’ve made arrangements. (audience ooohs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Anton LaVey died from heart disease at St. Mary’s in San Francisco on October 29th, 1997. Although his official death certificate lists his expiration date as Halloween.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what happens when the core of the Church of Satan, the man who was its central flame, gets snuffed out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, Blanche served as high priestess, the top leadership position, for a few years, before stepping down and handing the reins over to longtime member Peter Gilmore, who is still its high priest. The church left San Francisco and now has a new ‘Black House’ in New York state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey’s oldest daughter, Karla, was also high-priestess for a time but left the Church of Satan to start her own “First Satanic Church” in San Francisco. It’s a lot more exclusive and is known for throwing a great Black X-Mass concert in the city every year for the last couple decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zeena, who was dedicated to Satan as a toddler, left Satanism entirely and became a Tantric Buddhist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His son, Satan Xerxes, isn’t involved at all and lives a private life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the infamous Black House…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> It was an amazing house and it should have been preserved. And we did try.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey had been forced to sell the house to a friend in the early 90s though he was allowed to live there until his death. But the house was in disrepair, and the land was just too valuable. When efforts to find a preservation group willing to take it on failed, the property was sold and torn down in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What stands there now is a very normal-looking apartment building. No lingering signs that it was once a raucous den of sin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> That was Bay Curious producer Amanda Font.\u003cbr />\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr />\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This episode was produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, Brendan Willard, and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Katrina Schwartz, Anna Casalme, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and the whole KQED family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was first published October 20, 2023. We’re bringing it back for spooky season.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has long been associated with countercultural movements — whether it was the Beats of the 1950s, the hippies of the 1960s or the Black Panthers of the 1970s. But often overlooked in that long tradition of local subcultures is the emergence of America’s first official satanic church, which was founded right here in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From its beginnings in a black Victorian house in the Richmond District, to its rapid growth that may have helped kick off a wave of “satanic panic” across the country, the story of the Church of Satan is filled with lust, intrigue and a fair amount of theatrics.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A born showman\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>You can’t describe the \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/\">Church of Satan\u003c/a> without talking about the man who was its founder and central figure for decades, and who even posthumously is probably still the most iconic Satanist. Anton Szandor LaVey was born Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago in 1930. His family moved to the Bay Area when he was still a child, and he \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20120314024245/http://www.pacificsun.com/story.php?story_id=2313\">supposedly attended Tamalpais High School\u003c/a> in Mill Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a young age, LaVey had an interest in magic, the supernatural, and the idea of trickery. In a 1993 documentary about him called “\u003ca href=\"https://mubi.com/en/us/films/speak-of-the-devil\">Speak of the Devil\u003c/a>,” LaVey describes how fascinated he was as a little kid when a friend showed him a copy of the Johnson and Smith Company’s \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Smith_Company\">novelty catalog\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[It was] filled with all of these jokes, tricks, and books on forbidden subjects,” LaVey said. “It had all the most horrid examples of man’s inhumanity to man, all of course presented in the form of good fun and entertainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey got his own copy of the catalog, and ordered several novelty trick toys from it, including a ‘recorder box’ that would stab a sharp needle into the finger of an unsuspecting victim when a button was pushed. LaVey said he felt the trick was too mean to play on his own friends, but he didn’t feel bad about handing the toy over to a bully. That distinction was perhaps a precursor to the later development of his satanic philosophy, which advocates for bestowing kindness on those who deserve it, but seeking revenge on those who wrong you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That curious nature led LaVey to pursue somewhat unusual jobs. He claimed to have joined the circus at 16, where he said he’d worked with the big cats as a “cage boy.” Likewise, he said he’d done stints as a psychic investigator, paranormal researcher, and hypnotist. He also claimed to have briefly been a crime scene photographer for the SFPD, although there are no official records to back that up.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Some have suggested that LaVey may have embellished some details of his early life, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/history-anton-szandor-lavey/\">The Church of Satan, on its site, contends it has evidence\u003c/a> to support his claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey is also known to have worked as an organist and musician and performed at clubs around San Francisco beginning in the late 1940s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the early 1950s, he was already cultivating the kind of dark aesthetic and occult interests that would lead him to found his church. In 1956, he purchased a Victorian house at 6114 California Street, a few blocks from the edge of the Presidio near the center of San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood, and painted it black. The house had a brick staircase leading up to the front door, with a parlor and a bar downstairs. The room that would become the primary ritual chamber contained a large mantle piece, one that would be featured prominently in future ceremonies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Church of Satan sort of grew out of what he called the Magic Circle,” said Blanche Barton, who is the current \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/history-blanche-barton/\">Magistra Templi Rex\u003c/a> — a ranking member — of the Church of Satan, and one of \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Satanist-Authorized-Biography/dp/1627310029/churchofsatan\">LaVey’s biographers\u003c/a> and a former lover, with whom he had his only son: Satan Xerxes Carnacki LaVey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton says LaVey surrounded himself with friends who shared similar interests. “They were all intrigued by the weird and the unexplained. They started having soirées and that sort of led into ritualizing to see, practically, what happens or if anything happens,” she said. “[LaVey] started presenting seminars on the various topics that he was interested in, from vampires to cannibalism — everything weird and wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964952\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11964952 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white close up image of a man wearing a hooded cloak with devil horns. He is holding the point of a sword in front of his face. He casts a shadow onto the wall behind him, which features a large pentagram.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1020x683.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1536x1028.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-2048x1370.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1920x1285.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey poses in his Black House in 1967. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘First year of the reign of Satan’\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the spring of 1966, the Church of Satan was officially launched and its congregation was comprised of a handful of people in LaVey’s inner circle. They gathered in his home — which was by then known as “The Black House” — on the night of April 30 to celebrate Walpurgisnacht, a German holiday with pagan origins that’s sometimes called the “night of the witches.” The holiday is, ironically, on the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, which commemorates the saint who is believed to offer protection from witchcraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey ritualistically shaved his head in the tradition of medieval executioners and dark magicians and declared 1966 to be the “first year of the reign of Satan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To attract followers to the church outside of his exclusive group of like-minded parishioners, LaVey quickly began spreading word of his satanic philosophy through public speaking engagements and by inviting reporters — and whoever else had interest — into his Black House to witness satanic rituals and masses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rituals themselves were a highly theatrical affair, akin to performance art, featuring satanic iconography and moody organ music. LaVey would wear a hooded cloak with devil horns and a pentagram medallion while invoking the many names of the devil. He’d often wield a sword or sometimes a large snake while a nude woman was draped over an altar in the house’s ritual chamber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blanche Barton says the aesthetics of Satanism were rooted in LaVey’s artistic nature: He was a painter, sculptor and musician, who just happened to have a penchant for dark things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Examples of the early rituals he led can be seen in the 1970 documentary, “\u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/satanis-the-devils-mass-1970\">Satanis: The Devil’s Mass,\u003c/a>” which chronicles the early years of the church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the most amusing parts of the film, almost endearing, is when they go out and talk to the neighbors,” Barton said. “And it’s pretty funny. You know, they say that they see the nude people dancing around in the front. And they saw the lion … eating something! Really quite devilish and intriguing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964956\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964956\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-800x759.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white image of a man with dark curly hair and a goatee seated cross legged on the floor of a room. In front of him is a lion cub, which looks at the camera.\" width=\"800\" height=\"759\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-800x759.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-1020x967.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-160x152.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-1536x1457.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey, founder and self-proclaimed high priest of the Church of Satan, is photographed at home in San Francisco with his pet lion on June 26, 1964. \u003ccite>(Art Frisch/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s right — LaVey actually owned a 500-pound pet lion named Togare, who he’d raised from a cub, and who lived with him in the Black House and slept in his bedroom at night. In the late 1960s, when his neighbors successfully petitioned to have the lion removed, Lavey ended up giving his oversized pet to actress Tippi Hedren, who starred in “The Birds,” and had founded (and apparently still lives on) \u003ca href=\"https://www.shambala.org/about.htm\">a big cat sanctuary\u003c/a> in Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey soon became a well-known personality throughout California and increasingly nationwide, largely supporting himself by collecting church initiation fees and doing paid public speaking engagements. He was frequently interviewed in print publications and on TV, including on \u003cem>The Tonight Show\u003c/em>. Even people who seemed to despise his ideology wanted to talk to him — as is evident in this interview with antagonistic talk show host Joe Pyne:\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/Kqb54soKU8M'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Kqb54soKU8M'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A wide variety of people were drawn to LaVey’s dark charm and hedonistic philosophy that promoted a guilt-free, indulgent lifestyle. The church is rumored to have drawn in several notable celebrities in its early years, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey also \u003ca href=\"https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4718112/Hollywood-Satanist-Bizarre-Jayne-Mansfield-Anton-LaVey.html\">developed a friendship\u003c/a> with blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield, an actress, nightclub entertainer and Playboy playmate, and the mother of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit star Mariska Hargitay. There was even speculation that Mansfield’s death in 1967, a year after meeting LaVey, was the result of a curse he is believed to have placed on the driver of the car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, LaVey openly courted controversy. In 1967, he \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/SFGate/videos/anton-lavey-oversees-a-satanic-wedding-ceremony-in-san-francisco/10156878589425594/\">publicized and officiated a satanic wedding\u003c/a> between a New York socialite and a journalist. He also performed satanic funerals for servicemen in the Bay Area, at the request of their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time he started the church, LaVey had divorced his first wife and became involved with another woman, with whom he had a daughter, his second child. In 1967, he baptized the 3-year-old girl into the church, dedicating her to Satan as she sat in a hooded robe next to the nude altar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964962\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964962\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-800x923.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a hooded devil costume kneels in front of a large brick fireplace. A blonde woman kneels to his right. They are both reaching up towards a small girl wearing a hooded robe, who sits on the edge of the mantle, over which is draped a nude woman. A large pentagram featuring the head of Baphomet is painted on the wall behind them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"923\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-800x923.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1020x1176.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-160x185.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1332x1536.jpg 1332w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1776x2048.jpg 1776w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton Szandor LaVey, the leader of the First Church of Satan, taps his gum-chewing 3-year-old daughter, Zeena Galatea LaVey, on the head with a sword during “baptism ceremonies” in San Francisco on May 23, 1967. A naked woman reclines on the altar during the anti-religious ceremony. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Satanic Bible\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1969, LaVey published \u003ca href=\"https://www.harvard.com/book/the_satanic_bible/\">The Satanic Bible\u003c/a>, outlining his philosophy and detailing the official tenets of his church. At the core are \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/nine-satanic-statements/\">the 9 Satanic Statements\u003c/a>, the last of which is: “Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here LaVey refers to the Christian Church, which he said he found hypocritical for its denial of human nature. “No religion had ever been based on man’s carnal needs or his fleshly pursuits,” he said, in a 1970 interview. “All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The word Satan means adversary, he explained. “I’m supplying a much-needed opposition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the nine statements begin with “Satan represents…” Many people incorrectly assume that Satanists worship the devil. In fact, the Church of Satan’s official position is that the devil doesn’t exist at all. It’s an atheistic religion — really more like a philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship,” Blanche Barton, his biographer and former lover, said. “There is no dogma.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey’s philosophy grew in popularity throughout the 1970s. But even as the church continued to openly insist that it didn’t worship or believe in the devil, a centuries-old fear inevitably came bubbling to the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The satanic panic\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Beginning in the 1980s, and lasting through the 1990s, LaVey’s church spurred a national wave of fear and conspiracy theories around “satanic cults,” resulting in over 12,000 unsubstantiated claims of satanic ritual abuse and crimes, many centered around children, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/us/satanic-panic.html\">according to the New York Times\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A series of high-profile court cases drew national headlines during this period of “satanic panic.” One notorious case in the early 1980s — the \u003ca href=\"https://famous-trials.com/mcmartin/902-home\">McMartin Preschool trial\u003c/a> in Manhattan Beach in Southern California — originated from a mother’s claim that her son had been sexually abused by his preschool, which she accused of being run by Satanists.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That incited a set of increasingly bizarre claims of satanic child abuse and led to hundreds of children being interrogated by state investigators over allegations that they had been forced to do things like drink the blood of sacrificed animals or dig up graves. The mother who made the initial claim was later found to be prone to schizophrenic delusions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tapes of the children’s interviews were reviewed by a clinical psychologist who said they were coercive and extremely suggestive, leading children to give the answers the interviewers wanted to hear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two separate trials over the course of seven years resulted in no convictions. And at a cost of $15 million, it became the most expensive criminal trial in U.S. history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other similar cases resulted in actual convictions, a large number of them in the state of Texas. Most, however, were ultimately \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/08/24/accused-of-satanism-they-spent-21-years-in-prison-they-were-just-declared-innocent-and-were-paid-millions/\">overturned\u003c/a> due to lack of evidence, sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/10/26/how-satanic-panic-led-a-10-year-old-son-to-falsely-accuse-his-father/\">decades later\u003c/a> after the convicted parties had served \u003ca href=\"https://www.tpr.org/criminal-justice/2023-04-11/after-30-years-a-father-is-exonerated-in-satanic-panic-case\">years in prison\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Accusations weren’t lobbed directly at the Church of Satan, but the group was sometimes cited by police as having an influence on the spread of the ideology — as is the case in this \u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/LawEnforcementGuideToSatanicCults1994VHSOccultHilarity\">police training video\u003c/a>. Filmed in San Francisco in the early 1990s, the video includes stereotypical claims about crimes Satanists might commit, from cannibalism and necrophilia to corpse theft and black market baby sales — despite any evidence of the church ever doing or condoning such things.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Fate of the Black House\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blanche Barton moved to San Francisco in 1984 at the age of 22 and became romantically involved with LaVey that same year. Five years later, Barton moved into the Black House with LaVey, who sold it to pay off debts, but continued renting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton says, like so many other San Francisco Victorians, the house itself had a long and interesting history dating back to its construction in 1887.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It had trapdoors and it had been used as a [brothel] and a speakeasy,” she said, “It had a bar downstairs. It had secret passageways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964959\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964959\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-800x532.jpg\" alt=\"A mean in a hooded devil costume and cloak emerges from a secret passage way in the fireplace of a a room in his house. There are bookshelves above hi, and a human skeleton mounted in a large display case on the wall to the right.\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, rises out from a hidden corridor behind a false fireplace in his study in 1967. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>LaVey died from heart disease on Oct. 29, 1997, at the age of 67, although according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/11/09/anton-s-lavey-dies-at-67/c546b323-acb9-463e-ad96-7da298f9e4d8/\">obituary in \u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, his death certificate listed him as dying several days later, on Halloween. He left behind three children, all from different women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leadership of the church was eventually turned over to longtime church member Peter Gilmore, who still serves as its high priest. The church’s headquarters have since been moved to New York state, where Gilmore and his partner Peggy Nadramia built a new “Black House.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton said she and a group of followers attempted to raise money to buy LaVey’s house back so that it could be preserved as a museum, but those efforts ultimately failed, and the house was eventually sold and torn down in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was so much a part of his soul,” said Barton, “And as he said, ‘The roots went all the way to hell.’ So he was able to be there until the last, which was great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What now stands in its place is a rather normal-looking beige apartment building, devoid of any signs that it was once the site of a satanic sanctuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>If you visited San Francisco’s Richmond District before 2001, and made your way to 6114 California Street, you would have found yourself facing a tall Victorian house that was entirely \u003ci>black.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An attention grabbing paint scheme for sure. But it’s what happened inside The Black House that truly intrigued curious San Francsicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was the first headquarters of the Church of Satan … and the personal home of its founder Anton LaVey. His theatrical nature, and controversial beliefs, turned him into a kind of celebrity… here he is in an interview in 1970…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Pyne:\u003c/b> Who ordained you a atanic priest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey:\u003c/b> I would say, probably, I received the call. Just as any fundamentalist—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Well most of us do, but we fight it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Why fight it? This is, of course, the whole principle of my religion. All—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> What do you mean you received the call? You mean one day the devil said “Go out, Anton Szandor LaVey, and give people hell!” [audience laughs]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> That’s about it. That’s about it. Because people like to have a hell of a time, don’t they?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Spooky music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OAP: This is Bay Curious, I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Should I say it? I have to say it. Spooky season is here… and if you’ve been listening to the show for a while you know we love to bring you stories with a certain vibe around this time of year. Today, we are dusting off an episode from 2023 that explores what was going on inside that Black House. And who, really, was Anton LaVey? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr />\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[spooky laugh]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b> We sent producer Amanda Font to make a deal with the devil…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>The Bay Area is often associated with countercultural movements. You had the beat poets of the 1950s getting arrested for protesting censorship, the free-loving hippies of the 1960s dropping acid in the park, and the Black Panthers in the 1970s fighting back against institutional racism. What you don’t often hear about alongside those other cultural phenomena is that the late 1960s in San Francisco also gave rise to the notorious, indulgent, and wickedly provocative Church of Satan. [\u003ci>demonic vocal effect on “Church of Satan”]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>In this case, when we use the word “church,” it might not be exactly what you’re picturing. They do describe themselves as a religious organization, but there aren’t a lot of physical church buildings associated with Satanism. It’s more like an organization of like-minded people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, the black heart of the church, and perhaps still the most recognizable Satanist, was its founder Anton Szandor LaVey. He was born Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago in 1930, and later his family moved to the Bay Area. From a young age, he had a fascination with the supernatural, magic and the idea of trickery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]: \u003c/b>When I was about 5 years old, I had a friend that had a catalog from the Johnson and Smith company, filled with all of these jokes, tricks, and books on forbidden subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is a clip of LaVey from a 1993 documentary about him called “Speak of the Devil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> It had all the most horrid examples of man’s inhumanity to man, all of course presented in the form of good fun and entertainment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Like a toy “recorder box,” that, when you pushed a button, would stab a sharp needle into the finger of an unsuspecting victim. LaVey recalls he didn’t want to play such a mean trick on his friends… but he didn’t mind if it was a kid who was a bully. A similar thought came into play later, when he developed his satanic philosophy. It’s big on the idea of being kind to those who deserve it, but seeking revenge on those who wrong you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As he got older, LaVey’s curious nature led him to pursue somewhat unusual jobs. In his early life, he claimed to have worked in a circus with big cats, as a psychic investigator, an organist, a hypnotist, and to have been a police photographer for the SFPD (although there are no official records to back that last one.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1956, a decade before he officially created the Church of Satan, he was already cultivating the kind of dark aesthetic that people would come to know him for. LaVey bought the Victorian house at 6114 California Street and painted it black.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> And as he said, the roots went all The way to hell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b> This is Blanche Barton…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> I am the current Magistra Templi Rex of the Church of Satan. I’ve been a member of the organization. Wow, almost 50 years now. And I was a high priestess for a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>She also was Anton LaVey’s romantic partner for 13 years, and they had a child together. Blanche, or Magistra Barton has written two books about the Church of Satan, including a biography of Anton LaVey called “The Secret Life of a Satanist,” and “The Church of Satan: A History of the World’s Most Notorious Religion.” Blanche says even before the house became a satanic sanctuary, like so many old San Francisco Victorians, the house itself had an interesting history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> It was Built in 1887, as far as the stories go, by a Scottish sea captain. And there were timbers in the lower levels that had come to San Francisco During the gold rush, and it had trapdoors and it had been used as a whorehouse and a speakeasy. It had a bar downstairs. It had secret passageways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>When he purchased the house in ‘56, LaVey lived there with his first wife and their young daughter, Karla. And as his interests in the supernatural deepened, he surrounded himself with a group of friends who were curious about the same things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>The Church of Satan, sort of grew out of what he called the Magic Circle. They were all intrigued by the weird and the unexplained. They started sort of having soirees and that sort of led into ritualizing, to see, practically, what happens or if anything happens. He started presenting seminars on the various topics that he was interested in from, vampires to cannibalism. Everything weird and wonderful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[spooky music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> And in 1966, the people in that magic circle became the first members of the Church of Satan… picture it… a dark night, April 30th, Walpurgisnacht — a German holiday with Pagan origins, sometimes called “The night of the witches.” On that night Anton LaVey ritualistically shaved his head in the tradition of medieval executioners and dark magicians, adopting the look he’d have for the rest of his life, and declared 1966 to be the first year of the reign of Satan, thus founding America’s first official Satanic church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And from there, it became a kind of hit…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[swinging music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey claimed that the church had hundreds of members in San Francisco and thousands throughout the world. He was a natural showman, with his shiny polished bald head, black goatee, and intense eyes. He wore all black, a long cloak, large rings, a pentagram medallion, and would make appearances wearing a hooded devil costume with little horns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had a 500-pound pet lion named Togare who he’d raised from a cub, that slept in his bedroom at night. He invited reporters and the public inside the Black House to attend Satanic Mass…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Archival recording of Satanic Mass]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>…Where he’d invoke the devil while wielding a large sword or sometimes a boa constrictor while a nude woman was draped across the altar in the ritual chamber. He even married people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip of LaVey marrying couple:\u003c/b> “Former New York socialite Judith Chase and John Raymond were joined in unholy wedlock before a live altar, a nude redhead. Self-ordained sorcerer/minister Anton Levey presided at the San Francisco ceremony.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>The media absolutely ate it up. They started calling him the Black Pope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip of LaVey marrying couple:\u003c/b> “As the worst man looks on, the blessings of Lucifer and Beelzebub are invoked. The elaborate rite smacked of publicity, because next day the bride and groom secured a conventional wedding license”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey was charismatic and people seemed to gravitate to him. He became a kind of overnight celebrity. He was interviewed on national television, in magazines, people across the country were seeing his face. Even people who seemed to \u003ci>hate\u003c/i> him wanted to interview him… Like talk show host Joe Pyne…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Are you married?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Oh yes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> You have any little devils?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Oh yes. I have two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb> Pyne: \u003c/b>Are you gonna raise them as satanic kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Certainly, but not to go around chopping people up as sacrificing human beings just to—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne: \u003c/b> That would be the greatest reward of all. If your kids some night would creep in and set fire to you and your lion, then dance around with pitchforks saying “Hey look at daddy, look at daddy!” (audience laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>But it seemed like all kinds of people were at least curious about the church. At one time, Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace were linked to the Church of Satan. In 1966 the actress Jayne Mansfield met LaVey at a film festival in San Francisco and they began an unlikely friendship. There are numerous photos of them together, even performing a ritual at Mansfield’s home, though Mansfield said she was a Catholic and simply found LaVey intriguing. Some people blame her untimely death in a car crash a year later on an alleged curse LaVey put on the driver of the car… but who’s to say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> When we return, more controversy for Anton LeVey and the Satanic Panic… stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anton LeVey was no stranger to bad press. The media was infatuated with his dark styling and outlandish comments … and LeVey seemed to relish the attention. Here’s Amanda Font again…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Famously, in 1967 he baptized his then 3-year-old daughter Zeena into the church, dedicating her to Satan while her mother, LaVey’s 2nd partner Diane Hegarty, looked on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival clip of LaVey baptizing Zeena: \u003c/b>In the name of our great god, Satan Lucifer, I command thee to come forth an bestow these blessings upon us…(fades down and LaVey continues)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>So how much of LaVey’s highly theatrical image was serious? Well, while much of the ritualizing was akin to performance art, he was sincere in his philosophy. LaVey published “The Satanic Bible,” which by now has sold over a million copies, outlining his beliefs. The number one sin in Satanism is stupidity or willful ignorance. Herd conformity is also up there. He founded the Church of Satan as an alternative to what he saw as the repression of many other mainstream religions. Denying human nature, he said, was the real sin. Indulgence is key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> No religion had ever been based on man’s carnal needs or his fleshly pursuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is a clip of LaVey from a documentary filmed in those first few years of the church called “Satanis: The Devil’s Mass”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Not everyone was a fan, of course. He was telling people to embrace their animal nature… give in to their dark and lustful desires. Christian groups were appalled, obviously, and what about the neighbors? Here’s Blanche Barton again…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> One of the most amusing parts of the film, almost endearing, is when they go out and talk to the neighbors. And it’s pretty funny. You know, they say that they see the nude people dancing around in the front. And they saw the lion — eating something! Really quite, quite devilish and intriguing. (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip from ‘Satanis: The Devil’s Mass]\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 1:\u003c/b> He’s been in the neighborhood about 14 years and I always knew him as Tony. Just a nice ordinary — well — a little more dramatic than most men in the neighborhood, perhaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 2:\u003c/b> Actually I don’t know what kind of man he is. As soon as you meet him, you think he’s a very very nice man, you know. I just had a feeling I can trust him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 3:\u003c/b> (grumbling) A very undesirable type of a neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Neighbors successfully petitioned to have LaVey’s pet lion relocated in the late 60s. He first landed in a zoo, then ended up at a big cat sanctuary in Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the goings on at the church, the nude rituals, wild events, blaspheming…well, freedom of religion! They weren’t doing anything illegal. Still, by the 70s, LaVey had stopped inviting the press in for all the rituals, instead focusing more on cultivating new members. He was living in a world of his own aesthetic making, which is a primary tenet of his satanic philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> Anton Levey was first and foremost an artist. He felt that aesthetics, whatever you are most drawn to, is what you should use. If you’re really excited about Frankenstein or if you are very drawn to technology. Because what you do in the ritual chamber is you’re evoking your emotions. Nothing comes from outside. It’s not coming from Satan or demons or anything. But we know the power that Humans have for creating a world and a life for yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey was making a living through the church, taking speaking engagements and charging initiation fees for new members. He also sometimes worked as an organist at local clubs. He spent more of his time making art, and music, another passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>He got the most joy out of playing. Keyboards because he could control the entire orchestra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Clip of Anton LaVey playing keyboards]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>He even pressed a record. Much of it includes recordings of early satanic masses, but also just, you know, some songs…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Anton LaVey singing a song called ‘Honolulu Baby’]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>His specific aesthetics were very much in the forties. A lot of the precepts of Satanism that he developed are very much, sort of, grounded in his creative self.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Anton LaVey singing, music fades out]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> And then in the Eighties, there was the Satanic Panic going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> In the 1980s and through the 90s there was a national wave of fear that “Satanic Cults” were taking over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video: \u003c/b>Anton LaVey, perhaps the best-known Satanist in America compiled his years of cult knowledge into two books: the Satanic Bible, and the Satanic Rituals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is from an hourlong police training video from 1993, filmed in San Francisco, that was created to teach law enforcement how to spot satanic symbols and investigate “satanic crimes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video:\u003c/b> Now remember, not all satanic people commit crimes. Some of their activities may be perfectly legal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>It has all the highly stereotypical suggestions about what kinds of \u003ci>illegal\u003c/i> activities Satanists might engage in….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video: \u003c/b>Murder, which might include human sacrifice, or mass murders or cannibalism…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Some of them, frankly, are pretty macabre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video:\u003c/b> Corpse theft, cemetery vandalism, black market sales of bones and skulls, black market baby selling…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Dramatic music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>To be clear, these things weren’t happening. It’s kind of funny now, especially set to\u003ci> that \u003c/i>music, but at that time the fear that these things \u003ci>were actually\u003c/i> happening was intense. Through the 80s and 90s upwards of 10-thousand unsubstantiated claims of ritualistic abuse by supposed satanic cults were made, though not directly against the Church of Satan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was happening in California, and all over the United States. It was like the witch trials all over again. There were numerous high-profile cases where people were convicted of satanic crimes, only to be exonerated after serving years, sometimes decades, in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> But at the same time, there was a real excitement. From younger people who were. Sort of discovering Satanism because of the satanic. Panic. You know, people were jumping up and down and. Saying, “Oh, this is so evil, this is so. Bad.” And yet they would. Publish the satanic statements and the young kids would say, Well, that seems pretty sensible. To me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Because, here’s the thing a lot of people get wrong about The Church of Satan. Satanists don’t worship the devil. They don’t drink blood, sacrifice babies or animals. They don’t even believe in the literal devil. They’re atheists. Satanism is more of a philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship. There is no dogma. You know, we honor animals. We honor children. It’s against self-deceit, kindness to those who deserve it rather than love wasted on ingrates. And the last one, of course, people get a chuckle out of because we say, we recognize that Satan is the best friend that the church has ever had…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> The devil is the guy that’s kept the church in business for many many years. Without him, and the concept of evil, where would the church be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> Using a satanic adversary to represent an ideology of personal freedom and indulging without guilt… Blanche says it’s really more of a style choice. That’s what drew her in…She wanted to embrace her dark and sensual side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> I was looking for a philosophy that really represented women and a freedom for women and their lust. And their desires and their habits and their beauty and their wisdom. And I felt that most organized religions just did not have a voice for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Blanche had been following the Church of Satan through her teenage years and early 20s in Southern California, even coming to San Francisco to meet Anton LaVey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> From our first meeting we felt a draw to each other. And from that time we spent a lot of time on the phone and corresponding back and forth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Less than a year later in 1984, just after graduating college, she moves to San Francisco at the age of 22. Shortly thereafter they became romantically involved. Blanche moved into the Black House in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>We had a wonderful life together. It had a rhythm. Of course, he was very nocturnal. So a lot of times we would get up at four or five in the evening and meet people. Play music, converse, maybe watch a Movie And then we would go to sleep around dawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Rituals were no longer public, but occasional private events. LaVey wasn’t willing to present the Church of Satan as just a curiosity anymore. In 1993, Blanche gave birth to their son, his third child, Satan Xerxes. At that point, LaVey was 63 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MUSIC\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Pyne:\u003c/b> So is it necessary to drive a stake through your heart to kill you, or would an ordinary knock on the head do it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> I will never die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> You won’t?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> No, of course not. I’ve made arrangements. (audience ooohs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Anton LaVey died from heart disease at St. Mary’s in San Francisco on October 29th, 1997. Although his official death certificate lists his expiration date as Halloween.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what happens when the core of the Church of Satan, the man who was its central flame, gets snuffed out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, Blanche served as high priestess, the top leadership position, for a few years, before stepping down and handing the reins over to longtime member Peter Gilmore, who is still its high priest. The church left San Francisco and now has a new ‘Black House’ in New York state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey’s oldest daughter, Karla, was also high-priestess for a time but left the Church of Satan to start her own “First Satanic Church” in San Francisco. It’s a lot more exclusive and is known for throwing a great Black X-Mass concert in the city every year for the last couple decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zeena, who was dedicated to Satan as a toddler, left Satanism entirely and became a Tantric Buddhist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His son, Satan Xerxes, isn’t involved at all and lives a private life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the infamous Black House…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> It was an amazing house and it should have been preserved. And we did try.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey had been forced to sell the house to a friend in the early 90s though he was allowed to live there until his death. But the house was in disrepair, and the land was just too valuable. When efforts to find a preservation group willing to take it on failed, the property was sold and torn down in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What stands there now is a very normal-looking apartment building. No lingering signs that it was once a raucous den of sin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> That was Bay Curious producer Amanda Font.\u003cbr />\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr />\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This episode was produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, Brendan Willard, and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Katrina Schwartz, Anna Casalme, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and the whole KQED family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Prop 1: Authorizes California to Issue a $11.25 Billion Bond to Fund Affordable Housing",
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"headTitle": "Prop 1: Authorizes California to Issue a $11.25 Billion Bond to Fund Affordable Housing | KQED",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Transcript:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When asked in a recent statewide survey, what’s the most important issue facing Californians today? The top responses were affordability, cost of living, housing costs, and availability.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In other words, nothing new to see here. These are issues that California has struggled with for a long time. On the November ballot this year are a few initiatives that legislators or interest groups think could help. Among them is Proposition 1, which would allow the state to borrow $11.25 billion for housing programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it reads on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over: \u003c/strong>Prop 1, authorizes bonds for housing affordability programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Erika Cruz Guevara, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious. Welcome to PropFest. For the next few weeks, our teams at The Bay and Bay Curious are bringing you breakdowns of each statewide proposition on the California ballot so you can vote with confidence in the November election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There are 14 propositions on the ballot this year, and we’ll be taking you through all of them between now and October 9th. We’ll be looking at how they got on the ballet, the arguments for and against each one, talk about how things could play out if they pass, and the money fueling it all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Are you ready for this, Ericka?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Let’s do this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Today in our first installment, we’re going through Proposition 1, a housing bond with KQED’s housing reporter, Adhiti Bandlamudi. Welcome, Aditi. Hey, thanks for having me. Let’s start at the top level. What does Proposition one do?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So Prop 1 issues an $11.25 billion bond, mostly for the construction and preservation of affordable housing. Included in that $11,25 billion, there’s a $1.25 million portion that goes towards the CalVet home loan program, which helps veterans become homeowners. The legislative analyst’s office did a report on Prop 1, and it says the money from this bond could build up to 40,000 rental units. And it could help 40,000 households buy a home. So in total, it could help more than 80,000 families stay housed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>All right, so we’re at the beginning of PropFest. We’re kind of getting our brains in the right place for all this stuff. Can you remind us how bonds work?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so most of this bond, about $10 billion, is a general obligation bond, also called a GO bond. A state-issued GO bond means that the government will borrow money from investors or anyone who buys the bonds and will then pay it back with interest over the next 25 years out of California’s general fund. It’s kind of like a mortgage. And then The $1.25 billion for the Veterans Home Buying Assistance Program. That is also a go-bond, but it’s self-supporting, meaning that it’ll be repaid through home loans that veterans take out through the program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Do we have any idea how that $11.25 billion will be spent if this passes?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>It is going to be split into a bunch of different programs. So let me break it down. So a very large chunk, about 5.1 billion, goes towards the multifamily housing program, which is this really big state program for affordable housing development. Some of the units that are built under this program have to be available for extremely low income households who are at risk of becoming homeless. And that money can be used towards the construction, rehabilitation, or preservation of affordable housing. About a billion dollars goes towards supportive housing through the multifamily housing program. Supportive housing basically, it’s housing that comes with wraparound services, stuff like drug abuse support, counseling, help finding a job, and that’s specifically for people who were chronically homeless or who are at risk of becoming chronically harmless. The bond also goes towards a bunch of other programs like making existing cities more dense, housing for farm workers, students, tribes, and other groups. And then, as we talked about before, there’s 1.25 billion which goes towards the CalVet program, and then another 1.1 billion that goes towards programs which promote home ownership for other groups\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Wow, so really funding a pretty big number of programs there. Very much so. This proposition was placed on the ballot by the California legislature. So we know it’s something that at least the majority of our elected officials want to see passed. How does Prop 1 play into larger goals that the state has for housing?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>This proposition has been many years in the making and affordable housing advocates say, it’s a long time coming. So there was a bond voters passed in 2018 that was called the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act. It was also called Prop 1. There’s no deja vu, like that is very similar to this year’s bond. But the 2018 bond was for $4 billion. Similar to this year’s bond that was split into funding for affordable housing and the CalVet program. That funding very quickly ran out in 2023 due to overwhelming demand. Housing advocates say we need more money for these programs and so this year, bond money would basically replace those exhausted funds. I talked with assembly member Buffy Wicks. She represents Berkeley and she’s been working on getting this bond on the ballot for the past four years. She says that every election cycle, lawmakers will fight for a bond for one cause or another, whether it’s housing, climate, schools, transportation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buffy Wicks: \u003c/strong>But there’s really only so much bond debt we can take on as a state So we want to be mindful because every dollar we’ve put into a bond is we’re sort of borrowing from our future self\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And last election cycle, the housing bond lost out to the climate bond and won about school facilities. From then until now, WIC says that money for affordable housing got really tight, partially because the state has allocated less and less for these programs in the state budget in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buffy Wicks: \u003c/strong>This year, the housing bond really became the priority because we’re running out of these resources. And so it was very clear from the assembly, the Senate and the governor that this was the top priority this year is to get it on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Wicks says there are about 40,000 shovel-ready affordable housing projects ready to break ground, but they need just a little bit more money to close their financing and actually put the shovels in the ground. She said that this bond could bridge that funding gap for those projects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’re going to take a quick break, but when we return, we’ll learn who is supporting the measure and hear from the opposition. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back with more on Proposition 1, a bond for housing affordability programs. Adhiti, who is supporting Prop 1.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There are a lot of Democratic lawmakers who supported this bond when it was working its way through the legislature, but there are also a bunch of organizations that support it, including the California Association of Veterans, ACLU California Action, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the California Apartment Association, and so many others. Governor Gavin Newsom also supports this bill. And what about the opposition? So, there isn’t a formal opposition campaign. But there are a handful of Republican lawmakers who voted against the bill while it was in the legislature. Their main concern is that number one, it’s called the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, but only 1.25 billion out of the 11 billion goes towards veterans. Here’s state assembly member Carl DeMaio. He represents San Diego. He was speaking on the assembly floor back in June.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl DeMaio: \u003c/strong>Let’s get the vets and let’s put them front and center and say it’s all about the vats. Everyone loves veterans, shameful. The window dressing on an absolutely awful package.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Mm, I see, so arguing it’s not right to have the word veterans in there when only about 11% of this bond measure is actually for veterans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, that’s their argument. Their other concern is that the state would be borrowing money if this bond passes, and that could be bad news for future taxpayers. Assemblymember David Tangipa, he represents Fresno. He also spoke about that on that same assembly floor session.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Tangipa: \u003c/strong>Why do we need to borrow money? If we wanted to appropriate money right now to take care of our veterans, to make affordable housing, you would do so.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There are some Californians who are worried about taking on debt. Yes, these programs will be funded, but the legislative analyst office predicts that it would cost about 500 to 600 million annually to repay this bond for the next 25 years. That’s about a quarter of a percent of the state’s total general fund budget. And since the state has to pay interest, the total cost of this bond would be 15% more than if the state just paid upfront with the money that it already has.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Interesting. We should also mention that this isn’t the only housing bond on the ballot and not the only one you’re covering.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>That’s right, there’s another bond I’m covering, Prop 37, and it focuses specifically on middle-class homeownership. I think that says something really interesting about how people are feeling about housing affordability right now. It’s clear that this is a top issue for lawmakers, but it’s also a reflection of what they’re hearing from their constituents. It’s clearly a concern for people. And in my conversation with Assemblymember Wix, she mentioned that, you know, if Prop 37… Passes, it could work in tandem with Prop 1 if voters approve both of them. Because it would basically mean that both groups, both low-income residents and middle-class residents, could get the much needed help to afford housing. And it also feels like it’s building off of this national momentum. Congress recently passed the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which is a huge package of bills, which is also trying to stimulate homeownership, but also home building. And so Wicks is saying that if everything kind of happens and voters approve all of this, it could have a really nice compounding effect, potentially.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Who is spending to support or oppose Prop 1?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Given the most recent data, the spending is pretty lopsided. So $2.65 million have been spent to support the proposition. That mostly comes from affordable housing groups. Only $7,500 have been spent to oppose this prop, and that mostly come from Reform California, an organization led by Republican assembly member Carl DeMaio, who we heard from earlier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Adhiti Bandlamudi is a housing reporter at KQED. Thanks, Adhiti.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 1 means you want California to issue $11.25 billion in bonds for all those housing projects we talked about, targeting primarily low-income families and veterans. And a vote no means you don’t.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s it for Proposition 1, coming tomorrow is Propositions 2 and 3, so make sure you’re subscribed to The Bay and Bay Curious so you don’t miss a beat. And stay tuned over the next few weeks as we make our way through all 14 statewide propositions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Whew, we got a ways to go, Erica.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>Laughs\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Prop Fest is a collaboration between The Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It is produced by: Alan Montecillo, Ericka Cruz Guevarra, Gabriella Glueck, Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme, and me, Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>You can find audio and transcripts for this series at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfest\">KQED.org/PropFest\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Our show is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. If you appreciate Prop Fest, please consider becoming a sustaining member of KQED. We cant do this work without you! Become a member at \u003ca href=\"https://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Have a good one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When asked in a recent statewide survey, what’s the most important issue facing Californians today? The top responses were affordability, cost of living, housing costs, and availability.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When asked in a recent statewide survey, what’s the most important issue facing Californians today? The top responses were affordability, cost of living, housing costs, and availability.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In other words, nothing new to see here. These are issues that California has struggled with for a long time. On the November ballot this year are a few initiatives that legislators or interest groups think could help. Among them is Proposition 1, which would allow the state to borrow $11.25 billion for housing programs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In other words, nothing new to see here. These are issues that California has struggled with for a long time. On the November ballot this year are a few initiatives that legislators or interest groups think could help. Among them is Proposition 1, which would allow the state to borrow $11.25 billion for housing programs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it reads on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it reads on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over: \u003c/strong>Prop 1, authorizes bonds for housing affordability programs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over: \u003c/strong>Prop 1, authorizes bonds for housing affordability programs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Erika Cruz Guevara, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Erika Cruz Guevara, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious. Welcome to PropFest. For the next few weeks, our teams at The Bay and Bay Curious are bringing you breakdowns of each statewide proposition on the California ballot so you can vote with confidence in the November election.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious. Welcome to PropFest. For the next few weeks, our teams at The Bay and Bay Curious are bringing you breakdowns of each statewide proposition on the California ballot so you can vote with confidence in the November election.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There are 14 propositions on the ballot this year, and we’ll be taking you through all of them between now and October 9th. We’ll be looking at how they got on the ballet, the arguments for and against each one, talk about how things could play out if they pass, and the money fueling it all.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There are 14 propositions on the ballot this year, and we’ll be taking you through all of them between now and October 9th. We’ll be looking at how they got on the ballet, the arguments for and against each one, talk about how things could play out if they pass, and the money fueling it all.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Are you ready for this, Ericka?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Are you ready for this, Ericka?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Let’s do this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Let’s do this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Today in our first installment, we’re going through Proposition 1, a housing bond with KQED’s housing reporter, Adhiti Bandlamudi. Welcome, Aditi. Hey, thanks for having me. Let’s start at the top level. What does Proposition one do?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Today in our first installment, we’re going through Proposition 1, a housing bond with KQED’s housing reporter, Adhiti Bandlamudi. Welcome, Aditi. Hey, thanks for having me. Let’s start at the top level. What does Proposition one do?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So Prop 1 issues an $11.25 billion bond, mostly for the construction and preservation of affordable housing. Included in that $11,25 billion, there’s a $1.25 million portion that goes towards the CalVet home loan program, which helps veterans become homeowners. The legislative analyst’s office did a report on Prop 1, and it says the money from this bond could build up to 40,000 rental units. And it could help 40,000 households buy a home. So in total, it could help more than 80,000 families stay housed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So Prop 1 issues an $11.25 billion bond, mostly for the construction and preservation of affordable housing. Included in that $11,25 billion, there’s a $1.25 million portion that goes towards the CalVet home loan program, which helps veterans become homeowners. The legislative analyst’s office did a report on Prop 1, and it says the money from this bond could build up to 40,000 rental units. And it could help 40,000 households buy a home. So in total, it could help more than 80,000 families stay housed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>All right, so we’re at the beginning of PropFest. We’re kind of getting our brains in the right place for all this stuff. Can you remind us how bonds work?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>All right, so we’re at the beginning of PropFest. We’re kind of getting our brains in the right place for all this stuff. Can you remind us how bonds work?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so most of this bond, about $10 billion, is a general obligation bond, also called a GO bond. A state-issued GO bond means that the government will borrow money from investors or anyone who buys the bonds and will then pay it back with interest over the next 25 years out of California’s general fund. It’s kind of like a mortgage. And then The $1.25 billion for the Veterans Home Buying Assistance Program. That is also a go-bond, but it’s self-supporting, meaning that it’ll be repaid through home loans that veterans take out through the program.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so most of this bond, about $10 billion, is a general obligation bond, also called a GO bond. A state-issued GO bond means that the government will borrow money from investors or anyone who buys the bonds and will then pay it back with interest over the next 25 years out of California’s general fund. It’s kind of like a mortgage. And then The $1.25 billion for the Veterans Home Buying Assistance Program. That is also a go-bond, but it’s self-supporting, meaning that it’ll be repaid through home loans that veterans take out through the program.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Do we have any idea how that $11.25 billion will be spent if this passes?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Do we have any idea how that $11.25 billion will be spent if this passes?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>It is going to be split into a bunch of different programs. So let me break it down. So a very large chunk, about 5.1 billion, goes towards the multifamily housing program, which is this really big state program for affordable housing development. Some of the units that are built under this program have to be available for extremely low income households who are at risk of becoming homeless. And that money can be used towards the construction, rehabilitation, or preservation of affordable housing. About a billion dollars goes towards supportive housing through the multifamily housing program. Supportive housing basically, it’s housing that comes with wraparound services, stuff like drug abuse support, counseling, help finding a job, and that’s specifically for people who were chronically homeless or who are at risk of becoming chronically harmless. The bond also goes towards a bunch of other programs like making existing cities more dense, housing for farm workers, students, tribes, and other groups. And then, as we talked about before, there’s 1.25 billion which goes towards the CalVet program, and then another 1.1 billion that goes towards programs which promote home ownership for other groups\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>It is going to be split into a bunch of different programs. So let me break it down. So a very large chunk, about 5.1 billion, goes towards the multifamily housing program, which is this really big state program for affordable housing development. Some of the units that are built under this program have to be available for extremely low income households who are at risk of becoming homeless. And that money can be used towards the construction, rehabilitation, or preservation of affordable housing. About a billion dollars goes towards supportive housing through the multifamily housing program. Supportive housing basically, it’s housing that comes with wraparound services, stuff like drug abuse support, counseling, help finding a job, and that’s specifically for people who were chronically homeless or who are at risk of becoming chronically harmless. The bond also goes towards a bunch of other programs like making existing cities more dense, housing for farm workers, students, tribes, and other groups. And then, as we talked about before, there’s 1.25 billion which goes towards the CalVet program, and then another 1.1 billion that goes towards programs which promote home ownership for other groups\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Wow, so really funding a pretty big number of programs there. Very much so. This proposition was placed on the ballot by the California legislature. So we know it’s something that at least the majority of our elected officials want to see passed. How does Prop 1 play into larger goals that the state has for housing?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Wow, so really funding a pretty big number of programs there. Very much so. This proposition was placed on the ballot by the California legislature. So we know it’s something that at least the majority of our elected officials want to see passed. How does Prop 1 play into larger goals that the state has for housing?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>This proposition has been many years in the making and affordable housing advocates say, it’s a long time coming. So there was a bond voters passed in 2018 that was called the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act. It was also called Prop 1. There’s no deja vu, like that is very similar to this year’s bond. But the 2018 bond was for $4 billion. Similar to this year’s bond that was split into funding for affordable housing and the CalVet program. That funding very quickly ran out in 2023 due to overwhelming demand. Housing advocates say we need more money for these programs and so this year, bond money would basically replace those exhausted funds. I talked with assembly member Buffy Wicks. She represents Berkeley and she’s been working on getting this bond on the ballot for the past four years. She says that every election cycle, lawmakers will fight for a bond for one cause or another, whether it’s housing, climate, schools, transportation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>This proposition has been many years in the making and affordable housing advocates say, it’s a long time coming. So there was a bond voters passed in 2018 that was called the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act. It was also called Prop 1. There’s no deja vu, like that is very similar to this year’s bond. But the 2018 bond was for $4 billion. Similar to this year’s bond that was split into funding for affordable housing and the CalVet program. That funding very quickly ran out in 2023 due to overwhelming demand. Housing advocates say we need more money for these programs and so this year, bond money would basically replace those exhausted funds. I talked with assembly member Buffy Wicks. She represents Berkeley and she’s been working on getting this bond on the ballot for the past four years. She says that every election cycle, lawmakers will fight for a bond for one cause or another, whether it’s housing, climate, schools, transportation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buffy Wicks: \u003c/strong>But there’s really only so much bond debt we can take on as a state So we want to be mindful because every dollar we’ve put into a bond is we’re sort of borrowing from our future self\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buffy Wicks: \u003c/strong>But there’s really only so much bond debt we can take on as a state So we want to be mindful because every dollar we’ve put into a bond is we’re sort of borrowing from our future self\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And last election cycle, the housing bond lost out to the climate bond and won about school facilities. From then until now, WIC says that money for affordable housing got really tight, partially because the state has allocated less and less for these programs in the state budget in recent years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And last election cycle, the housing bond lost out to the climate bond and won about school facilities. From then until now, WIC says that money for affordable housing got really tight, partially because the state has allocated less and less for these programs in the state budget in recent years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buffy Wicks: \u003c/strong>This year, the housing bond really became the priority because we’re running out of these resources. And so it was very clear from the assembly, the Senate and the governor that this was the top priority this year is to get it on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buffy Wicks: \u003c/strong>This year, the housing bond really became the priority because we’re running out of these resources. And so it was very clear from the assembly, the Senate and the governor that this was the top priority this year is to get it on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Wicks says there are about 40,000 shovel-ready affordable housing projects ready to break ground, but they need just a little bit more money to close their financing and actually put the shovels in the ground. She said that this bond could bridge that funding gap for those projects.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Wicks says there are about 40,000 shovel-ready affordable housing projects ready to break ground, but they need just a little bit more money to close their financing and actually put the shovels in the ground. She said that this bond could bridge that funding gap for those projects.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’re going to take a quick break, but when we return, we’ll learn who is supporting the measure and hear from the opposition. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’re going to take a quick break, but when we return, we’ll learn who is supporting the measure and hear from the opposition. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back with more on Proposition 1, a bond for housing affordability programs. Adhiti, who is supporting Prop 1.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back with more on Proposition 1, a bond for housing affordability programs. Adhiti, who is supporting Prop 1.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There are a lot of Democratic lawmakers who supported this bond when it was working its way through the legislature, but there are also a bunch of organizations that support it, including the California Association of Veterans, ACLU California Action, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the California Apartment Association, and so many others. Governor Gavin Newsom also supports this bill. And what about the opposition? So, there isn’t a formal opposition campaign. But there are a handful of Republican lawmakers who voted against the bill while it was in the legislature. Their main concern is that number one, it’s called the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, but only 1.25 billion out of the 11 billion goes towards veterans. Here’s state assembly member Carl DeMaio. He represents San Diego. He was speaking on the assembly floor back in June.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There are a lot of Democratic lawmakers who supported this bond when it was working its way through the legislature, but there are also a bunch of organizations that support it, including the California Association of Veterans, ACLU California Action, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the California Apartment Association, and so many others. Governor Gavin Newsom also supports this bill. And what about the opposition? So, there isn’t a formal opposition campaign. But there are a handful of Republican lawmakers who voted against the bill while it was in the legislature. Their main concern is that number one, it’s called the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, but only 1.25 billion out of the 11 billion goes towards veterans. Here’s state assembly member Carl DeMaio. He represents San Diego. He was speaking on the assembly floor back in June.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl DeMaio: \u003c/strong>Let’s get the vets and let’s put them front and center and say it’s all about the vats. Everyone loves veterans, shameful. The window dressing on an absolutely awful package.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl DeMaio: \u003c/strong>Let’s get the vets and let’s put them front and center and say it’s all about the vats. Everyone loves veterans, shameful. The window dressing on an absolutely awful package.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Mm, I see, so arguing it’s not right to have the word veterans in there when only about 11% of this bond measure is actually for veterans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Mm, I see, so arguing it’s not right to have the word veterans in there when only about 11% of this bond measure is actually for veterans.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, that’s their argument. Their other concern is that the state would be borrowing money if this bond passes, and that could be bad news for future taxpayers. Assemblymember David Tangipa, he represents Fresno. He also spoke about that on that same assembly floor session.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, that’s their argument. Their other concern is that the state would be borrowing money if this bond passes, and that could be bad news for future taxpayers. Assemblymember David Tangipa, he represents Fresno. He also spoke about that on that same assembly floor session.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Tangipa: \u003c/strong>Why do we need to borrow money? If we wanted to appropriate money right now to take care of our veterans, to make affordable housing, you would do so.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Tangipa: \u003c/strong>Why do we need to borrow money? If we wanted to appropriate money right now to take care of our veterans, to make affordable housing, you would do so.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There are some Californians who are worried about taking on debt. Yes, these programs will be funded, but the legislative analyst office predicts that it would cost about 500 to 600 million annually to repay this bond for the next 25 years. That’s about a quarter of a percent of the state’s total general fund budget. And since the state has to pay interest, the total cost of this bond would be 15% more than if the state just paid upfront with the money that it already has.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There are some Californians who are worried about taking on debt. Yes, these programs will be funded, but the legislative analyst office predicts that it would cost about 500 to 600 million annually to repay this bond for the next 25 years. That’s about a quarter of a percent of the state’s total general fund budget. And since the state has to pay interest, the total cost of this bond would be 15% more than if the state just paid upfront with the money that it already has.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Interesting. We should also mention that this isn’t the only housing bond on the ballot and not the only one you’re covering.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Interesting. We should also mention that this isn’t the only housing bond on the ballot and not the only one you’re covering.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>That’s right, there’s another bond I’m covering, Prop 37, and it focuses specifically on middle-class homeownership. I think that says something really interesting about how people are feeling about housing affordability right now. It’s clear that this is a top issue for lawmakers, but it’s also a reflection of what they’re hearing from their constituents. It’s clearly a concern for people. And in my conversation with Assemblymember Wix, she mentioned that, you know, if Prop 37… Passes, it could work in tandem with Prop 1 if voters approve both of them. Because it would basically mean that both groups, both low-income residents and middle-class residents, could get the much needed help to afford housing. And it also feels like it’s building off of this national momentum. Congress recently passed the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which is a huge package of bills, which is also trying to stimulate homeownership, but also home building. And so Wicks is saying that if everything kind of happens and voters approve all of this, it could have a really nice compounding effect, potentially.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>That’s right, there’s another bond I’m covering, Prop 37, and it focuses specifically on middle-class homeownership. I think that says something really interesting about how people are feeling about housing affordability right now. It’s clear that this is a top issue for lawmakers, but it’s also a reflection of what they’re hearing from their constituents. It’s clearly a concern for people. And in my conversation with Assemblymember Wix, she mentioned that, you know, if Prop 37… Passes, it could work in tandem with Prop 1 if voters approve both of them. Because it would basically mean that both groups, both low-income residents and middle-class residents, could get the much needed help to afford housing. And it also feels like it’s building off of this national momentum. Congress recently passed the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which is a huge package of bills, which is also trying to stimulate homeownership, but also home building. And so Wicks is saying that if everything kind of happens and voters approve all of this, it could have a really nice compounding effect, potentially.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Who is spending to support or oppose Prop 1?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Given the most recent data, the spending is pretty lopsided. So $2.65 million have been spent to support the proposition. That mostly comes from affordable housing groups. Only $7,500 have been spent to oppose this prop, and that mostly come from Reform California, an organization led by Republican assembly member Carl DeMaio, who we heard from earlier.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Given the most recent data, the spending is pretty lopsided. So $2.65 million have been spent to support the proposition. That mostly comes from affordable housing groups. Only $7,500 have been spent to oppose this prop, and that mostly come from Reform California, an organization led by Republican assembly member Carl DeMaio, who we heard from earlier.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Adhiti Bandlamudi is a housing reporter at KQED. Thanks, Adhiti.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Adhiti Bandlamudi is a housing reporter at KQED. Thanks, Adhiti.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 1 means you want California to issue $11.25 billion in bonds for all those housing projects we talked about, targeting primarily low-income families and veterans. And a vote no means you don’t.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 1 means you want California to issue $11.25 billion in bonds for all those housing projects we talked about, targeting primarily low-income families and veterans. And a vote no means you don’t.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s it for Proposition 1, coming tomorrow is Propositions 2 and 3, so make sure you’re subscribed to The Bay and Bay Curious so you don’t miss a beat. And stay tuned over the next few weeks as we make our way through all 14 statewide propositions.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s it for Proposition 1, coming tomorrow is Propositions 2 and 3, so make sure you’re subscribed to The Bay and Bay Curious so you don’t miss a beat. And stay tuned over the next few weeks as we make our way through all 14 statewide propositions.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Whew, we got a ways to go, Erica.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Whew, we got a ways to go, Erica.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>Laughs\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Prop Fest is a collaboration between The Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It is produced by: Alan Montecillo, Ericka Cruz Guevarra, Gabriella Glueck, Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme, and me, Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Prop Fest is a collaboration between The Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It is produced by: Alan Montecillo, Ericka Cruz Guevarra, Gabriella Glueck, Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme, and me, Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>You can find audio and transcripts for this series at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfest\">KQED.org/PropFest\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>You can find audio and transcripts for this series at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfest\">KQED.org/PropFest\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Our show is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. If you appreciate Prop Fest, please consider becoming a sustaining member of KQED. We cant do this work without you! Become a member at \u003ca href=\"https://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Our show is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. If you appreciate Prop Fest, please consider becoming a sustaining member of KQED. We cant do this work without you! Become a member at \u003ca href=\"https://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Have a good one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Have a good one.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Transcript:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When asked in a recent statewide survey, what’s the most important issue facing Californians today? The top responses were affordability, cost of living, housing costs, and availability.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In other words, nothing new to see here. These are issues that California has struggled with for a long time. On the November ballot this year are a few initiatives that legislators or interest groups think could help. Among them is Proposition 1, which would allow the state to borrow $11.25 billion for housing programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it reads on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over: \u003c/strong>Prop 1, authorizes bonds for housing affordability programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Erika Cruz Guevara, host of The Bay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And I’m Olivia Allen-Price, host of Bay Curious. Welcome to PropFest. For the next few weeks, our teams at The Bay and Bay Curious are bringing you breakdowns of each statewide proposition on the California ballot so you can vote with confidence in the November election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There are 14 propositions on the ballot this year, and we’ll be taking you through all of them between now and October 9th. We’ll be looking at how they got on the ballet, the arguments for and against each one, talk about how things could play out if they pass, and the money fueling it all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Are you ready for this, Ericka?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Let’s do this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Today in our first installment, we’re going through Proposition 1, a housing bond with KQED’s housing reporter, Adhiti Bandlamudi. Welcome, Aditi. Hey, thanks for having me. Let’s start at the top level. What does Proposition one do?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>So Prop 1 issues an $11.25 billion bond, mostly for the construction and preservation of affordable housing. Included in that $11,25 billion, there’s a $1.25 million portion that goes towards the CalVet home loan program, which helps veterans become homeowners. The legislative analyst’s office did a report on Prop 1, and it says the money from this bond could build up to 40,000 rental units. And it could help 40,000 households buy a home. So in total, it could help more than 80,000 families stay housed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>All right, so we’re at the beginning of PropFest. We’re kind of getting our brains in the right place for all this stuff. Can you remind us how bonds work?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so most of this bond, about $10 billion, is a general obligation bond, also called a GO bond. A state-issued GO bond means that the government will borrow money from investors or anyone who buys the bonds and will then pay it back with interest over the next 25 years out of California’s general fund. It’s kind of like a mortgage. And then The $1.25 billion for the Veterans Home Buying Assistance Program. That is also a go-bond, but it’s self-supporting, meaning that it’ll be repaid through home loans that veterans take out through the program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Do we have any idea how that $11.25 billion will be spent if this passes?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>It is going to be split into a bunch of different programs. So let me break it down. So a very large chunk, about 5.1 billion, goes towards the multifamily housing program, which is this really big state program for affordable housing development. Some of the units that are built under this program have to be available for extremely low income households who are at risk of becoming homeless. And that money can be used towards the construction, rehabilitation, or preservation of affordable housing. About a billion dollars goes towards supportive housing through the multifamily housing program. Supportive housing basically, it’s housing that comes with wraparound services, stuff like drug abuse support, counseling, help finding a job, and that’s specifically for people who were chronically homeless or who are at risk of becoming chronically harmless. The bond also goes towards a bunch of other programs like making existing cities more dense, housing for farm workers, students, tribes, and other groups. And then, as we talked about before, there’s 1.25 billion which goes towards the CalVet program, and then another 1.1 billion that goes towards programs which promote home ownership for other groups\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Wow, so really funding a pretty big number of programs there. Very much so. This proposition was placed on the ballot by the California legislature. So we know it’s something that at least the majority of our elected officials want to see passed. How does Prop 1 play into larger goals that the state has for housing?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>This proposition has been many years in the making and affordable housing advocates say, it’s a long time coming. So there was a bond voters passed in 2018 that was called the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act. It was also called Prop 1. There’s no deja vu, like that is very similar to this year’s bond. But the 2018 bond was for $4 billion. Similar to this year’s bond that was split into funding for affordable housing and the CalVet program. That funding very quickly ran out in 2023 due to overwhelming demand. Housing advocates say we need more money for these programs and so this year, bond money would basically replace those exhausted funds. I talked with assembly member Buffy Wicks. She represents Berkeley and she’s been working on getting this bond on the ballot for the past four years. She says that every election cycle, lawmakers will fight for a bond for one cause or another, whether it’s housing, climate, schools, transportation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buffy Wicks: \u003c/strong>But there’s really only so much bond debt we can take on as a state So we want to be mindful because every dollar we’ve put into a bond is we’re sort of borrowing from our future self\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>And last election cycle, the housing bond lost out to the climate bond and won about school facilities. From then until now, WIC says that money for affordable housing got really tight, partially because the state has allocated less and less for these programs in the state budget in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buffy Wicks: \u003c/strong>This year, the housing bond really became the priority because we’re running out of these resources. And so it was very clear from the assembly, the Senate and the governor that this was the top priority this year is to get it on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Wicks says there are about 40,000 shovel-ready affordable housing projects ready to break ground, but they need just a little bit more money to close their financing and actually put the shovels in the ground. She said that this bond could bridge that funding gap for those projects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’re going to take a quick break, but when we return, we’ll learn who is supporting the measure and hear from the opposition. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor messages\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>And we’re back with more on Proposition 1, a bond for housing affordability programs. Adhiti, who is supporting Prop 1.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There are a lot of Democratic lawmakers who supported this bond when it was working its way through the legislature, but there are also a bunch of organizations that support it, including the California Association of Veterans, ACLU California Action, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the California Apartment Association, and so many others. Governor Gavin Newsom also supports this bill. And what about the opposition? So, there isn’t a formal opposition campaign. But there are a handful of Republican lawmakers who voted against the bill while it was in the legislature. Their main concern is that number one, it’s called the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, but only 1.25 billion out of the 11 billion goes towards veterans. Here’s state assembly member Carl DeMaio. He represents San Diego. He was speaking on the assembly floor back in June.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carl DeMaio: \u003c/strong>Let’s get the vets and let’s put them front and center and say it’s all about the vats. Everyone loves veterans, shameful. The window dressing on an absolutely awful package.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Mm, I see, so arguing it’s not right to have the word veterans in there when only about 11% of this bond measure is actually for veterans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, that’s their argument. Their other concern is that the state would be borrowing money if this bond passes, and that could be bad news for future taxpayers. Assemblymember David Tangipa, he represents Fresno. He also spoke about that on that same assembly floor session.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Tangipa: \u003c/strong>Why do we need to borrow money? If we wanted to appropriate money right now to take care of our veterans, to make affordable housing, you would do so.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>There are some Californians who are worried about taking on debt. Yes, these programs will be funded, but the legislative analyst office predicts that it would cost about 500 to 600 million annually to repay this bond for the next 25 years. That’s about a quarter of a percent of the state’s total general fund budget. And since the state has to pay interest, the total cost of this bond would be 15% more than if the state just paid upfront with the money that it already has.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Interesting. We should also mention that this isn’t the only housing bond on the ballot and not the only one you’re covering.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>That’s right, there’s another bond I’m covering, Prop 37, and it focuses specifically on middle-class homeownership. I think that says something really interesting about how people are feeling about housing affordability right now. It’s clear that this is a top issue for lawmakers, but it’s also a reflection of what they’re hearing from their constituents. It’s clearly a concern for people. And in my conversation with Assemblymember Wix, she mentioned that, you know, if Prop 37… Passes, it could work in tandem with Prop 1 if voters approve both of them. Because it would basically mean that both groups, both low-income residents and middle-class residents, could get the much needed help to afford housing. And it also feels like it’s building off of this national momentum. Congress recently passed the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which is a huge package of bills, which is also trying to stimulate homeownership, but also home building. And so Wicks is saying that if everything kind of happens and voters approve all of this, it could have a really nice compounding effect, potentially.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Who is spending to support or oppose Prop 1?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Given the most recent data, the spending is pretty lopsided. So $2.65 million have been spent to support the proposition. That mostly comes from affordable housing groups. Only $7,500 have been spent to oppose this prop, and that mostly come from Reform California, an organization led by Republican assembly member Carl DeMaio, who we heard from earlier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Adhiti Bandlamudi is a housing reporter at KQED. Thanks, Adhiti.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>In a nutshell, a vote yes on Prop 1 means you want California to issue $11.25 billion in bonds for all those housing projects we talked about, targeting primarily low-income families and veterans. And a vote no means you don’t.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s it for Proposition 1, coming tomorrow is Propositions 2 and 3, so make sure you’re subscribed to The Bay and Bay Curious so you don’t miss a beat. And stay tuned over the next few weeks as we make our way through all 14 statewide propositions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Whew, we got a ways to go, Erica.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>Laughs\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Prop Fest is a collaboration between The Bay and Bay Curious podcasts. It is produced by: Alan Montecillo, Ericka Cruz Guevarra, Gabriella Glueck, Pauline Bartolone, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Anna Casalme, and me, Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We get extra support from, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>You can find audio and transcripts for this series at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/propfest\">KQED.org/PropFest\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Our show is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. If you appreciate Prop Fest, please consider becoming a sustaining member of KQED. We cant do this work without you! Become a member at \u003ca href=\"https://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Have a good one.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "why-is-piedmont-a-separate-city-from-oakland-2",
"title": "Why Is Piedmont a Separate City From Oakland? Bay Curious Explains",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View the full episode transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story was first published on April 4, 2019, and was updated on Feb. 1, 2024, to reflect updated census data.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city of Piedmont in the East Bay is a bit of a geographical oddity. It’s not even 2 square miles in size and is surrounded on all sides by Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you look closely, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Piedmont,+CA/@37.8249429,-122.2441171,5564m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x80857d7f7f19c5f5:0xb8deddc8c24bd3f!8m2!3d37.8243715!4d-122.231635\">town’s borders\u003c/a> seem to make no sense. Instead of following streets or physical landmarks — like the borders of most towns do — in Piedmont, the borders snake around, sometimes through the middle of homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> listener David Levine has long wondered what’s up with this doughnut hole in the middle of Oakland. He asked, “Why is Piedmont a separate city from Oakland?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s worth understanding the history, and then we can ask questions as a community, ‘Is that still relevant today?'” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, this is a story about Piedmont, of course, but as soon as we started digging around, we quickly found that the story of Piedmont starts in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Little City That Could\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the late 1800s, Oakland incorporated, going from ranch land and small settlement clusters to becoming an official city. Almost immediately, it started to grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oakland leaders were under a very ambitious program to enlarge the city’s boundaries and increase the population,” said Oakland librarian Steve Lavoie, who curated an exhibit on Piedmont.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This program to expand Oakland’s boundaries was called the Greater Oakland Movement. City leaders wanted to add more land and more residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11737640\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11737640 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/oyy29ensdzi7cg2d-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration in the Oakland Tribune on Nov. 17, 1909. \u003ccite>(Oakland Tribune/Oakland History Room)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This movement was not so much motivated by economic interests, but it was motivated by the anti-monopoly group, who felt that small cities were rife for corruption,” Lavoie said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These leaders thought that the smaller the city, the greater the chance that greedy folks would do something — like raid the treasury or discourage business competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The original plan would have created the largest city on the Pacific Coast at the time,” Lavoie said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This large city could come together only if they could convince all of the neighboring towns or communities without their own governments to join Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Expanding the Boundaries\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Oakland started at about 170 city blocks in size. It grew from there by absorbing surrounding towns, whose names you might recognize as neighborhoods today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1872, it annexed the town of Brooklyn. Twenty-five years later came Temescal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It tried to get Berkeley, but Berkeley turned Oakland down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each annexation required a vote by the people in the town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland librarian Dorothy Lazard said, “It wasn’t like an aggressive kinda corporate takeover. It was more negotiation with various town councils.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11737625\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11737625 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland librarian Dorothy Lazard points out Oakland’s various annexations. \u003ccite>(Chris Hambrick/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A Wrinkle in the Plan\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Oakland city leaders kept eyeing new territory, and soon, Piedmont was squarely in its crosshairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The City Council took a measure to vote an annexation of all the land in what is now Piedmont and a whole bunch of other East Oakland hamlets,” Steve Lavoie said. Oakland’s City Council set the vote on annexing Piedmont for January 1907.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then something went wrong. In their paperwork, they failed to name one of the districts they wanted to annex, and the vote was postponed until March. This left a really big opening for mayhem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the meantime, a group in Piedmont who opposed annexation jumped on the opportunity to try and incorporate Piedmont as a way of preventing annexation into Oakland,” Lavoie said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081625\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081625\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland City Hall in Oakland on April 28, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During the delay in Oakland’s vote, some Piedmont residents, a mix of bohemian artists and business people, filed a petition to hold their \u003cem>own \u003c/em>election to become a city. They hoped Piedmont would remain rural and undeveloped if they could beat Oakland to the punch. They saw how densely populated Oakland was, and they didn’t want any part of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Piedmont historian Ann Swift said convincing other Piedmonters to incorporate was no easy feat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hugh Craig and James Ballentine were the two leaders of the incorporation effort, and they are having meetings every other night, practically trying to rally the troops and get everybody excited about creating this new city,” she said. “But there was also opposition. It was not a slam dunk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Tragic Loss\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Something that happened back in 1892 weighed heavily on the minds of voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The \u003ca href=\"http://piedmonthistorical.org/banner1.html\">Piedmont Springs Hotel\u003c/a>, which was a great, huge, three-story white clapboard edifice that sat in the center of the city, caught fire early one morning in November,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That grand hotel was Piedmont’s biggest tourist attraction — a place where wealthy San Franciscans came to relax. Piedmont didn’t have city services, so Oakland’s Fire Department was summoned to come put out the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11737636\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11737636 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping-800x2150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"2150\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping-800x2150.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping-160x430.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping-446x1200.jpg 446w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping.jpg 762w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The top story in the Oakland Tribune on Nov. 17, 1892, told the news of the devastating fire. \u003ccite>(\u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/location/oakland/\">Oakland Tribune/\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/\">Newspapers.com\u003c/a>)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“In those days, there were no fire hydrants. You had to bring the water with you,” Swift said. “Well, imagine a team of horses dragging a big tanker full of water up Oakland Avenue, for instance. Very, very difficult and slow going. So by the time the fire wagon’s got to the hotel, they were just sitting with everybody else watching the embers burn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It took Oakland’s Fire Department two hours to get to the hotel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was completely gone. And that was what happened if your house in the Piedmont hills caught fire,” Swift said. “So Piedmonters were adamant about wanting their own fire service, wanting someone right there in the center of this 1.8 square miles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>To Join or Not To Join\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>All the Piedmont residents agreed that they needed a better solution for fire response, but they differed on whether better meant being a part of Oakland or figuring it out as their own city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Piedmont had no experience with levying taxes and evaluating property and providing all these city services like street sprinkling. Back in the day, the streets were mostly unpaved, and especially in the summer, you had water trucks that went through the city and watered down the streets so that it wasn’t so dusty,” Swift said. “Well, Piedmont had no water street-dusting things, and so all of that was going to have to be created. And there was a sizable part of the city who thought there was no need to go through that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The big vote on whether Piedmont should incorporate happened in January 1907.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Eighteen more men voted to become a city than voted to not become a city,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Piedmont was officially a city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But here’s where it gets tricky. Oakland’s vote to annex Piedmont still went forward. And in March, a majority of Piedmont residents voted to join Oakland. The vote was 63–43. But this was impossible now that Piedmont was its own city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only thing that the opponents in the Piedmont hills can do is to hold an election to disincorporate [Piedmont]. So they hold another election in September, and more people voted to become part of the city of Oakland, to disincorporate Piedmont than voted to stay a city,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So then, why is Piedmont separate today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s one of those little nuggets of law that people don’t know much about or care much about until they have to. It requires two-thirds vote of the people to disincorporate a city, and they failed to get two-thirds,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12094662\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12094662\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1487195128.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1273\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1487195128.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1487195128-160x103.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1487195128-1536x988.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piedmont Springs Park Club House, Oakland, California, Postcard from 1898 – 1931 \u003ccite>(Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Piedmont stayed a separate city, but its edges weave in and out of Oakland. This is because, in their haste to file paperwork to incorporate Piedmont, proponents grabbed the only map they had on hand to define the boundaries — a map of the sewer lines that snaked underneath the houses in Piedmont.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What does that mean for the borders of Piedmont today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It means that there are 136 parcels … a portion of which are in Piedmont and a portion of which are in Oakland, and/or, where one side of the street is in Piedmont and the other side of the street is in Oakland, like Rose Avenue,” Swift said. “Sewer boundaries wouldn’t ever be what you would want to use in defining city boundaries. You’d want to use streets or major roads. But they didn’t have that choice, so we’re stuck with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Piedmont/Oakland Relations Today\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The question-asker wondered about the class and racial divide many see separating Piedmont from Oakland. Host Olivia Allen-Price and reporter Chris Hambrick spoke about it at the end of the episode. Here is the transcript.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Now, I know our question-asker had a few concerns about how Oakland and Piedmont interact. Did any of those issues sort of come to light for you as you were reporting the story? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I learned that both Oakland and Piedmont have an agreement to back each other up when it comes to fire and police services and that Piedmont pays the city of Oakland to use their library since they don’t have any of their own. But when it comes to resident-to-resident interaction, that relationship was a little bit more strained than people would admit on tape. In general, Piedmont residents enjoy having this small-town feel within their city. They know their public officials by name. They know their neighbors. But it seems like some Piedmont residents feel judged for being able to live that way. And on the Oakland side, there’s this feeling that Piedmont residents have been more deliberate and separating themselves and they did that along race and class lines. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And why do you think there’s this perception? Where does that come from? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think it kind of stems from back in the 1920s. Piedmont had a police chief by the name of Burton Becker, and Burton was an active member of the Klu Klux Klan. He held Klan meetings inside of his house, and at a time when Oakland had banned the Klan because the jurisdiction was different, he was shielded a little bit from persecution, being in Piedmont. He could not be banned because Piedmont is its own city. And then, after World War II, when many African Americans were migrating to the Bay Area from the American South, Oakland’s housing stock was more affordable than Piedmont, so people ended up settling in Oakland. And Piedmont residents are 68% white and 21% Asian, according to the 2020 Census. Compare that with Oakland, which has much larger Black and Latino populations. Some people view this as evidence that Piedmont created a community that excludes based on race and class.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I understand there hasn’t been any like super serious effort to, you know, merge Piedmont and Oakland. But there was a social media campaign a few years back. Can you tell me about the Liberate Piedmont movement? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So a high schooler named Noah Goldstein wanted to explore the possibility of merging Piedmont and Oakland because he felt like Piedmont residents enjoy the benefits of Oakland without having to pay for them. And Piedmont residents pay hefty taxes to support their schools and their city services but they pay that money to the city of Piedmont. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But it sounds like Piedmont residents weren’t super keen on this idea of becoming a part of Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b> Yeah, that’s what I gather. They have a degree of comfort with the way that their life is now. And even though the city founders weren’t able to keep that development from happening, you know, the area’s just 1.7 square miles. And so they did succeed in creating that small-town feel inside their city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All right. Well, Chris, thanks so much for looking into this one for us.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You’re welcome. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Liam O’Donoghue, host of the \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayyesterday.com/\">East Bay Yesterday podcast\u003c/a>, contributed to the research on this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The city of Piedmont in the East Bay is a bit of geographical oddity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Levine:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I looked at a map and I saw that Piedmont was almost like a doughnut hole in the center of Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is David Levine, our question-asker today. On the map, he saw this tiny city, not even two square miles in size, surrounded on all sides by the city of Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you take a close look, the borders of Piedmont seem to make no sense. Instead of following streets or physical landmarks — like the borders of most towns do — in Piedmont, the borders snake around — sometimes through the middle of homes. All this got David wondering ….\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Levine:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Why is Piedmont a separate city from Oakland? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Bay Curious, the podcast that explores the Bay Area one \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">question at a time. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. This week we’re bringing you the wild, unexpected origin story of the city of Piedmont. This story first aired in 2019, but it’s a topic we still get questions about on the regular. So, Piedmont fans, Piedmont detractors, and all you generally curious people — stick around for some answers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, this is a story about Piedmont, of course. But as soon as we started digging, we found out…. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … The story of Piedmont starts in Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … Reporter Chris Hambrick brings us the tale. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the late 1800s, Oakland incorporated, going from ranch land and small settlement clusters to becoming an official city. Almost immediately, it started to grow. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">(music begins)\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Oakland leaders were under a very ambitious program to enlarge the city’s boundaries and increase the population. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s Steve Lavoie. He’s an Oakland librarian who curated an exhibit on Piedmont history. This program to expand Oakland’s boundaries was called the Greater Oakland Movement. City leaders wanted to add more land and more residents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This movement was not so much motivated by economic interests, but it was motivated by the anti-monopoly group who felt that small cities were ripe for corruption. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They thought the smaller the city, the greater the chance that greedy folks would do something like raid the treasury or discourage competition among businesses. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">(music fades)\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The original plan would have created the largest city on the Pacific coast at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This large city could only come together if they could convince all of the neighboring towns and communities without their own government to join Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">(music begin)\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Oakland started at about 170 city blocks in size. It grew from there by absorbing surrounding towns whose names you might recognize as neighborhoods today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voices:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Temescal. Brooklyn. Fruitvale. Elmhurst. Melrose. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Chris Hambrick: \u003c/b>They tried to get Berkeley, but Berkeley said, “No, thanks.”\u003c/span> Each annexation required a vote by people in the town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dorothy Lazard:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You know, it wasn’t like an aggressive kind of corporate takeover or anything. It was more negotiation with various town councils. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s Oakland librarian Dorothy Lazard. Oakland city leaders kept eyeing new territory, and soon Piedmont was squarely in its crosshairs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The city council took a measure to vote, an annexation of all the land in what is now Piedmont, and a whole bunch of other East Oakland hamlets. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Oakland City Council set the vote on annexing Piedmont for January 1907. But then something went wrong. In their paperwork, they failed to name one of the districts that they wanted to annex, and the vote was postponed until March. This left a really big opening for mayhem. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">(dramatic music starts)\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the meantime, a group in Piedmont who opposes annexation jumped on the opportunity to try and incorporate Piedmont as a way of preventing annexation into Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> During the delay in Oakland’s vote, some Piedmont residents, a mix of bohemian artists and businesspeople, filed a petition to hold their own election to become a city. If they could beat Oakland to the punch, they hoped Piedmont would remain rural and undeveloped. Piedmont historian Ann Swift says convincing other Piedmont to incorporate was no easy feat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They’re having meetings every other night, practically trying to rally the troops and get everybody excited about creating this new city. But there was also opposition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Something that happened back in 1892 weighed heavily on the minds of voters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Piedmont Springs Hotel, which was a great huge three-story white clapboard edifice that sat in the center of the city, caught fire early one morning in November. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That Grand Hotel was Piedmont’s biggest tourist attraction, a place where wealthy San Franciscans came to relax. Piedmont didn’t have city services, so Oakland’s fire department was summoned to come out the fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Because in those days, there were no fire hydrants. You had to bring the water with you. Well, imagine a team of horses dragging a big tanker full of water up Oakland Avenue, for instance. Very, very difficult and slow going. So by the time the fire wagons got to the hotel, they were just sitting with everybody else, watching the embers burn. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It took Oakland’s fire department a whopping two hours to get to the hotel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was completely gone. And that was what happened if your house in the Piedmont hills caught fire. So Pidemonters were adamant about wanting their own fire service. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All the Piedmont residents agreed that they needed a better solution for fire response, but they differed on whether better meant being a part of Oakland or figuring it out as their own city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Piedmont had no experience with levying taxes and evaluating property and providing all the city services, and so all of that was going to have to be created. And there was a sizable part of the city who thought there was no need to go through that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The big vote on whether Piedmont should incorporate happened in January 1907. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Eighteen more men voted to become a city, than voted to not become a city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But here’s where it gets tricky. Oakland’s vote to annex Piedmont still went forward, and in March, a majority of Piedmont residents voted to join Oakland. But this was impossible, now that Piedmont was its own city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So the only thing that the opponents in the Piedmont hills can do is to hold an election to disincorporate a city. So they hold another election in September, and more people vote to become part of the city of Oakland, to disincorporate Piedmont than vote to stay a city. So I always ask the school kids, well, so how come I’m not talking to you in Oakland City Hall? It’s one of those little nuggets of lore that people don’t know much about or care much about until they have to. It requires two-thirds vote of the people to disincorporate a city, and they failed to get two-thirds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Piedmont stayed a separate city, with its edges within and out of Oakland. This is because, in their haste to file paperwork to incorporate Piedmont, proponents grabbed the only map they had on hand to define the boundaries. It was a map of the sewer lines that snaked underneath the houses in Piedmont. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick (in tape):\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what does that mean for the borders of Piedmont today? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dorothy Lazard:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It means that there are 136 parcels, a portion of which are in Piedmont and a portion of which are in Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, Chris, it sounds like Piedmont will continue to be sort of this city within a city, you know, the Vatican of the East Bay, if you will. Now, I know our question-asker had a few concerns about how Oakland and Piedmont interact. Did any of those issues sort of come to light for you as you were reporting the story? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I learned that both Oakland and Piedmont have an agreement to back each other up when it comes to fire and police services and that Piedmont pays the city of Oakland to use their library since they don’t have any of their own. But when it comes to resident-to-resident interaction, that relationship was a little bit more strained than people would admit on tape. In general, Piedmont residents enjoy having this small-town feel within their city. They know their public officials by name. They know their neighbors. But it seems like some Piedmont residents feel judged for being able to live that way. And on the Oakland side, there’s this feeling that Piedmont residents have been more deliberate and separating themselves and they did that along race and class lines. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And why do you think there’s this perception? Where does that come from? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think it kind of stems from back in the 1920s. Piedmont had a police chief by the name of Burton Becker, and Burton was an active member of the Klu Klux Klan. He held Klan meetings inside of his house, and at a time when Oakland had banned the Klan because the jurisdiction was different, he was shielded a little bit from persecution, being in Piedmont. He could not be banned because Piedmont is its own city. And then, after World War II, when many African Americans were migrating to the Bay Area from the American South, Oakland’s housing stock was more affordable than Piedmont, so people ended up settling in Oakland. And Piedmont residents are 68% white and 21% Asian, according to the 2020 Census. Compare that with Oakland, which has much larger Black and Latino populations. Some people view this as evidence that Piedmont created a community that excludes based on race and class.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I understand there hasn’t been any like super serious effort to, you know, merge Piedmont and Oakland. But there was a social media campaign a few years back. Can you tell me about the Liberate Piedmont movement? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So a high schooler named Noah Goldstein wanted to explore the possibility of merging Piedmont and Oakland because he felt like Piedmont residents enjoy the benefits of Oakland without having to pay for them. And Piedmont residents pay hefty taxes to support their schools and their city services but they pay that money to the city of Piedmont. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But it sounds like Piedmont residents weren’t super keen on this idea of becoming a part of Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah, that’s what I gather. They have a degree of comfort with the way that their life is now. And even though the city founders weren’t able to keep that development from happening, you know, the area’s just 1.7 square miles. And so they did succeed in creating that small-town feel inside their city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All right. Well, Chris, thanks so much for looking into this one for us. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You’re welcome. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A big thanks to Bay Curious listener David Levine for asking this week’s question. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Liam O’Donohue, the host and creator of the East Bay Yesterday podcast, was a big help with the research on this story. If you haven’t checked out Liam’s podcast yet, I highly suggest you give it a try. Just search East Bay yesterday. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Bay Curious is produced in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. The show is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Thanks so much for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View the full episode transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story was first published on April 4, 2019, and was updated on Feb. 1, 2024, to reflect updated census data.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city of Piedmont in the East Bay is a bit of a geographical oddity. It’s not even 2 square miles in size and is surrounded on all sides by Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you look closely, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Piedmont,+CA/@37.8249429,-122.2441171,5564m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x80857d7f7f19c5f5:0xb8deddc8c24bd3f!8m2!3d37.8243715!4d-122.231635\">town’s borders\u003c/a> seem to make no sense. Instead of following streets or physical landmarks — like the borders of most towns do — in Piedmont, the borders snake around, sometimes through the middle of homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> listener David Levine has long wondered what’s up with this doughnut hole in the middle of Oakland. He asked, “Why is Piedmont a separate city from Oakland?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s worth understanding the history, and then we can ask questions as a community, ‘Is that still relevant today?'” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, this is a story about Piedmont, of course, but as soon as we started digging around, we quickly found that the story of Piedmont starts in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Little City That Could\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the late 1800s, Oakland incorporated, going from ranch land and small settlement clusters to becoming an official city. Almost immediately, it started to grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oakland leaders were under a very ambitious program to enlarge the city’s boundaries and increase the population,” said Oakland librarian Steve Lavoie, who curated an exhibit on Piedmont.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This program to expand Oakland’s boundaries was called the Greater Oakland Movement. City leaders wanted to add more land and more residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11737640\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11737640 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/oyy29ensdzi7cg2d-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration in the Oakland Tribune on Nov. 17, 1909. \u003ccite>(Oakland Tribune/Oakland History Room)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This movement was not so much motivated by economic interests, but it was motivated by the anti-monopoly group, who felt that small cities were rife for corruption,” Lavoie said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These leaders thought that the smaller the city, the greater the chance that greedy folks would do something — like raid the treasury or discourage business competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The original plan would have created the largest city on the Pacific Coast at the time,” Lavoie said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This large city could come together only if they could convince all of the neighboring towns or communities without their own governments to join Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Expanding the Boundaries\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Oakland started at about 170 city blocks in size. It grew from there by absorbing surrounding towns, whose names you might recognize as neighborhoods today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1872, it annexed the town of Brooklyn. Twenty-five years later came Temescal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It tried to get Berkeley, but Berkeley turned Oakland down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each annexation required a vote by the people in the town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland librarian Dorothy Lazard said, “It wasn’t like an aggressive kinda corporate takeover. It was more negotiation with various town councils.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11737625\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11737625 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/1110181710a_HDR.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland librarian Dorothy Lazard points out Oakland’s various annexations. \u003ccite>(Chris Hambrick/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A Wrinkle in the Plan\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Oakland city leaders kept eyeing new territory, and soon, Piedmont was squarely in its crosshairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The City Council took a measure to vote an annexation of all the land in what is now Piedmont and a whole bunch of other East Oakland hamlets,” Steve Lavoie said. Oakland’s City Council set the vote on annexing Piedmont for January 1907.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then something went wrong. In their paperwork, they failed to name one of the districts they wanted to annex, and the vote was postponed until March. This left a really big opening for mayhem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the meantime, a group in Piedmont who opposed annexation jumped on the opportunity to try and incorporate Piedmont as a way of preventing annexation into Oakland,” Lavoie said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081625\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081625\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/250428-OAKLAND-CITY-HALL-FILE-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland City Hall in Oakland on April 28, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During the delay in Oakland’s vote, some Piedmont residents, a mix of bohemian artists and business people, filed a petition to hold their \u003cem>own \u003c/em>election to become a city. They hoped Piedmont would remain rural and undeveloped if they could beat Oakland to the punch. They saw how densely populated Oakland was, and they didn’t want any part of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Piedmont historian Ann Swift said convincing other Piedmonters to incorporate was no easy feat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hugh Craig and James Ballentine were the two leaders of the incorporation effort, and they are having meetings every other night, practically trying to rally the troops and get everybody excited about creating this new city,” she said. “But there was also opposition. It was not a slam dunk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Tragic Loss\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Something that happened back in 1892 weighed heavily on the minds of voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The \u003ca href=\"http://piedmonthistorical.org/banner1.html\">Piedmont Springs Hotel\u003c/a>, which was a great, huge, three-story white clapboard edifice that sat in the center of the city, caught fire early one morning in November,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That grand hotel was Piedmont’s biggest tourist attraction — a place where wealthy San Franciscans came to relax. Piedmont didn’t have city services, so Oakland’s Fire Department was summoned to come put out the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11737636\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11737636 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping-800x2150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"2150\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping-800x2150.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping-160x430.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping-446x1200.jpg 446w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/newspaperclipping.jpg 762w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The top story in the Oakland Tribune on Nov. 17, 1892, told the news of the devastating fire. \u003ccite>(\u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/location/oakland/\">Oakland Tribune/\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/\">Newspapers.com\u003c/a>)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“In those days, there were no fire hydrants. You had to bring the water with you,” Swift said. “Well, imagine a team of horses dragging a big tanker full of water up Oakland Avenue, for instance. Very, very difficult and slow going. So by the time the fire wagon’s got to the hotel, they were just sitting with everybody else watching the embers burn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It took Oakland’s Fire Department two hours to get to the hotel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was completely gone. And that was what happened if your house in the Piedmont hills caught fire,” Swift said. “So Piedmonters were adamant about wanting their own fire service, wanting someone right there in the center of this 1.8 square miles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>To Join or Not To Join\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>All the Piedmont residents agreed that they needed a better solution for fire response, but they differed on whether better meant being a part of Oakland or figuring it out as their own city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Piedmont had no experience with levying taxes and evaluating property and providing all these city services like street sprinkling. Back in the day, the streets were mostly unpaved, and especially in the summer, you had water trucks that went through the city and watered down the streets so that it wasn’t so dusty,” Swift said. “Well, Piedmont had no water street-dusting things, and so all of that was going to have to be created. And there was a sizable part of the city who thought there was no need to go through that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The big vote on whether Piedmont should incorporate happened in January 1907.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Eighteen more men voted to become a city than voted to not become a city,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Piedmont was officially a city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But here’s where it gets tricky. Oakland’s vote to annex Piedmont still went forward. And in March, a majority of Piedmont residents voted to join Oakland. The vote was 63–43. But this was impossible now that Piedmont was its own city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only thing that the opponents in the Piedmont hills can do is to hold an election to disincorporate [Piedmont]. So they hold another election in September, and more people voted to become part of the city of Oakland, to disincorporate Piedmont than voted to stay a city,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So then, why is Piedmont separate today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s one of those little nuggets of law that people don’t know much about or care much about until they have to. It requires two-thirds vote of the people to disincorporate a city, and they failed to get two-thirds,” Swift said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12094662\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12094662\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1487195128.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1273\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1487195128.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1487195128-160x103.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1487195128-1536x988.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piedmont Springs Park Club House, Oakland, California, Postcard from 1898 – 1931 \u003ccite>(Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Piedmont stayed a separate city, but its edges weave in and out of Oakland. This is because, in their haste to file paperwork to incorporate Piedmont, proponents grabbed the only map they had on hand to define the boundaries — a map of the sewer lines that snaked underneath the houses in Piedmont.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What does that mean for the borders of Piedmont today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It means that there are 136 parcels … a portion of which are in Piedmont and a portion of which are in Oakland, and/or, where one side of the street is in Piedmont and the other side of the street is in Oakland, like Rose Avenue,” Swift said. “Sewer boundaries wouldn’t ever be what you would want to use in defining city boundaries. You’d want to use streets or major roads. But they didn’t have that choice, so we’re stuck with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Piedmont/Oakland Relations Today\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The question-asker wondered about the class and racial divide many see separating Piedmont from Oakland. Host Olivia Allen-Price and reporter Chris Hambrick spoke about it at the end of the episode. Here is the transcript.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Now, I know our question-asker had a few concerns about how Oakland and Piedmont interact. Did any of those issues sort of come to light for you as you were reporting the story? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I learned that both Oakland and Piedmont have an agreement to back each other up when it comes to fire and police services and that Piedmont pays the city of Oakland to use their library since they don’t have any of their own. But when it comes to resident-to-resident interaction, that relationship was a little bit more strained than people would admit on tape. In general, Piedmont residents enjoy having this small-town feel within their city. They know their public officials by name. They know their neighbors. But it seems like some Piedmont residents feel judged for being able to live that way. And on the Oakland side, there’s this feeling that Piedmont residents have been more deliberate and separating themselves and they did that along race and class lines. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And why do you think there’s this perception? Where does that come from? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think it kind of stems from back in the 1920s. Piedmont had a police chief by the name of Burton Becker, and Burton was an active member of the Klu Klux Klan. He held Klan meetings inside of his house, and at a time when Oakland had banned the Klan because the jurisdiction was different, he was shielded a little bit from persecution, being in Piedmont. He could not be banned because Piedmont is its own city. And then, after World War II, when many African Americans were migrating to the Bay Area from the American South, Oakland’s housing stock was more affordable than Piedmont, so people ended up settling in Oakland. And Piedmont residents are 68% white and 21% Asian, according to the 2020 Census. Compare that with Oakland, which has much larger Black and Latino populations. Some people view this as evidence that Piedmont created a community that excludes based on race and class.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I understand there hasn’t been any like super serious effort to, you know, merge Piedmont and Oakland. But there was a social media campaign a few years back. Can you tell me about the Liberate Piedmont movement? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So a high schooler named Noah Goldstein wanted to explore the possibility of merging Piedmont and Oakland because he felt like Piedmont residents enjoy the benefits of Oakland without having to pay for them. And Piedmont residents pay hefty taxes to support their schools and their city services but they pay that money to the city of Piedmont. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But it sounds like Piedmont residents weren’t super keen on this idea of becoming a part of Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b> Yeah, that’s what I gather. They have a degree of comfort with the way that their life is now. And even though the city founders weren’t able to keep that development from happening, you know, the area’s just 1.7 square miles. And so they did succeed in creating that small-town feel inside their city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All right. Well, Chris, thanks so much for looking into this one for us.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You’re welcome. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Liam O’Donoghue, host of the \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayyesterday.com/\">East Bay Yesterday podcast\u003c/a>, contributed to the research on this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The city of Piedmont in the East Bay is a bit of geographical oddity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Levine:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I looked at a map and I saw that Piedmont was almost like a doughnut hole in the center of Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is David Levine, our question-asker today. On the map, he saw this tiny city, not even two square miles in size, surrounded on all sides by the city of Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you take a close look, the borders of Piedmont seem to make no sense. Instead of following streets or physical landmarks — like the borders of most towns do — in Piedmont, the borders snake around — sometimes through the middle of homes. All this got David wondering ….\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Levine:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Why is Piedmont a separate city from Oakland? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Bay Curious, the podcast that explores the Bay Area one \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">question at a time. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. This week we’re bringing you the wild, unexpected origin story of the city of Piedmont. This story first aired in 2019, but it’s a topic we still get questions about on the regular. So, Piedmont fans, Piedmont detractors, and all you generally curious people — stick around for some answers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, this is a story about Piedmont, of course. But as soon as we started digging, we found out…. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … The story of Piedmont starts in Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … Reporter Chris Hambrick brings us the tale. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the late 1800s, Oakland incorporated, going from ranch land and small settlement clusters to becoming an official city. Almost immediately, it started to grow. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">(music begins)\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Oakland leaders were under a very ambitious program to enlarge the city’s boundaries and increase the population. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s Steve Lavoie. He’s an Oakland librarian who curated an exhibit on Piedmont history. This program to expand Oakland’s boundaries was called the Greater Oakland Movement. City leaders wanted to add more land and more residents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This movement was not so much motivated by economic interests, but it was motivated by the anti-monopoly group who felt that small cities were ripe for corruption. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They thought the smaller the city, the greater the chance that greedy folks would do something like raid the treasury or discourage competition among businesses. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">(music fades)\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The original plan would have created the largest city on the Pacific coast at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This large city could only come together if they could convince all of the neighboring towns and communities without their own government to join Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">(music begin)\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Oakland started at about 170 city blocks in size. It grew from there by absorbing surrounding towns whose names you might recognize as neighborhoods today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voices:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Temescal. Brooklyn. Fruitvale. Elmhurst. Melrose. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Chris Hambrick: \u003c/b>They tried to get Berkeley, but Berkeley said, “No, thanks.”\u003c/span> Each annexation required a vote by people in the town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dorothy Lazard:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You know, it wasn’t like an aggressive kind of corporate takeover or anything. It was more negotiation with various town councils. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s Oakland librarian Dorothy Lazard. Oakland city leaders kept eyeing new territory, and soon Piedmont was squarely in its crosshairs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The city council took a measure to vote, an annexation of all the land in what is now Piedmont, and a whole bunch of other East Oakland hamlets. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Oakland City Council set the vote on annexing Piedmont for January 1907. But then something went wrong. In their paperwork, they failed to name one of the districts that they wanted to annex, and the vote was postponed until March. This left a really big opening for mayhem. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">(dramatic music starts)\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Lavoie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the meantime, a group in Piedmont who opposes annexation jumped on the opportunity to try and incorporate Piedmont as a way of preventing annexation into Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> During the delay in Oakland’s vote, some Piedmont residents, a mix of bohemian artists and businesspeople, filed a petition to hold their own election to become a city. If they could beat Oakland to the punch, they hoped Piedmont would remain rural and undeveloped. Piedmont historian Ann Swift says convincing other Piedmont to incorporate was no easy feat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They’re having meetings every other night, practically trying to rally the troops and get everybody excited about creating this new city. But there was also opposition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Something that happened back in 1892 weighed heavily on the minds of voters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Piedmont Springs Hotel, which was a great huge three-story white clapboard edifice that sat in the center of the city, caught fire early one morning in November. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That Grand Hotel was Piedmont’s biggest tourist attraction, a place where wealthy San Franciscans came to relax. Piedmont didn’t have city services, so Oakland’s fire department was summoned to come out the fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Because in those days, there were no fire hydrants. You had to bring the water with you. Well, imagine a team of horses dragging a big tanker full of water up Oakland Avenue, for instance. Very, very difficult and slow going. So by the time the fire wagons got to the hotel, they were just sitting with everybody else, watching the embers burn. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It took Oakland’s fire department a whopping two hours to get to the hotel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was completely gone. And that was what happened if your house in the Piedmont hills caught fire. So Pidemonters were adamant about wanting their own fire service. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All the Piedmont residents agreed that they needed a better solution for fire response, but they differed on whether better meant being a part of Oakland or figuring it out as their own city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Piedmont had no experience with levying taxes and evaluating property and providing all the city services, and so all of that was going to have to be created. And there was a sizable part of the city who thought there was no need to go through that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The big vote on whether Piedmont should incorporate happened in January 1907. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Eighteen more men voted to become a city, than voted to not become a city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But here’s where it gets tricky. Oakland’s vote to annex Piedmont still went forward, and in March, a majority of Piedmont residents voted to join Oakland. But this was impossible, now that Piedmont was its own city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Swift:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So the only thing that the opponents in the Piedmont hills can do is to hold an election to disincorporate a city. So they hold another election in September, and more people vote to become part of the city of Oakland, to disincorporate Piedmont than vote to stay a city. So I always ask the school kids, well, so how come I’m not talking to you in Oakland City Hall? It’s one of those little nuggets of lore that people don’t know much about or care much about until they have to. It requires two-thirds vote of the people to disincorporate a city, and they failed to get two-thirds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Piedmont stayed a separate city, with its edges within and out of Oakland. This is because, in their haste to file paperwork to incorporate Piedmont, proponents grabbed the only map they had on hand to define the boundaries. It was a map of the sewer lines that snaked underneath the houses in Piedmont. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick (in tape):\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what does that mean for the borders of Piedmont today? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dorothy Lazard:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It means that there are 136 parcels, a portion of which are in Piedmont and a portion of which are in Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, Chris, it sounds like Piedmont will continue to be sort of this city within a city, you know, the Vatican of the East Bay, if you will. Now, I know our question-asker had a few concerns about how Oakland and Piedmont interact. Did any of those issues sort of come to light for you as you were reporting the story? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I learned that both Oakland and Piedmont have an agreement to back each other up when it comes to fire and police services and that Piedmont pays the city of Oakland to use their library since they don’t have any of their own. But when it comes to resident-to-resident interaction, that relationship was a little bit more strained than people would admit on tape. In general, Piedmont residents enjoy having this small-town feel within their city. They know their public officials by name. They know their neighbors. But it seems like some Piedmont residents feel judged for being able to live that way. And on the Oakland side, there’s this feeling that Piedmont residents have been more deliberate and separating themselves and they did that along race and class lines. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And why do you think there’s this perception? Where does that come from? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think it kind of stems from back in the 1920s. Piedmont had a police chief by the name of Burton Becker, and Burton was an active member of the Klu Klux Klan. He held Klan meetings inside of his house, and at a time when Oakland had banned the Klan because the jurisdiction was different, he was shielded a little bit from persecution, being in Piedmont. He could not be banned because Piedmont is its own city. And then, after World War II, when many African Americans were migrating to the Bay Area from the American South, Oakland’s housing stock was more affordable than Piedmont, so people ended up settling in Oakland. And Piedmont residents are 68% white and 21% Asian, according to the 2020 Census. Compare that with Oakland, which has much larger Black and Latino populations. Some people view this as evidence that Piedmont created a community that excludes based on race and class.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I understand there hasn’t been any like super serious effort to, you know, merge Piedmont and Oakland. But there was a social media campaign a few years back. Can you tell me about the Liberate Piedmont movement? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So a high schooler named Noah Goldstein wanted to explore the possibility of merging Piedmont and Oakland because he felt like Piedmont residents enjoy the benefits of Oakland without having to pay for them. And Piedmont residents pay hefty taxes to support their schools and their city services but they pay that money to the city of Piedmont. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But it sounds like Piedmont residents weren’t super keen on this idea of becoming a part of Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah, that’s what I gather. They have a degree of comfort with the way that their life is now. And even though the city founders weren’t able to keep that development from happening, you know, the area’s just 1.7 square miles. And so they did succeed in creating that small-town feel inside their city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All right. Well, Chris, thanks so much for looking into this one for us. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Chris Hambrick:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You’re welcome. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A big thanks to Bay Curious listener David Levine for asking this week’s question. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Liam O’Donohue, the host and creator of the East Bay Yesterday podcast, was a big help with the research on this story. If you haven’t checked out Liam’s podcast yet, I highly suggest you give it a try. Just search East Bay yesterday. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Bay Curious is produced in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. The show is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Thanks so much for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This episode contains mentions of suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Starting August 14, San Francisco will remove peer specialists from its 911 response. These peer responders, equipped with both training and personal experience with issues like homelessness and addiction, say the decision is a regressive step in the city’s approach to mental and behavioral health emergencies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6632110452&light=true\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12092836/these-peers-provided-alternative-911-responders-san-francisco-is-removing-them\">These Peers Provided Alternative 911 Responders. San Francisco Is Removing Them\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode transcript\u003c/h3>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This transcript is computer-generated. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:57] \u003c/em>Hey, just a quick note before we get started. This episode includes mentions of suicide and addiction. Please take care while listening. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. It was early one morning outside of a cafe in San Francisco when Chantel Hernandez-Wood, who was homeless and in the throes of her addiction, was told she had to move. She wasn’t sure what her next move would be or where she’d go next, when about a block up, she saw a red van and made a decision that would change her life forever. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:47] \u003c/em>So I walked up there and I knocked on the window and I said, ‘I need help.’ \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:56] \u003c/em>It was San Francisco’s street crisis response team who respond to 911 calls alongside peer counselors, people who’ve had personal experience with homelessness, addiction, or mental illness.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:17] \u003c/em>And they took me to a sobering center. And from there I was placed in a detox and there I, I was in a 90 day program. And while I was sitting there in the 90 day program, I thought, you know, I’d really love to do what they were doing. They went above and beyond to help me get off the streets. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:40] \u003c/em>Today, Chantel is a peer counselor herself, working alongside emergency responders to help people suffering on the streets of San Francisco. It’s a program that’s been going on since 2020.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:57] \u003c/em>When someone says, I know how you’re feeling, I know what you’re going through, everybody can say that, but I really know what that feels like to be that individual. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:08] \u003c/em>But this program is about to change. Starting August 14, peer counselors will no longer accompany emergency responders on 911 calls. And advocates worry that without the firsthand expertise of peer counselors, more people will fall through the cracks. Today, what the end of peer support could mean for San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:40] \u003c/em>You’ll probably remember, in 2020, following the killing of George Floyd and several other police brutality incidents, there were protests all over the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:52] \u003c/em>Sydney Johnson is a reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:56] \u003c/em>Calls for defunding the police. And, you know, those protests were happening here in the Bay Area. Even though San Francisco never defunded the police, there was a lot of interest in creating these sort of alternatives to having law enforcement and police respond to certain 911 emergencies. And one of those was the street crisis response team. These folks would drive around in red vans and they would respond to 911 calls for mental health emergencies. This could be happening on the street, someone having a psychiatric breakdown or potentially a domestic dispute up in a penthouse. It really ran the gamut. The teams were made up of EMTs, behavioral health clinicians, and peer responders. Peer responders were one of the more unique elements of this alternative response idea because they are not sworn officers, they did not arrive in uniform. They have lived experience, you know, with incarceration or potentially having gone through a mental health crisis themselves, substance use disorder. Having these types of experience that they’ve lived through. Was the expertise that the peers were bringing to these emergency responses also. And that group, the street crisis response team has been operating in San Francisco for about the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:40] \u003c/em>Yeah, I remember the context of this time, I mean, just going back to 2020, like so many conversations and examples of, I mean really one too many people in the midst of a mental health crisis ending up in either jails or the emergency rooms and not necessarily getting the help that they need. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:01] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean, I think this was something that San Francisco had been talking about. How do we take some responsibilities off of the plate of police officers? And so there was also this thinking not of just how do we offer people who are going through crises potentially someone that they might relate to a little bit more in these scenarios, but also how do we make this whole system more efficient by pulling some of these responsibilities off of law enforcement’s plate. Maybe if there’s someone who’s trained in de-escalation, maybe we don’t have to send police in for backup. And actually, that was one of the outcomes of this program. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:40] \u003c/em>We’re a team for people that are crashing out and the crash out could look any type of way. If you have less money, you’re going to crash out more. That’s just the way it goes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:49] \u003c/em>Amelia Harmon manages many of the peer responders for this program, which is part of the fire department. The street crisis response team falls under the fire department umbrella. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:01] \u003c/em>I’ve responded to panic attacks and first episode psychoses in penthouses. I have responded to, you know, the craziest wildest condos in Knob Hill, where people all of a sudden, like, fell off their medication and now their husband is calling on them because they’ve never seen them act like this before and they’re pulling out their hair. I’ve respond to calls in the marina where I literally just had to play with a woman’s baby while she was having a panic attack because her husband walked out on her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:26] \u003c/em>In a lot of circumstances, first responders have a lot calls that they have to respond to. And they might be like: OK, there’s not a life and death situation happening here. We got to get to the next spot. And so something that Amelia has talked about that these peers can offer is just a little bit more of that human touch of making sure that people have what they need, even if the crisis has started to deescalate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:52] \u003c/em>But on many, many calls, it really is the peer counselor that the people will disclose to, because in my capacity as a peer counselor, I can tell someone that I was suicidal. I can them how complicated it is to be recovering from depression, but still being suicidal, and managing the symptoms of how often I think about killing myself per day. And if I showed improvement of what that looks like, and I could show that to someone that’s currently struggling, that would help them accept the services. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:18] \u003c/em>How is training for these peer responders different from a typical emergency first responders? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:26] \u003c/em>I mean, you can take classes at San Francisco City College to be a peer responder, but you’re not necessarily getting the training of how to actually stop bleeding in a bullet wound. That is its own sort of set of training, but they are trained in just working with vulnerable populations and basically kind of learn how to translate what they’ve experienced into a bigger context of what did I need in those situations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:59] \u003c/em>You know, when someone says, I know how you’re feeling, I know what you’re going through, you know, everybody can say that, but I really know what that feels like to be that individual. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:12] \u003c/em>I spoke with one of the peer responders. Her name is Chantelle Hernandez-Wood, and she is formerly unhoused and struggled with alcoholism in the past. After going through her own recovery journey, she became one of these peer responders \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:29] \u003c/em>It’s just surreal because I’m working on the same team that helps me when I needed help the most.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:41] \u003c/em>And so Chantel said there were just experience after experience where she would kind of be that first line of, how do we help you? And kind of breaking it down like, hey, I’ve been here before, too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:55] \u003c/em>And I imagine really the goal being to get people access to the help that they need. And that being really the measurement of success for many of these peer responders. I mean, it’s been about five to six years since this program has been around. It sounds like anecdotally, there is this sense, at least among the responders themselves, that they have a really important role to play. But do we know how effective this program has actually been at getting people help?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:25] \u003c/em>There was a study that NYU did in 2024, so it’s been about two years, taking a look at San Francisco’s street crisis response team and these sort of alternatives that came up after 2020. And it really hails San Francisco as a model in this. And this study from NYU, you know, did say that their investments are showing positive results. It said that they the street crisis response team responds to roughly 29 calls a day in an average of 16 minutes each, and that in the vast majority of those calls, the police are not called upon for backup, which would save police resources and indicate that some of this care can be provided without police presence. So that’s pretty high marks for a program that was relatively new and in some regards experimental. Now, fast forward, the city has been really chipping away at this program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:34] \u003c/em>Coming up, why San Francisco is taking peer support counselors off its streets and what it means going forward. By the way, if you want to support the work that we do here at KQED, consider becoming a KQED member, which you could do at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:41] \u003c/em>I mean, we are talking now because these peers are being removed from the street crisis response team in San Francisco. Why?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:52] \u003c/em>“Why?” Is a very difficult question. I’ll back up actually to just say how this first got on my radar, actually. Amelia Harmon, who we chatted about earlier, she received information at a fire department commission meeting that the fire department was moving to pull peers off of these 911 response teams and that August 14th would be their last day. You know, she manages these people. She had not heard about this. No one had communicated this to her directly. This was a complete surprise to her. That’s what she says. It was a completely surprise. They hadn’t heard that the program was, you know, not performing or meeting expectations. She has, for the last several weeks, gone and spoken at multiple public meetings, the Health Commission, the Police Commission, Board of Supervisors. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:13:47] \u003c/em>Hi, good evening supervisors. My name is Amelia, District 9, speaking in my individual capacity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:13:53] \u003c/em>Trying to tell people in positions of power, like, this is happening, and ask them, did you know? Like, is there a reason why? Like is anyone concerned about this? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:14:05] \u003c/em>From frontline workers to directors. No one that I spoke to had heard it anywhere else. They count on the non-uniformed peer support backed by our traditional first responders when they call 911 for their people, our people. One person on foot door to door. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:14:24] \u003c/em>Ultimately, this was a decision from the fire department. And when I reached out to the fire department to ask about it, they said that this was very carefully considered decision. They are not getting rid of the street crisis response team, that the street crises response team will still exist. But they are moving peers off of these rigs. And when I tried to push a little bit more on why, the reasoning that I was given was that it has been difficult scheduling with the peers themselves. They are not stationed at the firehouse or with the paramedics. There has to be sort of. An arrangement for a pickup along some of these routes. But yeah, it ultimately has come down to the fire department just deciding that this was not working for their vision for the program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:15:20] \u003c/em>Yeah, it’s interesting that the reasoning is not something like this program isn’t working. It’s just sort of like an administrative issue. So then what does that then mean for, I mean, who is doing the work now of this sort of non-emergency emergency response in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:15:40] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean, the city and the fire department is simultaneously working to expand and develop trained paramedics who have this additional layer of training in many of the things that the peers and behavioral health specialists brought to these rigs. Things like trauma informed responses, you know, extra training in how to direct people to certain social services. But you know what is different about the community paramedic versus the Dear Responders, is, you know, it’s subtle, but it’s important. This is what Amelia had to say about it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:17] \u003c/em>They come in uniforms and they come in steel-toed boots, and that matters. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:20] \u003c/em>They may not necessarily have the lived experience that a peer brought also, which was kind of at the core of what these peer responders were offering to people who were in crisis. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:34] \u003c/em>And again, that’s just not an experience that you can sit in a classroom and do a two hour training. Right. And I mean, I guess I wonder what someone like Chantal or Amelia worry that the city will really miss when it moves away from prioritizing this firsthand experience to help deal with some of the city’s most pressing issues. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:58] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean both of them are pretty gutted. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:02] \u003c/em>Like I’ve been blindsided. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:03] \u003c/em>Chantel talked to me about this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:05] \u003c/em>It’s just an incredible disservice to the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:08] \u003c/em>The rollout of this has been confusing, and a lot of people seem to not know what’s going on. But Chantal just said there’s been so many times in which she’s seen people on the street who specifically reached out to her in these moments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:27] \u003c/em>It sounds like they’re worried that this is just gonna mean that fewer people are gonna get help when they’re in crisis in San Francisco. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:34] \u003c/em>Yeah, I think that’s that’s kind of one of the biggest fears that both Chantel and Amelia have is that if peers are no longer in these on these 911 calls that there will be people who fall through the cracks. You know, when I spoke to Chantell, I asked her, what is your plan after August 14th? You know? What are you going to do after you’re no longer going to be on these 911 calls? And You know, they still don’t know what’s going to be sort of their new offering or position or even if there’s going to be layoffs. But one thing that’s been suggested, I guess, maybe unofficially, is that these peer responders would be shifted to respond to 3-1-1 calls, these non-emergency sort of like handling like, you know, we need unhoused people to move. It’s very different from a 9-1 call. And Chantel just said that feels like. Very different from the expertise she’s been developing over the last few years in kind of these more emergency kind of healthcare sort of driven settings. And so if that is what she’s offered, she’s going to look for something else. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:18:46] \u003c/em>I mean, Sydney, it does seem like so much of the context that we’re living in has changed since 2020 and these conversations around these alternatives to policing, defunding the police. It feels like the conversations really swung in the opposite direction in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:19:04] \u003c/em>Yeah, it probably has swung in the opposite direction in a lot of places in the country. Yeah. But when you think about the conversations that were being had in 2020 and 2021 about, you know, having these alternatives to policing or, you know, even having hearings in City Hall about what defunding the police would look like, you know, Even though that didn’t happen, it was, you know, still something that city officials were talking about and considering. We are so far from that now. You know, the police budget has only increased. There has been a huge push towards public safety, you know, just as a rallying cry in San Francisco. Within the conversation of public safety. You know homelessness and drug use and mental health often gets wrapped into that. And, you know sometimes unfairly, sometimes not. But I think what we’ve seen is also more arrests for people who are refusing shelter or who are using drugs outside. Obviously, these peer responders were not only handling street-level issues, but I think that moving them off of these 911 calls does signal a return to the more traditional policing approach that we saw. Before these conversations were had.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:20:41] \u003c/em>Well Sydney, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with me. I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Starting August 14, San Francisco will remove peer specialists from its 911 response. These peer responders, equipped with both training and personal experience with issues like homelessness and addiction, say the decision is a regressive step in the city’s approach to mental and behavioral health emergencies.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:57] \u003c/em>Hey, just a quick note before we get started. This episode includes mentions of suicide and addiction. Please take care while listening. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. It was early one morning outside of a cafe in San Francisco when Chantel Hernandez-Wood, who was homeless and in the throes of her addiction, was told she had to move. She wasn’t sure what her next move would be or where she’d go next, when about a block up, she saw a red van and made a decision that would change her life forever. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:57] \u003c/em>Hey, just a quick note before we get started. This episode includes mentions of suicide and addiction. Please take care while listening. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. It was early one morning outside of a cafe in San Francisco when Chantel Hernandez-Wood, who was homeless and in the throes of her addiction, was told she had to move. She wasn’t sure what her next move would be or where she’d go next, when about a block up, she saw a red van and made a decision that would change her life forever. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:47] \u003c/em>So I walked up there and I knocked on the window and I said, ‘I need help.’ \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:47] \u003c/em>So I walked up there and I knocked on the window and I said, ‘I need help.’ \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:56] \u003c/em>It was San Francisco’s street crisis response team who respond to 911 calls alongside peer counselors, people who’ve had personal experience with homelessness, addiction, or mental illness.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:56] \u003c/em>It was San Francisco’s street crisis response team who respond to 911 calls alongside peer counselors, people who’ve had personal experience with homelessness, addiction, or mental illness.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:17] \u003c/em>And they took me to a sobering center. And from there I was placed in a detox and there I, I was in a 90 day program. And while I was sitting there in the 90 day program, I thought, you know, I’d really love to do what they were doing. They went above and beyond to help me get off the streets. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:17] \u003c/em>And they took me to a sobering center. And from there I was placed in a detox and there I, I was in a 90 day program. And while I was sitting there in the 90 day program, I thought, you know, I’d really love to do what they were doing. They went above and beyond to help me get off the streets. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:40] \u003c/em>Today, Chantel is a peer counselor herself, working alongside emergency responders to help people suffering on the streets of San Francisco. It’s a program that’s been going on since 2020.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:40] \u003c/em>Today, Chantel is a peer counselor herself, working alongside emergency responders to help people suffering on the streets of San Francisco. It’s a program that’s been going on since 2020.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:57] \u003c/em>When someone says, I know how you’re feeling, I know what you’re going through, everybody can say that, but I really know what that feels like to be that individual. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:57] \u003c/em>When someone says, I know how you’re feeling, I know what you’re going through, everybody can say that, but I really know what that feels like to be that individual. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:08] \u003c/em>But this program is about to change. Starting August 14, peer counselors will no longer accompany emergency responders on 911 calls. And advocates worry that without the firsthand expertise of peer counselors, more people will fall through the cracks. Today, what the end of peer support could mean for San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:08] \u003c/em>But this program is about to change. Starting August 14, peer counselors will no longer accompany emergency responders on 911 calls. And advocates worry that without the firsthand expertise of peer counselors, more people will fall through the cracks. Today, what the end of peer support could mean for San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:40] \u003c/em>You’ll probably remember, in 2020, following the killing of George Floyd and several other police brutality incidents, there were protests all over the country.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:40] \u003c/em>You’ll probably remember, in 2020, following the killing of George Floyd and several other police brutality incidents, there were protests all over the country.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:52] \u003c/em>Sydney Johnson is a reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:56] \u003c/em>Calls for defunding the police. And, you know, those protests were happening here in the Bay Area. Even though San Francisco never defunded the police, there was a lot of interest in creating these sort of alternatives to having law enforcement and police respond to certain 911 emergencies. And one of those was the street crisis response team. These folks would drive around in red vans and they would respond to 911 calls for mental health emergencies. This could be happening on the street, someone having a psychiatric breakdown or potentially a domestic dispute up in a penthouse. It really ran the gamut. The teams were made up of EMTs, behavioral health clinicians, and peer responders. Peer responders were one of the more unique elements of this alternative response idea because they are not sworn officers, they did not arrive in uniform. They have lived experience, you know, with incarceration or potentially having gone through a mental health crisis themselves, substance use disorder. Having these types of experience that they’ve lived through. Was the expertise that the peers were bringing to these emergency responses also. And that group, the street crisis response team has been operating in San Francisco for about the last five years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:56] \u003c/em>Calls for defunding the police. And, you know, those protests were happening here in the Bay Area. Even though San Francisco never defunded the police, there was a lot of interest in creating these sort of alternatives to having law enforcement and police respond to certain 911 emergencies. And one of those was the street crisis response team. These folks would drive around in red vans and they would respond to 911 calls for mental health emergencies. This could be happening on the street, someone having a psychiatric breakdown or potentially a domestic dispute up in a penthouse. It really ran the gamut. The teams were made up of EMTs, behavioral health clinicians, and peer responders. Peer responders were one of the more unique elements of this alternative response idea because they are not sworn officers, they did not arrive in uniform. They have lived experience, you know, with incarceration or potentially having gone through a mental health crisis themselves, substance use disorder. Having these types of experience that they’ve lived through. Was the expertise that the peers were bringing to these emergency responses also. And that group, the street crisis response team has been operating in San Francisco for about the last five years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:40] \u003c/em>Yeah, I remember the context of this time, I mean, just going back to 2020, like so many conversations and examples of, I mean really one too many people in the midst of a mental health crisis ending up in either jails or the emergency rooms and not necessarily getting the help that they need. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:01] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean, I think this was something that San Francisco had been talking about. How do we take some responsibilities off of the plate of police officers? And so there was also this thinking not of just how do we offer people who are going through crises potentially someone that they might relate to a little bit more in these scenarios, but also how do we make this whole system more efficient by pulling some of these responsibilities off of law enforcement’s plate. Maybe if there’s someone who’s trained in de-escalation, maybe we don’t have to send police in for backup. And actually, that was one of the outcomes of this program. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:40] \u003c/em>We’re a team for people that are crashing out and the crash out could look any type of way. If you have less money, you’re going to crash out more. That’s just the way it goes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:49] \u003c/em>Amelia Harmon manages many of the peer responders for this program, which is part of the fire department. The street crisis response team falls under the fire department umbrella. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:49] \u003c/em>Amelia Harmon manages many of the peer responders for this program, which is part of the fire department. The street crisis response team falls under the fire department umbrella. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:01] \u003c/em>I’ve responded to panic attacks and first episode psychoses in penthouses. I have responded to, you know, the craziest wildest condos in Knob Hill, where people all of a sudden, like, fell off their medication and now their husband is calling on them because they’ve never seen them act like this before and they’re pulling out their hair. I’ve respond to calls in the marina where I literally just had to play with a woman’s baby while she was having a panic attack because her husband walked out on her.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:01] \u003c/em>I’ve responded to panic attacks and first episode psychoses in penthouses. I have responded to, you know, the craziest wildest condos in Knob Hill, where people all of a sudden, like, fell off their medication and now their husband is calling on them because they’ve never seen them act like this before and they’re pulling out their hair. I’ve respond to calls in the marina where I literally just had to play with a woman’s baby while she was having a panic attack because her husband walked out on her.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:26] \u003c/em>In a lot of circumstances, first responders have a lot calls that they have to respond to. And they might be like: OK, there’s not a life and death situation happening here. We got to get to the next spot. And so something that Amelia has talked about that these peers can offer is just a little bit more of that human touch of making sure that people have what they need, even if the crisis has started to deescalate. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:26] \u003c/em>In a lot of circumstances, first responders have a lot calls that they have to respond to. And they might be like: OK, there’s not a life and death situation happening here. We got to get to the next spot. And so something that Amelia has talked about that these peers can offer is just a little bit more of that human touch of making sure that people have what they need, even if the crisis has started to deescalate. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:52] \u003c/em>But on many, many calls, it really is the peer counselor that the people will disclose to, because in my capacity as a peer counselor, I can tell someone that I was suicidal. I can them how complicated it is to be recovering from depression, but still being suicidal, and managing the symptoms of how often I think about killing myself per day. And if I showed improvement of what that looks like, and I could show that to someone that’s currently struggling, that would help them accept the services. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:52] \u003c/em>But on many, many calls, it really is the peer counselor that the people will disclose to, because in my capacity as a peer counselor, I can tell someone that I was suicidal. I can them how complicated it is to be recovering from depression, but still being suicidal, and managing the symptoms of how often I think about killing myself per day. And if I showed improvement of what that looks like, and I could show that to someone that’s currently struggling, that would help them accept the services. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:18] \u003c/em>How is training for these peer responders different from a typical emergency first responders? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:18] \u003c/em>How is training for these peer responders different from a typical emergency first responders? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:26] \u003c/em>I mean, you can take classes at San Francisco City College to be a peer responder, but you’re not necessarily getting the training of how to actually stop bleeding in a bullet wound. That is its own sort of set of training, but they are trained in just working with vulnerable populations and basically kind of learn how to translate what they’ve experienced into a bigger context of what did I need in those situations.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:26] \u003c/em>I mean, you can take classes at San Francisco City College to be a peer responder, but you’re not necessarily getting the training of how to actually stop bleeding in a bullet wound. That is its own sort of set of training, but they are trained in just working with vulnerable populations and basically kind of learn how to translate what they’ve experienced into a bigger context of what did I need in those situations.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:59] \u003c/em>You know, when someone says, I know how you’re feeling, I know what you’re going through, you know, everybody can say that, but I really know what that feels like to be that individual. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:59] \u003c/em>You know, when someone says, I know how you’re feeling, I know what you’re going through, you know, everybody can say that, but I really know what that feels like to be that individual. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:12] \u003c/em>I spoke with one of the peer responders. Her name is Chantelle Hernandez-Wood, and she is formerly unhoused and struggled with alcoholism in the past. After going through her own recovery journey, she became one of these peer responders \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:12] \u003c/em>I spoke with one of the peer responders. Her name is Chantelle Hernandez-Wood, and she is formerly unhoused and struggled with alcoholism in the past. After going through her own recovery journey, she became one of these peer responders \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:29] \u003c/em>It’s just surreal because I’m working on the same team that helps me when I needed help the most.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:29] \u003c/em>It’s just surreal because I’m working on the same team that helps me when I needed help the most.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:41] \u003c/em>And so Chantel said there were just experience after experience where she would kind of be that first line of, how do we help you? And kind of breaking it down like, hey, I’ve been here before, too. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:41] \u003c/em>And so Chantel said there were just experience after experience where she would kind of be that first line of, how do we help you? And kind of breaking it down like, hey, I’ve been here before, too. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:55] \u003c/em>And I imagine really the goal being to get people access to the help that they need. And that being really the measurement of success for many of these peer responders. I mean, it’s been about five to six years since this program has been around. It sounds like anecdotally, there is this sense, at least among the responders themselves, that they have a really important role to play. But do we know how effective this program has actually been at getting people help?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:55] \u003c/em>And I imagine really the goal being to get people access to the help that they need. And that being really the measurement of success for many of these peer responders. I mean, it’s been about five to six years since this program has been around. It sounds like anecdotally, there is this sense, at least among the responders themselves, that they have a really important role to play. But do we know how effective this program has actually been at getting people help?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:25] \u003c/em>There was a study that NYU did in 2024, so it’s been about two years, taking a look at San Francisco’s street crisis response team and these sort of alternatives that came up after 2020. And it really hails San Francisco as a model in this. And this study from NYU, you know, did say that their investments are showing positive results. It said that they the street crisis response team responds to roughly 29 calls a day in an average of 16 minutes each, and that in the vast majority of those calls, the police are not called upon for backup, which would save police resources and indicate that some of this care can be provided without police presence. So that’s pretty high marks for a program that was relatively new and in some regards experimental. Now, fast forward, the city has been really chipping away at this program.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:25] \u003c/em>There was a study that NYU did in 2024, so it’s been about two years, taking a look at San Francisco’s street crisis response team and these sort of alternatives that came up after 2020. And it really hails San Francisco as a model in this. And this study from NYU, you know, did say that their investments are showing positive results. It said that they the street crisis response team responds to roughly 29 calls a day in an average of 16 minutes each, and that in the vast majority of those calls, the police are not called upon for backup, which would save police resources and indicate that some of this care can be provided without police presence. So that’s pretty high marks for a program that was relatively new and in some regards experimental. Now, fast forward, the city has been really chipping away at this program.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:34] \u003c/em>Coming up, why San Francisco is taking peer support counselors off its streets and what it means going forward. By the way, if you want to support the work that we do here at KQED, consider becoming a KQED member, which you could do at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:34] \u003c/em>Coming up, why San Francisco is taking peer support counselors off its streets and what it means going forward. By the way, if you want to support the work that we do here at KQED, consider becoming a KQED member, which you could do at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:41] \u003c/em>I mean, we are talking now because these peers are being removed from the street crisis response team in San Francisco. Why?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:41] \u003c/em>I mean, we are talking now because these peers are being removed from the street crisis response team in San Francisco. Why?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:52] \u003c/em>“Why?” Is a very difficult question. I’ll back up actually to just say how this first got on my radar, actually. Amelia Harmon, who we chatted about earlier, she received information at a fire department commission meeting that the fire department was moving to pull peers off of these 911 response teams and that August 14th would be their last day. You know, she manages these people. She had not heard about this. No one had communicated this to her directly. This was a complete surprise to her. That’s what she says. It was a completely surprise. They hadn’t heard that the program was, you know, not performing or meeting expectations. She has, for the last several weeks, gone and spoken at multiple public meetings, the Health Commission, the Police Commission, Board of Supervisors. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:52] \u003c/em>“Why?” Is a very difficult question. I’ll back up actually to just say how this first got on my radar, actually. Amelia Harmon, who we chatted about earlier, she received information at a fire department commission meeting that the fire department was moving to pull peers off of these 911 response teams and that August 14th would be their last day. You know, she manages these people. She had not heard about this. No one had communicated this to her directly. This was a complete surprise to her. That’s what she says. It was a completely surprise. They hadn’t heard that the program was, you know, not performing or meeting expectations. She has, for the last several weeks, gone and spoken at multiple public meetings, the Health Commission, the Police Commission, Board of Supervisors. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:13:47] \u003c/em>Hi, good evening supervisors. My name is Amelia, District 9, speaking in my individual capacity. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:13:47] \u003c/em>Hi, good evening supervisors. My name is Amelia, District 9, speaking in my individual capacity. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:13:53] \u003c/em>Trying to tell people in positions of power, like, this is happening, and ask them, did you know? Like, is there a reason why? Like is anyone concerned about this? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:13:53] \u003c/em>Trying to tell people in positions of power, like, this is happening, and ask them, did you know? Like, is there a reason why? Like is anyone concerned about this? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:14:05] \u003c/em>From frontline workers to directors. No one that I spoke to had heard it anywhere else. They count on the non-uniformed peer support backed by our traditional first responders when they call 911 for their people, our people. One person on foot door to door. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:14:05] \u003c/em>From frontline workers to directors. No one that I spoke to had heard it anywhere else. They count on the non-uniformed peer support backed by our traditional first responders when they call 911 for their people, our people. One person on foot door to door. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:14:24] \u003c/em>Ultimately, this was a decision from the fire department. And when I reached out to the fire department to ask about it, they said that this was very carefully considered decision. They are not getting rid of the street crisis response team, that the street crises response team will still exist. But they are moving peers off of these rigs. And when I tried to push a little bit more on why, the reasoning that I was given was that it has been difficult scheduling with the peers themselves. They are not stationed at the firehouse or with the paramedics. There has to be sort of. An arrangement for a pickup along some of these routes. But yeah, it ultimately has come down to the fire department just deciding that this was not working for their vision for the program.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:14:24] \u003c/em>Ultimately, this was a decision from the fire department. And when I reached out to the fire department to ask about it, they said that this was very carefully considered decision. They are not getting rid of the street crisis response team, that the street crises response team will still exist. But they are moving peers off of these rigs. And when I tried to push a little bit more on why, the reasoning that I was given was that it has been difficult scheduling with the peers themselves. They are not stationed at the firehouse or with the paramedics. There has to be sort of. An arrangement for a pickup along some of these routes. But yeah, it ultimately has come down to the fire department just deciding that this was not working for their vision for the program.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:15:20] \u003c/em>Yeah, it’s interesting that the reasoning is not something like this program isn’t working. It’s just sort of like an administrative issue. So then what does that then mean for, I mean, who is doing the work now of this sort of non-emergency emergency response in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:15:20] \u003c/em>Yeah, it’s interesting that the reasoning is not something like this program isn’t working. It’s just sort of like an administrative issue. So then what does that then mean for, I mean, who is doing the work now of this sort of non-emergency emergency response in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:15:40] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean, the city and the fire department is simultaneously working to expand and develop trained paramedics who have this additional layer of training in many of the things that the peers and behavioral health specialists brought to these rigs. Things like trauma informed responses, you know, extra training in how to direct people to certain social services. But you know what is different about the community paramedic versus the Dear Responders, is, you know, it’s subtle, but it’s important. This is what Amelia had to say about it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:15:40] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean, the city and the fire department is simultaneously working to expand and develop trained paramedics who have this additional layer of training in many of the things that the peers and behavioral health specialists brought to these rigs. Things like trauma informed responses, you know, extra training in how to direct people to certain social services. But you know what is different about the community paramedic versus the Dear Responders, is, you know, it’s subtle, but it’s important. This is what Amelia had to say about it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:17] \u003c/em>They come in uniforms and they come in steel-toed boots, and that matters. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:17] \u003c/em>They come in uniforms and they come in steel-toed boots, and that matters. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:20] \u003c/em>They may not necessarily have the lived experience that a peer brought also, which was kind of at the core of what these peer responders were offering to people who were in crisis. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:20] \u003c/em>They may not necessarily have the lived experience that a peer brought also, which was kind of at the core of what these peer responders were offering to people who were in crisis. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:34] \u003c/em>And again, that’s just not an experience that you can sit in a classroom and do a two hour training. Right. And I mean, I guess I wonder what someone like Chantal or Amelia worry that the city will really miss when it moves away from prioritizing this firsthand experience to help deal with some of the city’s most pressing issues. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:34] \u003c/em>And again, that’s just not an experience that you can sit in a classroom and do a two hour training. Right. And I mean, I guess I wonder what someone like Chantal or Amelia worry that the city will really miss when it moves away from prioritizing this firsthand experience to help deal with some of the city’s most pressing issues. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:58] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean both of them are pretty gutted. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:58] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean both of them are pretty gutted. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:02] \u003c/em>Like I’ve been blindsided. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:02] \u003c/em>Like I’ve been blindsided. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:03] \u003c/em>Chantel talked to me about this. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:03] \u003c/em>Chantel talked to me about this. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:05] \u003c/em>It’s just an incredible disservice to the community. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:05] \u003c/em>It’s just an incredible disservice to the community. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:08] \u003c/em>The rollout of this has been confusing, and a lot of people seem to not know what’s going on. But Chantal just said there’s been so many times in which she’s seen people on the street who specifically reached out to her in these moments.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:08] \u003c/em>The rollout of this has been confusing, and a lot of people seem to not know what’s going on. But Chantal just said there’s been so many times in which she’s seen people on the street who specifically reached out to her in these moments.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:27] \u003c/em>It sounds like they’re worried that this is just gonna mean that fewer people are gonna get help when they’re in crisis in San Francisco. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:34] \u003c/em>Yeah, I think that’s that’s kind of one of the biggest fears that both Chantel and Amelia have is that if peers are no longer in these on these 911 calls that there will be people who fall through the cracks. You know, when I spoke to Chantell, I asked her, what is your plan after August 14th? You know? What are you going to do after you’re no longer going to be on these 911 calls? And You know, they still don’t know what’s going to be sort of their new offering or position or even if there’s going to be layoffs. But one thing that’s been suggested, I guess, maybe unofficially, is that these peer responders would be shifted to respond to 3-1-1 calls, these non-emergency sort of like handling like, you know, we need unhoused people to move. It’s very different from a 9-1 call. And Chantel just said that feels like. Very different from the expertise she’s been developing over the last few years in kind of these more emergency kind of healthcare sort of driven settings. And so if that is what she’s offered, she’s going to look for something else. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:18:46] \u003c/em>I mean, Sydney, it does seem like so much of the context that we’re living in has changed since 2020 and these conversations around these alternatives to policing, defunding the police. It feels like the conversations really swung in the opposite direction in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:19:04] \u003c/em>Yeah, it probably has swung in the opposite direction in a lot of places in the country. Yeah. But when you think about the conversations that were being had in 2020 and 2021 about, you know, having these alternatives to policing or, you know, even having hearings in City Hall about what defunding the police would look like, you know, Even though that didn’t happen, it was, you know, still something that city officials were talking about and considering. We are so far from that now. You know, the police budget has only increased. There has been a huge push towards public safety, you know, just as a rallying cry in San Francisco. Within the conversation of public safety. You know homelessness and drug use and mental health often gets wrapped into that. And, you know sometimes unfairly, sometimes not. But I think what we’ve seen is also more arrests for people who are refusing shelter or who are using drugs outside. Obviously, these peer responders were not only handling street-level issues, but I think that moving them off of these 911 calls does signal a return to the more traditional policing approach that we saw. Before these conversations were had.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:19:04] \u003c/em>Yeah, it probably has swung in the opposite direction in a lot of places in the country. Yeah. But when you think about the conversations that were being had in 2020 and 2021 about, you know, having these alternatives to policing or, you know, even having hearings in City Hall about what defunding the police would look like, you know, Even though that didn’t happen, it was, you know, still something that city officials were talking about and considering. We are so far from that now. You know, the police budget has only increased. There has been a huge push towards public safety, you know, just as a rallying cry in San Francisco. Within the conversation of public safety. You know homelessness and drug use and mental health often gets wrapped into that. And, you know sometimes unfairly, sometimes not. But I think what we’ve seen is also more arrests for people who are refusing shelter or who are using drugs outside. Obviously, these peer responders were not only handling street-level issues, but I think that moving them off of these 911 calls does signal a return to the more traditional policing approach that we saw. Before these conversations were had.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:20:41] \u003c/em>Well Sydney, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with me. I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This episode contains mentions of suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Starting August 14, San Francisco will remove peer specialists from its 911 response. These peer responders, equipped with both training and personal experience with issues like homelessness and addiction, say the decision is a regressive step in the city’s approach to mental and behavioral health emergencies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6632110452&light=true\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12092836/these-peers-provided-alternative-911-responders-san-francisco-is-removing-them\">These Peers Provided Alternative 911 Responders. San Francisco Is Removing Them\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode transcript\u003c/h3>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This transcript is computer-generated. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:00:57] \u003c/em>Hey, just a quick note before we get started. This episode includes mentions of suicide and addiction. Please take care while listening. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. It was early one morning outside of a cafe in San Francisco when Chantel Hernandez-Wood, who was homeless and in the throes of her addiction, was told she had to move. She wasn’t sure what her next move would be or where she’d go next, when about a block up, she saw a red van and made a decision that would change her life forever. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:47] \u003c/em>So I walked up there and I knocked on the window and I said, ‘I need help.’ \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:01:56] \u003c/em>It was San Francisco’s street crisis response team who respond to 911 calls alongside peer counselors, people who’ve had personal experience with homelessness, addiction, or mental illness.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:17] \u003c/em>And they took me to a sobering center. And from there I was placed in a detox and there I, I was in a 90 day program. And while I was sitting there in the 90 day program, I thought, you know, I’d really love to do what they were doing. They went above and beyond to help me get off the streets. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:40] \u003c/em>Today, Chantel is a peer counselor herself, working alongside emergency responders to help people suffering on the streets of San Francisco. It’s a program that’s been going on since 2020.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:02:57] \u003c/em>When someone says, I know how you’re feeling, I know what you’re going through, everybody can say that, but I really know what that feels like to be that individual. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:08] \u003c/em>But this program is about to change. Starting August 14, peer counselors will no longer accompany emergency responders on 911 calls. And advocates worry that without the firsthand expertise of peer counselors, more people will fall through the cracks. Today, what the end of peer support could mean for San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:40] \u003c/em>You’ll probably remember, in 2020, following the killing of George Floyd and several other police brutality incidents, there were protests all over the country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:52] \u003c/em>Sydney Johnson is a reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:03:56] \u003c/em>Calls for defunding the police. And, you know, those protests were happening here in the Bay Area. Even though San Francisco never defunded the police, there was a lot of interest in creating these sort of alternatives to having law enforcement and police respond to certain 911 emergencies. And one of those was the street crisis response team. These folks would drive around in red vans and they would respond to 911 calls for mental health emergencies. This could be happening on the street, someone having a psychiatric breakdown or potentially a domestic dispute up in a penthouse. It really ran the gamut. The teams were made up of EMTs, behavioral health clinicians, and peer responders. Peer responders were one of the more unique elements of this alternative response idea because they are not sworn officers, they did not arrive in uniform. They have lived experience, you know, with incarceration or potentially having gone through a mental health crisis themselves, substance use disorder. Having these types of experience that they’ve lived through. Was the expertise that the peers were bringing to these emergency responses also. And that group, the street crisis response team has been operating in San Francisco for about the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:05:40] \u003c/em>Yeah, I remember the context of this time, I mean, just going back to 2020, like so many conversations and examples of, I mean really one too many people in the midst of a mental health crisis ending up in either jails or the emergency rooms and not necessarily getting the help that they need. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:01] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean, I think this was something that San Francisco had been talking about. How do we take some responsibilities off of the plate of police officers? And so there was also this thinking not of just how do we offer people who are going through crises potentially someone that they might relate to a little bit more in these scenarios, but also how do we make this whole system more efficient by pulling some of these responsibilities off of law enforcement’s plate. Maybe if there’s someone who’s trained in de-escalation, maybe we don’t have to send police in for backup. And actually, that was one of the outcomes of this program. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:40] \u003c/em>We’re a team for people that are crashing out and the crash out could look any type of way. If you have less money, you’re going to crash out more. That’s just the way it goes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:06:49] \u003c/em>Amelia Harmon manages many of the peer responders for this program, which is part of the fire department. The street crisis response team falls under the fire department umbrella. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:01] \u003c/em>I’ve responded to panic attacks and first episode psychoses in penthouses. I have responded to, you know, the craziest wildest condos in Knob Hill, where people all of a sudden, like, fell off their medication and now their husband is calling on them because they’ve never seen them act like this before and they’re pulling out their hair. I’ve respond to calls in the marina where I literally just had to play with a woman’s baby while she was having a panic attack because her husband walked out on her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:26] \u003c/em>In a lot of circumstances, first responders have a lot calls that they have to respond to. And they might be like: OK, there’s not a life and death situation happening here. We got to get to the next spot. And so something that Amelia has talked about that these peers can offer is just a little bit more of that human touch of making sure that people have what they need, even if the crisis has started to deescalate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:07:52] \u003c/em>But on many, many calls, it really is the peer counselor that the people will disclose to, because in my capacity as a peer counselor, I can tell someone that I was suicidal. I can them how complicated it is to be recovering from depression, but still being suicidal, and managing the symptoms of how often I think about killing myself per day. And if I showed improvement of what that looks like, and I could show that to someone that’s currently struggling, that would help them accept the services. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:18] \u003c/em>How is training for these peer responders different from a typical emergency first responders? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:26] \u003c/em>I mean, you can take classes at San Francisco City College to be a peer responder, but you’re not necessarily getting the training of how to actually stop bleeding in a bullet wound. That is its own sort of set of training, but they are trained in just working with vulnerable populations and basically kind of learn how to translate what they’ve experienced into a bigger context of what did I need in those situations.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:08:59] \u003c/em>You know, when someone says, I know how you’re feeling, I know what you’re going through, you know, everybody can say that, but I really know what that feels like to be that individual. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:12] \u003c/em>I spoke with one of the peer responders. Her name is Chantelle Hernandez-Wood, and she is formerly unhoused and struggled with alcoholism in the past. After going through her own recovery journey, she became one of these peer responders \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:29] \u003c/em>It’s just surreal because I’m working on the same team that helps me when I needed help the most.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:41] \u003c/em>And so Chantel said there were just experience after experience where she would kind of be that first line of, how do we help you? And kind of breaking it down like, hey, I’ve been here before, too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:09:55] \u003c/em>And I imagine really the goal being to get people access to the help that they need. And that being really the measurement of success for many of these peer responders. I mean, it’s been about five to six years since this program has been around. It sounds like anecdotally, there is this sense, at least among the responders themselves, that they have a really important role to play. But do we know how effective this program has actually been at getting people help?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:10:25] \u003c/em>There was a study that NYU did in 2024, so it’s been about two years, taking a look at San Francisco’s street crisis response team and these sort of alternatives that came up after 2020. And it really hails San Francisco as a model in this. And this study from NYU, you know, did say that their investments are showing positive results. It said that they the street crisis response team responds to roughly 29 calls a day in an average of 16 minutes each, and that in the vast majority of those calls, the police are not called upon for backup, which would save police resources and indicate that some of this care can be provided without police presence. So that’s pretty high marks for a program that was relatively new and in some regards experimental. Now, fast forward, the city has been really chipping away at this program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:11:34] \u003c/em>Coming up, why San Francisco is taking peer support counselors off its streets and what it means going forward. By the way, if you want to support the work that we do here at KQED, consider becoming a KQED member, which you could do at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:41] \u003c/em>I mean, we are talking now because these peers are being removed from the street crisis response team in San Francisco. Why?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:12:52] \u003c/em>“Why?” Is a very difficult question. I’ll back up actually to just say how this first got on my radar, actually. Amelia Harmon, who we chatted about earlier, she received information at a fire department commission meeting that the fire department was moving to pull peers off of these 911 response teams and that August 14th would be their last day. You know, she manages these people. She had not heard about this. No one had communicated this to her directly. This was a complete surprise to her. That’s what she says. It was a completely surprise. They hadn’t heard that the program was, you know, not performing or meeting expectations. She has, for the last several weeks, gone and spoken at multiple public meetings, the Health Commission, the Police Commission, Board of Supervisors. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:13:47] \u003c/em>Hi, good evening supervisors. My name is Amelia, District 9, speaking in my individual capacity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:13:53] \u003c/em>Trying to tell people in positions of power, like, this is happening, and ask them, did you know? Like, is there a reason why? Like is anyone concerned about this? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:14:05] \u003c/em>From frontline workers to directors. No one that I spoke to had heard it anywhere else. They count on the non-uniformed peer support backed by our traditional first responders when they call 911 for their people, our people. One person on foot door to door. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:14:24] \u003c/em>Ultimately, this was a decision from the fire department. And when I reached out to the fire department to ask about it, they said that this was very carefully considered decision. They are not getting rid of the street crisis response team, that the street crises response team will still exist. But they are moving peers off of these rigs. And when I tried to push a little bit more on why, the reasoning that I was given was that it has been difficult scheduling with the peers themselves. They are not stationed at the firehouse or with the paramedics. There has to be sort of. An arrangement for a pickup along some of these routes. But yeah, it ultimately has come down to the fire department just deciding that this was not working for their vision for the program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:15:20] \u003c/em>Yeah, it’s interesting that the reasoning is not something like this program isn’t working. It’s just sort of like an administrative issue. So then what does that then mean for, I mean, who is doing the work now of this sort of non-emergency emergency response in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:15:40] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean, the city and the fire department is simultaneously working to expand and develop trained paramedics who have this additional layer of training in many of the things that the peers and behavioral health specialists brought to these rigs. Things like trauma informed responses, you know, extra training in how to direct people to certain social services. But you know what is different about the community paramedic versus the Dear Responders, is, you know, it’s subtle, but it’s important. This is what Amelia had to say about it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amelia Harmon: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:17] \u003c/em>They come in uniforms and they come in steel-toed boots, and that matters. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:20] \u003c/em>They may not necessarily have the lived experience that a peer brought also, which was kind of at the core of what these peer responders were offering to people who were in crisis. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:34] \u003c/em>And again, that’s just not an experience that you can sit in a classroom and do a two hour training. Right. And I mean, I guess I wonder what someone like Chantal or Amelia worry that the city will really miss when it moves away from prioritizing this firsthand experience to help deal with some of the city’s most pressing issues. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:16:58] \u003c/em>Yeah, I mean both of them are pretty gutted. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:02] \u003c/em>Like I’ve been blindsided. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:03] \u003c/em>Chantel talked to me about this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chantel Hernandez-Wood: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:05] \u003c/em>It’s just an incredible disservice to the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:08] \u003c/em>The rollout of this has been confusing, and a lot of people seem to not know what’s going on. But Chantal just said there’s been so many times in which she’s seen people on the street who specifically reached out to her in these moments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:27] \u003c/em>It sounds like they’re worried that this is just gonna mean that fewer people are gonna get help when they’re in crisis in San Francisco. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:17:34] \u003c/em>Yeah, I think that’s that’s kind of one of the biggest fears that both Chantel and Amelia have is that if peers are no longer in these on these 911 calls that there will be people who fall through the cracks. You know, when I spoke to Chantell, I asked her, what is your plan after August 14th? You know? What are you going to do after you’re no longer going to be on these 911 calls? And You know, they still don’t know what’s going to be sort of their new offering or position or even if there’s going to be layoffs. But one thing that’s been suggested, I guess, maybe unofficially, is that these peer responders would be shifted to respond to 3-1-1 calls, these non-emergency sort of like handling like, you know, we need unhoused people to move. It’s very different from a 9-1 call. And Chantel just said that feels like. Very different from the expertise she’s been developing over the last few years in kind of these more emergency kind of healthcare sort of driven settings. And so if that is what she’s offered, she’s going to look for something else. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:18:46] \u003c/em>I mean, Sydney, it does seem like so much of the context that we’re living in has changed since 2020 and these conversations around these alternatives to policing, defunding the police. It feels like the conversations really swung in the opposite direction in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:19:04] \u003c/em>Yeah, it probably has swung in the opposite direction in a lot of places in the country. Yeah. But when you think about the conversations that were being had in 2020 and 2021 about, you know, having these alternatives to policing or, you know, even having hearings in City Hall about what defunding the police would look like, you know, Even though that didn’t happen, it was, you know, still something that city officials were talking about and considering. We are so far from that now. You know, the police budget has only increased. There has been a huge push towards public safety, you know, just as a rallying cry in San Francisco. Within the conversation of public safety. You know homelessness and drug use and mental health often gets wrapped into that. And, you know sometimes unfairly, sometimes not. But I think what we’ve seen is also more arrests for people who are refusing shelter or who are using drugs outside. Obviously, these peer responders were not only handling street-level issues, but I think that moving them off of these 911 calls does signal a return to the more traditional policing approach that we saw. Before these conversations were had.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>\u003cem>[00:20:41] \u003c/em>Well Sydney, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with me. I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "alameda-relies-on-bridge-tenders-for-safety-on-land-and-sea",
"title": "Alameda Relies on Bridge Tenders for Safety on Land and Sea",
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"headTitle": "Alameda Relies on Bridge Tenders for Safety on Land and Sea | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many people who travel to and from the city of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/alameda\">Alameda\u003c/a>, Sarah Reid, one day, found herself facing a bridge that was temporarily disconnected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Park Street Bridge, a forest green drawbridge, about the length of a football field, had split open, casting the four-lane bridge at a 70-degree angle in the air so a boat could pass underneath.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The opening and closing of Alameda’s drawbridges is a familiar ritual for people who travel to the Bay Area’s island city. Alameda is connected to the rest of the Bay Area by six bridges, as well as two underwater tunnels. All but two of the bridges are required to open 24 hours a day, sometimes on very short notice, in order to let ships travel down the Oakland Estuary, which separates Alameda and Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With nothing to do but to wait, Reid peered through her windshield and noticed a little tower connected to the bridge, with a room full of windows at the top. She wondered if someone was inside that room, and what they did up there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember wondering, does someone just sit there all day? And what is that like?” Reid said. “What’s a good day look like? What’s a bad day? What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070402\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070402\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The High Street Bridge begins to lift over the Oakland-Alameda Estuary on Jan. 15, 2026, in Alameda. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There was, in fact, a bridge tender in the control tower of the Park Street Bridge that day, just as there has been for decades. Bridge tenders are the workers responsible for safely opening and closing the bridges, so that people both on land and on water can move through the area. It’s a job that comes with life -or-death public safety risks, stunning views, ample alone time, and a strong connection to the history of the island city itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A public service job with risks\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“ It’s the best job in the world,” said John Williams, a bridge tender for Alameda County Public Works Agency, who has held the job for 16 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams was the bridge tender on duty at the Park Street Bridge on a sunny winter morning earlier this year. From his perch inside the control tower, Williams could see up and down the estuary, with Berkeley and downtown Oakland in the distance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12081386 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-08-KQED-3.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One end of the room is all business: with a control panel for operating the drawbridge, a maritime radio, security cameras, a log book and a laptop. In a corner of the other side of the room is a little kitchenette. On that particular day, there was a French press and an avocado sitting on the counter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the bridges are staffed 24/7, with bridge tenders working day, swing and graveyard shifts, each bridge control tower has its own kitchenette and bathroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams said the perks include beautiful sunsets, great wildlife viewing and dedicated colleagues. But he also takes pride in being a public servant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our first job is to make sure no one gets hurt while we’re operating these massive machines,” Williams said. “You could crush a car or kill somebody if you’re not following procedure properly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said being a bridge tender requires constant vigilance, ensuring nobody is in harm’s way when the bridge is moving. Still, there have been accidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People will run on the bridge while it’s moving, and I think twice we’ve had people run their cars through the barrier,” Williams said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s just the terrestrial side of his worries. The bridge also needs to be opened in a timely manner so that a boat doesn’t hit it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ll get a call and tug and barge is coming in with 20 tons of gravel, and a fat tide and wind behind them, and you have to open the bridge because it’s very hard for them to stop,” Williams said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Boats can schedule openings ahead of time or call to request one. The bridges don’t open during the morning and afternoon rush hour unless a boat captain makes an appointment at least two hours ahead of time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams is relaxed and friendly in his downtime at work, but when it comes time to open the bridge, he gets intensely focused. When opening the bridge, the first thing he does is open all the blinds in the control tower, so he has full visibility. He stops speaking to anyone else around so that he can concentrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He activates an alarm bell as he makes an announcement over a loudspeaker, telling the public to stand clear. Then he drops the gates that block the road and sidewalk leading to the bridge. He double and triple checks the security cameras and walks out on a little catwalk adjacent to the tower to verify that nobody is on the bridge. Then he initiates the opening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Metal locks underneath the bridge disconnect, an electric motor deep in the bowels below the bridge begins to whir, a massive counterweight sinks into a pit and the bridge begins to rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070399\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070399\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A flock of pigeons flies near the Park Street Bridge over the Oakland Estuary on Jan. 15, 2026, in Alameda. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For second-generation bridge tender Damon Wallace, it’s a special moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re these giant machines, and you don’t realize it until you’re up in the tower the first time and you press that button, and then your world starts to tilt sideways,” Wallace, whose father and uncle worked as bridge tenders, said as he gazed up at the bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a minute, you get to just sit there and watch this amazing, surreal thing happen right in front of you. It’s one of my favorite things,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the bridge reaches its apex, Williams repeats the process in reverse until the bridge is back together, and the traffic on the bridge resumes again.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The chaotic past of Alameda’s bridges\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ever since early European settlers founded the city of Alameda, its residents have had to navigate getting across the strip of water and marshland separating it from Oakland, and bridge tenders have been part of that history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem started in the 1870s when people on the west end of Alameda complained, ‘Oakland’s right there, we sure would like to get over there,” Alameda historian Dennis Evanosky said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12080794 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01913_TV.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Alameda wasn’t yet an island, but connected to Oakland by a marshy stretch of land at its eastern end. Years later, in 1902, the Army Corps of Engineers would finish work dredging that channel, flooding the area connecting Oakland’s inner harbor with San Leandro Bay, making Alameda an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, even before that, crossing the marshy stretch of land connecting it to Oakland wasn’t easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first bridge to connect Alameda to Oakland was the Webster Street bridge, built by Alameda County in 1871. It’s now long gone. And pretty much from the get-go, it had its fair share of tragedies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Webster Street Bridge was a disaster,” Evanosky said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t a drawbridge, but rather a swing bridge that could turn 90 degrees, out of the way of ship traffic. This was the design of most early Alameda bridges. Evanosky said it was hit by ships multiple times, and in 1900 was the site of a tragic train accident in which 13 people were killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Webster Street bridge couldn’t catch a break. It was destroyed and rebuilt three more times, and its successors were the site of more ship collisions, a fire, and an attempted bombing, according to Bernard C. Winn, the author of \u003cem>California Drawbridges\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County officials made the decision to dismantle the bridge in 1928, after the construction of the Webster Street Tube, an underwater tunnel connecting Oakland and Alameda, made it obsolete. This is the pattern most of Alameda’s bridges have followed. Some don’t exist anymore, but the ones that do have been rebuilt at least once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070403\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070403\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vincent Cerletti, the High Street Bridge operator with the Alameda County Public Works Agency, sits at the controls used to raise and lower the drawbridge over the Oakland-Alameda Estuary on Jan. 13, 2026, in Alameda. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But it hasn’t been all ship strikes and disasters. Alameda residents have had some fun along the way. Evanosky said early Alameda residents used to “ride the bridges,” clinging on as the bridges swung open and taking them for a ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People even did this on the current version of the Park Street Bridge. Clinging on as the drawbridge raised open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s pretty dangerous. So they put a stop to that,” Evanosky said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cities of Alameda and Oakland commemorated the opening of the current version of the Park Street Bridge in 1935, with a wedding between a woman from Alameda, Edith Bird, and a man from Oakland, Edward M. Drotloff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newspaper clippings from the time describe it as a huge party. There was a parade, marathon runners from Oakland, and the mayors of the two towns clasped hands as hundreds came out to see the new bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What it takes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the High Street Bridge control tower, just a half-mile down up the estuary from the Park Street Bridge, Vincent Cerletti strummed his ukulele in a moment of downtime during his shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ Part of the job is to stare out the window and the ukulele accompanies it pretty good,” Cerletti said. “You have to have somewhat of a little hobby to pass the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070401\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070401\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vincent Cerletti, the High Street Bridge operator, looks out from the bridge’s operator tower on Jan. 15, 2026, in Alameda. The Miller-Sweeney Bridge is visible in the distance. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He said other bridge tenders paint watercolors or fix small electronics between bridge openings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cerletti has been a bridge tender since 2014, and said the stability of working for Alameda County has been great, he said. But the job can get a little lonely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ You have to be able to be comfortable with yourself sitting up here too, because you can get go a little stir crazy being alone all the time,” Cerletti said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Generations of bridge tenders\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The work of being a bridge tender has seeped into Damon Wallace’s bones. Wallace fondly remembers moments from his youth, like when he greeted his father at the door in the morning after a graveyard shift, noticing the smell of oil, grease and work his father would bring home with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ I started working here and I was like, ‘oh, that’s that smell,’ I get it now,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070400\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070400\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steel beams and the roadway deck are seen as the Park Street Bridge lifts over the Oakland-Alameda Estuary on Jan. 15, 2026, in Alameda. The double-leaf bascule bridge spans 372 feet and is raised to about 70 degrees for most openings. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even the sound of rubber car tires driving on the bridges’ metal road deck, a sort of ever-present drone around the bridges, has become soothing for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ Over the years, I’ve gotten to actually look and put hands on these things and understand what they are for and why they’re here. My childhood became my adulthood, and my world got bigger somehow,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said he’s started to bring his children to work with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ It’s honest work, and it’s kind of a special thing, this sort of infrastructure, this kind of machinery, this sort of job,” Wallace said. “There’s not a lot of it left, and I’m proud to be part of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hey everyone! This is Bay Curious. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Crossing bridges can be essential to getting around the Bay Area. No matter what side of the water you live on, odds are, you’re probably going to use a bridge sooner than later. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And for the people who live, work or just hang out in the City of Alameda, crossing a bridge is almost non-negotiable. The island is connected to the rest of the Bay by six drawbridges, as well as two underwater tunnels, that span the Oakland Estuary. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When those bridges open to let a boat pass, everybody has to wait. One day, Sarah Reid was in her car, watching the Park Street bridge open, when she noticed a little room attached to one of the bridges. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sarah Reid:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I remember looking up at those little rooms wondering, does someone just sit up there all day? And what is that like, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She also wants to hear some stories …\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sarah Reid:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What’s a good day look like? What’s a bad da y? What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Turns out – yeah! There’s a bridge tender sitting in that little room 24/7. And they’ve seen a lot! KQED’s Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman has the story.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Cars on Bridge Noise\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Car tires hum against the steel deck of the Park Street Bridge. This hypnotic drone is the bridge’s soundtrack. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I grew up on these bridges. Um, the sound of the cars going overhead is, is soothing to me. It’s like a, it’s a comfort thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Damon Wallace, he’s a bridge utility worker for Alameda County’s Public Works Agency.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve been doing that for about two years, and prior to that I was a bridge tender. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bridge tenders are the people that operate Alameda’s drawbridges. It runs in his family, his father and his uncle both held the job when he was a kid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad 25 years. Uh, my uncle, uh, a little bit less than that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re standing in the machinery room underneath the Park Street Bridge…its a large concrete bunker full of tools and the giant electrical motor that opens and closes the bridge\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like a little Home Depot in here, just for the bridge, they’ve got everything they need to keep the bridge running which is essential because The Park Street Bridge is the busiest of Alameda’s bridges. Around 40,000 vehicles travel across its four lanes on an average weekday. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Up on the deck of the bridge, which is about the length of a football field we can see Berkeley, downtown Oakland, and ships at the Port of Oakland. We walk up to the bridge tower. It’s fixed on the Alameda side of the bridge, and almost looks like a little miniature clock tower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carl Speaker:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Knock, knock. Hello. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Come on up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carl Speaker:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> How you doing, John? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We head up a spiral staircase to the top floor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to Park Street Bridge, uh, Alameda County Public Works Agency. How you doing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">John Williams is the bridge tender on duty right now. He’s got a big white beard and his orange public works shirt tucked into his work pants. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s the best job in the world, you know, I mean, I, it’s really an excellent job \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The top floor is just one room with windows all around, giving the operator a 360 degree view of the bridge and the Oakland estuary. One end is all business: with a control panel for operating the drawbridge, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. There are a lot of big red buttons there, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">right? There are. And you don’t just randomly push them either. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, that’s too bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s also a maritime radio, security cameras, a log book and a laptop. In a corner of the other side of the room is a little kitchenette, there’s a french press and an avocado sitting on the counter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen a lot of wildlife out here over, over the years. You know, way l one time, lot of otters now and then, um, a lot of seabirds.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some great sunsets too. John says he found the job on Craigslist. Besides the perks, he says this job has some big responsibilities. Public safety is their number one concern. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Our first job is to make sure no one gets hurt while we’re operating these massive machines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A normal opening of the bridge splits the road deck in half, tons of concrete and steel lift into the sky at a 70 degree angle, about 143 feet in the air. The process requires constant vigilance and double, triple checking.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cause people will run on the bridge while it’s moving. They’ll go underneath the barriers. I think twice we’ve had people run their cars through the barrier. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s just keeping the PEOPLE safe. The bridge also needs to be opened in a timely manner so that a boat doesn’t hit it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You get a call and tug and barge is coming in with like, you know whatever, 20 tons of gravel, you know, with a, a fat tide behind them pushing ’em in, in wind, and you have to open the bridge. You can’t not open the bridge. It’s very hard for ’em to stop. Really hard for ’em to stop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All but two of Alameda’s drawbridges are staffed around the clock because ships, including the nearby Coast Guard base, need to be able to travel up and down the estuary at all hours. On a busy day, the Park Street bridge might open and close 14 different times. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I could be in a crowd of a thousand people and if somebody on the other side of that crowd said Park Street Bridge, I would hear them. Because I’m trained to hear it, you know, the radio call.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boats can schedule openings ahead of time, or just call to request one. The bridges don’t open during the morning and afternoon rush hour unless a boat makes an appointment\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">John comes off pretty relaxed and friendly, but when it comes time to open the bridge, he gets intensely focused. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right now, there isn’t a ship passing, this is an operational check, that the tenders do from time to time, to make sure everything is working as it should. John starts by opening all the blinds in the little tower room. He wants full visibility. And he stops talking to me. He says he needs to concentrate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">St and clear for bridge opening. Please stand clear for Park Street Bridge opening\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First he drops the gates and barriers to keep cars and pedestrians off the bridge, and makes sure all the traffic is stopped. Then he walks out on a little catwalk extending out from the tower, and double checks that nobody is in harms way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sounds of birds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just then, recordings of birds play underneath the bridge, in an attempt to shoo nesting pigeons away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then it gets pretty quiet. The hum of traffic stops, and the bridge begins to rise. You can hear the electrical motors whirring. For Damon, the second generation bridge worker, it’s a special moment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s these giant machines, and you don’t realize they’re machines until you’re up in the tower the first time and you press that button and the your world starts to tilt sideways.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says there’s something magical about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For a minute you get to just sit there and watch this amazing, surreal thing happened right in front of you. And it’s, it’s, it’s one of my favorite things, you know? It always has been. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With the bridge sticking straight up in the air, John checks again before letting it down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Okay, you guys. All right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voices: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">good!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then, John guides the bridge slowly back down, metal locks click back together underneath the road deck, and the traffic starts again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s clear the bridge tenders are essential. But in this world of technological innovation, especially artificial intelligence, I wonder, how much longer will these jobs be around? I put that question to John Medlock, he’s the Deputy Director of Maintenance Operation for Alameda County, PublicWorks Agency.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Medlock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At some point in time, you know, maybe, maybe everything needs to be replaced. We’ll probably find new technology or, or new way of spanning the, uh, the estuary. But right now that’s what we have and love it or hate it. If that’s what we have. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He thinks the bridge tenders, will be around for the foreseeable future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When we return – some history of these drawbridges. And the unique ways bridge tenders pass the time. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Nowadays Alameda’s bridges are a reliable way to get on and off the island. But it wasn’t always that way. Here’s Azul again…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ever since early European settlers founded the city of Alameda, its residents have had to navigate getting across the strip of water and marshland … separating it from Oakland. And bridge tenders have been part of that history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The problem started in, in the, in the 1870s when people on the west end of Alameda complained, ‘Boy Oakland’s right over there. We’d like to get over there.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s historian Dennis Evanosky. The first bridge to connect Alameda to what’s now Oakland was the Webster Street bridge, built by Alameda County in 1871. It’s now long gone. And pretty much from the get go, it had its fair share of tragedies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Webster Street Bridge was a disaster. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It wasn’t a drawbridge, but rather a swing bridge, that could turn 90 degrees, out of the way of ship traffic. This was the design of most early Alameda bridges. But Evanosky says it was hit by ships multiple times, and in 1900 was the site of a tragic train accident. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They misunderstood a signal and, and the, the whole train dumped into the estuary.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thirteen people were killed. The Webster Street bridge couldn’t catch a break. It was destroyed and rebuilt 3 more times, and its successors were the site of more ship collisions, a fire, and an attempted bombing. The bridge was dismantled for the last time, shortly after the construction of the Webster Street Tube in 1928., the tube is an underwater tunnel connecting Oakland and Alameda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s kind of the story of all of Alameda’s bridges. Some don’t exist anymore, but the ones that do have been rebuilt, at least once.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So each of the bridges has two lives. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it hasn’t been all ship strikes and disasters. Alameda residents have had some fun along the way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then the people, uh, who, who were really close by when they heard the boat toot for permission, they’d all run down there and they’d ride the bridge.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…Climbing on the bridge as it swung open and taking it for a ride. People even did this on the current version of the park street bridge. Clinging on as the drawbridge raised open. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s pretty dangerous. So they, they, they put a stop to that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The cities of Alameda and Oakland commemorated the opening of the latest Park Street Bridge in 1935, with a wedding between a woman from Alameda and a man from Oakland.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice over reading newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Miss Edith Bird of Alameda became Mrs. Edward M. Drotloff of Oakland yesterday afternoon. The ceremony that united them as they stood at the site of the newly-completed Park Street Bridge symbolized the uniting of the two cities by the huge structure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a huge party. There was a parade, marathon runners from oakland, and the mayors of the two towns clasped hands as hundreds came out to see the new bridge. The same one that stands today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, there are 14 bridge tenders that work the Alameda bridges, and they switch between all 6 of the bridges. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I go to visit the High Street Bridge, Vincent Cerletti is the bridge tender on duty. He’s wearing orange alameda county coveralls, and a psychedelic trucker hat for a disc golf supply company. This bridge sees less traffic, so has a calmer vibe.. Across the water I can see houseboats bobbing up and down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There’s a lot going on out there. It’s peaceful. The birds. Oh man. When you get these huge flocks that come flying in here and settle into the estuary, it’s like a, like a painting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vincent has been a bridge tender for more than ten years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the first regular thing that I got into that gave me a stability working for the county, which has been awesome. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he’s seen some things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Like a guy with a couch once came down with a, a, you know, like the small little trolling motor on the back? I think he was floating on, on a piece of a dock with a couch on it. A little motor. He’s fishing. He was having a good time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says that in order to be a bridge tender, you have to be ok with spending a lot of time by yourself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Some guys paint, paint, little, uh, pictures, you know, watercolors of the boats and stuff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says one bridge tender fixes electronics to pass the time. Vincent, likes to bring his Ukelele. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah. So I just, uh, yeah. Sit here and.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>(Ukelele Music)\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when you’re here on like, you know, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve and Thanksgiving, I worked all those holidays this year. I dunno, you gotta have somewhat of a little hobby to pass the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you ever feel lonely? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sure. Yeah, it’s kind of hard to have a relationship if you’re doing graveyards, you know, seven nights of the month and you’re on swing shift. So you take off at two o’clock and get home at 11. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being a bridge tender can be tough, but its also rewarding. Here’s Damon, the bridge tender we heard from in the beginning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace: \u003c/b>It’s honest work. It’s, uh, and it’s kind of a special thing, these sort of infrastructure, this kind of machinery, this sort of job. It, it does. There’s not a lot of it left, and, uh, I’m proud to be part of it. I am.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says he’s started to bring his kids to work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was KQED’s Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you want to learn more about Alameda, including how it isn’t actually a natural island – hit up our show notes where we’ve linked some other Bay Curious episodes you might enjoy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is gearing up for KQED Fest – an all-day open house at KQED’s headquarters in San Francisco. It’s a block party with educational activities, live music, food, and more! I’ll be doing a fireside chat about how we make Bay Curious at 11:15 a.m. Tickets are free, but you do need to register. You can do it at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/live\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED.org/live\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made by Christopher Beale, Katrina Schwartz and me Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We get extra support from Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on Team KQED.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our show is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Big thanks to all our members out there who help keep Bay Curious going. If you aren’t a member yet – please consider joining at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a good one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Alameda’s bridge tenders work around the clock ensuring safe travel around the Bay Area’s island city. The job comes with some great perks and serious consequences. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many people who travel to and from the city of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/alameda\">Alameda\u003c/a>, Sarah Reid, one day, found herself facing a bridge that was temporarily disconnected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Park Street Bridge, a forest green drawbridge, about the length of a football field, had split open, casting the four-lane bridge at a 70-degree angle in the air so a boat could pass underneath.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The opening and closing of Alameda’s drawbridges is a familiar ritual for people who travel to the Bay Area’s island city. Alameda is connected to the rest of the Bay Area by six bridges, as well as two underwater tunnels. All but two of the bridges are required to open 24 hours a day, sometimes on very short notice, in order to let ships travel down the Oakland Estuary, which separates Alameda and Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With nothing to do but to wait, Reid peered through her windshield and noticed a little tower connected to the bridge, with a room full of windows at the top. She wondered if someone was inside that room, and what they did up there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember wondering, does someone just sit there all day? And what is that like?” Reid said. “What’s a good day look like? What’s a bad day? What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070402\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070402\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_020-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The High Street Bridge begins to lift over the Oakland-Alameda Estuary on Jan. 15, 2026, in Alameda. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There was, in fact, a bridge tender in the control tower of the Park Street Bridge that day, just as there has been for decades. Bridge tenders are the workers responsible for safely opening and closing the bridges, so that people both on land and on water can move through the area. It’s a job that comes with life -or-death public safety risks, stunning views, ample alone time, and a strong connection to the history of the island city itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A public service job with risks\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“ It’s the best job in the world,” said John Williams, a bridge tender for Alameda County Public Works Agency, who has held the job for 16 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams was the bridge tender on duty at the Park Street Bridge on a sunny winter morning earlier this year. From his perch inside the control tower, Williams could see up and down the estuary, with Berkeley and downtown Oakland in the distance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One end of the room is all business: with a control panel for operating the drawbridge, a maritime radio, security cameras, a log book and a laptop. In a corner of the other side of the room is a little kitchenette. On that particular day, there was a French press and an avocado sitting on the counter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the bridges are staffed 24/7, with bridge tenders working day, swing and graveyard shifts, each bridge control tower has its own kitchenette and bathroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams said the perks include beautiful sunsets, great wildlife viewing and dedicated colleagues. But he also takes pride in being a public servant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our first job is to make sure no one gets hurt while we’re operating these massive machines,” Williams said. “You could crush a car or kill somebody if you’re not following procedure properly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said being a bridge tender requires constant vigilance, ensuring nobody is in harm’s way when the bridge is moving. Still, there have been accidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People will run on the bridge while it’s moving, and I think twice we’ve had people run their cars through the barrier,” Williams said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s just the terrestrial side of his worries. The bridge also needs to be opened in a timely manner so that a boat doesn’t hit it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ll get a call and tug and barge is coming in with 20 tons of gravel, and a fat tide and wind behind them, and you have to open the bridge because it’s very hard for them to stop,” Williams said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Boats can schedule openings ahead of time or call to request one. The bridges don’t open during the morning and afternoon rush hour unless a boat captain makes an appointment at least two hours ahead of time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams is relaxed and friendly in his downtime at work, but when it comes time to open the bridge, he gets intensely focused. When opening the bridge, the first thing he does is open all the blinds in the control tower, so he has full visibility. He stops speaking to anyone else around so that he can concentrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He activates an alarm bell as he makes an announcement over a loudspeaker, telling the public to stand clear. Then he drops the gates that block the road and sidewalk leading to the bridge. He double and triple checks the security cameras and walks out on a little catwalk adjacent to the tower to verify that nobody is on the bridge. Then he initiates the opening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Metal locks underneath the bridge disconnect, an electric motor deep in the bowels below the bridge begins to whir, a massive counterweight sinks into a pit and the bridge begins to rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070399\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070399\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_008-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A flock of pigeons flies near the Park Street Bridge over the Oakland Estuary on Jan. 15, 2026, in Alameda. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For second-generation bridge tender Damon Wallace, it’s a special moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re these giant machines, and you don’t realize it until you’re up in the tower the first time and you press that button, and then your world starts to tilt sideways,” Wallace, whose father and uncle worked as bridge tenders, said as he gazed up at the bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a minute, you get to just sit there and watch this amazing, surreal thing happen right in front of you. It’s one of my favorite things,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the bridge reaches its apex, Williams repeats the process in reverse until the bridge is back together, and the traffic on the bridge resumes again.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The chaotic past of Alameda’s bridges\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ever since early European settlers founded the city of Alameda, its residents have had to navigate getting across the strip of water and marshland separating it from Oakland, and bridge tenders have been part of that history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem started in the 1870s when people on the west end of Alameda complained, ‘Oakland’s right there, we sure would like to get over there,” Alameda historian Dennis Evanosky said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Alameda wasn’t yet an island, but connected to Oakland by a marshy stretch of land at its eastern end. Years later, in 1902, the Army Corps of Engineers would finish work dredging that channel, flooding the area connecting Oakland’s inner harbor with San Leandro Bay, making Alameda an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, even before that, crossing the marshy stretch of land connecting it to Oakland wasn’t easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first bridge to connect Alameda to Oakland was the Webster Street bridge, built by Alameda County in 1871. It’s now long gone. And pretty much from the get-go, it had its fair share of tragedies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Webster Street Bridge was a disaster,” Evanosky said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t a drawbridge, but rather a swing bridge that could turn 90 degrees, out of the way of ship traffic. This was the design of most early Alameda bridges. Evanosky said it was hit by ships multiple times, and in 1900 was the site of a tragic train accident in which 13 people were killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Webster Street bridge couldn’t catch a break. It was destroyed and rebuilt three more times, and its successors were the site of more ship collisions, a fire, and an attempted bombing, according to Bernard C. Winn, the author of \u003cem>California Drawbridges\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County officials made the decision to dismantle the bridge in 1928, after the construction of the Webster Street Tube, an underwater tunnel connecting Oakland and Alameda, made it obsolete. This is the pattern most of Alameda’s bridges have followed. Some don’t exist anymore, but the ones that do have been rebuilt at least once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070403\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070403\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_021-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vincent Cerletti, the High Street Bridge operator with the Alameda County Public Works Agency, sits at the controls used to raise and lower the drawbridge over the Oakland-Alameda Estuary on Jan. 13, 2026, in Alameda. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But it hasn’t been all ship strikes and disasters. Alameda residents have had some fun along the way. Evanosky said early Alameda residents used to “ride the bridges,” clinging on as the bridges swung open and taking them for a ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People even did this on the current version of the Park Street Bridge. Clinging on as the drawbridge raised open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s pretty dangerous. So they put a stop to that,” Evanosky said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cities of Alameda and Oakland commemorated the opening of the current version of the Park Street Bridge in 1935, with a wedding between a woman from Alameda, Edith Bird, and a man from Oakland, Edward M. Drotloff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newspaper clippings from the time describe it as a huge party. There was a parade, marathon runners from Oakland, and the mayors of the two towns clasped hands as hundreds came out to see the new bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What it takes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the High Street Bridge control tower, just a half-mile down up the estuary from the Park Street Bridge, Vincent Cerletti strummed his ukulele in a moment of downtime during his shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ Part of the job is to stare out the window and the ukulele accompanies it pretty good,” Cerletti said. “You have to have somewhat of a little hobby to pass the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070401\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070401\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_018-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vincent Cerletti, the High Street Bridge operator, looks out from the bridge’s operator tower on Jan. 15, 2026, in Alameda. The Miller-Sweeney Bridge is visible in the distance. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He said other bridge tenders paint watercolors or fix small electronics between bridge openings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cerletti has been a bridge tender since 2014, and said the stability of working for Alameda County has been great, he said. But the job can get a little lonely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ You have to be able to be comfortable with yourself sitting up here too, because you can get go a little stir crazy being alone all the time,” Cerletti said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Generations of bridge tenders\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The work of being a bridge tender has seeped into Damon Wallace’s bones. Wallace fondly remembers moments from his youth, like when he greeted his father at the door in the morning after a graveyard shift, noticing the smell of oil, grease and work his father would bring home with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ I started working here and I was like, ‘oh, that’s that smell,’ I get it now,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12070400\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12070400\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/011526_ALAMEDABRIDGES_GH_013-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steel beams and the roadway deck are seen as the Park Street Bridge lifts over the Oakland-Alameda Estuary on Jan. 15, 2026, in Alameda. The double-leaf bascule bridge spans 372 feet and is raised to about 70 degrees for most openings. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even the sound of rubber car tires driving on the bridges’ metal road deck, a sort of ever-present drone around the bridges, has become soothing for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ Over the years, I’ve gotten to actually look and put hands on these things and understand what they are for and why they’re here. My childhood became my adulthood, and my world got bigger somehow,” Wallace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said he’s started to bring his children to work with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ It’s honest work, and it’s kind of a special thing, this sort of infrastructure, this kind of machinery, this sort of job,” Wallace said. “There’s not a lot of it left, and I’m proud to be part of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hey everyone! This is Bay Curious. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Crossing bridges can be essential to getting around the Bay Area. No matter what side of the water you live on, odds are, you’re probably going to use a bridge sooner than later. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And for the people who live, work or just hang out in the City of Alameda, crossing a bridge is almost non-negotiable. The island is connected to the rest of the Bay by six drawbridges, as well as two underwater tunnels, that span the Oakland Estuary. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When those bridges open to let a boat pass, everybody has to wait. One day, Sarah Reid was in her car, watching the Park Street bridge open, when she noticed a little room attached to one of the bridges. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sarah Reid:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I remember looking up at those little rooms wondering, does someone just sit up there all day? And what is that like, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She also wants to hear some stories …\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sarah Reid:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What’s a good day look like? What’s a bad da y? What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Turns out – yeah! There’s a bridge tender sitting in that little room 24/7. And they’ve seen a lot! KQED’s Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman has the story.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Cars on Bridge Noise\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Car tires hum against the steel deck of the Park Street Bridge. This hypnotic drone is the bridge’s soundtrack. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I grew up on these bridges. Um, the sound of the cars going overhead is, is soothing to me. It’s like a, it’s a comfort thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Damon Wallace, he’s a bridge utility worker for Alameda County’s Public Works Agency.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve been doing that for about two years, and prior to that I was a bridge tender. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bridge tenders are the people that operate Alameda’s drawbridges. It runs in his family, his father and his uncle both held the job when he was a kid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad 25 years. Uh, my uncle, uh, a little bit less than that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re standing in the machinery room underneath the Park Street Bridge…its a large concrete bunker full of tools and the giant electrical motor that opens and closes the bridge\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like a little Home Depot in here, just for the bridge, they’ve got everything they need to keep the bridge running which is essential because The Park Street Bridge is the busiest of Alameda’s bridges. Around 40,000 vehicles travel across its four lanes on an average weekday. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Up on the deck of the bridge, which is about the length of a football field we can see Berkeley, downtown Oakland, and ships at the Port of Oakland. We walk up to the bridge tower. It’s fixed on the Alameda side of the bridge, and almost looks like a little miniature clock tower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carl Speaker:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Knock, knock. Hello. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Come on up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carl Speaker:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> How you doing, John? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We head up a spiral staircase to the top floor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to Park Street Bridge, uh, Alameda County Public Works Agency. How you doing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">John Williams is the bridge tender on duty right now. He’s got a big white beard and his orange public works shirt tucked into his work pants. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s the best job in the world, you know, I mean, I, it’s really an excellent job \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The top floor is just one room with windows all around, giving the operator a 360 degree view of the bridge and the Oakland estuary. One end is all business: with a control panel for operating the drawbridge, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. There are a lot of big red buttons there, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">right? There are. And you don’t just randomly push them either. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, that’s too bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s also a maritime radio, security cameras, a log book and a laptop. In a corner of the other side of the room is a little kitchenette, there’s a french press and an avocado sitting on the counter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen a lot of wildlife out here over, over the years. You know, way l one time, lot of otters now and then, um, a lot of seabirds.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some great sunsets too. John says he found the job on Craigslist. Besides the perks, he says this job has some big responsibilities. Public safety is their number one concern. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Our first job is to make sure no one gets hurt while we’re operating these massive machines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A normal opening of the bridge splits the road deck in half, tons of concrete and steel lift into the sky at a 70 degree angle, about 143 feet in the air. The process requires constant vigilance and double, triple checking.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cause people will run on the bridge while it’s moving. They’ll go underneath the barriers. I think twice we’ve had people run their cars through the barrier. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s just keeping the PEOPLE safe. The bridge also needs to be opened in a timely manner so that a boat doesn’t hit it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You get a call and tug and barge is coming in with like, you know whatever, 20 tons of gravel, you know, with a, a fat tide behind them pushing ’em in, in wind, and you have to open the bridge. You can’t not open the bridge. It’s very hard for ’em to stop. Really hard for ’em to stop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All but two of Alameda’s drawbridges are staffed around the clock because ships, including the nearby Coast Guard base, need to be able to travel up and down the estuary at all hours. On a busy day, the Park Street bridge might open and close 14 different times. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I could be in a crowd of a thousand people and if somebody on the other side of that crowd said Park Street Bridge, I would hear them. Because I’m trained to hear it, you know, the radio call.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boats can schedule openings ahead of time, or just call to request one. The bridges don’t open during the morning and afternoon rush hour unless a boat makes an appointment\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">John comes off pretty relaxed and friendly, but when it comes time to open the bridge, he gets intensely focused. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right now, there isn’t a ship passing, this is an operational check, that the tenders do from time to time, to make sure everything is working as it should. John starts by opening all the blinds in the little tower room. He wants full visibility. And he stops talking to me. He says he needs to concentrate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">St and clear for bridge opening. Please stand clear for Park Street Bridge opening\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First he drops the gates and barriers to keep cars and pedestrians off the bridge, and makes sure all the traffic is stopped. Then he walks out on a little catwalk extending out from the tower, and double checks that nobody is in harms way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sounds of birds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just then, recordings of birds play underneath the bridge, in an attempt to shoo nesting pigeons away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then it gets pretty quiet. The hum of traffic stops, and the bridge begins to rise. You can hear the electrical motors whirring. For Damon, the second generation bridge worker, it’s a special moment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s these giant machines, and you don’t realize they’re machines until you’re up in the tower the first time and you press that button and the your world starts to tilt sideways.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says there’s something magical about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For a minute you get to just sit there and watch this amazing, surreal thing happened right in front of you. And it’s, it’s, it’s one of my favorite things, you know? It always has been. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With the bridge sticking straight up in the air, John checks again before letting it down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Okay, you guys. All right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voices: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">good!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then, John guides the bridge slowly back down, metal locks click back together underneath the road deck, and the traffic starts again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s clear the bridge tenders are essential. But in this world of technological innovation, especially artificial intelligence, I wonder, how much longer will these jobs be around? I put that question to John Medlock, he’s the Deputy Director of Maintenance Operation for Alameda County, PublicWorks Agency.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Medlock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At some point in time, you know, maybe, maybe everything needs to be replaced. We’ll probably find new technology or, or new way of spanning the, uh, the estuary. But right now that’s what we have and love it or hate it. If that’s what we have. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He thinks the bridge tenders, will be around for the foreseeable future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When we return – some history of these drawbridges. And the unique ways bridge tenders pass the time. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Nowadays Alameda’s bridges are a reliable way to get on and off the island. But it wasn’t always that way. Here’s Azul again…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ever since early European settlers founded the city of Alameda, its residents have had to navigate getting across the strip of water and marshland … separating it from Oakland. And bridge tenders have been part of that history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The problem started in, in the, in the 1870s when people on the west end of Alameda complained, ‘Boy Oakland’s right over there. We’d like to get over there.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s historian Dennis Evanosky. The first bridge to connect Alameda to what’s now Oakland was the Webster Street bridge, built by Alameda County in 1871. It’s now long gone. And pretty much from the get go, it had its fair share of tragedies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Webster Street Bridge was a disaster. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It wasn’t a drawbridge, but rather a swing bridge, that could turn 90 degrees, out of the way of ship traffic. This was the design of most early Alameda bridges. But Evanosky says it was hit by ships multiple times, and in 1900 was the site of a tragic train accident. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They misunderstood a signal and, and the, the whole train dumped into the estuary.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thirteen people were killed. The Webster Street bridge couldn’t catch a break. It was destroyed and rebuilt 3 more times, and its successors were the site of more ship collisions, a fire, and an attempted bombing. The bridge was dismantled for the last time, shortly after the construction of the Webster Street Tube in 1928., the tube is an underwater tunnel connecting Oakland and Alameda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s kind of the story of all of Alameda’s bridges. Some don’t exist anymore, but the ones that do have been rebuilt, at least once.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So each of the bridges has two lives. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it hasn’t been all ship strikes and disasters. Alameda residents have had some fun along the way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then the people, uh, who, who were really close by when they heard the boat toot for permission, they’d all run down there and they’d ride the bridge.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…Climbing on the bridge as it swung open and taking it for a ride. People even did this on the current version of the park street bridge. Clinging on as the drawbridge raised open. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s pretty dangerous. So they, they, they put a stop to that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The cities of Alameda and Oakland commemorated the opening of the latest Park Street Bridge in 1935, with a wedding between a woman from Alameda and a man from Oakland.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice over reading newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Miss Edith Bird of Alameda became Mrs. Edward M. Drotloff of Oakland yesterday afternoon. The ceremony that united them as they stood at the site of the newly-completed Park Street Bridge symbolized the uniting of the two cities by the huge structure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a huge party. There was a parade, marathon runners from oakland, and the mayors of the two towns clasped hands as hundreds came out to see the new bridge. The same one that stands today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, there are 14 bridge tenders that work the Alameda bridges, and they switch between all 6 of the bridges. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I go to visit the High Street Bridge, Vincent Cerletti is the bridge tender on duty. He’s wearing orange alameda county coveralls, and a psychedelic trucker hat for a disc golf supply company. This bridge sees less traffic, so has a calmer vibe.. Across the water I can see houseboats bobbing up and down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There’s a lot going on out there. It’s peaceful. The birds. Oh man. When you get these huge flocks that come flying in here and settle into the estuary, it’s like a, like a painting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vincent has been a bridge tender for more than ten years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the first regular thing that I got into that gave me a stability working for the county, which has been awesome. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he’s seen some things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Like a guy with a couch once came down with a, a, you know, like the small little trolling motor on the back? I think he was floating on, on a piece of a dock with a couch on it. A little motor. He’s fishing. He was having a good time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says that in order to be a bridge tender, you have to be ok with spending a lot of time by yourself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Some guys paint, paint, little, uh, pictures, you know, watercolors of the boats and stuff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says one bridge tender fixes electronics to pass the time. Vincent, likes to bring his Ukelele. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah. So I just, uh, yeah. Sit here and.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>(Ukelele Music)\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when you’re here on like, you know, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve and Thanksgiving, I worked all those holidays this year. I dunno, you gotta have somewhat of a little hobby to pass the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you ever feel lonely? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vincent Cerletti:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sure. Yeah, it’s kind of hard to have a relationship if you’re doing graveyards, you know, seven nights of the month and you’re on swing shift. So you take off at two o’clock and get home at 11. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being a bridge tender can be tough, but its also rewarding. Here’s Damon, the bridge tender we heard from in the beginning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Damon Wallace: \u003c/b>It’s honest work. It’s, uh, and it’s kind of a special thing, these sort of infrastructure, this kind of machinery, this sort of job. It, it does. There’s not a lot of it left, and, uh, I’m proud to be part of it. I am.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says he’s started to bring his kids to work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was KQED’s Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you want to learn more about Alameda, including how it isn’t actually a natural island – hit up our show notes where we’ve linked some other Bay Curious episodes you might enjoy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is gearing up for KQED Fest – an all-day open house at KQED’s headquarters in San Francisco. It’s a block party with educational activities, live music, food, and more! I’ll be doing a fireside chat about how we make Bay Curious at 11:15 a.m. Tickets are free, but you do need to register. You can do it at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/live\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED.org/live\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made by Christopher Beale, Katrina Schwartz and me Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We get extra support from Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on Team KQED.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our show is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Big thanks to all our members out there who help keep Bay Curious going. If you aren’t a member yet – please consider joining at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a good one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Why It’s Taking Concord Decades to Turn a Former Bomb Site into a Neighborhood",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suzanne Howard loves living in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/east-bay\">Walnut Creek\u003c/a>. She said it’s safe, walkable and she bikes everywhere. The only downside? She lives right next to a 12-lane freeway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[I’m] super thankful to have a house, but… noise pollution is a little much,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day, Howard was daydreaming about living near open space and started looking around online for places that fit the bill. Is it even possible to buy a house in the East Bay next to undeveloped land?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there, in Concord, behind a local high school, was a swath of green rolling hills big enough to accommodate a new airport. When she zoomed in, she saw puzzling features, grass mounds in a grid pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What is this?” she wondered to herself. “Could we build housing there? It’s prime real estate, why not?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those grassy mounds in a grid pattern are huge concrete bunkers, wider than a train car, used by the Navy for more than 60 years to store weapons, bombs and ammunition.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What happened at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dozens of these ammunition bunkers, grass-covered trapezoids poking up from the landscape, are what’s known as “bunker city,” just one part of a 5,000-acre inland section of a military base called the Concord Naval Weapons Station. The storage units are empty now, but they once stored the weapons of war that the Navy needed to fight wars from the 1940s all the way through the \u003ca href=\"https://www.history.com/articles/persian-gulf-war\">1991 Gulf War\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Railroads connected this inland base to the bay where artillery was loaded onto warships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081249\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081249\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathy Gleason looks through her back fence at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station in Concord on April 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“In years gone by, we could hear trains moving at night out there,” said Kathy Gleason, who moved next to the Naval base back in 1974. “They were moving munitions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though Kathy’s backyard is separated from bunker city by just two fences, you can’t tell she lives next to a military site. By design, the mounds blend into the lush green landscape to camouflage them from enemies coming by air or by foot. Besides the mounds, there aren’t many buildings. And it has always been relatively quiet here, with vistas of sheep and cattle grazing. That’s what drew her here in the first place, 50 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We used to see tule elk roaming around,” Gleason said. “Now we see turkeys, we hear coyotes, we’ll see deer every now and then. It’s pretty peaceful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in 2005, everything changed. The Concord Naval Weapons Station closed, as part of a federal initiative — the Base Realignment and Closure process (BRAC) — to cut military costs and adapt to new systems of warfare. Through BRAC, hundreds of military sites shuttered nationwide, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022479/why-are-there-so-many-abandoned-military-bases-in-the-bay-area\">dozens in the Bay Area\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12080794 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01913_TV.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immediately, the city of Concord started making plans for redevelopment. The 5,200 acres behind Gleason’s house would change hands. She feared a big developer would swoop in to turn it into a metropolis, and before that, a big, noisy construction zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all kind of panicked,” Gleason said. “We wanted our peace and quiet, and we were concerned about what’s in the soil. What’s going to happen with that when they develop?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gleason became a key organizer in the Concord Naval Weapons Station Neighborhood Alliance, which tabled at farmers markets, knocked on doors, and showed up at city planning meetings advocating to keep the weapons station land untouched and open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were like the old town people that went down Main Street with pitchforks and torches. We were so angry,” Gleason said about their organizing efforts back in 2006.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We told them, we are not going away. We want this preserved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Reenvisioning ‘Bunker City’ \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Twenty years later, all the peace and quiet that the Concord Neighborhood Alliance wanted is still there. Not a single permanent structure has been built on the former weapons base yet. What’s the holdup?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, the city went through a seven-year process of engaging residents to come up with a master vision for the site. It culminated in \u003ca href=\"https://concordreuseproject.org/152/The-Area-Plan\">the 2012 area plan\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081257\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081257\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Josh Roden, a developer at Brookfield Residential working with the city of Concord to redevelop the Concord Naval Weapons Station, stands on a hillside overlooking the former naval base in Concord on April 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All the while, there was a lot of cleanup and bureaucracy. The Navy had to remove \u003ca href=\"https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0902778\">arsenic and lead\u003c/a> from the soil and groundwater. The city had contracts with two developers before the current one. One \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/labor-dispute-stalls-redevelopment-of-concord-naval-weapons-station/2210946/\">jumped ship,\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/deal-for-planned-development-at-concord-naval-weapons-station-collapses/\">one was booted\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the slow and deliberate pace the Navy and city have been on is not necessarily a bad thing, the current master developer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Concord did a really good job of engaging the entire community,” said Josh Roden, president of Brookfield Northern California, which is \u003ca href=\"https://concordreuseproject.org/\">managing the redevelopment of the site\u003c/a>. “It’s a lot of work and effort, and it can be a little painful to manage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roden’s team is now tasked with implementing the specifics of the 2012 general plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like building a small city,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concord residents expect 12,000 residential units, which is roughly equivalent to the nearby town of Pleasant Hill, home to 34,000 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six million square feet are earmarked for retail, office and institutional space, and businesses such as hotels and restaurants, which will be most dense near the North Concord Bart Station. That’s more space than the footprint of Disneyland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There will be a sports complex and city park, stretching over 175 acres, and a higher education campus, like a college or technical school, along with elementary and middle schools. Fire and police stations will be built, as well as a food bank, and a pedestrian path along Mount Diablo Creek.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plans are grand and exciting, but Concord residents will have to wait a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roden said construction won’t break ground until 2030, and it will probably be “a 40-year build out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first phase includes housing near the North Concord BART station. Residents can expect more electric vehicle infrastructure, denser housing, and retail space blended with other leisure activities. How quickly it all moves along depends on the health of the economy, Roden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081248\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081248\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathy Gleason’s home abuts the former Concord Naval Weapons Station in Concord on April 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Open space advocates like Kathy Gleason have already had a notable win. Half of the inland naval base — roughly 2,500 acres, has already been handed over to East Bay Regional Parks. \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/thurgood-marshall-regional-park-home-port-chicago-50\">Thurgood Marshall Regional Park\u003c/a> is not yet open to the public, but when it does, visitors will be able to see the ammunition bunkers during historic tours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We put years of our time into preserving what we can out here,” said Gleason, who also said she now understands that housing is a critical need in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Let’s make it as good as we can for future generations. And that’s the best we can do,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suzanne Howard of Walnut Creek said she’s glad the Concord housing development will be near open space. She just hopes she’s alive when it all comes to fruition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s kind of scary how long it takes,” she said. But sometimes, “good things take time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey everyone! This is Bay Curious — the podcast that answers listener questions about the San Francisco Bay Area.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We recently got a question from a woman named Suzanne Howard. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She bought a house with her husband in Walnut Creek two years ago and she loves the place. How it feels safe and walkable to lots of shops. They bike everywhere. But one thing gives Suzanne a little buyer’s remorse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s right next to the 12 lane freeway. It’s super noisy, super thankful to have a house, but like quality of life noise pollution is a little much.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One day, Suzanne was feeling curious, and she started studying online maps, looking for open space in the East Bay. Where could more housing be built near her that might offer a little more peace and quiet?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I found as I zoomed out, I saw east of Concord High School green open fields, gorgeous greenery hillside, some streets. And then little mounds, little grass mounds which, all in a grid pattern. What is this thing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Five thousand acres of open space with seemingly nothing going on. It wasn’t a park or anything. Just a big open area and those mounds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Could we build housing there? It’s prime real estate, why not? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m Olivia Allen-Price. On today’s episode, we asked KQED’s Pauline Bartolone to scout out that area behind Concord High School. What are those grassy mounds in a grid pattern? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’ll give you a hint, it’s not a cemetery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ok. Is it open to the public? Can I go on a walk there? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Well, right now, no. In a few years, probably.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What about Suzanne’s question, could housing be built there?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yes, actually that’s in the works, we’ll get to more on that in a minute. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ok, so tell me what you saw when you went out there? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well I found someone who lives right near Concord High School, and those 5,000 acres of rolling hills are right behind her house. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> My name is Kathy Gleason. We’re in Concord in my backyard, and looking at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Concord Naval Weapons Station. That property our listener Suzanne saw on the map, belongs to the Navy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During World War 2, the navy stored tons of explosives here in huge concrete bunkers camouflaged with earth to look like grassy hills. Those are the mounds Suzanne saw on the map. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Go ahead. You can see the bunkers back there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over a hundred concrete weapons storage units here supplied bullets, missiles, bombs, anything the military needed for combat all the way up to the first Gulf War. Railroads connected this inland base to the Bay where artillery was loaded onto warships. When Kathy moved here in 1974, it was active.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In years gone by, we could hear trains moving at night out there. So they were moving munitions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kathy says she loves living next to a weapons base… because.. it’s quiet. Those ammo bunker mounds…. they’re empty now… and they blend into the lush green landscape… And there aren’t many other buildings there. She says it’s always been pretty calm, part of what drew her here in the first place 50 years ago. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Who wouldn’t like this in their backyard? You can hear that plane, but other than that it’s pretty quiet. When we first moved in, there were a lot of sheep out there. There’s still a lot of cattle out there grazing. So we used to see tule elk roaming around, now we see turkeys, we hear coyotes, we’ll see deer every now and then. It’s pretty peaceful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Then Concord residents got news that could change everything. The weapons station would close in 2005. This huge swath of open land, roughly the size of San Francisco International airport, was going to change hands. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We all kind of panicked. All the neighbors along here kind of panic.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They worried a developer would swoop in and build a metropolis, a big noisy construction project.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We wanted our peace and quiet, and we were concerned about what’s in the soil. What’s going to happen with that when they develop? And the noise and everything that would go with developing a project this big, this is huge.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Concord Naval Weapons Station closure was part of a federal project to cut military costs. It was called BRAC, the Base Realignment and Closure process. Hundreds of military sites shuttered nationwide. Immediately, the city of Concord started making plans for redevelopment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We were so angry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Locally, Kathy quickly became a key organizer among neighbors pushing to keep the weapons station land untouched and open.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We quickly got a group together, went down the City Hall. Surprised the hell out of the city council members because we were like the old town people that went down Main Street with pitchforks and torches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For years, they tabled at farmers markets and knocked on people’s doors to educate Concord residents about the potential for development. And of course, they were squeaky wheels at city council meetings and planning commission hearings.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We told them, we are not going away, you know, listen to us, we’re not going away, we want this preserved.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they got their wish, in part. Half of the area behind Kathy’s house has been handed over to east bay regional parks. The old ammo bunkers there will become part of historic tours. And when it opens, locals can hike, camp or have a picnic next to protected wildlife areas. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We put years of our time into preserving what we can out here. We hope that it works. We slowed down after we got the park. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming up, we’ll learn how the other half of the land will be used. That’s after this quick break. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> KQED’s Pauline Bartolone takes us back to the Concord mounds, to find out what’s planned here. But this time, from a different vantage point. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kathy and her neighbors were up in arms about plans to build on the military site next to their homes. That was two decades ago, and all that peace and quiet? It’s still there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We are looking out over the valley or floor area of old bunker city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Josh Roden is a private developer, and he took me onto the old Concord Naval Weapons station. From our vantage point you can see the former weapons storage clearly… dozens of massive trapezoids poking up from the soil. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They’re mostly concrete bunkers with earth over them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Josh heads up Brookfield Residential in Northern California, which is working with the city of Concord to redevelop the navy base based on a roadmap Concord residents like Kathy helped create. When it’s done, the site will have housing, businesses, schools and parks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Concord did a really good job of engaging the entire community, getting a whole bunch of feedback. It’s a lot of work and effort, and it can be a little painful to manage through that, because it’s a lot of opinions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But so far, it’s been a lot of discussion, 20 years worth. And not a single permanent structure has been built here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of the most important parts is the first, being able to flush a toilet and turn a light on. So we really do have to go bring power. We have to bring potable water, we have to bring storm drains.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, what’s the hold up? Well, there’s been a lot of clean up and bureaucracy. The Navy had to remove \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0902778\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">arsenic and lead\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from the soil and groundwater. The city had contracts with two developers before the current one. One jumped ship and one was booted. And before all that, Concord spent seven years coming up with a master plan with residents. A vision for the site.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So they ended up coming up with what we think is a very reasonable and good area plan, but it did take some time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And their plans are grand… just down the hill from where Josh and I are standing, will be some of the 12,000 residential homes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The number of units, the size of it is similar to Pleasant Hill. So for context the population that it would generate. It’s similar to Pleasant Hill.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’d be housing for something like 34-thousand people. Also in the plan are retail and office space, most dense near the North Concord Bart Station.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hotels and maybe more restaurants and a place people go leisure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s the outline for a sports park – stretching over 175 acres – and a higher education campus, like a college or technical school.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are also coordinating some of the elementary school, middle school potentially to be in that vicinity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fire stations, police stations. A food bank and a pedestrian path along Mt Diablo creek, All the amenities of a town.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s like building a small city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That may sound exciting but it will all take a looong time. Like decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Currently, it’s planned out for probably a 40 year build out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They won’t even break ground until 2031, and there’s still some bureaucratic hurdles. Ultimately, Josh says how quickly it gets built depends on the health of the economy, Housing is what pays off for the developer, so the the first to go up will be homes close to the North Concord BART station. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite her early reservations about building on the site, Kathy has had a bit of a change of heart about new housing. She says the Bay Area needs it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We were not as panicked as we were. I think I do understand. Let’s do it. Let’s make it as good as we can for future generations. And that’s the best we can do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a long time. Geez. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I took all this back to Suzanne Howard, our question asker. She likes that the Concord development will have open space near it, not a 12 lane highway like the one next to her house. As far as taking more than half a century to finish the new housing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s kind of scary how long it takes. But hopefully, you know, assuming positive intent and the cleanup hopefully is being very thorough and good things take time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She just hopes she’s alive to see it come to fruition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was KQED’s Pauline Bartolone.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks to our question asker this week, Suzanne. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you know that we send a little thank you gift to each question asker? Just one more reason to take a few minutes and send your burning question our way! Ask at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://baycurious.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BayCurious.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, or shoot us an email at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"mailto:baycurious@kqed.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">baycurious@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is our last Monday episode during our experimental period of dropping two episodes a week. We’ve learned so much — and had a lot of fun answering twice as many of your questions these past few months. We always planned this to be a limited-term trial — so we’re back to our once a week publishing schedule next week. If you have thoughts or feedback for us as we take stock and move forward, email us at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"mailto:baycurious@kqed.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">baycurious@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by me, Olivia Allen Price, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and you! Yes you are a producer on this show if you are a member of KQED. Your financial support makes everything possible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deep gratitude to all the KQED members out there, and if you aren’t one yet, join us! Give at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suzanne Howard loves living in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/east-bay\">Walnut Creek\u003c/a>. She said it’s safe, walkable and she bikes everywhere. The only downside? She lives right next to a 12-lane freeway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[I’m] super thankful to have a house, but… noise pollution is a little much,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day, Howard was daydreaming about living near open space and started looking around online for places that fit the bill. Is it even possible to buy a house in the East Bay next to undeveloped land?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there, in Concord, behind a local high school, was a swath of green rolling hills big enough to accommodate a new airport. When she zoomed in, she saw puzzling features, grass mounds in a grid pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What is this?” she wondered to herself. “Could we build housing there? It’s prime real estate, why not?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those grassy mounds in a grid pattern are huge concrete bunkers, wider than a train car, used by the Navy for more than 60 years to store weapons, bombs and ammunition.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What happened at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dozens of these ammunition bunkers, grass-covered trapezoids poking up from the landscape, are what’s known as “bunker city,” just one part of a 5,000-acre inland section of a military base called the Concord Naval Weapons Station. The storage units are empty now, but they once stored the weapons of war that the Navy needed to fight wars from the 1940s all the way through the \u003ca href=\"https://www.history.com/articles/persian-gulf-war\">1991 Gulf War\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Railroads connected this inland base to the bay where artillery was loaded onto warships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081249\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081249\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-07-KQED-2-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathy Gleason looks through her back fence at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station in Concord on April 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“In years gone by, we could hear trains moving at night out there,” said Kathy Gleason, who moved next to the Naval base back in 1974. “They were moving munitions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though Kathy’s backyard is separated from bunker city by just two fences, you can’t tell she lives next to a military site. By design, the mounds blend into the lush green landscape to camouflage them from enemies coming by air or by foot. Besides the mounds, there aren’t many buildings. And it has always been relatively quiet here, with vistas of sheep and cattle grazing. That’s what drew her here in the first place, 50 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We used to see tule elk roaming around,” Gleason said. “Now we see turkeys, we hear coyotes, we’ll see deer every now and then. It’s pretty peaceful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in 2005, everything changed. The Concord Naval Weapons Station closed, as part of a federal initiative — the Base Realignment and Closure process (BRAC) — to cut military costs and adapt to new systems of warfare. Through BRAC, hundreds of military sites shuttered nationwide, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022479/why-are-there-so-many-abandoned-military-bases-in-the-bay-area\">dozens in the Bay Area\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immediately, the city of Concord started making plans for redevelopment. The 5,200 acres behind Gleason’s house would change hands. She feared a big developer would swoop in to turn it into a metropolis, and before that, a big, noisy construction zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all kind of panicked,” Gleason said. “We wanted our peace and quiet, and we were concerned about what’s in the soil. What’s going to happen with that when they develop?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gleason became a key organizer in the Concord Naval Weapons Station Neighborhood Alliance, which tabled at farmers markets, knocked on doors, and showed up at city planning meetings advocating to keep the weapons station land untouched and open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were like the old town people that went down Main Street with pitchforks and torches. We were so angry,” Gleason said about their organizing efforts back in 2006.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We told them, we are not going away. We want this preserved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Reenvisioning ‘Bunker City’ \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Twenty years later, all the peace and quiet that the Concord Neighborhood Alliance wanted is still there. Not a single permanent structure has been built on the former weapons base yet. What’s the holdup?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, the city went through a seven-year process of engaging residents to come up with a master vision for the site. It culminated in \u003ca href=\"https://concordreuseproject.org/152/The-Area-Plan\">the 2012 area plan\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081257\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081257\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-12-KQED-1-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Josh Roden, a developer at Brookfield Residential working with the city of Concord to redevelop the Concord Naval Weapons Station, stands on a hillside overlooking the former naval base in Concord on April 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All the while, there was a lot of cleanup and bureaucracy. The Navy had to remove \u003ca href=\"https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0902778\">arsenic and lead\u003c/a> from the soil and groundwater. The city had contracts with two developers before the current one. One \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/labor-dispute-stalls-redevelopment-of-concord-naval-weapons-station/2210946/\">jumped ship,\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/deal-for-planned-development-at-concord-naval-weapons-station-collapses/\">one was booted\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the slow and deliberate pace the Navy and city have been on is not necessarily a bad thing, the current master developer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Concord did a really good job of engaging the entire community,” said Josh Roden, president of Brookfield Northern California, which is \u003ca href=\"https://concordreuseproject.org/\">managing the redevelopment of the site\u003c/a>. “It’s a lot of work and effort, and it can be a little painful to manage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roden’s team is now tasked with implementing the specifics of the 2012 general plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like building a small city,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concord residents expect 12,000 residential units, which is roughly equivalent to the nearby town of Pleasant Hill, home to 34,000 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six million square feet are earmarked for retail, office and institutional space, and businesses such as hotels and restaurants, which will be most dense near the North Concord Bart Station. That’s more space than the footprint of Disneyland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There will be a sports complex and city park, stretching over 175 acres, and a higher education campus, like a college or technical school, along with elementary and middle schools. Fire and police stations will be built, as well as a food bank, and a pedestrian path along Mount Diablo Creek.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plans are grand and exciting, but Concord residents will have to wait a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roden said construction won’t break ground until 2030, and it will probably be “a 40-year build out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first phase includes housing near the North Concord BART station. Residents can expect more electric vehicle infrastructure, denser housing, and retail space blended with other leisure activities. How quickly it all moves along depends on the health of the economy, Roden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081248\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081248\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260423-CONCORD-MOUNDS-MD-06-KQED-2-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathy Gleason’s home abuts the former Concord Naval Weapons Station in Concord on April 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Open space advocates like Kathy Gleason have already had a notable win. Half of the inland naval base — roughly 2,500 acres, has already been handed over to East Bay Regional Parks. \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/thurgood-marshall-regional-park-home-port-chicago-50\">Thurgood Marshall Regional Park\u003c/a> is not yet open to the public, but when it does, visitors will be able to see the ammunition bunkers during historic tours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We put years of our time into preserving what we can out here,” said Gleason, who also said she now understands that housing is a critical need in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Let’s make it as good as we can for future generations. And that’s the best we can do,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suzanne Howard of Walnut Creek said she’s glad the Concord housing development will be near open space. She just hopes she’s alive when it all comes to fruition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s kind of scary how long it takes,” she said. But sometimes, “good things take time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey everyone! This is Bay Curious — the podcast that answers listener questions about the San Francisco Bay Area.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We recently got a question from a woman named Suzanne Howard. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She bought a house with her husband in Walnut Creek two years ago and she loves the place. How it feels safe and walkable to lots of shops. They bike everywhere. But one thing gives Suzanne a little buyer’s remorse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s right next to the 12 lane freeway. It’s super noisy, super thankful to have a house, but like quality of life noise pollution is a little much.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One day, Suzanne was feeling curious, and she started studying online maps, looking for open space in the East Bay. Where could more housing be built near her that might offer a little more peace and quiet?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I found as I zoomed out, I saw east of Concord High School green open fields, gorgeous greenery hillside, some streets. And then little mounds, little grass mounds which, all in a grid pattern. What is this thing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Five thousand acres of open space with seemingly nothing going on. It wasn’t a park or anything. Just a big open area and those mounds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Could we build housing there? It’s prime real estate, why not? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m Olivia Allen-Price. On today’s episode, we asked KQED’s Pauline Bartolone to scout out that area behind Concord High School. What are those grassy mounds in a grid pattern? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’ll give you a hint, it’s not a cemetery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ok. Is it open to the public? Can I go on a walk there? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Well, right now, no. In a few years, probably.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What about Suzanne’s question, could housing be built there?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yes, actually that’s in the works, we’ll get to more on that in a minute. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ok, so tell me what you saw when you went out there? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well I found someone who lives right near Concord High School, and those 5,000 acres of rolling hills are right behind her house. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> My name is Kathy Gleason. We’re in Concord in my backyard, and looking at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Concord Naval Weapons Station. That property our listener Suzanne saw on the map, belongs to the Navy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During World War 2, the navy stored tons of explosives here in huge concrete bunkers camouflaged with earth to look like grassy hills. Those are the mounds Suzanne saw on the map. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Go ahead. You can see the bunkers back there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over a hundred concrete weapons storage units here supplied bullets, missiles, bombs, anything the military needed for combat all the way up to the first Gulf War. Railroads connected this inland base to the Bay where artillery was loaded onto warships. When Kathy moved here in 1974, it was active.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In years gone by, we could hear trains moving at night out there. So they were moving munitions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kathy says she loves living next to a weapons base… because.. it’s quiet. Those ammo bunker mounds…. they’re empty now… and they blend into the lush green landscape… And there aren’t many other buildings there. She says it’s always been pretty calm, part of what drew her here in the first place 50 years ago. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Who wouldn’t like this in their backyard? You can hear that plane, but other than that it’s pretty quiet. When we first moved in, there were a lot of sheep out there. There’s still a lot of cattle out there grazing. So we used to see tule elk roaming around, now we see turkeys, we hear coyotes, we’ll see deer every now and then. It’s pretty peaceful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Then Concord residents got news that could change everything. The weapons station would close in 2005. This huge swath of open land, roughly the size of San Francisco International airport, was going to change hands. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We all kind of panicked. All the neighbors along here kind of panic.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They worried a developer would swoop in and build a metropolis, a big noisy construction project.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We wanted our peace and quiet, and we were concerned about what’s in the soil. What’s going to happen with that when they develop? And the noise and everything that would go with developing a project this big, this is huge.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Concord Naval Weapons Station closure was part of a federal project to cut military costs. It was called BRAC, the Base Realignment and Closure process. Hundreds of military sites shuttered nationwide. Immediately, the city of Concord started making plans for redevelopment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We were so angry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Locally, Kathy quickly became a key organizer among neighbors pushing to keep the weapons station land untouched and open.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We quickly got a group together, went down the City Hall. Surprised the hell out of the city council members because we were like the old town people that went down Main Street with pitchforks and torches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For years, they tabled at farmers markets and knocked on people’s doors to educate Concord residents about the potential for development. And of course, they were squeaky wheels at city council meetings and planning commission hearings.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We told them, we are not going away, you know, listen to us, we’re not going away, we want this preserved.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they got their wish, in part. Half of the area behind Kathy’s house has been handed over to east bay regional parks. The old ammo bunkers there will become part of historic tours. And when it opens, locals can hike, camp or have a picnic next to protected wildlife areas. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We put years of our time into preserving what we can out here. We hope that it works. We slowed down after we got the park. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming up, we’ll learn how the other half of the land will be used. That’s after this quick break. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> KQED’s Pauline Bartolone takes us back to the Concord mounds, to find out what’s planned here. But this time, from a different vantage point. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kathy and her neighbors were up in arms about plans to build on the military site next to their homes. That was two decades ago, and all that peace and quiet? It’s still there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We are looking out over the valley or floor area of old bunker city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Josh Roden is a private developer, and he took me onto the old Concord Naval Weapons station. From our vantage point you can see the former weapons storage clearly… dozens of massive trapezoids poking up from the soil. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They’re mostly concrete bunkers with earth over them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Josh heads up Brookfield Residential in Northern California, which is working with the city of Concord to redevelop the navy base based on a roadmap Concord residents like Kathy helped create. When it’s done, the site will have housing, businesses, schools and parks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Concord did a really good job of engaging the entire community, getting a whole bunch of feedback. It’s a lot of work and effort, and it can be a little painful to manage through that, because it’s a lot of opinions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But so far, it’s been a lot of discussion, 20 years worth. And not a single permanent structure has been built here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of the most important parts is the first, being able to flush a toilet and turn a light on. So we really do have to go bring power. We have to bring potable water, we have to bring storm drains.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, what’s the hold up? Well, there’s been a lot of clean up and bureaucracy. The Navy had to remove \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0902778\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">arsenic and lead\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from the soil and groundwater. The city had contracts with two developers before the current one. One jumped ship and one was booted. And before all that, Concord spent seven years coming up with a master plan with residents. A vision for the site.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So they ended up coming up with what we think is a very reasonable and good area plan, but it did take some time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And their plans are grand… just down the hill from where Josh and I are standing, will be some of the 12,000 residential homes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The number of units, the size of it is similar to Pleasant Hill. So for context the population that it would generate. It’s similar to Pleasant Hill.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’d be housing for something like 34-thousand people. Also in the plan are retail and office space, most dense near the North Concord Bart Station.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hotels and maybe more restaurants and a place people go leisure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s the outline for a sports park – stretching over 175 acres – and a higher education campus, like a college or technical school.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are also coordinating some of the elementary school, middle school potentially to be in that vicinity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fire stations, police stations. A food bank and a pedestrian path along Mt Diablo creek, All the amenities of a town.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s like building a small city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That may sound exciting but it will all take a looong time. Like decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Josh Roden:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Currently, it’s planned out for probably a 40 year build out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They won’t even break ground until 2031, and there’s still some bureaucratic hurdles. Ultimately, Josh says how quickly it gets built depends on the health of the economy, Housing is what pays off for the developer, so the the first to go up will be homes close to the North Concord BART station. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite her early reservations about building on the site, Kathy has had a bit of a change of heart about new housing. She says the Bay Area needs it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kathy Gleason: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We were not as panicked as we were. I think I do understand. Let’s do it. Let’s make it as good as we can for future generations. And that’s the best we can do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a long time. Geez. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I took all this back to Suzanne Howard, our question asker. She likes that the Concord development will have open space near it, not a 12 lane highway like the one next to her house. As far as taking more than half a century to finish the new housing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Suzanne Howard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s kind of scary how long it takes. But hopefully, you know, assuming positive intent and the cleanup hopefully is being very thorough and good things take time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She just hopes she’s alive to see it come to fruition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was KQED’s Pauline Bartolone.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks to our question asker this week, Suzanne. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you know that we send a little thank you gift to each question asker? Just one more reason to take a few minutes and send your burning question our way! Ask at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://baycurious.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BayCurious.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, or shoot us an email at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"mailto:baycurious@kqed.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">baycurious@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is our last Monday episode during our experimental period of dropping two episodes a week. We’ve learned so much — and had a lot of fun answering twice as many of your questions these past few months. We always planned this to be a limited-term trial — so we’re back to our once a week publishing schedule next week. If you have thoughts or feedback for us as we take stock and move forward, email us at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"mailto:baycurious@kqed.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">baycurious@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by me, Olivia Allen Price, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and you! Yes you are a producer on this show if you are a member of KQED. Your financial support makes everything possible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deep gratitude to all the KQED members out there, and if you aren’t one yet, join us! Give at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "its-the-most-beautiful-taco-bell-in-the-world-heres-why-it-could-never-be-built-today",
"title": "It’s the Most Beautiful Taco Bell in the World. Here’s Why It Could Never Be Built Today",
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"headTitle": "It’s the Most Beautiful Taco Bell in the World. Here’s Why It Could Never Be Built Today | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve ever driven south from\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\"> San Francisco\u003c/a> on California Highway 1 towards Pacifica, you know that moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You round a curve, and there it is all of a sudden: the glorious Pacific Ocean. Five minutes ago, you could have been on any highway in America. But now, it’s clear. You’re in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re seeing the ocean to your right, and all these little hamlets located in these small, little valleys on your left,” said Henry Lie, who was born and raised in Pacifica. “And that’s all Pacifica, just a stringlet of various neighborhoods [tucked] into smaller valleys.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon enough, you’ll see Pacifica State Beach stretching out before you. Locals call it Linda Mar beach, but back in the day, it was San Pedro Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very picturesque, and it just so happens, at the very center is a Taco Bell,” Lie said. “But it’s not a standard Taco Bell. It’s different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079611\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079611\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People enter the Taco Bell Cantina in Pacifica, California, on April 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sitting in a prime location nearly touching the sand, this Taco Bell is a little more stately than the average fast-food restaurant. It’s got dark brown wood siding, a deck looking out over the Pacific Ocean and a lot of history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lie has always wondered how this Taco Bell ended up with such an incredible spot on the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A restaurant on the beach\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The town we now know as Pacifica was incorporated in 1957, but back in the day, it used to be a collection of distinct coastal communities — places like Sharp Park, Rockaway Beach, and Vallemar. After World War II, the new city served as a bedroom community for San Francisco, home to families and a slower pace of life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local historian Deb Wong said that baby boomers in Pacifica were craving something more than what the sleepy town had to offer. So, in the 1960s, a real estate agent named Bud Wiechers offered up a possible solution: a beachside restaurant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11983182 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Crowds-flee.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Linda Mar beach was a quiet, sandy strip. “Just a really nice beach with a few structures on it,” Wong said. To Pacifica locals, the Wander Inn was the mainstay — its motto says it all: “Wander Inn, Stagger Out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiechers planned to turn a small lot he owned nearby on Linda Mar beach into an A&W franchise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not everyone was excited by the prospect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The A&W attracted a lot of attention,” Wong said. “And it gave people ideas about businesses that they could build on the beach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That made the Pacifica planning commission wary of the idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were uneasy about private property on the beach and too much building on the beach,” Wong said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite their reservations, the city did eventually grant Wiechers permission to build his restaurant, on the condition that he deed some land to the public to ensure access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beachside establishment \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/744727110/?match=1&terms=A%26W\">opened\u003c/a> in the spring of 1972. And late in April, the restaurant held an official grand opening celebration. Miss Pacifica even made an appearance to help cut the ribbon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former A&W employee Nancy Cook Long said the building had a “rustic-looking kind of design.” The exterior was covered in wood siding. A local paper described the intention: “blend with its marine location.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside the restaurant, though, \u003cem>different\u003c/em> aesthetic choices had been made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was totally 70s; it was orange and brown,” Pacifica local Kelly Rose said. As a teen, Rose worked at the A&W.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It had a brown shag carpet, dark wood paneling; it had a fireplace. The tables were dark wood, and they had a very thick layer of varithane on them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1913px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1913\" height=\"1275\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed.jpg 1913w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1913px) 100vw, 1913px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Customers walk out of Taco Bell Cantina with their orders in Pacifica, California, on April 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rose remembered a long counter — typical of a fast food restaurant — and then two sets of doors. One leads to the parking lot, the other to the beach. The back patio was built on stilts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They told us it was built on stilts, because twice a year the water would come up and go under it,” Cook Long said. ”And that was absolutely unbelievable to a lot of us, like, are you kidding?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even back then — before Taco Bell and internet fame — the restaurant managed to achieve its own version of virality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It received recognition in a surfing magazine as the best located fast food restaurant in California,” Wong said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the A&W wouldn’t last forever. In 1985, it closed its doors. The reasons for the closure, as reported in a local newspaper at the time, included the owner-operator’s scheduling constraints and plans for the opening of Wendy’s restaurant nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What’s next for the primo locale?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For decades, locals had lined up at the beachside A&W — but a new chapter was about to begin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The owner of the San Pedro Beach land on which the A&W Restaurant has stood for many years has bought out the lease and is completing negotiations with another firm which contemplates replacing it with a Taco Bell restaurant,” the \u003cem>Pacifica Tribune\u003c/em> said on July 31, 1985.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12079104 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_019_qed.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That year, the restaurant transitioned to a Taco Bell. For locals who grew up with the A&W, the change was bittersweet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was really sad about it,” Long said. “Because A&W [was] unique. It was just not like every other fast food place. It was an institution for a long time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the past 40 years, the Taco Bell here has thrived. Dubbed by news outlets and influencers alike as “‘the world’s most beautiful Taco Bell,”’ it has attracted visitors from around the globe. Taco Bell even lists it on their \u003ca href=\"https://www.tacobell.com/stories/Coolesttacobells\">website\u003c/a> as the number one most beautiful Taco Bell you never knew existed. American surfer Kai Lenny said that every time he surfs at nearby Mavericks, he stops by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hl2M9BpEdg\">Taco Bell for a burrito.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then, in 2019, the Taco Bell became a Cantina, an establishment that can legally sell alcohol. The change has only helped make it more popular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lie, our question-asker, said it’s one of his go-to spots when friends visit the Bay Area. “I feel like it’s a Bay Area landmark that really only locals know,” Lie said. “It is fun because it’s an interesting quirk of our hometown, and it’s something that makes Pacifica unique.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the day, it’s the location that does the heavy lifting. You can get a spicy potato soft taco anywhere — but how often can you eat it while watching surfers take on the rolling waves of the Pacific?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not very often. The reason? California’s Coastal Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Coastal Act and the Taco Bell\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Charles Lester is a coastal policy expert. And when he looks at the Taco Bell, he sees evidence of a very different time in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I see it, I go, oh, that must be from the ‘60s or the ‘70s, without knowing for sure,” Lester said. “It looks like a lot of other developments in different places in California that were some of the reasons why we have a Coastal Act and why we decided to protect the coasts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079609\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079609\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Informational signs at Pacifica State Beach in Pacifica, California, on April 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Around the same time Pacifica locals were raising their concerns about private businesses on public beaches, similar battles were playing out up and down California’s coast. Reactions to the Sea Ranch development and a proposed nuclear plant at Bodega Head, both in Sonoma County, are just two examples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Places like Malibu were already starting to see this cheek-to-jowl residential development along the beach,” Lester said. “People were getting concerned about not being able to get to the beach or see it from Highway 1 the way they used to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Citizens took their concerns to local and state officials, but Sacramento was slow to respond. The growing unease spurred a grassroots movement that would come to impact California forever. In 1972 — the same year the A&W opened its doors — California voters passed Proposition 20. It established the California Coastal Commission, a body whose mandate is to regulate development and protect public access along the coastline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California now has one of the most protected coastlines in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The A&W — and by extension the Taco Bell — snuck in before regulations went into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A future hanging in balance\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For Lester, the bigger question now is of the building’s future. When I met up with him at his home, he’d come prepared. His 40-inch television screen turned monitor showed an aerial view of Linda Mar beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to look at this 2023 photo because it shows you where the wave run-up was at the time,” Lester points to a line in the sand. “You can see that at some point, right before this photo was taken, the waves were coming up right to the toe of that structure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079612\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079612\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Families and individuals enjoy a day at Pacifica State Beach in Pacifica, California, on April 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With just two meters of sea level rise, he said, the ocean could push right up against the restaurant regularly. Throw in a storm, and the waves could inundate it. \u003cem>When\u003c/em> that will happen is still unclear — some extreme estimates say in\u003ca href=\"https://scripps.ucsd.edu/research/climate-change-resources/faq-sea-level-rise-and-california\"> 75 years, \u003c/a>but most projections put it 100 to 200 years away, depending on emissions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In my mind, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll be spending so much time responding to the wave attack and the wave damage and the storms that it won’t make any more sense economically,” Lester said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Taco Bell might qualify as an ‘existing structure’ under the Coastal Act, Lester said, potentially entitling it to some form of protection. If he could, though, he’d pick it up and move it inland. This form of managed retreat, he said, is our best option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of people are thinking, given the inevitability of sea level rise and the immense energy we’re talking about in the ocean, that it’s going to be retreat, planned or unplanned, in a lot of places,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the Pacifica Taco Bell exists as an anomaly. It was built before modern rules, giving it a prime spot on the sand and very little competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whatever you put there is going to be popular,” Wong said. “But the thing is, you can’t put anything else there, and Taco Bell isn’t giving it up, and they are famous now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in tape: \u003c/strong>We are on Highway One, officially coming off 280 onto Highway One. And oh my gosh, there she is, the mighty Pacific.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Henry Lie in tape: \u003c/strong>And you’re seeing, like the ocean to your right, and all these little like hamlets on your left and and that whole that’s all Pacifica, just a stringlet of various neighborhoods nooked into smaller valleys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in studio:\u003c/strong> Bay Curious reporter Gabriela Glueck and I are following directions from question asker Henry Lie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>We pass neighborhoods like Sharp Park and Rockaway Beach on our way to an iconic Pacifica landmark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in tape:\u003c/strong> I love this drive in…. I mean, right now, it’s like, sun soaked, which is actually rare. Usually, I feel like, as you come to Pacifica, you’re like stepping into the fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Henry Lie in tape:\u003c/strong> And so you get further south, and you come across this crest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in tape: \u003c/strong>Wow! Okay, so we’re passing over where the pier juts out into the ocean, seeing some jagged rocks on the horizon as we make our way toward the beach. Which beach are we going to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Henry Lie in tape:\u003c/strong> I think it’s technically called Pacifica State Beach, but everyone calls it Linda Mar. And then you notice this one big brown building…and all of a sudden you see that it’s a Taco Bell, on the beach!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>This Taco Bell is legendary. Tiktokers can’t resist it, and Bay Area locals are no different. It’s a fast food restaurant like any other… but the views! The weathered wood exterior has an organic feel, blending in with the natural beauty around it. There’s a palm tree right next to the parking lot and the back porch of the restaurant is built on stilts right on the sand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in studio: \u003c/strong>Henry wanted to know more about this Taco Bell. How did it end up on the beach like this? And what’s gonna happen to it in the future? It’s a story that goes beyond Pacifica and asks who are California beaches for? Who gets to use them and how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Even though the Taco Bell parking lot is packed today, back in the 1960s and 70s Pacifica was pretty quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long: \u003c/strong>I’d say it was mostly middle-class families who were just starting out post war.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Nancy Cook Long grew up here back when it was not a place on most people’s radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long: \u003c/strong>Everybody knew everybody. You played outside, kick the can and freeze tag, and you rode cardboard boxes down the sides of hills. …it was just a little hometown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>The beach at Linda Mar, known back in the day as San Pedro beach – was pretty bare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long: \u003c/strong>Certainly in high school, people would go hang out at the beach. But before that, it was just, I’m going to say, almost something we took for granted and I don’t think it had anywhere near the popularity for surfing that it does now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>There were a few small buildings, but all in all, mostly a stretch of sand. Until that is, a man by the name of “Bud” Wikers got an idea to turn a small oceanside lot he owned into a restaurant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong: \u003c/strong>He knew that with the baby boomers out there who were demanding something more than what we had in Pacifica at the time, he thought it would be a great idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>As local historian Deb Wong tells it, Bud got in touch with A&W, the root beer company, to set up a franchise. Back in the day their restaurants were really popular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A&W Advertising Song\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>But not everyone in Pacifica was totally into the idea of a restaurant on the beach. Weicher’s plan to build so close to the water sparked a big debate in the community. Who are the beaches for?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong:\u003c/strong> The restaurant was like an open invitation for others who wish to park their businesses on the beach. So you know, let one build there, and others will follow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>The Pacifica planning commission wasn’t that jazzed about people building commercial structures on the beach at all, Deb says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong:\u003c/strong> The A&W on the beach was the main example of what could happen if beach property were privately owned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Despite concerns, the commission approved the plan, but required Weichers to deed some strips of land near the building to the public to ensure access and public use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beachside establishment opened in the spring of 1972. And late in April, the restaurant held an official grand opening celebration. Miss Pacifica even made an appearance to help cut the ribbon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>The outside may have been meant to blend in with the dunes, but the inside made no such concessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kelly Rose: \u003c/strong>It was totally 70s. It was orange and brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Pacifica local Kelly Rose worked at the restaurant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kelly Rose: \u003c/strong>Oh my gosh, I can remember it so well. The image of it is burned into my memory banks. It had a shag a brown shag carpet., dark wood paneling. It had a fireplace. The tables were dark wood and they had a very thick layer of varathane on them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Kelly remembers a long counter and two sets of glass doors. One led to the parking lot, the other, to the beach. She says the counter was staffed mostly by high school girls, also donning the orange and brown. Slip over aprons paired with triangular head scarves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kelly Rose: \u003c/strong>When the weather was nice, which wasn’t often, there would be times when every cashier would be working, taking orders. So I imagine it was probably grossing a lot for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>The beachside location was a big draw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long: \u003c/strong>They told us it was built on stilts, because twice a year the water would come up and go under it. And I worked there one night and you could see it come out onto the parking lot, out in front. It was crazy. We just couldn’t believe it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Even in those pre-internet days, the A&W achieved its own version of virality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong: \u003c/strong>It received recognition in a surfing magazine as the best located fast food restaurant in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>But the A&W didn’t last forever…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voiceover: \u003c/strong>Pacifica Tribune, July 1985 – Beachfront A&W to be replaced by a Taco Bell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong: \u003c/strong>Well, you know what it is, location, location, location, and that’s it. Whatever you put there is going to be popular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>For locals like Nancy who grew up with the burger joint, the shift to a Taco Bell was bittersweet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long:\u003c/strong> I was really sad about it, because A&W is unique. It was just not like every other fast food place. It was there for a long time. It was an institution for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>In 2019, the Taco Bell became a “cantina” and now serves alcohol. When Olivia and I visit, we put that part of the menu to the test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in scene: \u003c/strong>OK, so we went with the frozen margarita with premium tequila, because that’s how we roll on Bay Curious. We have two potato …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck in scene: \u003c/strong>spicy potato soft tacos…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Even on a weekday afternoon, the Taco Bell is packed. There are people waiting to place their orders on the self-service tablets, kids munching tacos and groups hanging out on the back deck enjoying 32 ounce slushy margaritas out of novelty cups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in scene:\u003c/strong> A yard, 32 ounces? Oh my god, no. Thank you. Regular! (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in studio:\u003c/strong> We’re going to take a quick break, but when we come back we’ll learn why you don’t see many other restaurants on beaches in California. And what sea level rise could mean for this beachside spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh, and while we’re on break, maybe take a moment to donate to KQED? It takes just a few minutes and helps keep shows ours running. \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/a> is the place to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor Message\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’re talking about *THAT* Taco Bell in Pacifica – a cantina that’s literally right on the beach. Some people love it, but others have fought hard to prevent places like it from popping up along the California coast. Reporter Gabriela Glueck takes it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Around the same time Pacificans were raising concerns about the A&W, similar battles were playing out up and down the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>People were getting concerned about not being able to get to the beach or see it from Highway One, the way they used to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>This is Charles Lester. He worked for the State of California and the California Coastal Commission for twenty years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>And places like Malibu were already starting to see kind of this cheek to jowl residential development along the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Efforts to rein in coastal developments were slow going. But out of these local fights, a broader grassroots response was taking shape: the “save our coast” movement. Californians put an initiative on the ballot, and it passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newsclip: \u003c/strong>The passage of Proposition 20 on November the 8th has signaled the beginning of the most ambitious and comprehensive effort ever mounted in this nation and perhaps the world. For the purpose of developing a process for managing coastal zone resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>The reason why we have an initiative is because there was failed efforts in the legislature to do anything about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Proposition 20 established the California Coastal Commission to regulate development and protect public access along the coastline. California now has one of the most protected coastlines in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newsclip:\u003c/strong> It has taken many hard lessons for us here in California to begin to understand the need for land and marine resource conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Approved by voters in 1972, the proposition didn’t go into effect until 1973. That’s a year after the A&W opened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>When I see it I go, oh, that must be from the 60s or the 70s, it looks like a lot of other developments in different places in California that were some of the reasons why we have a Coastal Act and why we decided to protect the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>That old A&W made it onto the beach in the nick of time. The building that would later become the Taco Bell, was grandfathered in. And thanks to prop 20, competition in the beachside fast food scene is scarce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>For Charles, the bigger question now is of the building’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>It’s a challenging location when you’re that close to the surf zone and you get big storms, the waves are going to come up, and eventually, with sea level rise, you’re going to have some serious issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>With just two meters of sea level rise, he says, the ocean would push right up against the restaurant. \u003cem>When\u003c/em> that will happen is still unclear—but some estimates put that at 75 years from now, but most projections put it 100 to 200 years away, depending on emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>In my mind, yeah, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll be spending so much time, you know, responding to the wave attack and the wave damage and the storms that it won’t make any more sense economically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Charles says the Taco Bell would likely qualify as an ‘existing structure’ under the Coastal Act. That could make it eligible for a protective structure. Think sea wall or some other form of shoreline protection. But…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester:\u003c/strong> …. a lot of people are thinking given the inevitability of sea level rise and the immense energy we’re talking about in the ocean, that it’s going to be retreat, planned or unplanned in a lot of places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ambi of inside the Taco Bell\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price and Gabriela Glueck in scene: \u003c/strong>Mmm. It’s like a lighter churro. It tastes like Cinnamon Toast Crunch.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nGabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Back at the Taco Bell, on this gloriously sunny day, it’s hard to imagine this place not being here. For now though, for as long as it lasts, it’s safe to say it will remain iconic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was Bay Curious reporter Gabriela Glueck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Maha Sanad, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, Katie Sprenger, and everyone on Team KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The Pacifica Taco Bell, just outside of San Francisco, is legendary for its beachfront views and retro architecture. How did a fast food chain end up with such prime real estate? ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon enough, you’ll see Pacifica State Beach stretching out before you. Locals call it Linda Mar beach, but back in the day, it was San Pedro Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very picturesque, and it just so happens, at the very center is a Taco Bell,” Lie said. “But it’s not a standard Taco Bell. It’s different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079611\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079611\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02363_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People enter the Taco Bell Cantina in Pacifica, California, on April 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sitting in a prime location nearly touching the sand, this Taco Bell is a little more stately than the average fast-food restaurant. It’s got dark brown wood siding, a deck looking out over the Pacific Ocean and a lot of history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lie has always wondered how this Taco Bell ended up with such an incredible spot on the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A restaurant on the beach\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The town we now know as Pacifica was incorporated in 1957, but back in the day, it used to be a collection of distinct coastal communities — places like Sharp Park, Rockaway Beach, and Vallemar. After World War II, the new city served as a bedroom community for San Francisco, home to families and a slower pace of life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local historian Deb Wong said that baby boomers in Pacifica were craving something more than what the sleepy town had to offer. So, in the 1960s, a real estate agent named Bud Wiechers offered up a possible solution: a beachside restaurant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Linda Mar beach was a quiet, sandy strip. “Just a really nice beach with a few structures on it,” Wong said. To Pacifica locals, the Wander Inn was the mainstay — its motto says it all: “Wander Inn, Stagger Out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiechers planned to turn a small lot he owned nearby on Linda Mar beach into an A&W franchise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not everyone was excited by the prospect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The A&W attracted a lot of attention,” Wong said. “And it gave people ideas about businesses that they could build on the beach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That made the Pacifica planning commission wary of the idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were uneasy about private property on the beach and too much building on the beach,” Wong said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite their reservations, the city did eventually grant Wiechers permission to build his restaurant, on the condition that he deed some land to the public to ensure access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beachside establishment \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/744727110/?match=1&terms=A%26W\">opened\u003c/a> in the spring of 1972. And late in April, the restaurant held an official grand opening celebration. Miss Pacifica even made an appearance to help cut the ribbon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former A&W employee Nancy Cook Long said the building had a “rustic-looking kind of design.” The exterior was covered in wood siding. A local paper described the intention: “blend with its marine location.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside the restaurant, though, \u003cem>different\u003c/em> aesthetic choices had been made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was totally 70s; it was orange and brown,” Pacifica local Kelly Rose said. As a teen, Rose worked at the A&W.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It had a brown shag carpet, dark wood paneling; it had a fireplace. The tables were dark wood, and they had a very thick layer of varithane on them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1913px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1913\" height=\"1275\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed.jpg 1913w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell01610_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1913px) 100vw, 1913px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Customers walk out of Taco Bell Cantina with their orders in Pacifica, California, on April 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rose remembered a long counter — typical of a fast food restaurant — and then two sets of doors. One leads to the parking lot, the other to the beach. The back patio was built on stilts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They told us it was built on stilts, because twice a year the water would come up and go under it,” Cook Long said. ”And that was absolutely unbelievable to a lot of us, like, are you kidding?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even back then — before Taco Bell and internet fame — the restaurant managed to achieve its own version of virality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It received recognition in a surfing magazine as the best located fast food restaurant in California,” Wong said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the A&W wouldn’t last forever. In 1985, it closed its doors. The reasons for the closure, as reported in a local newspaper at the time, included the owner-operator’s scheduling constraints and plans for the opening of Wendy’s restaurant nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What’s next for the primo locale?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For decades, locals had lined up at the beachside A&W — but a new chapter was about to begin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The owner of the San Pedro Beach land on which the A&W Restaurant has stood for many years has bought out the lease and is completing negotiations with another firm which contemplates replacing it with a Taco Bell restaurant,” the \u003cem>Pacifica Tribune\u003c/em> said on July 31, 1985.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That year, the restaurant transitioned to a Taco Bell. For locals who grew up with the A&W, the change was bittersweet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was really sad about it,” Long said. “Because A&W [was] unique. It was just not like every other fast food place. It was an institution for a long time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the past 40 years, the Taco Bell here has thrived. Dubbed by news outlets and influencers alike as “‘the world’s most beautiful Taco Bell,”’ it has attracted visitors from around the globe. Taco Bell even lists it on their \u003ca href=\"https://www.tacobell.com/stories/Coolesttacobells\">website\u003c/a> as the number one most beautiful Taco Bell you never knew existed. American surfer Kai Lenny said that every time he surfs at nearby Mavericks, he stops by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hl2M9BpEdg\">Taco Bell for a burrito.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then, in 2019, the Taco Bell became a Cantina, an establishment that can legally sell alcohol. The change has only helped make it more popular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lie, our question-asker, said it’s one of his go-to spots when friends visit the Bay Area. “I feel like it’s a Bay Area landmark that really only locals know,” Lie said. “It is fun because it’s an interesting quirk of our hometown, and it’s something that makes Pacifica unique.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the day, it’s the location that does the heavy lifting. You can get a spicy potato soft taco anywhere — but how often can you eat it while watching surfers take on the rolling waves of the Pacific?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not very often. The reason? California’s Coastal Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Coastal Act and the Taco Bell\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Charles Lester is a coastal policy expert. And when he looks at the Taco Bell, he sees evidence of a very different time in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I see it, I go, oh, that must be from the ‘60s or the ‘70s, without knowing for sure,” Lester said. “It looks like a lot of other developments in different places in California that were some of the reasons why we have a Coastal Act and why we decided to protect the coasts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079609\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079609\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02215_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Informational signs at Pacifica State Beach in Pacifica, California, on April 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Around the same time Pacifica locals were raising their concerns about private businesses on public beaches, similar battles were playing out up and down California’s coast. Reactions to the Sea Ranch development and a proposed nuclear plant at Bodega Head, both in Sonoma County, are just two examples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Places like Malibu were already starting to see this cheek-to-jowl residential development along the beach,” Lester said. “People were getting concerned about not being able to get to the beach or see it from Highway 1 the way they used to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Citizens took their concerns to local and state officials, but Sacramento was slow to respond. The growing unease spurred a grassroots movement that would come to impact California forever. In 1972 — the same year the A&W opened its doors — California voters passed Proposition 20. It established the California Coastal Commission, a body whose mandate is to regulate development and protect public access along the coastline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California now has one of the most protected coastlines in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The A&W — and by extension the Taco Bell — snuck in before regulations went into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A future hanging in balance\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For Lester, the bigger question now is of the building’s future. When I met up with him at his home, he’d come prepared. His 40-inch television screen turned monitor showed an aerial view of Linda Mar beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to look at this 2023 photo because it shows you where the wave run-up was at the time,” Lester points to a line in the sand. “You can see that at some point, right before this photo was taken, the waves were coming up right to the toe of that structure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079612\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079612\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260408-baycurioustacobell02401_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Families and individuals enjoy a day at Pacifica State Beach in Pacifica, California, on April 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With just two meters of sea level rise, he said, the ocean could push right up against the restaurant regularly. Throw in a storm, and the waves could inundate it. \u003cem>When\u003c/em> that will happen is still unclear — some extreme estimates say in\u003ca href=\"https://scripps.ucsd.edu/research/climate-change-resources/faq-sea-level-rise-and-california\"> 75 years, \u003c/a>but most projections put it 100 to 200 years away, depending on emissions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In my mind, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll be spending so much time responding to the wave attack and the wave damage and the storms that it won’t make any more sense economically,” Lester said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Taco Bell might qualify as an ‘existing structure’ under the Coastal Act, Lester said, potentially entitling it to some form of protection. If he could, though, he’d pick it up and move it inland. This form of managed retreat, he said, is our best option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of people are thinking, given the inevitability of sea level rise and the immense energy we’re talking about in the ocean, that it’s going to be retreat, planned or unplanned, in a lot of places,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the Pacifica Taco Bell exists as an anomaly. It was built before modern rules, giving it a prime spot on the sand and very little competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whatever you put there is going to be popular,” Wong said. “But the thing is, you can’t put anything else there, and Taco Bell isn’t giving it up, and they are famous now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in tape: \u003c/strong>We are on Highway One, officially coming off 280 onto Highway One. And oh my gosh, there she is, the mighty Pacific.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Henry Lie in tape: \u003c/strong>And you’re seeing, like the ocean to your right, and all these little like hamlets on your left and and that whole that’s all Pacifica, just a stringlet of various neighborhoods nooked into smaller valleys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in studio:\u003c/strong> Bay Curious reporter Gabriela Glueck and I are following directions from question asker Henry Lie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>We pass neighborhoods like Sharp Park and Rockaway Beach on our way to an iconic Pacifica landmark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in tape:\u003c/strong> I love this drive in…. I mean, right now, it’s like, sun soaked, which is actually rare. Usually, I feel like, as you come to Pacifica, you’re like stepping into the fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Henry Lie in tape:\u003c/strong> And so you get further south, and you come across this crest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in tape: \u003c/strong>Wow! Okay, so we’re passing over where the pier juts out into the ocean, seeing some jagged rocks on the horizon as we make our way toward the beach. Which beach are we going to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Henry Lie in tape:\u003c/strong> I think it’s technically called Pacifica State Beach, but everyone calls it Linda Mar. And then you notice this one big brown building…and all of a sudden you see that it’s a Taco Bell, on the beach!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>This Taco Bell is legendary. Tiktokers can’t resist it, and Bay Area locals are no different. It’s a fast food restaurant like any other… but the views! The weathered wood exterior has an organic feel, blending in with the natural beauty around it. There’s a palm tree right next to the parking lot and the back porch of the restaurant is built on stilts right on the sand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in studio: \u003c/strong>Henry wanted to know more about this Taco Bell. How did it end up on the beach like this? And what’s gonna happen to it in the future? It’s a story that goes beyond Pacifica and asks who are California beaches for? Who gets to use them and how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Even though the Taco Bell parking lot is packed today, back in the 1960s and 70s Pacifica was pretty quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long: \u003c/strong>I’d say it was mostly middle-class families who were just starting out post war.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Nancy Cook Long grew up here back when it was not a place on most people’s radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long: \u003c/strong>Everybody knew everybody. You played outside, kick the can and freeze tag, and you rode cardboard boxes down the sides of hills. …it was just a little hometown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>The beach at Linda Mar, known back in the day as San Pedro beach – was pretty bare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long: \u003c/strong>Certainly in high school, people would go hang out at the beach. But before that, it was just, I’m going to say, almost something we took for granted and I don’t think it had anywhere near the popularity for surfing that it does now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>There were a few small buildings, but all in all, mostly a stretch of sand. Until that is, a man by the name of “Bud” Wikers got an idea to turn a small oceanside lot he owned into a restaurant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong: \u003c/strong>He knew that with the baby boomers out there who were demanding something more than what we had in Pacifica at the time, he thought it would be a great idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>As local historian Deb Wong tells it, Bud got in touch with A&W, the root beer company, to set up a franchise. Back in the day their restaurants were really popular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A&W Advertising Song\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>But not everyone in Pacifica was totally into the idea of a restaurant on the beach. Weicher’s plan to build so close to the water sparked a big debate in the community. Who are the beaches for?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong:\u003c/strong> The restaurant was like an open invitation for others who wish to park their businesses on the beach. So you know, let one build there, and others will follow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>The Pacifica planning commission wasn’t that jazzed about people building commercial structures on the beach at all, Deb says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong:\u003c/strong> The A&W on the beach was the main example of what could happen if beach property were privately owned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Despite concerns, the commission approved the plan, but required Weichers to deed some strips of land near the building to the public to ensure access and public use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beachside establishment opened in the spring of 1972. And late in April, the restaurant held an official grand opening celebration. Miss Pacifica even made an appearance to help cut the ribbon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>The outside may have been meant to blend in with the dunes, but the inside made no such concessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kelly Rose: \u003c/strong>It was totally 70s. It was orange and brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Pacifica local Kelly Rose worked at the restaurant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kelly Rose: \u003c/strong>Oh my gosh, I can remember it so well. The image of it is burned into my memory banks. It had a shag a brown shag carpet., dark wood paneling. It had a fireplace. The tables were dark wood and they had a very thick layer of varathane on them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Kelly remembers a long counter and two sets of glass doors. One led to the parking lot, the other, to the beach. She says the counter was staffed mostly by high school girls, also donning the orange and brown. Slip over aprons paired with triangular head scarves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kelly Rose: \u003c/strong>When the weather was nice, which wasn’t often, there would be times when every cashier would be working, taking orders. So I imagine it was probably grossing a lot for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>The beachside location was a big draw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long: \u003c/strong>They told us it was built on stilts, because twice a year the water would come up and go under it. And I worked there one night and you could see it come out onto the parking lot, out in front. It was crazy. We just couldn’t believe it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Even in those pre-internet days, the A&W achieved its own version of virality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong: \u003c/strong>It received recognition in a surfing magazine as the best located fast food restaurant in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>But the A&W didn’t last forever…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voiceover: \u003c/strong>Pacifica Tribune, July 1985 – Beachfront A&W to be replaced by a Taco Bell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deb Wong: \u003c/strong>Well, you know what it is, location, location, location, and that’s it. Whatever you put there is going to be popular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>For locals like Nancy who grew up with the burger joint, the shift to a Taco Bell was bittersweet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Cook Long:\u003c/strong> I was really sad about it, because A&W is unique. It was just not like every other fast food place. It was there for a long time. It was an institution for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>In 2019, the Taco Bell became a “cantina” and now serves alcohol. When Olivia and I visit, we put that part of the menu to the test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in scene: \u003c/strong>OK, so we went with the frozen margarita with premium tequila, because that’s how we roll on Bay Curious. We have two potato …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck in scene: \u003c/strong>spicy potato soft tacos…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Even on a weekday afternoon, the Taco Bell is packed. There are people waiting to place their orders on the self-service tablets, kids munching tacos and groups hanging out on the back deck enjoying 32 ounce slushy margaritas out of novelty cups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in scene:\u003c/strong> A yard, 32 ounces? Oh my god, no. Thank you. Regular! (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price in studio:\u003c/strong> We’re going to take a quick break, but when we come back we’ll learn why you don’t see many other restaurants on beaches in California. And what sea level rise could mean for this beachside spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh, and while we’re on break, maybe take a moment to donate to KQED? It takes just a few minutes and helps keep shows ours running. \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/a> is the place to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor Message\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We’re talking about *THAT* Taco Bell in Pacifica – a cantina that’s literally right on the beach. Some people love it, but others have fought hard to prevent places like it from popping up along the California coast. Reporter Gabriela Glueck takes it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Around the same time Pacificans were raising concerns about the A&W, similar battles were playing out up and down the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>People were getting concerned about not being able to get to the beach or see it from Highway One, the way they used to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>This is Charles Lester. He worked for the State of California and the California Coastal Commission for twenty years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>And places like Malibu were already starting to see kind of this cheek to jowl residential development along the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Efforts to rein in coastal developments were slow going. But out of these local fights, a broader grassroots response was taking shape: the “save our coast” movement. Californians put an initiative on the ballot, and it passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newsclip: \u003c/strong>The passage of Proposition 20 on November the 8th has signaled the beginning of the most ambitious and comprehensive effort ever mounted in this nation and perhaps the world. For the purpose of developing a process for managing coastal zone resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>The reason why we have an initiative is because there was failed efforts in the legislature to do anything about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Proposition 20 established the California Coastal Commission to regulate development and protect public access along the coastline. California now has one of the most protected coastlines in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Newsclip:\u003c/strong> It has taken many hard lessons for us here in California to begin to understand the need for land and marine resource conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Approved by voters in 1972, the proposition didn’t go into effect until 1973. That’s a year after the A&W opened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>When I see it I go, oh, that must be from the 60s or the 70s, it looks like a lot of other developments in different places in California that were some of the reasons why we have a Coastal Act and why we decided to protect the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>That old A&W made it onto the beach in the nick of time. The building that would later become the Taco Bell, was grandfathered in. And thanks to prop 20, competition in the beachside fast food scene is scarce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>For Charles, the bigger question now is of the building’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>It’s a challenging location when you’re that close to the surf zone and you get big storms, the waves are going to come up, and eventually, with sea level rise, you’re going to have some serious issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>With just two meters of sea level rise, he says, the ocean would push right up against the restaurant. \u003cem>When\u003c/em> that will happen is still unclear—but some estimates put that at 75 years from now, but most projections put it 100 to 200 years away, depending on emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester: \u003c/strong>In my mind, yeah, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll be spending so much time, you know, responding to the wave attack and the wave damage and the storms that it won’t make any more sense economically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Charles says the Taco Bell would likely qualify as an ‘existing structure’ under the Coastal Act. That could make it eligible for a protective structure. Think sea wall or some other form of shoreline protection. But…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charles Lester:\u003c/strong> …. a lot of people are thinking given the inevitability of sea level rise and the immense energy we’re talking about in the ocean, that it’s going to be retreat, planned or unplanned in a lot of places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ambi of inside the Taco Bell\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price and Gabriela Glueck in scene: \u003c/strong>Mmm. It’s like a lighter churro. It tastes like Cinnamon Toast Crunch.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nGabriela Glueck: \u003c/strong>Back at the Taco Bell, on this gloriously sunny day, it’s hard to imagine this place not being here. For now though, for as long as it lasts, it’s safe to say it will remain iconic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was Bay Curious reporter Gabriela Glueck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Maha Sanad, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, Katie Sprenger, and everyone on Team KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This article first published April 18, 2024. We are republishing in honor of the 120th anniversary of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On April 18, 1906, many San Franciscans awoke at 5:13 a.m. to feel the earth shaking. An estimated 7.9 earthquake rocked the San Andreas fault, causing the immediate collapse of many buildings in San Francisco’s downtown. That, in turn, began a fire that quickly spread throughout the city. It was a momentous day in the history of the Bay Area. Crucial records were lost in the blaze, and the event marked a dividing line in the historical record — pre- and post-quake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every year, San Franciscans gather early in the morning at the corner of Kearny and Market streets to commemorate the event. People dress up in period costumes, trying to embody the historic moment. City leaders use the anniversary as an opportunity to remind citizens about earthquake preparedness and to celebrate first responders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Allison Pennell grew up in Berkeley and learned all the lore around the 1906 earthquake, so she was surprised to see something \u003cem>new\u003c/em> while perusing a catalog from the Legion of Honor Museum. Staring back at her from the page was a photo of a group of African Americans dressed in turn-of-the-century clothing, watching from atop a hill as San Francisco burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983185\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 465px\">\u003ca href=\"https://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb087004q7/?brand=oac4\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983185\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Black-San-Franciscans-Clay-St-cropped.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of early San Francisco. A small group of African Americans turn to the camera as huge smoke plumes rise behind them.\" width=\"465\" height=\"649\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Black-San-Franciscans-Clay-St-cropped.jpg 465w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Black-San-Franciscans-Clay-St-cropped-160x223.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 465px) 100vw, 465px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A group of African American San Franciscans watch the fire advance from Clay Street in 1906. \u003ccite>(\u003ca href=\"https://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb087004q7/?brand=oac4\">UC Berkeley Bancroft Library\u003c/a>/Photographer: Arnold Genthe )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I just started to think about that photograph and what would have happened after the earthquake,” Allison said. “I know many people came over to the East Bay to set up an emergency situation over here. And so I thought, how did that work? Because you couldn’t probably, as a nonwhite person, go to the Claremont Hotel and say, ‘I’d like a suite,’ at that time. The discrimination was deep.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She knew that Black people had been settling in San Francisco since before the Gold Rush but had never before given much thought to how the discrimination common at the time might have affected the community’s ability to recover, access aid and rebuild after the 1906 quake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m interested to know what Black San Franciscans did to survive after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and how they reestablished themselves either in the East Bay or back in San Francisco,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Before the Quake\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983203\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A133093?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=e7446cdca8edd82a35cf&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=46&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=9\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983203\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Devestation-featured.jpg\" alt=\"Sepia toned photo of a nearly flattened San Francisco from 1906.\" width=\"600\" height=\"454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Devestation-featured.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Devestation-featured-160x121.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">View looking down California Street after the earthquake and fire of 1906. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By 1906, many Black San Franciscans had already begun moving to the East Bay in search of more space, fewer restrictions and less expensive housing. Those who stayed in San Francisco lived in neighborhoods all over the city. Like other groups that immigrated to California during the Gold Rush, early Black settlers here were mostly single men who tended to live in hotels downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while societal norms were a bit looser in the fledgling city, there was still plenty of racism, especially when it came to employment. The best, most skilled jobs were reserved for white people, while Black residents struggled to find the most menial work. Accounts from the time describe jobs like errand runners, elevator operators, valets and hotel workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983189\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A217449?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=8b7fbf8474525807d377&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=1&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=1#birds_eye_container\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983189\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/palace-hotel-1906.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of two grand buildings collapsing.\" width=\"600\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/palace-hotel-1906.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/palace-hotel-1906-160x129.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grand Hotel (left) and Palace Hotel on fire as carriages go by. Some of the better jobs Black San Franciscans could find at the turn of the 20th century were in hotels like these, where they could earn tips. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/The San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When the Trans-Pacific Railroad was built and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11910890/how-oaklands-16th-street-train-station-helped-build-west-oakland-and-the-modern-civil-rights-movement\">Southern Pacific Railroad opened a terminus in Oakland,\u003c/a> more jobs for Black people became available working on the trains and in the station. That was another reason many families chose to relocate to Oakland. A community had started to thrive in West Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Life Immediately After\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The 1906 earthquake and fire were catastrophic for all San Franciscans. And, as often happens in a crisis, people pulled together in the aftermath to help one another and to rebuild the city. It’s estimated that 80% of San Francisco was destroyed in the fire, and 200,000 people — rich and poor alike — were made homeless overnight. People of all backgrounds waited in long lines for basic supplies and sustenance, which added to the equalizing effect immediately after the earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983192\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A133547?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=6e0cba7e67868ea50c84&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=43&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=0\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983192\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/food-lines.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of weary people waiting in line with empty containers.\" width=\"600\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/food-lines.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/food-lines-160x119.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After the 1906 earthquake, San Franciscans of all types had to wait in lines for basic necessities. \u003ccite>(San Francisco HIstory Center/The San Francisco Public LIbrary)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Artist-in-residence at the San Francisco Public Library, tanea lunsford lynx, discovered \u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A48483\">a trove of oral histories from African Americans at the turn of the 20th century\u003c/a> and a few photos depicting Black San Franciscans during the earthquake and fire. tanea is a fourth-generation San Franciscan, so their roots go deep here, but they’d never seen or heard anything like this before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So even though my family has a deep history here, and even though we knew we were here, there hadn’t been photo proof that I’d seen,” they said. “And there certainly hadn’t been stories in our own voices about the experience of being here in 1906 and prior to that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>tanea was inspired to create an exhibit that looks at how the oral history of one man, Aurelious Alberga, speaks to San Francisco’s present moment. Her poetry and interpretation are up on \u003ca href=\"https://www.tanealunsfordlynx.com/wewerehere\">a website she created called “We Were Here.”\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below are excerpts of first-person accounts from Black San Franciscans who lived through the 1906 earthquake and fire. Their oral histories are archived at the San Francisco Public Library’s History Center in a collection entitled “\u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/qqXrCJ6PLruKXKK8FVA8XA?domain=oac.cdlib.org\">Afro-Americans in San Francisco prior to World War II Oral history project records\u003c/a>.” The histories were recorded in 1978 by Dr. Albert Broussard, author of \u003cem>Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the West, 1900–1954\u003c/em>. The work was co-sponsored by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfaahcs.org/\">San Francisco African-American Historical and Cultural Society\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983193\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1170px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.tanealunsfordlynx.com/wewerehere\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983193\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white portrait of a young black man.\" width=\"1170\" height=\"1186\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious.jpg 1170w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious-800x811.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious-1020x1034.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious-160x162.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A young Aurelious Alberga (1884–1988)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aurelious Alberga was born in San Francisco in 1884. He was a young man when the earthquake hit, renting a room in a hotel at the corner of Commercial and Kearny streets. His father rented a separate room on the floor above him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“The Quake loosened one side of the building and it collapsed. Outside the building were big windows, which years ago had iron shutters that pulled in and closed over a little balcony. When the bricks fell down, they forced the shutters closed. The doors in those days used to open out, and the door to my room was jammed shut — I couldn’t open it, you see. So I made enough noise and yelled out for my father. And he came down the best way he could and pulled away the rocks from the hallways to make the door wide enough so I could come out.” — Aurelious Alberga\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983195\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A217420?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=d274b845e2f43463a2a6&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=2&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=10\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983195\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/buildings-fall-down.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of nearly flattened buildings, with people walking by on the street.\" width=\"600\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/buildings-fall-down.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/buildings-fall-down-160x110.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People walk down the street, stopping to look at buildings that have been nearly flattened in the 1906 earthquake. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“In the meantime, the city had started on fire. The water mains had broken, and they had no water, and no hoses long enough to draw water from the Bay. There’s nothing that could stop it. It just went ahead.” — Aurelious Alberga\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983197\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A209339?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=168622d42efe2632415f&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=4&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=19\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983197\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/dramatic-fire-1906.jpg\" alt=\"Dramatic black and white photo of a fierce fire burning behind the remains of a building.\" width=\"600\" height=\"435\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/dramatic-fire-1906.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/dramatic-fire-1906-160x116.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Buildings burning on Market Street after the 1906 earthquake. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon was a little girl when the earthquake hit. Her family lived in a two-story flat on Jones Street at Broadway. She remembers that the week the quake hit was Easter vacation from school, so she and her mother and siblings had taken the ferry across the Bay to stay with her grandparents in Oakland for the week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“My father came over on the last boat before the earthquake hit, to my grandmother’s… I was so sure it was my fault because I didn’t kneel that night before I said prayers. I got into bed and then said my prayers because it was so cold. But I didn’t tell anyone that it was my fault the earthquake came.” —Elizabeth Fisher Gordon\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>When the aftershocks subsided, Elizabeth’s father wanted to go back to San Francisco to check on their house, but authorities were not letting people on the ferries back to the city. He had to get special permission to return to the devastated city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“And when he went over, he found out there was a whole lot of damage. But he was able to get a suitcase and put some things in it, never dreaming the fire would reach there, you know. And some of the things he brought were so insignificant my mother thought. I’ll never forget her repeating, “he brought \u003ci>that\u003c/i> book.” — Elizabeth Fisher Gordon\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth’s family stayed with her grandparents for several months after the earthquake until her father bought a plot of land in the Mission and built them a new house. She remembers many people in the Black community relying on friends and family for help during this time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983198\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A217433?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=8b7fbf8474525807d377&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=1&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=17\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983198\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/cooking-street.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of of a woman cooking on a cast iron stove in the street.\" width=\"600\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/cooking-street.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/cooking-street-160x114.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People cooked in the streets or in their backyards after the quake because chimneys had fallen down, and it wasn’t safe to cook inside. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Alfred Butler was a teenager living in Oakland when the quake struck. His father worked on the railroad and had more access to goods than most people in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“He brought a lot of food out from Chicago to feed these people, White people all around the neighborhood. And the people all knew the Butlers. We had to eat in the backyard; we built a stove out of bricks to cook the meals on, because they wouldn’t allow you to cook in the house. The Earthquake had knocked all the chimneys down, so we had to eat in the backyard, fry and cook as best we could. People were thankful for that food too.” — Alfred Butler\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983199\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A132890?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=f31fecf33ee6f0edcd0d&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=5&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=14\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983199\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/refugee-camp-GGP.jpg\" alt=\"Rows of white tent set up in Golden Gate Park to house refugees from the 1906 earthquake.\" width=\"600\" height=\"345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/refugee-camp-GGP.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/refugee-camp-GGP-160x92.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Refugee camps like this one in Golden Gate Park were set up in parks throughout San Francisco to house the nearly 200,000 people who had become homeless overnight. The military managed the camps. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Butler visited San Francisco right after the earthquake and described it as mostly rubble. All the tall buildings had fallen down. But he said people were already cleaning up, and within a year, they’d started to rebuild. Many Black San Franciscans moved to the Western Addition after the earthquake, including his brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983201\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A134029?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=d11fd6bd47c32fd8a6e1&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=8&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=17\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983201\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/rebuilding.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of two men shoveling debris in front of burned out buildings.\" width=\"600\" height=\"486\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/rebuilding.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/rebuilding-160x130.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">It is said that the bricks weren’t even cool before San Franciscans started rebuilding their city. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/The San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“My brother, right after the earthquake, he rented a place on Post near Fillmore. He got a place. He was just lucky. After the Earthquake, everybody moved on Fillmore Street. Businesses moved down Fillmore Street. All the business on Fillmore Street started booming. That’s where all the life was.” — Albert Butler\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>By 1915, just nine years after the devastating quake, San Francisco had largely been rebuilt. City leaders hosted the Panama-Pacific International Exposition to show the world it had recovered. While many people left San Francisco immediately after the quake, not too long after the 1915 World’s Fair, World War I began. A wave of new migrants came to the Bay Area then and again during World War II. The Black community in the Bay Area continued to grow in the East Bay, especially as ferry service to San Francisco improved so people could easily commute to the city for work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB0eK5KO8k8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Every year on April 18th… at 5:13 in the morning…. San Franciscans gather at the corner of Market and Kearny Streets to remember.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>Once again, you crazy folks have come together at this ungodly hour to remember and honor the memories of those hearty San Franciscans who survived being tossed from their beds 117 years ago this morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>People come dressed up in period costumes…trying to inhabit the moment in 1906 when an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.9 brought devastation to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>Wednesday, April 18th, 1906 5:12 a.m. A great foreshock is felt throughout the San Francisco Bay area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>San Franciscans startled awake …only to see their city burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>Fires rage and spread throughout the city. They are not stopped until 74 hours later. Many of San Francisco’s finest buildings collapse under the firestorms. Firefighters begin dynamiting buildings to create firebreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>But the fire kept leaping over the lines, traveling further west.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>The Great Fire reaches Van Ness Avenue, which is 125ft wide, facing the decision to blow his city to pieces or watch it burn, Mayor Schmitz finally agrees to let the army create a massive firebreak in the hopes that it can stop the raging inferno. Friday, April 20th, 1906 5 a.m. The fire break at Venice finally holds and the westward progression of the inferno was halted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> It took more than three days to fully put the fire out. And then San Franciscans took stock. Nearly 80-percent of the city had burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>So if we can just have a moment of silence for those who died and those who helped with the city after the earthquake. (Silence) Let’s hear those sirens go. Here we are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> The Great Earthquake and fire of 1906 were devastating to everyone living in San Francisco at the time, including its several thousand Black residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Allison Pennell started wondering about how this community fared after the earthquake when she saw an old photo in a museum booklet. It showed a group of Black San Franciscans standing at the top of Clay Street, watching the fire burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Pennell: \u003c/b>And I just started to think about that photograph and what would have happened after the earthquake. I know many people came over to the East Bay, and they simply got into boats and got over here, to try to set up an emergency situation over here. And so I thought, how did that work? Because, you couldn’t just probably as a nonwhite person go to the Claremont Hotel and say, I’d like a suite. At that time, the discrimination was deep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She wanted to know more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Pennell: \u003c/b>I’m interested to know what Black San Franciscans did to survive after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and how they re-established themselves either in the East Bay or back in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: Stories and photos of the devastation wrought by the 1906 earthquake and fire are easy to find around San Francisco. But it’s less common to see or hear explicit references to how the Black community fared after the quake. \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today on Bay Curious – just a few days shy of the 120th anniversary of the earthquake and fire – we’ll hear some first person accounts from those who survived it. This story first aired on our show in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Bay Curious editor and producer Katrina Schwartz takes it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of elevators at the library\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> You can find all kinds of cool stuff at the public library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>I was thinking like, where do where does the ephemera live? Where do the things live that we can’t touch? What are the less visited things of the library?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>tanea lunsford lynx was recently an artist in residence at the San Francisco Public Library,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>And then I found that there was an oral history project that had over 25, recorded oral histories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>She was \u003ci>transfixed\u003c/i> by the voices of Black Americans describing life in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: yea, we were here.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> Now, tanea and I are standing in front of a display case on the third floor of the main branch …busy library life bustling around us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>I wanted folks to kind of happen upon it outside of the elevator. So when folks kind of get out there, struck by the photos that many of us have never seen. Of the 1906 earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>Yeah. Some people have seen some of the photos, like of the fire and stuff like that. What’s different about these ones?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>These photos are different because they’re featuring black American folks who were here in San Francisco at the time of the 1906 earthquake. So you not only see the plume of the fires, the smoke in the back of the photos, but you also see, black San Franciscans at the forefront of the photos who are, like, dressed very beautifully.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>My name is tanea lunsford lynx. I’m a writer and artist and educator. And fourth generation, like San Franciscan on both sides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>For Tanea, these photos were a revelation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>So even though my family has a deep history here, and even though we knew we were here, there hadn’t been like photo proof that I’d seen a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>As part of her residency at the library she began digging into the archives kept here and stumbled across an oral history recorded in 1978… of a man named Aurelius Alberga. A black man and a survivor of the 1906 earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>And there certainly hadn’t been stories in our own voices about the experience of being here in 1906 and prior to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>I felt a kinship pretty quickly. Because something about. Alberga’s tone reminded me of my grandfather’s voice and something about the quality of the audio is…Very appropriate for the time that it was recorded. And so you can, like hear the hum of the machine. You can hear like background noises, like I was I was automatically seated in someone’s house, like listening to them tell their stories. And it was that kinship, that closeness, that sense of intimacy that I was looking for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga: \u003c/b>October 22, 1884.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dr. Albert Broussard: \u003c/b>Where were you born?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga: \u003c/b>San Francisco\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dr. Albert Broussard: \u003c/b>What about you parents. Where were they born?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga: \u003c/b>My father was born in Kingston, Jamaica. May mother was born in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>He was very chill, for lack of a better word, about surviving that earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> Historian Dr. Albert Broussard recorded this oral history when Alberga was in his 90s. On the day of the Great Earthquake, Alberga was in his early 20s, sleeping in a room he rented at the corner of Commercial and Kearny Streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>Aurelius Alberga is asleep in his apartment, which most likely was an SRO, single room occupancy. And he lived there, and his father lived in the apartment above him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> My father was living there too. He had a room right upstairs directly over me. The Quake loosened and one side of the building collapsed. The doors in those days used to open out, and the door to my room was jammed shut — I couldn’t open it, you see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> He, like, yells for his father to know where he is, and his father comes down and helps him get out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> After escaping his small room, Alberga and his father go their separate ways. Alberga is worried about the man he works for who is blind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> Alberga’s job at that time is being a chauffeur for a man he calls old Metzger, who’s a man that he works for, who’s, like, wealthy, who’s a blind man. And, he develops this relationship with kind of like, caring for him in different ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> He lived on O’Farrell Street between Stockton and Powell. The whole front side of the hotel had fallen out into the streets and left exposed the rooms on that end. He was right there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> And so Alberga is like, oh my gosh, I hope he’s okay. And he gets up to Metzger’s apartment. And this man is sleeping.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> He slept through it all, which was a blessing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> After heroically saving Metzger’s life, he takes the old man to his mother’s house. Old Metzger is worried about savings he’s got stored in a safe downtown so he sends Alberga to retrieve the money. That errand takes Alberga all over the town and he watches as the city is destroyed. He recalls how the water mains were broken and firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> They had no water, and no hoses long enough to draw water from the Bay. There’s nothing that could stop it. It just went ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> It blew my mind that he could recall with precision the exact intersections of where things happened in San Francisco, particularly as a man of, like, more than 90 years old. Because I’m also aware of, like, yes, this was a trauma that he survived. And he was able to recall with such clarity where these things happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Alberga had lost everything in the earthquake and fire, his home, all his possessions. He bounced around the city, staying with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> One of the things he did say was that folks across like, race and ethnicity were really welcoming to each other as far as, like, inviting folks to literally stay in their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> I don’t think there were any people as friendly as the ole San Franciscans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> No one as friendly as ‘ole San Franciscans. People were dragging their trunks down the road, nowhere to sleep…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> People were dragging their trunks along the street and someone would come along and help them. They’d take someone in their house they had never seen before in your life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Folks opened up their homes to people they’d never seen before in their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>So that mutual aid and that care was something that Alberga named as something that was distinctly San Franciscan at the time, that it was a very friendly place at that time, particularly after this moment of crisis. And so that really stood out to me, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Olivia: We’re going to pause for a quick break, but when we return … more stories from 1906. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sponsor message\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Olivia: When the 1906 earthquake and fire hit San Francisco, thousands of children were affected. Forming Vivid memories that would stay with them for most of their lives. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon was just a little girl of nine-years-old when the earthquake struck. Her family lived in a flat in downtown San Francisco. But by 1906 many Black San Franciscans had relocated to the East Bay in search of more space and less expensive housing. Her grandmother lived in Oakland and Elizabeth had gone to stay with her for the Easter holidays, just before the quake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon: \u003c/b>And my mother came over later in the week and brought the rest of the children. My father came over on the last boat before the earthquake hit, to my grandmother’s. I was so sure it was my fault because I didn’t kneel that night before I said prayers. I got into bed and then said my prayers because it was so cold. But I didn’t tell anyone that it was my fault the earthquake came.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Elizabeth remembers all the chimneys in Oakland falling down during the earthquake. As morning dawned, chaos reigned and authorities would not let Elizabeth’s father return to San Francisco on the ferry. He had to get special permission to go check on their house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon: \u003c/b>And when he went over, he found out there was a whole lot of damage. But he was able to get a suitcase and put some things in it, never dreaming the fire would reach there, you know. And some of the things he brought were so insignificant my mother thought. I’ll never forget her repeating, “he brought that book.” (chuckles).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Her father returned to Oakland where his family was — and their home on Jones street was consumed by the fire. Elizabeth says the family was lucky to be able to stay with her grandparents in Oakland until her father purchased a plot of land in the Mission to build them a new house. She says many Black San Franciscans tapped into networks of friends and family in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon: \u003c/b>The people from San Francisco came over here when their houses burned down and they took care of them over here. Red Cross, and they set up temporary housing and what have you for the people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Tent cities sprang up in parks around San Francisco…housing 200-thousand people who had become homeless overnight. People set up outdoor kitchens and cooked together. Tanea lunsford lynx documented Black San Franciscans among these scenes in her exhibit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>The first photo that we see is a photo of two young black people, children who are sitting in the grass and you see tents and you see a clothing line up behind them, and you see a little stove for cooking as well. And this is a campsite that was set up in Golden Gate Park, because folks had lost everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>A PBS documentary called The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake paints a desolate picture of life in the aftermath.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Narration: \u003c/b>Standing in bread lines, meat lines, soup lines, any kind of a line became the central activity of life. Everyone had to do it. Soldiers made sure nobody cheated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And anybody not standing in line, was put to work rebuilding the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Narration: \u003c/b>It was said that in many places, the debris was not even allowed to cool, and bricks were pitched from lots when still as warm as muffins. Volunteers on the cleanup crews took up the refrain in the damnedest, finest ruins I’d rather be a brick than live anywhere else but San Francisco. The great cleanup had begun. Thousands of standing walls were torn down. An estimated 6.5 billion bricks were carted away or cleaned of mortar to be reused in new buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>People who lived through these times remember it as a swift recovery. Alfred Butler was a Black teenager living in Oakland at the time of the earthquake. He took a mule and cart all the way down to San Jose and around the Bay in order to see what had happened to San Francisco for himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He recalls seeing a lot of rubble, and the biggest buildings knocked down. But over the following months the recovery progressed quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alfred Butler: \u003c/b>They built it up right away. In a year’s time, things were pretty well cleaned up. And then they started to build.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>At the turn of the 20th century, Black San Franciscans lived in neighborhoods scattered throughout San Francisco, but many single men were concentrated in hotels downtown…like Aurelius Alberga who we heard from earlier. Alfred Butler says after the earthquake, the Western Addition became the hub of Black life. That’s where his brother moved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alfred Butler: \u003c/b>After the earthquake, everybody moved on Fillmore Street. All the businesses on Fillmore Street started booming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>San Franciscans came together after the quake and people from all walks of life helped one another in that moment of crises. But the oral histories of these Black Americans who survived it show that as the city rebuilt, it went back to the de facto racism that ruled it. Butler says good jobs were still reserved for white people, while Black people struggled to find menial ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Albert Butler: \u003c/b>It was hard to get a job. Negroes, we had a tough time getting a job. A menial job like washing windows or running errands or something like that. Running an elevator or something like that. It was hard to get a job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music transition\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>For Tanea, the photos of San Franciscans living in tents, cooking outdoors, waiting in line for basic necessities are eerily similar to scenes on the streets of the city today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>When looking at these photos, I began to see the past, speaking to the future and the future, speaking to the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And as a Black person, tanea sees echoes of \u003ci>her San Francisco\u003c/i> in the oral histories she combed through. A small Black community fighting to stay in a changing city. The devastation of displacement and loss. But also the love of this place and the tenacity to survive. It’s all too familiar. Her poem “We Were Here” is an ode to the Black community in San Francisco, which stretches from the Gold Rush to now. Here’s an excerpt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> We were here already, living fantastical lives, already saving the best for the present, already studying the contours of the city. The bay knew us. This ocean was salted with our knowing already. We knew the feeling of firm ground. Before the shaking. We knew stability. The ground knew the planting and rising of our feet like a dance. We were already sending for each other, extending a fishing hook south and pulling each other up with calloused hands. We were already spinning tales about this mass of fog. We were already making home here. \u003ci>(fades under)\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That story was brought to us by Bay Curious editor and producer, Katrina Schwartz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> But of course, we were here, living in our signature ways. Of course, when the earth shifted, we went looking for who could be lost in the cracks. Of course it made for lore. Of course we were doing the fantastical feat like a dance. The earth cracked open and we kept time, an offering of our survival. We kept on living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music fades out\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> tanea’s exhibit is no longer on display at the library, but you can see all the photos she used and \u003ca href=\"https://www.tanealunsfordlynx.com/wewerehere\">read her writing on the project’s website\u003c/a>. You can find a link in our show notes or on baycurious.org.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to the San Francisco History Center, part of the San Francisco Public Library for letting us use the oral histories in their archive. And to the San Francisco African-American Historical and Cultural Society who co-sponsored the original oral history project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Our show is made by:\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Katrina Schwartz\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale: \u003c/b>Christopher Beale\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Katherine Monahan\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>and me, Olivia Allen Price. Additional support from:\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>Jen Chien: \u003c/b>Jen Chien\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katie Springer: \u003c/b>Katie Springer\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maha Sanad: \u003c/b>Maha Sanad\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ethan Toven-Lindsey:\u003c/b> Ethan Toven-Lindsey\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Crowd:\u003c/b> And the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. We’ll be back next week.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "On the anniversary of San Francisco’s 1906 Earthquake and Fire, African Americans who lived through the catastrophe share their experiences.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This article first published April 18, 2024. We are republishing in honor of the 120th anniversary of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On April 18, 1906, many San Franciscans awoke at 5:13 a.m. to feel the earth shaking. An estimated 7.9 earthquake rocked the San Andreas fault, causing the immediate collapse of many buildings in San Francisco’s downtown. That, in turn, began a fire that quickly spread throughout the city. It was a momentous day in the history of the Bay Area. Crucial records were lost in the blaze, and the event marked a dividing line in the historical record — pre- and post-quake.\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>Every year, San Franciscans gather early in the morning at the corner of Kearny and Market streets to commemorate the event. People dress up in period costumes, trying to embody the historic moment. City leaders use the anniversary as an opportunity to remind citizens about earthquake preparedness and to celebrate first responders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Allison Pennell grew up in Berkeley and learned all the lore around the 1906 earthquake, so she was surprised to see something \u003cem>new\u003c/em> while perusing a catalog from the Legion of Honor Museum. Staring back at her from the page was a photo of a group of African Americans dressed in turn-of-the-century clothing, watching from atop a hill as San Francisco burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983185\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 465px\">\u003ca href=\"https://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb087004q7/?brand=oac4\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983185\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Black-San-Franciscans-Clay-St-cropped.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of early San Francisco. A small group of African Americans turn to the camera as huge smoke plumes rise behind them.\" width=\"465\" height=\"649\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Black-San-Franciscans-Clay-St-cropped.jpg 465w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Black-San-Franciscans-Clay-St-cropped-160x223.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 465px) 100vw, 465px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A group of African American San Franciscans watch the fire advance from Clay Street in 1906. \u003ccite>(\u003ca href=\"https://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb087004q7/?brand=oac4\">UC Berkeley Bancroft Library\u003c/a>/Photographer: Arnold Genthe )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I just started to think about that photograph and what would have happened after the earthquake,” Allison said. “I know many people came over to the East Bay to set up an emergency situation over here. And so I thought, how did that work? Because you couldn’t probably, as a nonwhite person, go to the Claremont Hotel and say, ‘I’d like a suite,’ at that time. The discrimination was deep.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She knew that Black people had been settling in San Francisco since before the Gold Rush but had never before given much thought to how the discrimination common at the time might have affected the community’s ability to recover, access aid and rebuild after the 1906 quake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m interested to know what Black San Franciscans did to survive after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and how they reestablished themselves either in the East Bay or back in San Francisco,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Before the Quake\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983203\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A133093?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=e7446cdca8edd82a35cf&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=46&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=9\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983203\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Devestation-featured.jpg\" alt=\"Sepia toned photo of a nearly flattened San Francisco from 1906.\" width=\"600\" height=\"454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Devestation-featured.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Devestation-featured-160x121.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">View looking down California Street after the earthquake and fire of 1906. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By 1906, many Black San Franciscans had already begun moving to the East Bay in search of more space, fewer restrictions and less expensive housing. Those who stayed in San Francisco lived in neighborhoods all over the city. Like other groups that immigrated to California during the Gold Rush, early Black settlers here were mostly single men who tended to live in hotels downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while societal norms were a bit looser in the fledgling city, there was still plenty of racism, especially when it came to employment. The best, most skilled jobs were reserved for white people, while Black residents struggled to find the most menial work. Accounts from the time describe jobs like errand runners, elevator operators, valets and hotel workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983189\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A217449?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=8b7fbf8474525807d377&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=1&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=1#birds_eye_container\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983189\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/palace-hotel-1906.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of two grand buildings collapsing.\" width=\"600\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/palace-hotel-1906.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/palace-hotel-1906-160x129.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grand Hotel (left) and Palace Hotel on fire as carriages go by. Some of the better jobs Black San Franciscans could find at the turn of the 20th century were in hotels like these, where they could earn tips. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/The San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When the Trans-Pacific Railroad was built and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11910890/how-oaklands-16th-street-train-station-helped-build-west-oakland-and-the-modern-civil-rights-movement\">Southern Pacific Railroad opened a terminus in Oakland,\u003c/a> more jobs for Black people became available working on the trains and in the station. That was another reason many families chose to relocate to Oakland. A community had started to thrive in West Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Life Immediately After\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The 1906 earthquake and fire were catastrophic for all San Franciscans. And, as often happens in a crisis, people pulled together in the aftermath to help one another and to rebuild the city. It’s estimated that 80% of San Francisco was destroyed in the fire, and 200,000 people — rich and poor alike — were made homeless overnight. People of all backgrounds waited in long lines for basic supplies and sustenance, which added to the equalizing effect immediately after the earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983192\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A133547?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=6e0cba7e67868ea50c84&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=43&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=0\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983192\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/food-lines.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of weary people waiting in line with empty containers.\" width=\"600\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/food-lines.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/food-lines-160x119.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After the 1906 earthquake, San Franciscans of all types had to wait in lines for basic necessities. \u003ccite>(San Francisco HIstory Center/The San Francisco Public LIbrary)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Artist-in-residence at the San Francisco Public Library, tanea lunsford lynx, discovered \u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A48483\">a trove of oral histories from African Americans at the turn of the 20th century\u003c/a> and a few photos depicting Black San Franciscans during the earthquake and fire. tanea is a fourth-generation San Franciscan, so their roots go deep here, but they’d never seen or heard anything like this before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So even though my family has a deep history here, and even though we knew we were here, there hadn’t been photo proof that I’d seen,” they said. “And there certainly hadn’t been stories in our own voices about the experience of being here in 1906 and prior to that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>tanea was inspired to create an exhibit that looks at how the oral history of one man, Aurelious Alberga, speaks to San Francisco’s present moment. Her poetry and interpretation are up on \u003ca href=\"https://www.tanealunsfordlynx.com/wewerehere\">a website she created called “We Were Here.”\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below are excerpts of first-person accounts from Black San Franciscans who lived through the 1906 earthquake and fire. Their oral histories are archived at the San Francisco Public Library’s History Center in a collection entitled “\u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/qqXrCJ6PLruKXKK8FVA8XA?domain=oac.cdlib.org\">Afro-Americans in San Francisco prior to World War II Oral history project records\u003c/a>.” The histories were recorded in 1978 by Dr. Albert Broussard, author of \u003cem>Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the West, 1900–1954\u003c/em>. The work was co-sponsored by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfaahcs.org/\">San Francisco African-American Historical and Cultural Society\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983193\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1170px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.tanealunsfordlynx.com/wewerehere\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983193\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white portrait of a young black man.\" width=\"1170\" height=\"1186\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious.jpg 1170w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious-800x811.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious-1020x1034.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/youngaurelious-160x162.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A young Aurelious Alberga (1884–1988)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aurelious Alberga was born in San Francisco in 1884. He was a young man when the earthquake hit, renting a room in a hotel at the corner of Commercial and Kearny streets. His father rented a separate room on the floor above him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“The Quake loosened one side of the building and it collapsed. Outside the building were big windows, which years ago had iron shutters that pulled in and closed over a little balcony. When the bricks fell down, they forced the shutters closed. The doors in those days used to open out, and the door to my room was jammed shut — I couldn’t open it, you see. So I made enough noise and yelled out for my father. And he came down the best way he could and pulled away the rocks from the hallways to make the door wide enough so I could come out.” — Aurelious Alberga\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983195\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A217420?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=d274b845e2f43463a2a6&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=2&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=10\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983195\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/buildings-fall-down.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of nearly flattened buildings, with people walking by on the street.\" width=\"600\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/buildings-fall-down.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/buildings-fall-down-160x110.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People walk down the street, stopping to look at buildings that have been nearly flattened in the 1906 earthquake. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“In the meantime, the city had started on fire. The water mains had broken, and they had no water, and no hoses long enough to draw water from the Bay. There’s nothing that could stop it. It just went ahead.” — Aurelious Alberga\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983197\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A209339?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=168622d42efe2632415f&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=4&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=19\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983197\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/dramatic-fire-1906.jpg\" alt=\"Dramatic black and white photo of a fierce fire burning behind the remains of a building.\" width=\"600\" height=\"435\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/dramatic-fire-1906.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/dramatic-fire-1906-160x116.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Buildings burning on Market Street after the 1906 earthquake. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon was a little girl when the earthquake hit. Her family lived in a two-story flat on Jones Street at Broadway. She remembers that the week the quake hit was Easter vacation from school, so she and her mother and siblings had taken the ferry across the Bay to stay with her grandparents in Oakland for the week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“My father came over on the last boat before the earthquake hit, to my grandmother’s… I was so sure it was my fault because I didn’t kneel that night before I said prayers. I got into bed and then said my prayers because it was so cold. But I didn’t tell anyone that it was my fault the earthquake came.” —Elizabeth Fisher Gordon\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>When the aftershocks subsided, Elizabeth’s father wanted to go back to San Francisco to check on their house, but authorities were not letting people on the ferries back to the city. He had to get special permission to return to the devastated city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“And when he went over, he found out there was a whole lot of damage. But he was able to get a suitcase and put some things in it, never dreaming the fire would reach there, you know. And some of the things he brought were so insignificant my mother thought. I’ll never forget her repeating, “he brought \u003ci>that\u003c/i> book.” — Elizabeth Fisher Gordon\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth’s family stayed with her grandparents for several months after the earthquake until her father bought a plot of land in the Mission and built them a new house. She remembers many people in the Black community relying on friends and family for help during this time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983198\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A217433?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=8b7fbf8474525807d377&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=1&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=17\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983198\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/cooking-street.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of of a woman cooking on a cast iron stove in the street.\" width=\"600\" height=\"428\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/cooking-street.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/cooking-street-160x114.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People cooked in the streets or in their backyards after the quake because chimneys had fallen down, and it wasn’t safe to cook inside. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Alfred Butler was a teenager living in Oakland when the quake struck. His father worked on the railroad and had more access to goods than most people in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“He brought a lot of food out from Chicago to feed these people, White people all around the neighborhood. And the people all knew the Butlers. We had to eat in the backyard; we built a stove out of bricks to cook the meals on, because they wouldn’t allow you to cook in the house. The Earthquake had knocked all the chimneys down, so we had to eat in the backyard, fry and cook as best we could. People were thankful for that food too.” — Alfred Butler\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983199\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A132890?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=f31fecf33ee6f0edcd0d&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=5&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=14\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983199\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/refugee-camp-GGP.jpg\" alt=\"Rows of white tent set up in Golden Gate Park to house refugees from the 1906 earthquake.\" width=\"600\" height=\"345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/refugee-camp-GGP.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/refugee-camp-GGP-160x92.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Refugee camps like this one in Golden Gate Park were set up in parks throughout San Francisco to house the nearly 200,000 people who had become homeless overnight. The military managed the camps. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Butler visited San Francisco right after the earthquake and described it as mostly rubble. All the tall buildings had fallen down. But he said people were already cleaning up, and within a year, they’d started to rebuild. Many Black San Franciscans moved to the Western Addition after the earthquake, including his brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983201\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A134029?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=d11fd6bd47c32fd8a6e1&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=8&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=17\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983201\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/rebuilding.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of two men shoveling debris in front of burned out buildings.\" width=\"600\" height=\"486\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/rebuilding.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/rebuilding-160x130.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">It is said that the bricks weren’t even cool before San Franciscans started rebuilding their city. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center/The San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“My brother, right after the earthquake, he rented a place on Post near Fillmore. He got a place. He was just lucky. After the Earthquake, everybody moved on Fillmore Street. Businesses moved down Fillmore Street. All the business on Fillmore Street started booming. That’s where all the life was.” — Albert Butler\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>By 1915, just nine years after the devastating quake, San Francisco had largely been rebuilt. City leaders hosted the Panama-Pacific International Exposition to show the world it had recovered. While many people left San Francisco immediately after the quake, not too long after the 1915 World’s Fair, World War I began. A wave of new migrants came to the Bay Area then and again during World War II. 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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Every year on April 18th… at 5:13 in the morning…. San Franciscans gather at the corner of Market and Kearny Streets to remember.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>Once again, you crazy folks have come together at this ungodly hour to remember and honor the memories of those hearty San Franciscans who survived being tossed from their beds 117 years ago this morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>People come dressed up in period costumes…trying to inhabit the moment in 1906 when an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.9 brought devastation to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>Wednesday, April 18th, 1906 5:12 a.m. A great foreshock is felt throughout the San Francisco Bay area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>San Franciscans startled awake …only to see their city burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>Fires rage and spread throughout the city. They are not stopped until 74 hours later. Many of San Francisco’s finest buildings collapse under the firestorms. Firefighters begin dynamiting buildings to create firebreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>But the fire kept leaping over the lines, traveling further west.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>The Great Fire reaches Van Ness Avenue, which is 125ft wide, facing the decision to blow his city to pieces or watch it burn, Mayor Schmitz finally agrees to let the army create a massive firebreak in the hopes that it can stop the raging inferno. Friday, April 20th, 1906 5 a.m. The fire break at Venice finally holds and the westward progression of the inferno was halted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> It took more than three days to fully put the fire out. And then San Franciscans took stock. Nearly 80-percent of the city had burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Sarlatte: \u003c/b>So if we can just have a moment of silence for those who died and those who helped with the city after the earthquake. (Silence) Let’s hear those sirens go. Here we are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> The Great Earthquake and fire of 1906 were devastating to everyone living in San Francisco at the time, including its several thousand Black residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Allison Pennell started wondering about how this community fared after the earthquake when she saw an old photo in a museum booklet. It showed a group of Black San Franciscans standing at the top of Clay Street, watching the fire burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Pennell: \u003c/b>And I just started to think about that photograph and what would have happened after the earthquake. I know many people came over to the East Bay, and they simply got into boats and got over here, to try to set up an emergency situation over here. And so I thought, how did that work? Because, you couldn’t just probably as a nonwhite person go to the Claremont Hotel and say, I’d like a suite. At that time, the discrimination was deep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She wanted to know more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Pennell: \u003c/b>I’m interested to know what Black San Franciscans did to survive after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and how they re-established themselves either in the East Bay or back in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: Stories and photos of the devastation wrought by the 1906 earthquake and fire are easy to find around San Francisco. But it’s less common to see or hear explicit references to how the Black community fared after the quake. \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today on Bay Curious – just a few days shy of the 120th anniversary of the earthquake and fire – we’ll hear some first person accounts from those who survived it. This story first aired on our show in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Bay Curious editor and producer Katrina Schwartz takes it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of elevators at the library\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> You can find all kinds of cool stuff at the public library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>I was thinking like, where do where does the ephemera live? Where do the things live that we can’t touch? What are the less visited things of the library?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>tanea lunsford lynx was recently an artist in residence at the San Francisco Public Library,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>And then I found that there was an oral history project that had over 25, recorded oral histories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>She was \u003ci>transfixed\u003c/i> by the voices of Black Americans describing life in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: yea, we were here.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> Now, tanea and I are standing in front of a display case on the third floor of the main branch …busy library life bustling around us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>I wanted folks to kind of happen upon it outside of the elevator. So when folks kind of get out there, struck by the photos that many of us have never seen. Of the 1906 earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>Yeah. Some people have seen some of the photos, like of the fire and stuff like that. What’s different about these ones?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>These photos are different because they’re featuring black American folks who were here in San Francisco at the time of the 1906 earthquake. So you not only see the plume of the fires, the smoke in the back of the photos, but you also see, black San Franciscans at the forefront of the photos who are, like, dressed very beautifully.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>My name is tanea lunsford lynx. I’m a writer and artist and educator. And fourth generation, like San Franciscan on both sides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>For Tanea, these photos were a revelation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>So even though my family has a deep history here, and even though we knew we were here, there hadn’t been like photo proof that I’d seen a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>As part of her residency at the library she began digging into the archives kept here and stumbled across an oral history recorded in 1978… of a man named Aurelius Alberga. A black man and a survivor of the 1906 earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>And there certainly hadn’t been stories in our own voices about the experience of being here in 1906 and prior to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>I felt a kinship pretty quickly. Because something about. Alberga’s tone reminded me of my grandfather’s voice and something about the quality of the audio is…Very appropriate for the time that it was recorded. And so you can, like hear the hum of the machine. You can hear like background noises, like I was I was automatically seated in someone’s house, like listening to them tell their stories. And it was that kinship, that closeness, that sense of intimacy that I was looking for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga: \u003c/b>October 22, 1884.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dr. Albert Broussard: \u003c/b>Where were you born?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga: \u003c/b>San Francisco\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dr. Albert Broussard: \u003c/b>What about you parents. Where were they born?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga: \u003c/b>My father was born in Kingston, Jamaica. May mother was born in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>He was very chill, for lack of a better word, about surviving that earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> Historian Dr. Albert Broussard recorded this oral history when Alberga was in his 90s. On the day of the Great Earthquake, Alberga was in his early 20s, sleeping in a room he rented at the corner of Commercial and Kearny Streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>Aurelius Alberga is asleep in his apartment, which most likely was an SRO, single room occupancy. And he lived there, and his father lived in the apartment above him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> My father was living there too. He had a room right upstairs directly over me. The Quake loosened and one side of the building collapsed. The doors in those days used to open out, and the door to my room was jammed shut — I couldn’t open it, you see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> He, like, yells for his father to know where he is, and his father comes down and helps him get out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> After escaping his small room, Alberga and his father go their separate ways. Alberga is worried about the man he works for who is blind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> Alberga’s job at that time is being a chauffeur for a man he calls old Metzger, who’s a man that he works for, who’s, like, wealthy, who’s a blind man. And, he develops this relationship with kind of like, caring for him in different ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> He lived on O’Farrell Street between Stockton and Powell. The whole front side of the hotel had fallen out into the streets and left exposed the rooms on that end. He was right there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> And so Alberga is like, oh my gosh, I hope he’s okay. And he gets up to Metzger’s apartment. And this man is sleeping.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> He slept through it all, which was a blessing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> After heroically saving Metzger’s life, he takes the old man to his mother’s house. Old Metzger is worried about savings he’s got stored in a safe downtown so he sends Alberga to retrieve the money. That errand takes Alberga all over the town and he watches as the city is destroyed. He recalls how the water mains were broken and firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> They had no water, and no hoses long enough to draw water from the Bay. There’s nothing that could stop it. It just went ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> It blew my mind that he could recall with precision the exact intersections of where things happened in San Francisco, particularly as a man of, like, more than 90 years old. Because I’m also aware of, like, yes, this was a trauma that he survived. And he was able to recall with such clarity where these things happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Alberga had lost everything in the earthquake and fire, his home, all his possessions. He bounced around the city, staying with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> One of the things he did say was that folks across like, race and ethnicity were really welcoming to each other as far as, like, inviting folks to literally stay in their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> I don’t think there were any people as friendly as the ole San Franciscans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b> No one as friendly as ‘ole San Franciscans. People were dragging their trunks down the road, nowhere to sleep…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Aurelius Alberga:\u003c/b> People were dragging their trunks along the street and someone would come along and help them. They’d take someone in their house they had never seen before in your life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Folks opened up their homes to people they’d never seen before in their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>So that mutual aid and that care was something that Alberga named as something that was distinctly San Franciscan at the time, that it was a very friendly place at that time, particularly after this moment of crisis. And so that really stood out to me, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Olivia: We’re going to pause for a quick break, but when we return … more stories from 1906. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sponsor message\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Olivia: When the 1906 earthquake and fire hit San Francisco, thousands of children were affected. Forming Vivid memories that would stay with them for most of their lives. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon was just a little girl of nine-years-old when the earthquake struck. Her family lived in a flat in downtown San Francisco. But by 1906 many Black San Franciscans had relocated to the East Bay in search of more space and less expensive housing. Her grandmother lived in Oakland and Elizabeth had gone to stay with her for the Easter holidays, just before the quake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon: \u003c/b>And my mother came over later in the week and brought the rest of the children. My father came over on the last boat before the earthquake hit, to my grandmother’s. I was so sure it was my fault because I didn’t kneel that night before I said prayers. I got into bed and then said my prayers because it was so cold. But I didn’t tell anyone that it was my fault the earthquake came.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Elizabeth remembers all the chimneys in Oakland falling down during the earthquake. As morning dawned, chaos reigned and authorities would not let Elizabeth’s father return to San Francisco on the ferry. He had to get special permission to go check on their house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon: \u003c/b>And when he went over, he found out there was a whole lot of damage. But he was able to get a suitcase and put some things in it, never dreaming the fire would reach there, you know. And some of the things he brought were so insignificant my mother thought. I’ll never forget her repeating, “he brought that book.” (chuckles).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Her father returned to Oakland where his family was — and their home on Jones street was consumed by the fire. Elizabeth says the family was lucky to be able to stay with her grandparents in Oakland until her father purchased a plot of land in the Mission to build them a new house. She says many Black San Franciscans tapped into networks of friends and family in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elizabeth Fisher Gordon: \u003c/b>The people from San Francisco came over here when their houses burned down and they took care of them over here. Red Cross, and they set up temporary housing and what have you for the people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Tent cities sprang up in parks around San Francisco…housing 200-thousand people who had become homeless overnight. People set up outdoor kitchens and cooked together. Tanea lunsford lynx documented Black San Franciscans among these scenes in her exhibit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>The first photo that we see is a photo of two young black people, children who are sitting in the grass and you see tents and you see a clothing line up behind them, and you see a little stove for cooking as well. And this is a campsite that was set up in Golden Gate Park, because folks had lost everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>A PBS documentary called The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake paints a desolate picture of life in the aftermath.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Narration: \u003c/b>Standing in bread lines, meat lines, soup lines, any kind of a line became the central activity of life. Everyone had to do it. Soldiers made sure nobody cheated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And anybody not standing in line, was put to work rebuilding the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Narration: \u003c/b>It was said that in many places, the debris was not even allowed to cool, and bricks were pitched from lots when still as warm as muffins. Volunteers on the cleanup crews took up the refrain in the damnedest, finest ruins I’d rather be a brick than live anywhere else but San Francisco. The great cleanup had begun. Thousands of standing walls were torn down. An estimated 6.5 billion bricks were carted away or cleaned of mortar to be reused in new buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>People who lived through these times remember it as a swift recovery. Alfred Butler was a Black teenager living in Oakland at the time of the earthquake. He took a mule and cart all the way down to San Jose and around the Bay in order to see what had happened to San Francisco for himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He recalls seeing a lot of rubble, and the biggest buildings knocked down. But over the following months the recovery progressed quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alfred Butler: \u003c/b>They built it up right away. In a year’s time, things were pretty well cleaned up. And then they started to build.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>At the turn of the 20th century, Black San Franciscans lived in neighborhoods scattered throughout San Francisco, but many single men were concentrated in hotels downtown…like Aurelius Alberga who we heard from earlier. Alfred Butler says after the earthquake, the Western Addition became the hub of Black life. That’s where his brother moved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alfred Butler: \u003c/b>After the earthquake, everybody moved on Fillmore Street. All the businesses on Fillmore Street started booming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>San Franciscans came together after the quake and people from all walks of life helped one another in that moment of crises. But the oral histories of these Black Americans who survived it show that as the city rebuilt, it went back to the de facto racism that ruled it. Butler says good jobs were still reserved for white people, while Black people struggled to find menial ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Albert Butler: \u003c/b>It was hard to get a job. Negroes, we had a tough time getting a job. A menial job like washing windows or running errands or something like that. Running an elevator or something like that. It was hard to get a job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music transition\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>For Tanea, the photos of San Franciscans living in tents, cooking outdoors, waiting in line for basic necessities are eerily similar to scenes on the streets of the city today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx: \u003c/b>When looking at these photos, I began to see the past, speaking to the future and the future, speaking to the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And as a Black person, tanea sees echoes of \u003ci>her San Francisco\u003c/i> in the oral histories she combed through. A small Black community fighting to stay in a changing city. The devastation of displacement and loss. But also the love of this place and the tenacity to survive. It’s all too familiar. Her poem “We Were Here” is an ode to the Black community in San Francisco, which stretches from the Gold Rush to now. Here’s an excerpt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> We were here already, living fantastical lives, already saving the best for the present, already studying the contours of the city. The bay knew us. This ocean was salted with our knowing already. We knew the feeling of firm ground. Before the shaking. We knew stability. The ground knew the planting and rising of our feet like a dance. We were already sending for each other, extending a fishing hook south and pulling each other up with calloused hands. We were already spinning tales about this mass of fog. We were already making home here. \u003ci>(fades under)\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That story was brought to us by Bay Curious editor and producer, Katrina Schwartz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>tanea lunsford lynx:\u003c/b> But of course, we were here, living in our signature ways. Of course, when the earth shifted, we went looking for who could be lost in the cracks. Of course it made for lore. Of course we were doing the fantastical feat like a dance. The earth cracked open and we kept time, an offering of our survival. We kept on living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music fades out\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> tanea’s exhibit is no longer on display at the library, but you can see all the photos she used and \u003ca href=\"https://www.tanealunsfordlynx.com/wewerehere\">read her writing on the project’s website\u003c/a>. You can find a link in our show notes or on baycurious.org.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to the San Francisco History Center, part of the San Francisco Public Library for letting us use the oral histories in their archive. And to the San Francisco African-American Historical and Cultural Society who co-sponsored the original oral history project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Our show is made by:\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Katrina Schwartz\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale: \u003c/b>Christopher Beale\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Katherine Monahan\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>and me, Olivia Allen Price. Additional support from:\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>Jen Chien: \u003c/b>Jen Chien\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katie Springer: \u003c/b>Katie Springer\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maha Sanad: \u003c/b>Maha Sanad\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ethan Toven-Lindsey:\u003c/b> Ethan Toven-Lindsey\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Crowd:\u003c/b> And the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. We’ll be back next week.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "cambrian-park-plaza-a-beloved-san-jose-strip-mall-awaits-a-new-future",
"title": "Cambrian Park Plaza, A Beloved San José Strip Mall, Awaits a New Future",
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"headTitle": "Cambrian Park Plaza, A Beloved San José Strip Mall, Awaits a New Future | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first thing a lot of people notice about Cambrian Park Plaza on the west side of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> is the sign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s big; it’s yellow; and it has a carousel on top, complete with playful figures encircling the outside. At one point, the carousel actually rotated — but like many things in this shopping plaza — it has seen better days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plaza itself is low slung with a massive parking lot that is often empty. Storefronts are made of brick and nestle under a covered walkway. It’s not your average strip mall with a big grocery store at the center and smaller chains flanking it. Instead, there’s a bit more charm. Shops are clustered around little courtyards with white picket fences, picnic benches and trees. Some stores have window boxes with flowers. There are roses and palm trees. It’s quaint, but faded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has a circus slash English garden theme, cottage theme,” Connie Young said. “I was like, ‘This seems like an interesting place, and a place that has a lot of history.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Young was visiting Cambrian Park to volunteer at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibokrescue.org/info/display?PageID=21948\">Itty Bitty Orphan Kitty Cafe\u003c/a>, a pet adoption organization located in the plaza. She was surprised to see many nostalgic memories of the place online. She wanted to learn more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079115\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079115\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A covered walkway lined with storefronts stretches through Cambrian Park Plaza on April 7, 2026, in San José. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There seem to be a lot of people who are mourning the loss of Cambrian Park Plaza, a 1950s era strip mall in San José that is set to be demolished for housing and retail space,” she wrote in to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a>. “What’s the history of that place?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Valley of Heart’s Delight\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Cambrian Park neighborhood represents the quintessential story of San José development. For a long time, San José was small, an agricultural center for the many orchards and farms nearby. But after World War II, the Defense industry was booming and more people were moving to the area for jobs. The city manager at the time, Dutch Hammond, wanted to create the Los Angeles of Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Largely what got developed here was track housing, which was very cheap to build,” said Michael Brillot, a retired San José city planner. “You just knock down the cherry orchard or the apricot and prune orchard, and you plop in houses like you build Model T Fords on an assembly line, except the workers move as opposed to the product.”[aside postID=news_12077572 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251027-ALMADENQUICKSILVER00034_TV-KQED.jpg'] The push was to develop outwards from San José’s core and to build enough housing to supply the workforce to places like Sunnyvale and Cupertino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Cambrian Park neighborhood — and its shopping mall — was part of that history. A large landowner named Paul Schaeffer owned the orchards that became Cambrian Park. He decided to tear out the trees and build houses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He recognized people need to buy stuff,” said Peter Clarke, a Cambrian Park resident and member of the Friends of Cambrian Park group. “They need a post office and a grocery store. So he assembled this particular plaza as the only real center in this area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, many families only had one car. It was common for the breadwinner to drive north to work while the other parent stayed home with the children. During its heyday, Cambrian Park Plaza had everything families needed within walking distance of their home — a grocery store, a hardware store, clothing stores, a post office, a bowling alley, even doctors’ and dentists’ offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was the downtown,” said Bob Burres, another local resident. “There is no ‘main street’ in the Cambrian Park area. This was it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A slow decline\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That remained true for decades, but over time, the plaza began to fade and social patterns changed. People drove more and further for things, making the plaza less central to their needs. The Schaeffer family retained ownership of the plaza \u003ca href=\"https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2022/08/05/structures-cambrian-timeline.html\">until 2015\u003c/a>. Peter Clarke guesses that it was passive income for owner Paul Schaeffer and his wife in their later years. But when they died, their children sold the plaza to a developer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it was bought, and people said, ‘We’re going to redevelop it,’ we were in favor,” Peter Clarke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079113\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079113\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Cambrian Park Plaza sign, built in 1953 with the shopping center, features a rotating carousel and received historic status in 2016, on April 7, 2026, in San José. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many Cambrian Park residents were ready for an updated space that might once again be the center of community life. The Friends of Cambrian Park group stayed involved as the developer, Texas-based Weingarten Realty, proposed various uses for the property. But residents did not like early proposals that resembled more traditional strip malls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The community was very clear,” Clarke said. “They wanted to see a place that was a location that people would come to linger at, that had sit-down dining. They didn’t want more fast food.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They wanted something like \u003ca href=\"https://www.thepruneyard.com/\">The Pruneyard\u003c/a> in Campbell or the Los Gatos’ downtown, two locations residents currently go to for entertainment and dining.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>An iterative process\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2022/08/05/structures-cambrian-timeline.html\">Over many years,\u003c/a> after lots of city planning meetings featuring \u003cem>some\u003c/em> yelling, there’s finally a proposal on the table that many residents can get behind. It was approved by the city council in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new development would include underground parking, retail with apartments built above, a central plaza, a hotel, an assisted living facility, 48 single-family homes and 25 townhouses.[aside postID=news_12078615 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260320-KOGURACOMPANY00242_TV-KQED.jpg'] But four years later and nothing has been built yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The plan that you can look through on the city’s website is not economically feasible to build,” said Kelly Snider, a professor at San José State University and a development consultant. “There’s just a lot going on in a very small parcel. It’s a little bit of a Frankenstein.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said no one developer specializes in all those various uses. On top of that, very few big projects like this are moving forward anywhere in the Bay Area. The economics just don’t work out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Interest rates are high, construction materials and labor are expensive and people’s work and consumer habits have changed. Brick-and-mortar retail stores have a lot of competition online. There’s fewer business travelers in San José. More people are working remotely, so office spaces sit empty.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Will the Cambrian Park project ever get built?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“I think that the interest rates, at some point, [will] come down,” Brilliot said. “And I think some projects will come back. But I think it’s gonna be slower, more flat growth. And because of that, I don’t think you’re gonna see a massive amount of development like you did in the dot-com boom when things were just going crazy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For their part, Bob Burres and Peter Clarke are waiting nervously to see how it all turns out. They know that of all the elements in the approved plan, the single-family homes and townhouses will be the easiest for the developer to recoup investment. After all, housing is always in demand in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079109\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079109\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Red roses rise above a white picket fence in a garden at Cambrian Park Plaza on April 7, 2026, in San José. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Once you put up housing on any piece of commercial land, it’s never going to be commercial again,” Peter Clarke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if that happens, the neighbors’ dream of a central gathering spot — like the Pruneyard — will never come to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The permit for the current \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departments-offices/planning-building-code-enforcement/planning-division/major-development-projects/cambrian-park-plaza-signature-project\">Cambrian Park Signature Project\u003c/a> will expire in 2028. But the developer recently applied to alter the permit so they can build the housing part of the plan first and extend the permit up to 4 years in the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city is currently reviewing the proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*An earlier version of this article called this project the “Cambrian Park Urban Village” when in fact its official name is “Cambrian Park Signature Project.” A Signature Project is one element of a larger urban village area. We regret the error.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sometimes questions come from the most random places.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I volunteer for a San José-based kitten rescue and it’s called Itty Bitty Orphan Kitty Cafe. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Connie Young, from Mountain View.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we have adoptable foster kittens that come every weekend. And there’s two playrooms. And you can book a 50-minute slot.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The kitten cafe where she volunteers is located in Cambrian Park Plaza on the west side of San José.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I went there to volunteer and I saw that plaza and it was kind of different than the other strip mall plazas in the area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cambrian Park Plaza isn’t one long flat fronted building like a typical strip mall. It was built to mimic the experience of a town’s main street, so the facade turns often, creating little plazas with white picket fences and brickwork. There are window boxes and roses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has kind of like a circus slash like English garden theme, cottage theme.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Circus because one of the defining features of this plaza is a huge yellow sign with a carousel on top. The figures \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">used\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to rotate, although like many things in this plaza, it has seen better days.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was like, this seems like an interesting place and a place that has a lot of history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This shopping mall is slated for redevelopment, and Connie wants to know more about its history and what it could become. Connie also noticed that online many people have shared fond memories of this plaza’s heyday in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Let’s hear a few…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jaime Portillo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I remember driving by Cambrian Plaza and seeing the carousel from when we first arrived in San José.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There was always a grocery store there when I was a little kid. So we’d walk up to the grocery store to do our shopping for the day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jaime Portillo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was a go-to. I mean, you could do everything there. You could go to a delicatessen and get your meats and cheeses, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> There was Ben Franklin, which was the coolest store on the face of the planet. It was like a dime store and you could get anything there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Janet Gillis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There were hardware stores there. There were pet shops, as I said, the clothing stores, very lot of practical things that, you know, people would need.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jaime Portillo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it was in walking distance.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The minute I think of the smell of bubblegum ice cream, which for a four-year-old that was like Nirvana, I picture myself inside that ice cream parlor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jaime Portillo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I remember going to the bowling alley. We used to go there a lot during high school and hang out with the other teenagers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To this day remember the sound of the pins hitting the the back wall and the balls striking and people laughing and having a good time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Janet Gillis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’d go down in a little group of you know five or six or eight kids and be back before dinner. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There were so many things that, that as a kid, it made my life feel a little bit bigger and richer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those were nearby residents Jaime Portillo, Carolyn Robinson and Janet Gillis sharing their memories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious editor and producer Katrina Schwartz headed to San José to find out more about the fate of Cambrian Park Plaza. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first Cambrian Park neighbors I meet are characters…they’ve been attending city meetings and organizing their neighbors to influence what gets built here for years. And they aren’t shy about some of the tactics they used..\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m the guy who kicked over the apple cart, repeatedly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Bob Burres — a proud instigator. His friend and neighbor, Peter Clarke, has a different approach he says…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He’s nice, he’s polite, he’s a proper English gentleman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am the Brit, which is the funny accent.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bob and Peter like this neighborhood for its views of the mountains and quiet, neighborly charm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This area was originally all farmland. Then the farmers decided they could make more money by essentially selling up and having housing developed on the periphery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The guy who owned all the land that became the neighborhood of Cambrian Park was named Paul Schaeffer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But then he recognized, you know, people need to buy stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This area was the heart of Cambrian Park. This was the downtown. There is no main street in Cambrian park area. This was it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As Peter and Bob are showing me around it’s clear this mall is no longer the heart of the neighborhood. But the neighbors hope it could be again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you go through you see there’s numerous little plazas and sitting spaces all around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The plaza has a faded quality. We walk down the outside of the building, which has covered walkways that protect us from the rain that’s falling. Many storefronts are empty and I hear just as much about what it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">used to be\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as what it is now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This used to be the Cambrian Post office for years.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That used to be a Mexican restaurant, but closed down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The things that are left… a boxing gym, a pet adoption agency, a store for kids baseball gear…are on short term leases. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can’t put a lot of investment into a retail space for a six month lease.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Peter and Bob have both lived in Cambrian Park for 30 years… but even back in the late 80s and early 90s the plaza was already in slow decline. The Schaeffer family owned it for most of its existence, but stopped keeping it up in later years. When Paul Schaffer and his wife died, their children sold it to a developer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it was bought and people said we’re going to redevelop it, we were in favor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Peter and Bob are part of a group called the Friends of Cambrian Park Plaza. They’ve been pushing the city and developers to create a vibrant place to live, shop and gather.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> We have hopes that something beautiful will come out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They look to a place like The Pruneyard in Campbell as their model. It’s got local businesses alongside chains..and is a pleasant place to hang out.We’ll dig into the details of what could be built here and explore why achieving that vision could be a tough sell in San José right now. All that, coming up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Almost a million people live in San José. It’s the largest city in Northern California, but its development hasn’t followed the pattern of a typical big city. That’s why despite being dubbed the Heart of Silicon Valley…many people think a more apt term would be “the bedroom” of Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you look at San José, it very much feels like you’re in the San Fernando Valley or somewhere in Los Angeles, not the old urban part, but the more auto suburban track housing part of LA. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Michel Brilliot worked for the city of San José for 27 years…retiring as the deputy director of long range projects. He says the sprawling, residential character of the city can be traced back to one man\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michalel Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dutch Hammond. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like Cambrian Park, the rest of San José was mostly agricultural. Before Dutch Hammond came along, there were fruit trees as far as the eye could see. But after World War II, the defense industry was booming and Hammond understood its workers needed somewhere to live. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Largely what got developed here was track housing which was very cheap to build you just knock down the cherry orchard or the apricot and prune orchard and you just you plop in houses like you build model t fords on an assembly line except the workers move as opposed to the product.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Cambrian Park neighborhood was part of this era…built in the late 1950s. The homes are largely ranch style with yards and garages. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People historically would have a family and settle down and work and they would drive north for their job in what became and is now Silicon Valley. And that to a large extent has not changed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem with that, Michael says, is that running a city that is mostly residential, with few big businesses, is expensive. Residents want services.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They want code enforcement to deal with the RV that someone’s living in down the street or parks and maintaining the parks and they want libraries and. So they want all these things which cost money. Businesses generally don’t want as much services from the city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As early as the 1970s, San José city leaders realized it needed a better balance of businesses and homes. The goal was to bring more jobs into the city itself, to increase the tax base and to reduce congestion on the roads. Those are still the goals of city planners, says Michael.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the idea now is really to, instead of growing out, growing up, and growing up really along transit corridors and transit stations and in the downtown and create these places that are called urban villages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The proposed plan for Cambrian Park Plaza is one of these urban villages – a cluster of amenities, housing and jobs near a transit corridor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music to emphasize back and forth\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It would have underground parking with retail above.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A six-story apartment block on top of retail. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shops would be built around a central plaza for families and neighbors to gather. Then there’d be…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An assisted living building\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">48 single family homes, 25 townhouses, and…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A hotel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But nothing has actually been built by the developer, Kimco Realty.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we’ve seen very little higher density projects break ground. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The plan that you can look through on the city’s website is not economically feasible to build.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kelly Snider is an adjunct professor at San José State and a development consultant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s just a lot going on in a very small parcel. It’s a little bit of a Frankenstein.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kelly says there’s no one developer who specializes in so many different types of buildings…hotels, assisted living, single family homes… retail..they’re all very different. And the economic picture right now makes it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">even less likely \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">this project will be completed anytime soon. It’s a story we see around the Bay Area. Labor is expensive. Construction materials cost more than ever… and interest rates aren’t favorable. Plus, Michael Brilliot says, the population of San José is now shrinking, not growing.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, will the Cambrian Park urban village ever get built?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that when the interest rates, at some point, they’ll come down. And I think some projects will come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I think it’s gonna be a slower, more flat growth and because of that, I don’t think you’re gonna see masses of amount of development like you did in the dot-com boom when things were just going crazy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a post-COVID world, it may not make sense to build hotels and offices. Brick and mortar stores have to compete with online retailers. It’s a different real estate picture now than when this plan was conceived a few years ago.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bob Burres, Peter Clarke and the other Friends of Cambrian Park are watching this play out nervously. They worry the only economically feasible thing to do with the property is to build townhouses…after all, in the Bay Area, housing is always in high demand.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the things that we have heard over and over from the folks in the city is developers come in with fairly grand plans. And they’re gonna do some housing, and they’re going to do some sort of commercial, and they are going to something else. Well, housing is the only thing that’s profitable. And so they decide to build, we’re going to build the housing first. And then phase two and phase three will have these other things. They build the housing and then they say, sorry, it doesn’t pencil and they abandon the project. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you put up housing on any piece of commercial land it’s never going to be commercial again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And if that happens, their dream of a gathering spot like the one in Campbell…the Pruneyard…will never become a reality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I brought all this back to Connie Young, our question asker. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I can see why they would want to kind of redevelop it into something more community focused. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Connie grew up in the South Bay and remembers wishing there was more to do…more places she could go without a ride from her parents. Now she’s living in Mountain View and has enjoyed the way streets have been closed downtown to make space for dining and gathering.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I feel like that’s what the South Bay is missing in a lot of the cities, especially San José, like a central plaza or the neighborhood where everybody gathers in the evening and their kids run around and play. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The permit for the current Cambrian Park Urban Village plan will expire in 2028. Getting new ones would be expensive for the developer…maybe that’s why the company recently applied to alter the permit so they can build the housing part of the plan first and extend the permit up to 4 years in the process. The city is currently reviewing the proposal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was Bay Curious editor and producer, Katrina Schwartz. Thanks to Connie Young for asking this week’s question. It was selected by you in a monthly voting round on Bay \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://curious.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Curious.or\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">g. That’s one of the things I think makes Bay Curious unique… it is driven by you – your questions, about your community. And, it’s funded by you too. We need your support to keep things going, so please consider making a donation to KQED today. It only takes a few minutes. You can do it right from your phone. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the place to do it. Thanks!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our show is produced by Christopher Beale, Katrina Schwartz and Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With extra support from Maha Sanad, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first thing a lot of people notice about Cambrian Park Plaza on the west side of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> is the sign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s big; it’s yellow; and it has a carousel on top, complete with playful figures encircling the outside. At one point, the carousel actually rotated — but like many things in this shopping plaza — it has seen better days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plaza itself is low slung with a massive parking lot that is often empty. Storefronts are made of brick and nestle under a covered walkway. It’s not your average strip mall with a big grocery store at the center and smaller chains flanking it. Instead, there’s a bit more charm. Shops are clustered around little courtyards with white picket fences, picnic benches and trees. Some stores have window boxes with flowers. There are roses and palm trees. It’s quaint, but faded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has a circus slash English garden theme, cottage theme,” Connie Young said. “I was like, ‘This seems like an interesting place, and a place that has a lot of history.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Young was visiting Cambrian Park to volunteer at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibokrescue.org/info/display?PageID=21948\">Itty Bitty Orphan Kitty Cafe\u003c/a>, a pet adoption organization located in the plaza. She was surprised to see many nostalgic memories of the place online. She wanted to learn more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079115\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079115\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_015_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A covered walkway lined with storefronts stretches through Cambrian Park Plaza on April 7, 2026, in San José. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There seem to be a lot of people who are mourning the loss of Cambrian Park Plaza, a 1950s era strip mall in San José that is set to be demolished for housing and retail space,” she wrote in to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a>. “What’s the history of that place?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Valley of Heart’s Delight\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Cambrian Park neighborhood represents the quintessential story of San José development. For a long time, San José was small, an agricultural center for the many orchards and farms nearby. But after World War II, the Defense industry was booming and more people were moving to the area for jobs. The city manager at the time, Dutch Hammond, wanted to create the Los Angeles of Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Largely what got developed here was track housing, which was very cheap to build,” said Michael Brillot, a retired San José city planner. “You just knock down the cherry orchard or the apricot and prune orchard, and you plop in houses like you build Model T Fords on an assembly line, except the workers move as opposed to the product.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The push was to develop outwards from San José’s core and to build enough housing to supply the workforce to places like Sunnyvale and Cupertino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Cambrian Park neighborhood — and its shopping mall — was part of that history. A large landowner named Paul Schaeffer owned the orchards that became Cambrian Park. He decided to tear out the trees and build houses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He recognized people need to buy stuff,” said Peter Clarke, a Cambrian Park resident and member of the Friends of Cambrian Park group. “They need a post office and a grocery store. So he assembled this particular plaza as the only real center in this area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, many families only had one car. It was common for the breadwinner to drive north to work while the other parent stayed home with the children. During its heyday, Cambrian Park Plaza had everything families needed within walking distance of their home — a grocery store, a hardware store, clothing stores, a post office, a bowling alley, even doctors’ and dentists’ offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was the downtown,” said Bob Burres, another local resident. “There is no ‘main street’ in the Cambrian Park area. This was it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A slow decline\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That remained true for decades, but over time, the plaza began to fade and social patterns changed. People drove more and further for things, making the plaza less central to their needs. The Schaeffer family retained ownership of the plaza \u003ca href=\"https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2022/08/05/structures-cambrian-timeline.html\">until 2015\u003c/a>. Peter Clarke guesses that it was passive income for owner Paul Schaeffer and his wife in their later years. But when they died, their children sold the plaza to a developer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it was bought, and people said, ‘We’re going to redevelop it,’ we were in favor,” Peter Clarke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079113\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079113\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_013_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Cambrian Park Plaza sign, built in 1953 with the shopping center, features a rotating carousel and received historic status in 2016, on April 7, 2026, in San José. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many Cambrian Park residents were ready for an updated space that might once again be the center of community life. The Friends of Cambrian Park group stayed involved as the developer, Texas-based Weingarten Realty, proposed various uses for the property. But residents did not like early proposals that resembled more traditional strip malls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The community was very clear,” Clarke said. “They wanted to see a place that was a location that people would come to linger at, that had sit-down dining. They didn’t want more fast food.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They wanted something like \u003ca href=\"https://www.thepruneyard.com/\">The Pruneyard\u003c/a> in Campbell or the Los Gatos’ downtown, two locations residents currently go to for entertainment and dining.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>An iterative process\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2022/08/05/structures-cambrian-timeline.html\">Over many years,\u003c/a> after lots of city planning meetings featuring \u003cem>some\u003c/em> yelling, there’s finally a proposal on the table that many residents can get behind. It was approved by the city council in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new development would include underground parking, retail with apartments built above, a central plaza, a hotel, an assisted living facility, 48 single-family homes and 25 townhouses.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> But four years later and nothing has been built yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The plan that you can look through on the city’s website is not economically feasible to build,” said Kelly Snider, a professor at San José State University and a development consultant. “There’s just a lot going on in a very small parcel. It’s a little bit of a Frankenstein.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said no one developer specializes in all those various uses. On top of that, very few big projects like this are moving forward anywhere in the Bay Area. The economics just don’t work out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Interest rates are high, construction materials and labor are expensive and people’s work and consumer habits have changed. Brick-and-mortar retail stores have a lot of competition online. There’s fewer business travelers in San José. More people are working remotely, so office spaces sit empty.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Will the Cambrian Park project ever get built?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“I think that the interest rates, at some point, [will] come down,” Brilliot said. “And I think some projects will come back. But I think it’s gonna be slower, more flat growth. And because of that, I don’t think you’re gonna see a massive amount of development like you did in the dot-com boom when things were just going crazy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For their part, Bob Burres and Peter Clarke are waiting nervously to see how it all turns out. They know that of all the elements in the approved plan, the single-family homes and townhouses will be the easiest for the developer to recoup investment. After all, housing is always in demand in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079109\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079109\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/040726Bay-Curious_Cambrian-Plaza_GH_005_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Red roses rise above a white picket fence in a garden at Cambrian Park Plaza on April 7, 2026, in San José. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Once you put up housing on any piece of commercial land, it’s never going to be commercial again,” Peter Clarke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if that happens, the neighbors’ dream of a central gathering spot — like the Pruneyard — will never come to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The permit for the current \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departments-offices/planning-building-code-enforcement/planning-division/major-development-projects/cambrian-park-plaza-signature-project\">Cambrian Park Signature Project\u003c/a> will expire in 2028. But the developer recently applied to alter the permit so they can build the housing part of the plan first and extend the permit up to 4 years in the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city is currently reviewing the proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*An earlier version of this article called this project the “Cambrian Park Urban Village” when in fact its official name is “Cambrian Park Signature Project.” A Signature Project is one element of a larger urban village area. We regret the error.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Viewthefullepisodetranscript\">\u003c/a>Episode transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sometimes questions come from the most random places.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I volunteer for a San José-based kitten rescue and it’s called Itty Bitty Orphan Kitty Cafe. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Connie Young, from Mountain View.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we have adoptable foster kittens that come every weekend. And there’s two playrooms. And you can book a 50-minute slot.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The kitten cafe where she volunteers is located in Cambrian Park Plaza on the west side of San José.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I went there to volunteer and I saw that plaza and it was kind of different than the other strip mall plazas in the area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cambrian Park Plaza isn’t one long flat fronted building like a typical strip mall. It was built to mimic the experience of a town’s main street, so the facade turns often, creating little plazas with white picket fences and brickwork. There are window boxes and roses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has kind of like a circus slash like English garden theme, cottage theme.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Circus because one of the defining features of this plaza is a huge yellow sign with a carousel on top. The figures \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">used\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to rotate, although like many things in this plaza, it has seen better days.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was like, this seems like an interesting place and a place that has a lot of history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This shopping mall is slated for redevelopment, and Connie wants to know more about its history and what it could become. Connie also noticed that online many people have shared fond memories of this plaza’s heyday in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Let’s hear a few…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jaime Portillo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I remember driving by Cambrian Plaza and seeing the carousel from when we first arrived in San José.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There was always a grocery store there when I was a little kid. So we’d walk up to the grocery store to do our shopping for the day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jaime Portillo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was a go-to. I mean, you could do everything there. You could go to a delicatessen and get your meats and cheeses, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> There was Ben Franklin, which was the coolest store on the face of the planet. It was like a dime store and you could get anything there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Janet Gillis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There were hardware stores there. There were pet shops, as I said, the clothing stores, very lot of practical things that, you know, people would need.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jaime Portillo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it was in walking distance.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The minute I think of the smell of bubblegum ice cream, which for a four-year-old that was like Nirvana, I picture myself inside that ice cream parlor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jaime Portillo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I remember going to the bowling alley. We used to go there a lot during high school and hang out with the other teenagers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To this day remember the sound of the pins hitting the the back wall and the balls striking and people laughing and having a good time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Janet Gillis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’d go down in a little group of you know five or six or eight kids and be back before dinner. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carolyn Robinson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There were so many things that, that as a kid, it made my life feel a little bit bigger and richer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those were nearby residents Jaime Portillo, Carolyn Robinson and Janet Gillis sharing their memories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious editor and producer Katrina Schwartz headed to San José to find out more about the fate of Cambrian Park Plaza. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first Cambrian Park neighbors I meet are characters…they’ve been attending city meetings and organizing their neighbors to influence what gets built here for years. And they aren’t shy about some of the tactics they used..\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m the guy who kicked over the apple cart, repeatedly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Bob Burres — a proud instigator. His friend and neighbor, Peter Clarke, has a different approach he says…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He’s nice, he’s polite, he’s a proper English gentleman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am the Brit, which is the funny accent.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bob and Peter like this neighborhood for its views of the mountains and quiet, neighborly charm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This area was originally all farmland. Then the farmers decided they could make more money by essentially selling up and having housing developed on the periphery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The guy who owned all the land that became the neighborhood of Cambrian Park was named Paul Schaeffer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But then he recognized, you know, people need to buy stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This area was the heart of Cambrian Park. This was the downtown. There is no main street in Cambrian park area. This was it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As Peter and Bob are showing me around it’s clear this mall is no longer the heart of the neighborhood. But the neighbors hope it could be again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you go through you see there’s numerous little plazas and sitting spaces all around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The plaza has a faded quality. We walk down the outside of the building, which has covered walkways that protect us from the rain that’s falling. Many storefronts are empty and I hear just as much about what it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">used to be\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as what it is now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This used to be the Cambrian Post office for years.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That used to be a Mexican restaurant, but closed down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The things that are left… a boxing gym, a pet adoption agency, a store for kids baseball gear…are on short term leases. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can’t put a lot of investment into a retail space for a six month lease.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Peter and Bob have both lived in Cambrian Park for 30 years… but even back in the late 80s and early 90s the plaza was already in slow decline. The Schaeffer family owned it for most of its existence, but stopped keeping it up in later years. When Paul Schaffer and his wife died, their children sold it to a developer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it was bought and people said we’re going to redevelop it, we were in favor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Peter and Bob are part of a group called the Friends of Cambrian Park Plaza. They’ve been pushing the city and developers to create a vibrant place to live, shop and gather.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> We have hopes that something beautiful will come out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They look to a place like The Pruneyard in Campbell as their model. It’s got local businesses alongside chains..and is a pleasant place to hang out.We’ll dig into the details of what could be built here and explore why achieving that vision could be a tough sell in San José right now. All that, coming up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Almost a million people live in San José. It’s the largest city in Northern California, but its development hasn’t followed the pattern of a typical big city. That’s why despite being dubbed the Heart of Silicon Valley…many people think a more apt term would be “the bedroom” of Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you look at San José, it very much feels like you’re in the San Fernando Valley or somewhere in Los Angeles, not the old urban part, but the more auto suburban track housing part of LA. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Michel Brilliot worked for the city of San José for 27 years…retiring as the deputy director of long range projects. He says the sprawling, residential character of the city can be traced back to one man\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michalel Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dutch Hammond. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like Cambrian Park, the rest of San José was mostly agricultural. Before Dutch Hammond came along, there were fruit trees as far as the eye could see. But after World War II, the defense industry was booming and Hammond understood its workers needed somewhere to live. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Largely what got developed here was track housing which was very cheap to build you just knock down the cherry orchard or the apricot and prune orchard and you just you plop in houses like you build model t fords on an assembly line except the workers move as opposed to the product.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Cambrian Park neighborhood was part of this era…built in the late 1950s. The homes are largely ranch style with yards and garages. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People historically would have a family and settle down and work and they would drive north for their job in what became and is now Silicon Valley. And that to a large extent has not changed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem with that, Michael says, is that running a city that is mostly residential, with few big businesses, is expensive. Residents want services.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They want code enforcement to deal with the RV that someone’s living in down the street or parks and maintaining the parks and they want libraries and. So they want all these things which cost money. Businesses generally don’t want as much services from the city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As early as the 1970s, San José city leaders realized it needed a better balance of businesses and homes. The goal was to bring more jobs into the city itself, to increase the tax base and to reduce congestion on the roads. Those are still the goals of city planners, says Michael.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the idea now is really to, instead of growing out, growing up, and growing up really along transit corridors and transit stations and in the downtown and create these places that are called urban villages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The proposed plan for Cambrian Park Plaza is one of these urban villages – a cluster of amenities, housing and jobs near a transit corridor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music to emphasize back and forth\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It would have underground parking with retail above.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A six-story apartment block on top of retail. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shops would be built around a central plaza for families and neighbors to gather. Then there’d be…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An assisted living building\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">48 single family homes, 25 townhouses, and…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A hotel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But nothing has actually been built by the developer, Kimco Realty.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we’ve seen very little higher density projects break ground. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The plan that you can look through on the city’s website is not economically feasible to build.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kelly Snider is an adjunct professor at San José State and a development consultant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s just a lot going on in a very small parcel. It’s a little bit of a Frankenstein.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kelly says there’s no one developer who specializes in so many different types of buildings…hotels, assisted living, single family homes… retail..they’re all very different. And the economic picture right now makes it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">even less likely \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">this project will be completed anytime soon. It’s a story we see around the Bay Area. Labor is expensive. Construction materials cost more than ever… and interest rates aren’t favorable. Plus, Michael Brilliot says, the population of San José is now shrinking, not growing.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, will the Cambrian Park urban village ever get built?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Brilliot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that when the interest rates, at some point, they’ll come down. And I think some projects will come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I think it’s gonna be a slower, more flat growth and because of that, I don’t think you’re gonna see masses of amount of development like you did in the dot-com boom when things were just going crazy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a post-COVID world, it may not make sense to build hotels and offices. Brick and mortar stores have to compete with online retailers. It’s a different real estate picture now than when this plan was conceived a few years ago.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bob Burres, Peter Clarke and the other Friends of Cambrian Park are watching this play out nervously. They worry the only economically feasible thing to do with the property is to build townhouses…after all, in the Bay Area, housing is always in high demand.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bob Burres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the things that we have heard over and over from the folks in the city is developers come in with fairly grand plans. And they’re gonna do some housing, and they’re going to do some sort of commercial, and they are going to something else. Well, housing is the only thing that’s profitable. And so they decide to build, we’re going to build the housing first. And then phase two and phase three will have these other things. They build the housing and then they say, sorry, it doesn’t pencil and they abandon the project. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Clarke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you put up housing on any piece of commercial land it’s never going to be commercial again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And if that happens, their dream of a gathering spot like the one in Campbell…the Pruneyard…will never become a reality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I brought all this back to Connie Young, our question asker. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I can see why they would want to kind of redevelop it into something more community focused. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Connie grew up in the South Bay and remembers wishing there was more to do…more places she could go without a ride from her parents. Now she’s living in Mountain View and has enjoyed the way streets have been closed downtown to make space for dining and gathering.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connie Young: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I feel like that’s what the South Bay is missing in a lot of the cities, especially San José, like a central plaza or the neighborhood where everybody gathers in the evening and their kids run around and play. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The permit for the current Cambrian Park Urban Village plan will expire in 2028. Getting new ones would be expensive for the developer…maybe that’s why the company recently applied to alter the permit so they can build the housing part of the plan first and extend the permit up to 4 years in the process. The city is currently reviewing the proposal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was Bay Curious editor and producer, Katrina Schwartz. Thanks to Connie Young for asking this week’s question. It was selected by you in a monthly voting round on Bay \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://curious.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Curious.or\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">g. That’s one of the things I think makes Bay Curious unique… it is driven by you – your questions, about your community. And, it’s funded by you too. We need your support to keep things going, so please consider making a donation to KQED today. It only takes a few minutes. You can do it right from your phone. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the place to do it. Thanks!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our show is produced by Christopher Beale, Katrina Schwartz and Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With extra support from Maha Sanad, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"order": 9
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"order": 15
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"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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"order": 18
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
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"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",
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
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"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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},
"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",
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"meta": {
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"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
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"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.",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 11
},
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"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
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},
"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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