window.__IS_SSR__=true
window.__INITIAL_STATE__={
"attachmentsReducer": {
"audio_0": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_0",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background0.jpg"
}
}
},
"audio_1": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_1",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background1.jpg"
}
}
},
"audio_2": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_2",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background2.jpg"
}
}
},
"audio_3": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_3",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background3.jpg"
}
}
},
"audio_4": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_4",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background4.jpg"
}
}
},
"placeholder": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "placeholder",
"imgSizes": {
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"height": 107,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-800x533.jpg",
"width": 800,
"height": 533,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-768x512.jpg",
"width": 768,
"height": 512,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"height": 680,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1536x1024.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"height": 1024,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"fd-lrg": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1536x1024.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"height": 1024,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"fd-med": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"height": 680,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"fd-sm": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-800x533.jpg",
"width": 800,
"height": 533,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"height": 372,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"height": 576,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"xxsmall": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"height": 107,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"xsmall": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"height": 372,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"small": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"height": 372,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"xlarge": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"height": 680,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1920x1280.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1280,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-32": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 32,
"height": 32,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-50": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 50,
"height": 50,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-64": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 64,
"height": 64,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-96": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 96,
"height": 96,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-128": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 128,
"height": 128,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"detail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 160,
"height": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1.jpg",
"width": 2000,
"height": 1333
}
}
},
"news_11974721": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11974721",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11974721",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11974714,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/AP24036055261233-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/AP24036055261233-160x106.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 106
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/AP24036055261233-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/AP24036055261233-scaled.jpg",
"width": 2560,
"height": 1703
},
"2048x2048": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/AP24036055261233-2048x1363.jpg",
"width": 2048,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1363
},
"large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/AP24036055261233-1020x679.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 679
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/AP24036055261233-1536x1022.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1022
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/AP24036055261233-1920x1278.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1278
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/AP24036055261233-800x532.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 532
}
},
"publishDate": 1707161293,
"modified": 1707163743,
"caption": "Workers clear a tree that fell onto a home during heavy wind and rain on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, in San Jose, California.",
"description": null,
"title": "California Storms",
"credit": "Noah Berger/AP Photo",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": "Workers clear a tree that fell onto a home",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11962789": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11962789",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11962789",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11962776,
"imgSizes": {
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/KQED_Podcast_tiles_-_NPR_network_The_Bay-1-160x160.png",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/png",
"height": 160
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/KQED_Podcast_tiles_-_NPR_network_The_Bay-1.png",
"width": 300,
"height": 300
}
},
"publishDate": 1695936674,
"modified": 1695936674,
"caption": null,
"description": null,
"title": "KQED_Podcast_tiles_-_NPR_network_The_Bay",
"credit": null,
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": null,
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11970160": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11970160",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11970160",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11970148,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/DJI_0297-scaled-1-1038x576.jpeg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/DJI_0297-scaled-1-160x107.jpeg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 107
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/DJI_0297-scaled-1-672x372.jpeg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/DJI_0297-scaled-1.jpeg",
"width": 2560,
"height": 1707
},
"2048x2048": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/DJI_0297-scaled-1-2048x1366.jpeg",
"width": 2048,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1366
},
"large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/DJI_0297-scaled-1-1020x680.jpeg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 680
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/DJI_0297-scaled-1-1536x1024.jpeg",
"width": 1536,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1024
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/DJI_0297-scaled-1-1920x1280.jpeg",
"width": 1920,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1280
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/DJI_0297-scaled-1-800x533.jpeg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 533
}
},
"publishDate": 1702685750,
"modified": 1702685813,
"caption": "A developer would like to build more than 200 homes on the site of an active Pick-n-Pull auto parts yard in the East Bay city of Newark. Climate advocates oppose the idea because of its proximity to the shoreline and fears about rising sea levels. (Photo Courtesy of Derell Licht)",
"description": null,
"title": "DJI_0297-scaled",
"credit": null,
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": null,
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11751033": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11751033",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11751033",
"found": true
},
"title": "PG&E Transmission Lines-South San Francisco",
"publishDate": 1559198737,
"status": "inherit",
"parent": 11750896,
"modified": 1736377803,
"caption": "PG&E transmission lines in South San Francisco on August 30, 2007. ",
"credit": "Justin Sullivan/Getty Images",
"altTag": null,
"description": "SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 30: The sun shines over towers carrying electical lines August 30, 2007 in South San Francisco, California. With temperatures over 100 degrees in many parts of the state, the California Independent System Operator, which manages most of the California electricity grid, is planning on declaring a minor power emergency later in the day, followed by a Stage 2 power alert during the late afternoon, indicating that power reserves have fallen below five percent. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)",
"imgSizes": {
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"height": 107,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-800x533.jpg",
"width": 800,
"height": 533,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"height": 680,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"complete_open_graph": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1200x800.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"height": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"height": 372,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"height": 576,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1920x1280.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1280,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_landscape_12_9": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1832x1374.jpg",
"width": 1832,
"height": 1374,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_landscape_9_7": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1376x1032.jpg",
"width": 1376,
"height": 1032,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_landscape_5_5": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1044x783.jpg",
"width": 1044,
"height": 783,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_landscape_4_7": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-632x474.jpg",
"width": 632,
"height": 474,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_landscape_4_0": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-536x402.jpg",
"width": 536,
"height": 402,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_portrait_12_9": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1122x1496.jpg",
"width": 1122,
"height": 1496,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_portrait_9_7": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-840x1120.jpg",
"width": 840,
"height": 1120,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_portrait_5_5": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-687x916.jpg",
"width": 687,
"height": 916,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_portrait_4_7": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-414x552.jpg",
"width": 414,
"height": 552,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_portrait_4_0": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-354x472.jpg",
"width": 354,
"height": 472,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_square_12_9": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1472x1472.jpg",
"width": 1472,
"height": 1472,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_square_9_7": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-1104x1104.jpg",
"width": 1104,
"height": 1104,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_square_5_5": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-912x912.jpg",
"width": 912,
"height": 912,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_square_4_7": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-550x550.jpg",
"width": 550,
"height": 550,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"apple_news_ca_square_4_0": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-470x470.jpg",
"width": 470,
"height": 470,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-e1559198784751.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1280
}
},
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11968264": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11968264",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11968264",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11968205,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/DSC07337-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/DSC07337-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 107
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/DSC07337-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/DSC07337.jpg",
"width": 1616,
"height": 1080
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/DSC07337-1020x682.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 682
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/DSC07337-1536x1027.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1027
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/DSC07337-800x535.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 535
}
},
"publishDate": 1700694844,
"modified": 1700694886,
"caption": "Librarian Mychal Threets posing for a photo in front of the Fairfield Civic Center Library.\n",
"description": null,
"title": "DSC07337",
"credit": "Pendarvis Harshaw ",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": null,
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11925212": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11925212",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11925212",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11925121,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/IMG_8787-2-1-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/IMG_8787-2-1-160x119.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 119
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/IMG_8787-2-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/IMG_8787-2-1.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1423
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/IMG_8787-2-1-1020x756.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 756
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/IMG_8787-2-1-1536x1138.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1138
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/IMG_8787-2-1-800x593.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 593
}
},
"publishDate": 1662761552,
"modified": 1662761601,
"caption": "At a Sept. 8 press conference, City officials and members of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, shared a mock-up image of a structure the trust is hoping to build at the Sequoia Point site.",
"description": null,
"title": "IMG_8787 2 (1)",
"credit": "Annelise Finney/KQED",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": "a poster board showing a mockup of a gazebo",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11967786": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11967786",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11967786",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11967782,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_5206-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_5206-160x108.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 108
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_5206-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_5206.jpg",
"width": 1818,
"height": 1228
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_5206-1020x689.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 689
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_5206-1536x1038.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1038
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_5206-800x540.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 540
}
},
"publishDate": 1700259234,
"modified": 1700259362,
"caption": "The view from Kirby Cove in the Marin Headlands.",
"description": null,
"title": "IMG_5206",
"credit": "Ericka Cruz Guevarra",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": null,
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11967684": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11967684",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11967684",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11967633,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1542268740-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1542268740-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 107
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1542268740-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1542268740-scaled.jpg",
"width": 2560,
"height": 1707
},
"2048x2048": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1542268740-2048x1365.jpg",
"width": 2048,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1365
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1542268740-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 680
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1542268740-1536x1024.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1024
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1542268740-1920x1280.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1280
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1542268740-800x533.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 533
}
},
"publishDate": 1700171605,
"modified": 1700171645,
"caption": "Israeli President Isaac Herzog addresses a joint meeting of Congress in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, July 19, 2023.",
"description": null,
"title": "Isaac Herzog Joint Meeting",
"credit": "Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": null,
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11966734": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11966734",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11966734",
"found": true
},
"parent": 0,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/231101-MusicTherapyHMBFarmworkers-47-BL-KQED-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/231101-MusicTherapyHMBFarmworkers-47-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 107
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/231101-MusicTherapyHMBFarmworkers-47-BL-KQED-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/231101-MusicTherapyHMBFarmworkers-47-BL-KQED.jpg",
"width": 2000,
"height": 1333
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/231101-MusicTherapyHMBFarmworkers-47-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 680
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/231101-MusicTherapyHMBFarmworkers-47-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1024
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/231101-MusicTherapyHMBFarmworkers-47-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1280
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/231101-MusicTherapyHMBFarmworkers-47-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 533
}
},
"publishDate": 1699461752,
"modified": 1699465540,
"caption": "(From left) Belinda Arriaga, Yesenia Garcia, Hilario Lopez, and Pedro Romero play accordion during a lesson with Hernan Hernandez at Cabrillo Farms in Half Moon Bay on Nov. 1, 2023.",
"description": null,
"title": "231101-MusicTherapyHMBFarmworkers-47-BL-KQED",
"credit": "Beth LaBerge/KQED",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": "A group of people smile while sitting together indoors and holding bright red accordions.",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11966934": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11966934",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11966934",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11966931,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/102321-ELECTRIC-AVE-LEDE-2-KQED-1020x680-3-1020x576.jpeg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/102321-ELECTRIC-AVE-LEDE-2-KQED-1020x680-3-160x107.jpeg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 107
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/102321-ELECTRIC-AVE-LEDE-2-KQED-1020x680-3-672x372.jpeg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/102321-ELECTRIC-AVE-LEDE-2-KQED-1020x680-3.jpeg",
"width": 1020,
"height": 680
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/102321-ELECTRIC-AVE-LEDE-2-KQED-1020x680-3-800x533.jpeg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 533
}
},
"publishDate": 1699566806,
"modified": 1699566852,
"caption": "(From left) Vivian Santana Pacheco, Isaac Zones, Ivan Sharamok, Gavin Sharamok (2), Jarinya Phansathin and Steven Johnson. ",
"description": null,
"title": "102321-ELECTRIC-AVE-LEDE-2-KQED-1020x680 (3)",
"credit": "Martin do Nascimento/KQED",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": null,
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11966994": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11966994",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11966994",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11966960,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1773056039-1024x576.jpg",
"width": 1024,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1773056039-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 107
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1773056039-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1773056039.jpg",
"width": 1024,
"height": 683
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1773056039-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 680
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1773056039-800x534.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 534
}
},
"publishDate": 1699576330,
"modified": 1699577926,
"caption": "People walk under signage advertising the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings ahead of the summit at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Nov. 9, 2023. ",
"description": null,
"title": "US-ASIA-PACIFIC-DIPLOMACY-ECONOMY-SUMMIT-PREP",
"credit": "Loren Elliott/AFP via Getty Images",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": "A street scene in San Francisco from above, with an advertising banner in the foreground that reads \"APEC is going to be Epic.\"",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"news_11966695": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "news_11966695",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11966695",
"found": true
},
"parent": 11966693,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157-qut-1-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157-qut-1-160x106.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 106
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157-qut-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157-qut-1.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1277
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157-qut-1-1020x678.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 678
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157-qut-1-1536x1022.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1022
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress-157-qut-1-800x532.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 532
}
},
"publishDate": 1699394498,
"modified": 1699394542,
"caption": "Wooden blocks and tiny jackets rest on the rug during playtime at a transitional kindergarten class at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in East San Jose.",
"description": null,
"title": "02172023_ksuzuki_tkprogress 157-qut",
"credit": "Kori Suzuki/KQED",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": null,
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
}
},
"audioPlayerReducer": {
"postId": "stream_live",
"isPaused": true,
"isPlaying": false,
"pfsActive": false,
"pledgeModalIsOpen": true,
"playerDrawerIsOpen": false,
"liveAudioPlayStartedAt": 0,
"liveAudioPlayContext": ""
},
"authorsReducer": {
"danbrekke": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "222",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "222",
"found": true
},
"name": "Dan Brekke",
"firstName": "Dan",
"lastName": "Brekke",
"slug": "danbrekke",
"email": "dbrekke@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news",
"science"
],
"title": "KQED Editor and Reporter",
"bio": "Dan Brekke is a reporter and editor for KQED News, responsible for coverage of topics ranging from California water issues to the Bay Area's transportation challenges. In a newsroom career that began in Chicago in 1972, Dan has worked for \u003cem>The San Francisco Examiner,\u003c/em> Wired and TechTV and has been published in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Business 2.0, Salon and elsewhere.\r\n\r\nSince joining KQED in 2007, Dan has reported, edited and produced both radio and online features and breaking news pieces. He has shared as both editor and reporter in four Society of Professional Journalists Norcal Excellence in Journalism awards and one Edward R. Murrow regional award. He was chosen for a spring 2017 residency at the Mesa Refuge to advance his research on California salmon.\r\n\r\nEmail Dan at: \u003ca href=\"mailto:dbrekke@kqed.org\">dbrekke@kqed.org\u003c/a>\r\n\r\n\u003cstrong>Twitter:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/danbrekke\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">twitter.com/danbrekke\u003c/a>\r\n\u003cstrong>Facebook:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/danbrekke\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.facebook.com/danbrekke\u003c/a>\r\n\u003cstrong>LinkedIn:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/danbrekke\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.linkedin.com/in/danbrekke\u003c/a>",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c8126230345efca3f7aa89b1a402be45?s=600&d=mm&r=g",
"twitter": "danbrekke",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": "https://www.instagram.com/dan.brekke/",
"linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/danbrekke/",
"sites": [
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"administrator",
"create_posts"
]
},
{
"site": "stateofhealth",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "quest",
"roles": [
"contributor"
]
},
{
"site": "food",
"roles": [
"contributor"
]
},
{
"site": "forum",
"roles": [
"contributor"
]
},
{
"site": "liveblog",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Dan Brekke | KQED",
"description": "KQED Editor and Reporter",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c8126230345efca3f7aa89b1a402be45?s=600&d=mm&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c8126230345efca3f7aa89b1a402be45?s=600&d=mm&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/danbrekke"
},
"gmarzorati": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "227",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "227",
"found": true
},
"name": "Guy Marzorati",
"firstName": "Guy",
"lastName": "Marzorati",
"slug": "gmarzorati",
"email": "gmarzorati@KQED.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news"
],
"title": "Correspondent",
"bio": "Guy Marzorati is a correspondent on KQED's California Politics and Government Desk, based in San Jose. A graduate of Santa Clara University, Guy joined KQED in 2013. He reports on state and local politics and produces KQED's digital voter guide.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e7038b8dbfd55b104369b76b1cd0b9de?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "guymarzorati",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "forum",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "elections",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "liveblog",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Guy Marzorati | KQED",
"description": "Correspondent",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e7038b8dbfd55b104369b76b1cd0b9de?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e7038b8dbfd55b104369b76b1cd0b9de?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/gmarzorati"
},
"mlagos": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "3239",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "3239",
"found": true
},
"name": "Marisa Lagos",
"firstName": "Marisa",
"lastName": "Lagos",
"slug": "mlagos",
"email": "mlagos@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": false,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news"
],
"title": "KQED Contributor",
"bio": "Marisa Lagos is a correspondent for KQED’s California Politics and Government Desk and co-hosts the award-winning show and podcast, Political Breakdown. At KQED, Lagos also conducts reporting, analysis and investigations into state, local and national politics for radio, TV, online and onstage. In 2022, she and co-host, Scott Shafer, moderated the only gubernatorial debate in California. In 2020, the \u003ci>Washington Post\u003c/i> named her one of the top political journalists in California; she was nominated for a Peabody and won several other awards for her work investigating the 2017 California wildfires. She has worked at the \u003ci>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/i>, \u003ci>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/i> and \u003ci>Los Angeles Times\u003c/i>. A UC Santa Barbara graduate, she lives in San Francisco with her two sons and husband.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a261a0d3696fc066871ef96b85b5e7d2?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "@mlagos",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"author"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "forum",
"roles": [
"author"
]
},
{
"site": "liveblog",
"roles": [
"author"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Marisa Lagos | KQED",
"description": "KQED Contributor",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a261a0d3696fc066871ef96b85b5e7d2?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a261a0d3696fc066871ef96b85b5e7d2?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/mlagos"
},
"lklivans": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "8648",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "8648",
"found": true
},
"name": "Laura Klivans",
"firstName": "Laura",
"lastName": "Klivans",
"slug": "lklivans",
"email": "lklivans@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news",
"science"
],
"title": "Reporter",
"bio": "Laura Klivans is an award-winning science reporter for KQED News, where she covers climate change with an eye on both groundbreaking progress and gaps in action. She is the former host of KQED's blockbuster video series about tiny, amazing animals, \u003cem>Deep Look\u003c/em>. Her work reaches national audiences through NPR, \u003cem>Here & Now, \u003c/em>PRI, and other major outlets. \r\n\r\nLaura’s won five Northern California Area Emmy Awards for Deep Look and First Place in the Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards for a podcast exploring how one Oakland neighborhood teamed up to reduce planet-heating pollution.\r\n\r\nBeyond her reporting, she hosts and moderates events. In the past, she taught audio storytelling at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, led international education programs, worked with immigrants and refugees along the Thai-Burmese border, taught high schoolers sex ed, and was an actress. \r\n\r\nShe's a former UC Berkeley Human Rights Fellow, USC Center for Health Journalism's California Fellow and Coro Fellow in Public Affairs. Laura has a master’s in journalism from UC Berkeley, a master’s in education from Harvard, and an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University.\r\n\r\nShe loves trying to riddle the meaning out of vanity license plates.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/af8e757bb8ce7b7fee6160ba66e37327?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "lauraklivans",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "stateofhealth",
"roles": [
"contributor",
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "forum",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Laura Klivans | KQED",
"description": "Reporter",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/af8e757bb8ce7b7fee6160ba66e37327?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/af8e757bb8ce7b7fee6160ba66e37327?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/lklivans"
},
"ecruzguevarra": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "8654",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "8654",
"found": true
},
"name": "Ericka Cruz Guevarra",
"firstName": "Ericka",
"lastName": "Cruz Guevarra",
"slug": "ecruzguevarra",
"email": "ecruzguevarra@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news"
],
"title": "Producer, The Bay Podcast",
"bio": "Ericka Cruz Guevarra is host of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">\u003cem>The Bay\u003c/em>\u003c/a> podcast at KQED. Before host, she was the show’s producer. Her work in that capacity includes a three-part reported series on policing in Vallejo, which won a 2020 excellence in journalism award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Ericka has worked as a breaking news reporter at Oregon Public Broadcasting, helped produce the Code Switch podcast, and was KQED’s inaugural Raul Ramirez Diversity Fund intern. She’s also an alumna of NPR’s Next Generation Radio program. Send her an email if you have strong feelings about whether Fairfield and Suisun City are the Bay. Ericka is represented by SAG-AFTRA.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/accefc1de4bafc7e234b69bcb9b6f6536c130fd84709bc3069ef11a78787e1bb?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "NotoriousECG",
"bluesky": null,
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"subscriber"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor",
"manage_categories"
]
},
{
"site": "futureofyou",
"roles": [
"subscriber"
]
},
{
"site": "stateofhealth",
"roles": [
"subscriber"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "forum",
"roles": [
"subscriber"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Ericka Cruz Guevarra | KQED",
"description": "Producer, The Bay Podcast",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/accefc1de4bafc7e234b69bcb9b6f6536c130fd84709bc3069ef11a78787e1bb?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/accefc1de4bafc7e234b69bcb9b6f6536c130fd84709bc3069ef11a78787e1bb?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/ecruzguevarra"
},
"dcronin": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11362",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11362",
"found": true
},
"name": "Dana Cronin",
"firstName": "Dana",
"lastName": "Cronin",
"slug": "dcronin",
"email": "dcronin@KQED.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [],
"title": "KQED Contributor",
"bio": "Dana Cronin is a reporter for KQED News. She loves writing stories about climate change, environmental issues, food and agriculture. She's reported across the country, from Colorado to Washington D.C. to Illinois, and has won numerous awards for her coverage. Her work is regularly featured on national broadcasts, including NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, PBS Newshour and Science Friday. She lives in Oakland and has an avocado tree in her back yard.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/bcf89e3455ff7235f96ab6fa7258dd95?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "DanaHCronin",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"author"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": [
"author"
]
},
{
"site": "liveblog",
"roles": [
"author"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Dana Cronin | KQED",
"description": "KQED Contributor",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/bcf89e3455ff7235f96ab6fa7258dd95?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/bcf89e3455ff7235f96ab6fa7258dd95?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/dcronin"
},
"ogpenn": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11491",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11491",
"found": true
},
"name": "Pendarvis Harshaw",
"firstName": "Pendarvis",
"lastName": "Harshaw",
"slug": "ogpenn",
"email": "ogpenn@gmail.com",
"display_author_email": false,
"staff_mastheads": [
"arts"
],
"title": "Community Engagement Reporter",
"bio": "Pendarvis Harshaw is an educator, host and writer with KQED Arts.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/972b77ee8e3f346ae2b00622661187fbfabd059b5693bbdc1475ea7a722fd4cd?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": null,
"bluesky": null,
"facebook": null,
"instagram": "ogpenn",
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"administrator"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "bayareabites",
"roles": [
"author"
]
},
{
"site": "hiphop",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Pendarvis Harshaw | KQED",
"description": "Community Engagement Reporter",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/972b77ee8e3f346ae2b00622661187fbfabd059b5693bbdc1475ea7a722fd4cd?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/972b77ee8e3f346ae2b00622661187fbfabd059b5693bbdc1475ea7a722fd4cd?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/ogpenn"
},
"mmedina": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11528",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11528",
"found": true
},
"name": "Marisol Medina-Cadena",
"firstName": "Marisol",
"lastName": "Medina-Cadena",
"slug": "mmedina",
"email": "mmedina@KQED.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [],
"title": "Producer, Rightnowish Podcast",
"bio": "Marisol Medina-Cadena is a radio reporter and podcast producer. Before working at KQED, she produced for PBS member station, KCET, in Los Angeles. In 2017, Marisol won an Emmy Award for her work on the televised documentary, \u003cem>City Rising\u003c/em>, examining California's affordable housing crisis and the historical roots of gentrification.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/6c3db46a1cabb5e1fe9a365b5f4e681e?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "marisolreports",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": []
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"edit_others_posts"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Marisol Medina-Cadena | KQED",
"description": "Producer, Rightnowish Podcast",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/6c3db46a1cabb5e1fe9a365b5f4e681e?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/6c3db46a1cabb5e1fe9a365b5f4e681e?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/mmedina"
},
"kevinstark": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11608",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11608",
"found": true
},
"name": "Kevin Stark",
"firstName": "Kevin",
"lastName": "Stark",
"slug": "kevinstark",
"email": "kstark@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"science"
],
"title": "Senior Editor",
"bio": "Kevin is a senior editor for KQED Science, managing the station's health and climate desks. His journalism career began in the Pacific Northwest, and he later became a lead reporter for the San Francisco Public Press. His work has appeared in Pacific Standard magazine, the Energy News Network, the Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal and WBEZ in Chicago. Kevin joined KQED in 2019, and has covered issues related to energy, wildfire, climate change and the environment.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/1f646bf546a63d638e04ff23b52b0e79?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "starkkev",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": [
"administrator"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Kevin Stark | KQED",
"description": "Senior Editor",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/1f646bf546a63d638e04ff23b52b0e79?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/1f646bf546a63d638e04ff23b52b0e79?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/kevinstark"
},
"amontecillo": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11649",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11649",
"found": true
},
"name": "Alan Montecillo",
"firstName": "Alan",
"lastName": "Montecillo",
"slug": "amontecillo",
"email": "amontecillo@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": false,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news"
],
"title": "KQED Contributor",
"bio": "Alan Montecillo is the senior editor of \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/thebay\">The Bay\u003c/a>, \u003c/em> KQED's local news podcast. Before moving to the Bay Area, he worked as a senior talk show producer for WILL in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and at Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland, Oregon. He has won journalism awards from the Society of Professional Journalists Northern California, the Public Media Journalists Association, The Signal Awards, and has also received a regional Edward R. Murrow award. Alan is a Filipino American from Hong Kong and a graduate of Reed College.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/268f53a2066899ea9efdd8a5900218b17c822d9862cbc9326cccec53ef41d349?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "alanmontecillo",
"bluesky": null,
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor",
"manage_categories"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Alan Montecillo | KQED",
"description": "KQED Contributor",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/268f53a2066899ea9efdd8a5900218b17c822d9862cbc9326cccec53ef41d349?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/268f53a2066899ea9efdd8a5900218b17c822d9862cbc9326cccec53ef41d349?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/amontecillo"
},
"btorres": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11666",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11666",
"found": true
},
"name": "Blanca Torres",
"firstName": "Blanca",
"lastName": "Torres",
"slug": "btorres",
"email": "btorres@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news"
],
"title": "Producer, Forum",
"bio": "Blanca Torres brings sharp news judgement and keen sense of lively conversation to her work as producer for Forum. She loves producing shows that leave listeners feeling like they heard distinctive voices, learned something new and gained a fresh perspective.\r\n\r\nShe joined KQED in January of 2020 after 16 years of working as a newspaper reporter most recently at the \u003cem>San Francisco Business Times,\u003c/em> where she wrote about real estate and economic development. Before that, she covered a variety of beats including crime, education, retail, workplace, the economy, consumer issues, and small business for the \u003cem>Contra Costa Times, Baltimore Sun\u003c/em> and\u003cem> The Seattle Times\u003c/em>. In addition to reporting, she worked as an editorial writer and columnist for the \u003cem>Seattle Times\u003c/em>. From 2017 to 2020, Blanca won a total of ten awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors and won first place for land use reporting from the California News Publishers Association two years in a row. She is also a member and former board member for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.\r\n\r\nA native of the Pacific Northwest, Blanca earned her bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville and a master's in fine arts in creative writing at Mills College. She lives in the East Bay with her family.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f2322ff46076d337f7ba731ee6068cb1?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "@blancawrites",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "forum",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Blanca Torres | KQED",
"description": "Producer, Forum",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f2322ff46076d337f7ba731ee6068cb1?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f2322ff46076d337f7ba731ee6068cb1?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/btorres"
},
"eromero": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11746",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11746",
"found": true
},
"name": "Ezra David Romero",
"firstName": "Ezra David",
"lastName": "Romero",
"slug": "eromero",
"email": "eromero@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news",
"science"
],
"title": "Climate Reporter",
"bio": "Ezra David Romero is a climate reporter for KQED News. He covers the absence and excess of water in the Bay Area — think sea level rise, flooding and drought. For nearly a decade he’s covered how warming temperatures are altering the lives of Californians. He’s reported on farmers worried their pistachio trees aren’t getting enough sleep, families desperate for water, scientists studying dying giant sequoias, and alongside firefighters containing wildfires. His work has appeared on local stations across California and nationally on public radio shows like Morning Edition, Here and Now, All Things Considered and Science Friday. ",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c76404d287c10ed40224227551ac36e24352c7306f106632caf6fead76f8801f?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "ezraromero",
"bluesky": null,
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "liveblog",
"roles": [
"author"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Ezra David Romero | KQED",
"description": "Climate Reporter",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c76404d287c10ed40224227551ac36e24352c7306f106632caf6fead76f8801f?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c76404d287c10ed40224227551ac36e24352c7306f106632caf6fead76f8801f?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/eromero"
},
"afinney": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11772",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11772",
"found": true
},
"name": "Annelise Finney",
"firstName": "Annelise",
"lastName": "Finney",
"slug": "afinney",
"email": "afinney@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news"
],
"title": "Reporter",
"bio": "Annelise reports on reparations in California and East Bay politics. She co-produced the Sunday Music Drop, a limited-term radio series featuring Bay Area musicians that aired between Sept 2022 and Oct 2024. She joined KQED in 2021 as a general assignment reporter and is an alumna of KALW's Audio Academy. She was born and raised in the East Bay. She is currently away from KQED completing a year-long reporting project in Berlin, Germany as a Alexander Von Humboldt German Chancellor Fellow.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5fded66cae47704cdfc5021cde0f3aa4?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": null,
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "liveblog",
"roles": [
"author"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Annelise Finney | KQED",
"description": "Reporter",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5fded66cae47704cdfc5021cde0f3aa4?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5fded66cae47704cdfc5021cde0f3aa4?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/afinney"
},
"mesquinca": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11802",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11802",
"found": true
},
"name": "Maria Esquinca",
"firstName": "Maria",
"lastName": "Esquinca",
"slug": "mesquinca",
"email": "mesquinca@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": false,
"staff_mastheads": [],
"title": "Producer, The Bay",
"bio": "María Esquinca is a producer of The Bay. Before that, she was a New York Women’s Foundation IGNITE Fellow at Latino USA. She worked at Radio Bilingue where she covered the San Joaquin Valley. Maria has interned at WLRN, News 21, The New York Times Student Journalism Institute and at Crain’s Detroit Business as a Dow Jones News Fund Business Reporting Intern. She is an MFA graduate from the University of Miami. In 2017, she graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication with a Master of Mass Communication. A fronteriza, she was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and grew up in El Paso, Texas.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/77cedba18aae91da775038ba06dcd8d0?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "@m_esquinca",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "news",
"roles": []
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Maria Esquinca | KQED",
"description": "Producer, The Bay",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/77cedba18aae91da775038ba06dcd8d0?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/77cedba18aae91da775038ba06dcd8d0?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/mesquinca"
},
"sjohnson": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11840",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11840",
"found": true
},
"name": "Sydney Johnson",
"firstName": "Sydney",
"lastName": "Johnson",
"slug": "sjohnson",
"email": "sjohnson@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": false,
"staff_mastheads": [
"news"
],
"title": "KQED Reporter",
"bio": "Sydney Johnson is a general assignment reporter at KQED. She previously reported on public health and city government at the San Francisco Examiner, and before that, she covered statewide education policy for EdSource. Her reporting has won multiple local, state and national awards. Sydney is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and lives in San Francisco.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/97855f2719b72ad6190b7c535fe642c8?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "sydneyfjohnson",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Sydney Johnson | KQED",
"description": "KQED Reporter",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/97855f2719b72ad6190b7c535fe642c8?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/97855f2719b72ad6190b7c535fe642c8?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/sjohnson"
}
},
"pagesReducer": {
"news_program_the-bay": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_28779",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "28779",
"score": 15.54113
},
"featImg": null,
"name": "The Bay",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "program",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": "The Bay is a daily news and culture program from KQED that covers the latest headlines, trends, and stories that matter to the Bay Area.",
"title": "The Bay Area Archives | KQED",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 28796,
"slug": "the-bay",
"isLoading": false,
"title": "The Bay",
"pageMeta": {
"site": "news",
"WpPageTemplate": "page-topic-editorial",
"currentPage": 7
},
"blocks": [
{
"blockName": "kqed/post-list",
"attrs": {
"layout": "cardArticle2",
"query": "posts/news?program=the-bay",
"seeMore": false,
"paginated": true,
"page": 7
}
},
{
"blockName": "kqed/ad"
}
]
}
},
"pfsSessionReducer": {},
"postsReducer": {
"stream_live": {
"type": "live",
"id": "stream_live",
"audioUrl": "https://streams.kqed.org/kqedradio",
"title": "Live Stream",
"excerpt": "Live Stream information currently unavailable.",
"link": "/radio",
"featImg": "",
"label": {
"name": "KQED Live",
"link": "/"
}
},
"stream_kqedNewscast": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "stream_kqedNewscast",
"audioUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/RDnews/newscast.mp3?_=1",
"title": "KQED Newscast",
"featImg": "",
"label": {
"name": "88.5 FM",
"link": "/"
}
},
"news_11974886": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11974886",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11974886",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1707303626000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1707303626,
"format": "audio",
"title": "Why Were There So Many Power Outages Last Weekend?",
"headTitle": "Why Were There So Many Power Outages Last Weekend? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A huge storm system hit the Bay Area this past weekend, leaving many across the 9 counties without power. At its peak, an estimated 1.5 million customers were without electricity statewide, marking the third-largest single-day outage in PG&E’s history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED’s Dan Brekke tells us why this storm was so bad, what about our infrastructure is lacking, and how we can be better prepared for more storms like this one going forward.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2662180444&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hi, I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Bay Area residents are picking up the pieces after a weekend full of rain and very strong winds. At least three people died in Northern California as a result of the storms, and more than a million people lost power. Some people, like Ashley in South San Francisco, haven’t had power for days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley: \u003c/strong>Our power has been out for the past 48 hours, to the point where I’m glad that my grandma is in the hospital so that she wouldn’t be in a cold, dark house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Others, like Eric near Point Reyes, are lucky to be alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric: \u003c/strong>We were sitting in the living room and heard the trees wailing around, and suddenly it just started to get really intense. Looked out the window and watched the 60 foot cypress tree fall onto our house. Everybody screaming. Everybody yelling. I mean, we were so lucky. Another couple feeding a different direction and we’d be having a very different conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Today. I talked with KQED s Dan Brekke about what made this storm so strong, and what we can do to prevent power outages of this scale in the future. How bad were the storms this past weekend?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>So what we saw Saturday evening and all day Sunday was a very special kind of storm. It built up very quickly and moved through relatively rapidly compared to the forecasts. This storm underperformed in terms of the rain it dropped, but the winds were something else because this was such a rapidly developing storm and became so strong so quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>It was very, very windy. And so we saw winds that you might see once or twice a generation. There were a couple spots in Marin County, for instance. One was recorded with a 102 mile an hour wind gust. Another close by had 99 miles an hour. That was a really spectacular instance of Pacific storms rolling into California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So rain wasn’t as bad as we feared, at least in the Bay area, but winds were super strong. How much of that has to do with climate change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>You know, it’s really hard to say about any particular storm, what the specific contribution of global warming or climate change is. There is a scientific consensus that changing climatic conditions are making severe storms of this nature more likely. But this was a really remarkable storm. I mean, I haven’t used the term yet, but it’s what’s called a bomb cyclone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>That’s a term that Norwegian meteorologists came up with during World War two to describe a rapidly developing low pressure center, a storm that seemingly comes out of nowhere and can have really high winds and other severe effects. And that’s what we had off the coast here. A very rapidly developing storm that is very unusual and according to the National Weather Service, was the strongest storm we’ve had off the California coast in 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What kind of damage did these winds cause? Like, what is the range of things that you’ve seen or that that we’ve, we’ve heard reported so far?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>Well, the number one thing is lots of trees down. You know, there’s no precise count, but it’s safe to say thousands of trees went down. So what happens when a tree falls? I mean, it may block a road. It may fall on a car and injure somebody, or worse, it may fall on a house and cause major damage. It may take down power lines. There was some flooding that went along with the storm, even though, as I said, in most places, the rain was not as much as forecast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>But since the soil here is so saturated, all the water that was falling from the sky wound up as runoff and going into creeks and rivers, which which rose very quickly and caused some some flooding. And when you hear about power lines down, well, you know, it’s one thing when it happens in your neighborhood. But this was happening all across Northern California and Central California over most of PG and E’s 70,000 square mile service territory. So this was the really big impact from this storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What did that damage look like in the Bay area? Like what parts of our region were hit the hardest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>It looks like there were, two main zones of of damage. If you judge by power outages, one was in the South Bay and the peninsula. San Mateo County in Santa Clara County had lots of trees down, lots of wires down, and lots of people in the dark because they lost their power. And then the other place was the North Bay. Mostly Sonoma County, but, also Marin and Napa County had unusual numbers of, people without power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>But, you know, once I say that, I mean, I’m thinking, you know, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the number of customers, PGA customers who went without power in places like Alameda County, in Contra Costa County, you know, 20, 30, 40,000 people out at one time on Sunday night. So it was pretty widely distributed. But those were the two places that really stood out North and South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>At its peak. How many people in the Bay area lost power?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>You know, the largest number I saw at one time was close to half a million customers. But, you know, that was just a snapshot in time. And PGE is actually still counting up the numbers. You know, I talked to PGA spokesperson Jeff Smith, who’s based in the Central Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeff Smith: \u003c/strong>You know, we’re working really, really hard to get as many customers restored as quickly as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>He gave me some numbers at midday on Monday, and he was saying that 900,000 customers have been restored, which is a huge number, and 400,000 across the state were still out. And so I added those numbers together and asked him, so we’re talking 1.3 million. And he said, yes, that’s right. But what does customer mean? Well, customers are mostly households. When you look at a number like 1.3 million customers out, that means maybe close to 4 million people were in the dark at some point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>And in the Bay area, at least a million people working these numbers a little further, about one inch for PG and E customers throughout the state. And maybe 1 in 10 Californians suffered a power outage sometime during that storm through midday on Monday. And then I asked, so where does this rank and in PGA history? And he had an interesting answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeff Smith: \u003c/strong>Right now it is the third biggest single storm in PGA history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>Now that goes back to the early 20th century more than 100 years ago. I think PGA e probably is at the point where they’ve reconnected most of the people who were easy to connect. And Smith said, you know, when you’re going out to restore power, sometimes you can restring a line or, you know, you get a tree out of the way and restore the line and you’ll reconnect 2000 people at once. But he said, a lot of places, you know, that are more remote. Doing the same thing may only reconnect two customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeff Smith: \u003c/strong>And so there’s just a lot of outages. And sometimes there are there are extensive repairs that take multiple hours. And you only bring back a handful of customers, once that returns May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Coming up. What we know and don’t know about why there were so many power outages across the Bay area. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So we’ve been talking about why these storms were so strong, why the winds were so high, why we got so much rain. But let’s talk more about power outages specifically. Why were there so many power outages, Dan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>I think the main reason there were outages distributed over such a wide area is that we had such prolonged high winds. They started to ramp up on Saturday night and then all day Sunday until early Monday morning hours. Really. You saw the same thing distributed over a huge area of sustained winds, maybe in the 30 to 40 mile an hour range and then gusts up to 60, 70, 80, 90 miles an hour. So I think that’s really the main explanation. Now, there are parts of this that we still don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>For instance, PGA is known to have a backlog of power poles that it needs to replace. So how many locations do we have where power poles might might have failed because they were old and needed to be replaced? We don’t know. How many places did some other infrastructure that maybe should have been hardened or better maintained failed? We don’t know that yet. So this will all probably come to light because the utility is required to file a report with the California Public Utilities Commission on any major outage. And of course, this is perhaps the biggest outage they’ve ever had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I want to drill down to that a little more like what is PPG and his role here? How should we be thinking about this utility in the context of these massive power outages? Because, you know, almost all of us get our power from this utility. We all rely on it. You know, we don’t have to rehash our state’s troubled history with PGE, but what is what is the role here, you think?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>Well, you know, that’s a really huge question. And people are thinking and talking about that a lot right now for reasons other than a big power outage. What’s happening with PGA right now across the state is people are seeing very high energy bills and of course, in much of California. And I’m really talking about northern and central California. PGA is the only game in town if you want electricity. So when something goes wrong, all fingers I think rightly point to PGA for explanations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>So in the past we’ve seen, you know, proposals to try to do more, to, ensure that PGA is doing all the things it needs to do to make sure that the power system is both safe and reliable. It’s a hard industry to regulate, and I think the California Public Utilities Commission and the legislature have both struggled and some would say have failed to do it effectively because PGA has a history of problems. We just happened to go through a year, 2023 where PGA did not start a major fire. But that’s exceptional, right. And its performance in in times like this, when there’s severe winter weather is something that people will continue to scrutinize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>How can we be better prepared then. So we don’t have as many power outages next time there are heavy winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>So I think there are a couple things people look at when they think about making the power system more reliable. I mean, of course, one obvious thing is the best maintenance practices. So make sure that all your equipment is up to date and well-maintained. And Pgti has been very severely criticized for the condition of some of their infrastructure in the past, especially, for instance, in connection with something like the campfire. But beyond things like that, which, as I say, seem obvious, you know, I don’t want to make it sound simple. PGA has a vast network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>They have more than 100,000 miles of power lines, so that’s a complex task. But beyond that, I mean, people are talking about things like microgrids, for instance. Creating much smaller areas can be self-contained, like islands, essentially, where the power is generated and consumed within one small area and not dependent on what’s happening in the larger grid. You know, it’s hard to say that we’re going to see anything like that on a large scale. There are places where it’s working now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>There’s a little town up in Napa County called Angwin, which has its own little self-contained power island or power system. And PGA is actually played a role in setting that up. Those are the major things. But beyond that, I think what people really want to see is accountability from the regulators, the California Public Utilities Commission, and they want the legislature to actually do a better job of making sure that PGA and the CPUc are accountable for how the power utilities perform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>And just to be fair to PGA, this is not just a question for them. There are big power utilities in Southern California. They’re called investor owned utilities. And they’ve had their own problems in the past. And they’re being looked at too, for the same kinds of things that PGA is the the sort of prices they’re charging and whether they’re operating efficiently enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Dan, as I said, we’re talking on Tuesday. People will hear this Wednesday. Hopefully a lot of the damage will have been fixed. But how long would it take before everyone’s power is back and, you know, damage from falling trees, whether it’s on your car or your home? How long would it take for those kind of fixes to be to be complete?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>I think in the case of PGD, most people will see their lights come back on in the next day or two. That’s still a long time to be out of power. There are some places that are remote where the damage to infrastructure is a little bit more complicated to fix or get at, and people there might be out for a week or two. We’ve seen this happen in the past. You know, in terms of, you know, the kinds of things that we see along the streets, tree trees down. You know, that stuff is dealt with pretty quickly, but we’ll see the effects of it for a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>And that’s really minor compared to what’s happening in places like Sonoma County, Marin, rural parts of Napa, and, you know, other parts of the Bay area where it will take probably weeks to get all the storm damage cleaned up. And and there’s a possibility that we haven’t seen all the damage yet. With the ground so saturated. There could be landslides that will cause further damage. Bring more trees down. So we’re not really done with the damage from this storm yet? Probably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well Dan, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>It’s always a pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>That was Dan Brekke, editor and reporter for KQED. This episode was cut down and edited by Dana Cronin. I added the tape in the music with production help from our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. Music courtesy of NPR, First come music and Bluedot sessions. Special thanks to the team at KQED’s Forum, for Eric’s call that you heard at the top of the show. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Alan Montecillo in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": true,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 2873,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 47
},
"modified": 1708640095,
"excerpt": "A huge storm system hit the Bay Area this past weekend, leaving many across the 9 counties without power.",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "A huge storm system hit the Bay Area this past weekend, leaving many across the 9 counties without power.",
"title": "Why Were There So Many Power Outages Last Weekend? | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "Why Were There So Many Power Outages Last Weekend?",
"datePublished": "2024-02-07T03:00:26-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-02-22T14:14:55-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "why-do-storms-cause-so-many-power-outages-in-the-bay",
"status": "publish",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC2662180444.mp3?updated=1707264517",
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"sticky": false,
"source": "The Bay",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11974886/why-do-storms-cause-so-many-power-outages-in-the-bay",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A huge storm system hit the Bay Area this past weekend, leaving many across the 9 counties without power. At its peak, an estimated 1.5 million customers were without electricity statewide, marking the third-largest single-day outage in PG&E’s history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED’s Dan Brekke tells us why this storm was so bad, what about our infrastructure is lacking, and how we can be better prepared for more storms like this one going forward.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2662180444&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hi, I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Bay Area residents are picking up the pieces after a weekend full of rain and very strong winds. At least three people died in Northern California as a result of the storms, and more than a million people lost power. Some people, like Ashley in South San Francisco, haven’t had power for days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashley: \u003c/strong>Our power has been out for the past 48 hours, to the point where I’m glad that my grandma is in the hospital so that she wouldn’t be in a cold, dark house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Others, like Eric near Point Reyes, are lucky to be alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric: \u003c/strong>We were sitting in the living room and heard the trees wailing around, and suddenly it just started to get really intense. Looked out the window and watched the 60 foot cypress tree fall onto our house. Everybody screaming. Everybody yelling. I mean, we were so lucky. Another couple feeding a different direction and we’d be having a very different conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Today. I talked with KQED s Dan Brekke about what made this storm so strong, and what we can do to prevent power outages of this scale in the future. How bad were the storms this past weekend?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>So what we saw Saturday evening and all day Sunday was a very special kind of storm. It built up very quickly and moved through relatively rapidly compared to the forecasts. This storm underperformed in terms of the rain it dropped, but the winds were something else because this was such a rapidly developing storm and became so strong so quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>It was very, very windy. And so we saw winds that you might see once or twice a generation. There were a couple spots in Marin County, for instance. One was recorded with a 102 mile an hour wind gust. Another close by had 99 miles an hour. That was a really spectacular instance of Pacific storms rolling into California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So rain wasn’t as bad as we feared, at least in the Bay area, but winds were super strong. How much of that has to do with climate change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>You know, it’s really hard to say about any particular storm, what the specific contribution of global warming or climate change is. There is a scientific consensus that changing climatic conditions are making severe storms of this nature more likely. But this was a really remarkable storm. I mean, I haven’t used the term yet, but it’s what’s called a bomb cyclone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>That’s a term that Norwegian meteorologists came up with during World War two to describe a rapidly developing low pressure center, a storm that seemingly comes out of nowhere and can have really high winds and other severe effects. And that’s what we had off the coast here. A very rapidly developing storm that is very unusual and according to the National Weather Service, was the strongest storm we’ve had off the California coast in 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What kind of damage did these winds cause? Like, what is the range of things that you’ve seen or that that we’ve, we’ve heard reported so far?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>Well, the number one thing is lots of trees down. You know, there’s no precise count, but it’s safe to say thousands of trees went down. So what happens when a tree falls? I mean, it may block a road. It may fall on a car and injure somebody, or worse, it may fall on a house and cause major damage. It may take down power lines. There was some flooding that went along with the storm, even though, as I said, in most places, the rain was not as much as forecast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>But since the soil here is so saturated, all the water that was falling from the sky wound up as runoff and going into creeks and rivers, which which rose very quickly and caused some some flooding. And when you hear about power lines down, well, you know, it’s one thing when it happens in your neighborhood. But this was happening all across Northern California and Central California over most of PG and E’s 70,000 square mile service territory. So this was the really big impact from this storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What did that damage look like in the Bay area? Like what parts of our region were hit the hardest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>It looks like there were, two main zones of of damage. If you judge by power outages, one was in the South Bay and the peninsula. San Mateo County in Santa Clara County had lots of trees down, lots of wires down, and lots of people in the dark because they lost their power. And then the other place was the North Bay. Mostly Sonoma County, but, also Marin and Napa County had unusual numbers of, people without power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>But, you know, once I say that, I mean, I’m thinking, you know, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the number of customers, PGA customers who went without power in places like Alameda County, in Contra Costa County, you know, 20, 30, 40,000 people out at one time on Sunday night. So it was pretty widely distributed. But those were the two places that really stood out North and South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>At its peak. How many people in the Bay area lost power?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>You know, the largest number I saw at one time was close to half a million customers. But, you know, that was just a snapshot in time. And PGE is actually still counting up the numbers. You know, I talked to PGA spokesperson Jeff Smith, who’s based in the Central Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeff Smith: \u003c/strong>You know, we’re working really, really hard to get as many customers restored as quickly as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>He gave me some numbers at midday on Monday, and he was saying that 900,000 customers have been restored, which is a huge number, and 400,000 across the state were still out. And so I added those numbers together and asked him, so we’re talking 1.3 million. And he said, yes, that’s right. But what does customer mean? Well, customers are mostly households. When you look at a number like 1.3 million customers out, that means maybe close to 4 million people were in the dark at some point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>And in the Bay area, at least a million people working these numbers a little further, about one inch for PG and E customers throughout the state. And maybe 1 in 10 Californians suffered a power outage sometime during that storm through midday on Monday. And then I asked, so where does this rank and in PGA history? And he had an interesting answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeff Smith: \u003c/strong>Right now it is the third biggest single storm in PGA history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>Now that goes back to the early 20th century more than 100 years ago. I think PGA e probably is at the point where they’ve reconnected most of the people who were easy to connect. And Smith said, you know, when you’re going out to restore power, sometimes you can restring a line or, you know, you get a tree out of the way and restore the line and you’ll reconnect 2000 people at once. But he said, a lot of places, you know, that are more remote. Doing the same thing may only reconnect two customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeff Smith: \u003c/strong>And so there’s just a lot of outages. And sometimes there are there are extensive repairs that take multiple hours. And you only bring back a handful of customers, once that returns May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Coming up. What we know and don’t know about why there were so many power outages across the Bay area. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So we’ve been talking about why these storms were so strong, why the winds were so high, why we got so much rain. But let’s talk more about power outages specifically. Why were there so many power outages, Dan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>I think the main reason there were outages distributed over such a wide area is that we had such prolonged high winds. They started to ramp up on Saturday night and then all day Sunday until early Monday morning hours. Really. You saw the same thing distributed over a huge area of sustained winds, maybe in the 30 to 40 mile an hour range and then gusts up to 60, 70, 80, 90 miles an hour. So I think that’s really the main explanation. Now, there are parts of this that we still don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>For instance, PGA is known to have a backlog of power poles that it needs to replace. So how many locations do we have where power poles might might have failed because they were old and needed to be replaced? We don’t know. How many places did some other infrastructure that maybe should have been hardened or better maintained failed? We don’t know that yet. So this will all probably come to light because the utility is required to file a report with the California Public Utilities Commission on any major outage. And of course, this is perhaps the biggest outage they’ve ever had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I want to drill down to that a little more like what is PPG and his role here? How should we be thinking about this utility in the context of these massive power outages? Because, you know, almost all of us get our power from this utility. We all rely on it. You know, we don’t have to rehash our state’s troubled history with PGE, but what is what is the role here, you think?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>Well, you know, that’s a really huge question. And people are thinking and talking about that a lot right now for reasons other than a big power outage. What’s happening with PGA right now across the state is people are seeing very high energy bills and of course, in much of California. And I’m really talking about northern and central California. PGA is the only game in town if you want electricity. So when something goes wrong, all fingers I think rightly point to PGA for explanations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>So in the past we’ve seen, you know, proposals to try to do more, to, ensure that PGA is doing all the things it needs to do to make sure that the power system is both safe and reliable. It’s a hard industry to regulate, and I think the California Public Utilities Commission and the legislature have both struggled and some would say have failed to do it effectively because PGA has a history of problems. We just happened to go through a year, 2023 where PGA did not start a major fire. But that’s exceptional, right. And its performance in in times like this, when there’s severe winter weather is something that people will continue to scrutinize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>How can we be better prepared then. So we don’t have as many power outages next time there are heavy winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>So I think there are a couple things people look at when they think about making the power system more reliable. I mean, of course, one obvious thing is the best maintenance practices. So make sure that all your equipment is up to date and well-maintained. And Pgti has been very severely criticized for the condition of some of their infrastructure in the past, especially, for instance, in connection with something like the campfire. But beyond things like that, which, as I say, seem obvious, you know, I don’t want to make it sound simple. PGA has a vast network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>They have more than 100,000 miles of power lines, so that’s a complex task. But beyond that, I mean, people are talking about things like microgrids, for instance. Creating much smaller areas can be self-contained, like islands, essentially, where the power is generated and consumed within one small area and not dependent on what’s happening in the larger grid. You know, it’s hard to say that we’re going to see anything like that on a large scale. There are places where it’s working now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>There’s a little town up in Napa County called Angwin, which has its own little self-contained power island or power system. And PGA is actually played a role in setting that up. Those are the major things. But beyond that, I think what people really want to see is accountability from the regulators, the California Public Utilities Commission, and they want the legislature to actually do a better job of making sure that PGA and the CPUc are accountable for how the power utilities perform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>And just to be fair to PGA, this is not just a question for them. There are big power utilities in Southern California. They’re called investor owned utilities. And they’ve had their own problems in the past. And they’re being looked at too, for the same kinds of things that PGA is the the sort of prices they’re charging and whether they’re operating efficiently enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Dan, as I said, we’re talking on Tuesday. People will hear this Wednesday. Hopefully a lot of the damage will have been fixed. But how long would it take before everyone’s power is back and, you know, damage from falling trees, whether it’s on your car or your home? How long would it take for those kind of fixes to be to be complete?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>I think in the case of PGD, most people will see their lights come back on in the next day or two. That’s still a long time to be out of power. There are some places that are remote where the damage to infrastructure is a little bit more complicated to fix or get at, and people there might be out for a week or two. We’ve seen this happen in the past. You know, in terms of, you know, the kinds of things that we see along the streets, tree trees down. You know, that stuff is dealt with pretty quickly, but we’ll see the effects of it for a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>And that’s really minor compared to what’s happening in places like Sonoma County, Marin, rural parts of Napa, and, you know, other parts of the Bay area where it will take probably weeks to get all the storm damage cleaned up. And and there’s a possibility that we haven’t seen all the damage yet. With the ground so saturated. There could be landslides that will cause further damage. Bring more trees down. So we’re not really done with the damage from this storm yet? Probably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well Dan, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dan Brekke: \u003c/strong>It’s always a pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>That was Dan Brekke, editor and reporter for KQED. This episode was cut down and edited by Dana Cronin. I added the tape in the music with production help from our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. Music courtesy of NPR, First come music and Bluedot sessions. Special thanks to the team at KQED’s Forum, for Eric’s call that you heard at the top of the show. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Alan Montecillo in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11974886/why-do-storms-cause-so-many-power-outages-in-the-bay",
"authors": [
"11649",
"222",
"11362"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_31961",
"news_140",
"news_1084",
"news_22598"
],
"featImg": "news_11974721",
"label": "source_news_11974886"
},
"news_11974251": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11974251",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11974251",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1706698859000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "january-news-roundup-techs-role-in-media-layoffs-san-mateo-county-criminalizes-camping-sfs-district-attorney-race",
"title": "January News Roundup: Tech's Role in Media Layoffs, San Mateo County Criminalizes Camping, SF's District Attorney Race",
"publishDate": 1706698859,
"format": "audio",
"headTitle": "January News Roundup: Tech’s Role in Media Layoffs, San Mateo County Criminalizes Camping, SF’s District Attorney Race | KQED",
"labelTerm": {},
"content": "\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this edition of The Bay’s monthly news roundup, Ericka, Maria and Alan discuss how mass layoffs at the \u003cem>L.A. Times\u003c/em> have brought renewed attention to a California bill that would force tech companies to pay news outlets, San Mateo County’s vote to make it a crime to camp in certain areas when shelter beds are available, and a former prosecutor under Chesa Boudin who’s decided to enter the race for San Francisco District Attorney. Plus, we introduce our new intern!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9460852209\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Links:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/la-times-layoffs-bill-18624182.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">As layoffs batter L.A. Times, California lawmaker renews push to force Google, Facebook to pay for news\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sf-district-attorney-race-khojasteh-18626462.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">S.F. D.A. Brooke Jenkins fired him. Now he’s running against her\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973307/san-mateo-county-supes-vote-to-criminalize-camping-in-unincorporated-areas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Mateo County Supes Vote to Criminalize Camping in Unincorporated Areas\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay and local news to keep you rooted. And welcome to our first news roundup of the New Year. I don’t know if it’s weird to say Happy New Year anymore, but happy New year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Happy new year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It’s still okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is where we take some time at the end of the month to sit down with the entire Bay production team, to talk about some of the other stories around the Bay area that we’ve been following this month that we maybe didn’t get to make an episode on. I’m joined by our senior editor, Alan Montecillo What’s up? Alan?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And our producer, Maria Esquinca. And also a very special guest, our intern, Eleanor Prickett-Morgan, who is in their second week with us here at KQED. Welcome, Ellie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan: \u003c/strong>Hi. Very excited to be here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, before we dive into our news roundup, l’m wondering if you can just tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan: \u003c/strong>I’m a bay transplant by way of Santa Cruz, and I have spent the past couple of years doing some reporting with KPFA on housing and homelessness. I followed the Wood Street encampment for somewhere around a year through their eviction, and then I’ve continued to follow the community. And, yeah, I’m just really passionate about local news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know you’ve done a lot of stories out of the East Bay, in particular homelessness and housing. What kind of stories are you excited about working on on our show?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan: \u003c/strong>I’m really excited to kind of expand the different areas of coverage and pretty rooted in Oakland right now. And I’m also really excited to talk about potentially more labor issues, obviously, like the election coming up and maybe some transit stuff too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Ellie, thank you so much. It’s really exciting to have you here, and we are so excited to see all the things we make with you. Likewise. And right after the break, we’ll talk about the three stories that the Bay team has been following this month. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And welcome back to The Bay’s monthly news roundup, our first of the year. We’re going to go ahead and start with my story, which is about a recent wave of layoffs in the media industry and the role that some local lawmakers here in the Bay actually believe that tech can and should play in saving the industry from further catastrophe. Last week, the L.A. times laid off 115 journalists, which amounts to more than 20% of the newsroom. Many of the cuts were to culture writers, the team covering LA’s Latino community, the Washington, D.C. bureau, which I mean, of course, is really crazy to think about in an election year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The union says that the cuts also disproportionately affected black, Latino and Asian American employees, and the paper’s owner, Doctor Patrick Soon-shiong, said the cuts were necessary because the times could no longer lose up to $40 million a year without boosting advertising. It’s also bringing renewed attention to efforts by some California lawmakers to hold tech companies accountable for their role in the plight of the media industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Can you explain to us how is the tech industry connected to the news layoffs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, if you think about back in the day, right, when everyone needs to get newspapers and the main source of revenue for those newspapers was the advertising, the internet platforms like Google and Facebook. As we all know, those platforms have changed the entire industry. Many of these newspapers are no longer making money from advertising in their newspapers. Right, because everyone’s advertising online. And so the logic is that these platforms have contributed to this really devastating climate for news, while at the same time benefiting from the news articles that are posted to their websites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>In some ways, this is part of a much longer story of local news getting cut and cut and cut. And when you say, you know, California lawmakers are trying to hold tech accountable, how does that factor in to this recent news about the L.A. times?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There is at least one local lawmaker, Buffy Wicks, Democrat from Oakland, who believes that tech companies including Google, Facebook and Microsoft have really benefited from the work of journalists whose stories end up on these platforms. And basically, there’s this bill called the Journalism Preservation Act, or AB 886 that would require platforms to pay a journalism usage fee to news organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>This isn’t totally new idea, and from what I know, the tech industry is pretty hostile to any notion of paying for content that appears on their platforms. I have to assume something similar is happening in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, this bill actually stalled in the legislature last year, and its author, Buffy Wicks, decided to table it essentially in part because tech companies spent lots of money in 2023 lobbying California lawmakers and regulators against the bill. The LA times ironically reported that Google had spent $1.2 million and ad campaign against AB 886 last year, and that proved to be successful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, despite being passed in the Assembly in June of last year with notably bipartisan support, the bill stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee. And also meta went as far as to threaten removing news from its platforms last year. In particular Facebook and Instagram. If the bill became law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So I imagine the tech industry is going to pour a lot of money into trying to fight this bill again. What’s next for this bill?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>With the recent news out of the L.A. times and this round of layoffs, it’s sort of come up again. Buffy Wicks told the San Francisco Chronicle that this bill and passing it will be a top priority of hers in the coming year. All right. Well, that was my story for the month. Now I want to transition over to our senior editor, Alan Monticello. Alan, what have you been following this month?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>My story is, I would say, the latest chapter in the ongoing fights, argument, public debate, whatever you want to call it. About homeless encampments. San Mateo County will soon make it a crime to camp in public and unincorporated areas where shelter beds are available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Can you tell us a little bit more about the particular context around homelessness in San Mateo County? Like, why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well, like all regions in the Bay area, San Mateo County has a housing crisis. It has a homelessness crisis. The most recent data, we have estimated about 1800 people who don’t have a place to live. About a third of those are estimated to be living outside or on the streets. Let’s be clear this law is specific to unincorporated parts of the county, that is, parts of the county that are not part of a city. But it does hit at this issue that residents and advocates and public officials are debating over, which is. And what do you do about homeless encampments?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>How is this law going to work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>There’s a number of criteria that you’d have to meet in order to be charged with a crime. You need to have been given two written warnings and you have to have refused shelter twice. And then on top of that, last week they added a couple more provisions, including that there must be mental health screening before the first warning, and that unhoused people won’t be charged money for storing their belongings. Because what happens a lot during homeless encampments is that people’s belongings get taken away or thrown out or destroyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How do supervisors explain why they want to do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I think it is striking that the board voted unanimously. Our colleague Vanessa Rancaño reported on this for KQED, and one of the people she spoke to was board president Warren Slocum. He really frames it as an issue of public health and safety, saying that, you know, laws like this will help compel people who are otherwise resistant into getting the help that they need resources and, crucially, off the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Warren Slocum: \u003c/strong>This is a, I think, a positive way to encourage homeless residents to get the mental health and drug. Counseling that they need. Plus, get a roof over their heads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I think the operative word there is encourage. There is, I think, much more political will to compel people into shelter, into mental health treatment. If the authorities can show that they’ve refused it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>That’s what the supporters say. But I imagine a lot of people have something to say about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Homelessness advocates are strongly against this, and they and other residents came out and said as much at the Board of Supervisors meeting last week. One of the people who spoke was Tristia Bauman. She’s the directing attorney of housing for the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. She also spoke with our colleague Vanessa Rancaño about this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tristia Bauman: \u003c/strong>In many ways, it is an example of the failed punitive strategy that, cities and counties have attempted to implement in response to, the growing homelessness crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And you know, what Tristia and others are saying is, look, you’re just cracking down on people for living outside. You’re not actually getting at the root causes of homelessness. Again, this is a debate we’re very familiar with in the Bay area. Supporters of law like this will say, well, they’ve refused shelter a few times. So we now have the right to clear the encampment and in some cases, charge them with a crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Advocates and others would say people refuse congregate shelter for a variety of reasons. People don’t feel safe. Some people might not want to leave their stuff there. Maybe they have pets and they’re not allowed. Shelters have all kinds of different rules. You have to leave during certain hours. And so there’s a whole host of reasons why somebody would much rather live outside than live in a congregate shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So this debate played out in San Mateo County. It’s played out in Alameda County, Los Angeles, all over the state, and of course, in San Francisco, where, you know, this is a different story, but the US Supreme Court recently agreed to take up a case that gets at a similar question about what authorities can and can’t do with homeless encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, thank you so much for that, Alan. And last but not least, Maria, what do you got for us today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>We have a another election story, but this time out of San Francisco, where Ryan Khojasteh has officially filed paperwork to declare himself a candidate against Brooke Jenkins in the race for district attorney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay, honestly, that is not a name that I know. Who is this guy? What is his background? What’s his deal?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So he is currently a prosecutor out of Alameda County. He’s 30 years old, which I think is pretty young. And when we’re talking about politics, but I think he’s most known for because he served under Chesa Boudin. But then he was one of 14 other staffers to be fired under Brooke Jenkins when she was appointed as a D.A. by Mayor London Breed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And according to the San Francisco Chronicle, he did say that he believes that he was fired because he wrote an article that was published in SFGate, where he basically talks about reforms that were implemented under Chesa Boudin. That should have continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well, that’s a good segue to the to my next question, Maria, which is what is Ryan Khojasteh: running on?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So this is interesting because he describes himself as having a moderate approach between Chesa Boudin and Brooke Jenkins. And he talked to our colleague Erika Kelly a little bit about this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ryan Khojasteh: \u003c/strong>I would view the past D.A. as progressive and the current DA’s conservative. And I hope to bring a balance and be a responsible, moderating voice on public safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>He talks about both being someone that is willing to prosecute, but he also, at the policy level, is pushing against some of the things that Brooke Jenkins has done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ryan Khojasteh: \u003c/strong>You look at Brooke Jenkins reviving failed policies like the war on drugs. Of course, drug overdose deaths will reach a record level if you just arrest drug users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yet he’s also willing to prosecute and work with police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ryan Khojasteh: \u003c/strong>I’ve actually prosecuted crime and made difficult decisions to hold people in custody. I’ve asked for jail time and have asked for prison time. I’ve worked directly with police and victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>While San Francisco voters won’t be voting on a Da this March, they will be in November. Right? And he is essentially the first candidate to announce that he’s running against Brooke Jenkins. Is that right? What is the significance of this announcement?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Right now, San Francisco really has risen to the national spotlight when it comes to things like crime and addiction and homelessness. So I imagine that this is particularly a race that is going to get a lot of eyes, a lot of attention, a lot of coverage. And we have our first contender here. I imagine there’s going to be more. And so I think this is really getting the wheels in motion. And, you know, it’s almost feels like the engine is starting to turn on for one of the biggest races this season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And that is it for The Bay’s monthly news roundup this January. Producer Maria Esquinca, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And senior editor Alan Montecillo. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Go, Niners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The Bay is a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": null,
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1740517037,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": true,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 63,
"wordCount": 2737
},
"headData": {
"title": "January News Roundup: Tech's Role in Media Layoffs, San Mateo County Criminalizes Camping, SF's District Attorney Race | KQED",
"description": "View the full episode transcript. In this edition of The Bay’s monthly news roundup, Ericka, Maria and Alan discuss how mass layoffs at the L.A. Times have brought renewed attention to a California bill that would force tech companies to pay news outlets, San Mateo County’s vote to make it a crime to camp in certain areas when shelter beds are available, and a former prosecutor under Chesa Boudin who’s decided to enter the race for San Francisco District Attorney. Plus, we introduce our new intern! Links: As layoffs batter L.A. Times, California lawmaker renews push to force Google, Facebook",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "January News Roundup: Tech's Role in Media Layoffs, San Mateo County Criminalizes Camping, SF's District Attorney Race",
"datePublished": "2024-01-31T03:00:59-08:00",
"dateModified": "2025-02-25T12:57:17-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"source": "The Bay",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC9460852209.mp3?updated=1706651093",
"sticky": false,
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11974251/january-news-roundup-techs-role-in-media-layoffs-san-mateo-county-criminalizes-camping-sfs-district-attorney-race",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this edition of The Bay’s monthly news roundup, Ericka, Maria and Alan discuss how mass layoffs at the \u003cem>L.A. Times\u003c/em> have brought renewed attention to a California bill that would force tech companies to pay news outlets, San Mateo County’s vote to make it a crime to camp in certain areas when shelter beds are available, and a former prosecutor under Chesa Boudin who’s decided to enter the race for San Francisco District Attorney. Plus, we introduce our new intern!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9460852209\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Links:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/la-times-layoffs-bill-18624182.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">As layoffs batter L.A. Times, California lawmaker renews push to force Google, Facebook to pay for news\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sf-district-attorney-race-khojasteh-18626462.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">S.F. D.A. Brooke Jenkins fired him. Now he’s running against her\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973307/san-mateo-county-supes-vote-to-criminalize-camping-in-unincorporated-areas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Mateo County Supes Vote to Criminalize Camping in Unincorporated Areas\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay and local news to keep you rooted. And welcome to our first news roundup of the New Year. I don’t know if it’s weird to say Happy New Year anymore, but happy New year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Happy new year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It’s still okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is where we take some time at the end of the month to sit down with the entire Bay production team, to talk about some of the other stories around the Bay area that we’ve been following this month that we maybe didn’t get to make an episode on. I’m joined by our senior editor, Alan Montecillo What’s up? Alan?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And our producer, Maria Esquinca. And also a very special guest, our intern, Eleanor Prickett-Morgan, who is in their second week with us here at KQED. Welcome, Ellie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan: \u003c/strong>Hi. Very excited to be here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, before we dive into our news roundup, l’m wondering if you can just tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan: \u003c/strong>I’m a bay transplant by way of Santa Cruz, and I have spent the past couple of years doing some reporting with KPFA on housing and homelessness. I followed the Wood Street encampment for somewhere around a year through their eviction, and then I’ve continued to follow the community. And, yeah, I’m just really passionate about local news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know you’ve done a lot of stories out of the East Bay, in particular homelessness and housing. What kind of stories are you excited about working on on our show?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ellie Prickett-Morgan: \u003c/strong>I’m really excited to kind of expand the different areas of coverage and pretty rooted in Oakland right now. And I’m also really excited to talk about potentially more labor issues, obviously, like the election coming up and maybe some transit stuff too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Ellie, thank you so much. It’s really exciting to have you here, and we are so excited to see all the things we make with you. Likewise. And right after the break, we’ll talk about the three stories that the Bay team has been following this month. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And welcome back to The Bay’s monthly news roundup, our first of the year. We’re going to go ahead and start with my story, which is about a recent wave of layoffs in the media industry and the role that some local lawmakers here in the Bay actually believe that tech can and should play in saving the industry from further catastrophe. Last week, the L.A. times laid off 115 journalists, which amounts to more than 20% of the newsroom. Many of the cuts were to culture writers, the team covering LA’s Latino community, the Washington, D.C. bureau, which I mean, of course, is really crazy to think about in an election year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The union says that the cuts also disproportionately affected black, Latino and Asian American employees, and the paper’s owner, Doctor Patrick Soon-shiong, said the cuts were necessary because the times could no longer lose up to $40 million a year without boosting advertising. It’s also bringing renewed attention to efforts by some California lawmakers to hold tech companies accountable for their role in the plight of the media industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Can you explain to us how is the tech industry connected to the news layoffs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, if you think about back in the day, right, when everyone needs to get newspapers and the main source of revenue for those newspapers was the advertising, the internet platforms like Google and Facebook. As we all know, those platforms have changed the entire industry. Many of these newspapers are no longer making money from advertising in their newspapers. Right, because everyone’s advertising online. And so the logic is that these platforms have contributed to this really devastating climate for news, while at the same time benefiting from the news articles that are posted to their websites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>In some ways, this is part of a much longer story of local news getting cut and cut and cut. And when you say, you know, California lawmakers are trying to hold tech accountable, how does that factor in to this recent news about the L.A. times?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There is at least one local lawmaker, Buffy Wicks, Democrat from Oakland, who believes that tech companies including Google, Facebook and Microsoft have really benefited from the work of journalists whose stories end up on these platforms. And basically, there’s this bill called the Journalism Preservation Act, or AB 886 that would require platforms to pay a journalism usage fee to news organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>This isn’t totally new idea, and from what I know, the tech industry is pretty hostile to any notion of paying for content that appears on their platforms. I have to assume something similar is happening in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, this bill actually stalled in the legislature last year, and its author, Buffy Wicks, decided to table it essentially in part because tech companies spent lots of money in 2023 lobbying California lawmakers and regulators against the bill. The LA times ironically reported that Google had spent $1.2 million and ad campaign against AB 886 last year, and that proved to be successful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, despite being passed in the Assembly in June of last year with notably bipartisan support, the bill stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee. And also meta went as far as to threaten removing news from its platforms last year. In particular Facebook and Instagram. If the bill became law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So I imagine the tech industry is going to pour a lot of money into trying to fight this bill again. What’s next for this bill?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>With the recent news out of the L.A. times and this round of layoffs, it’s sort of come up again. Buffy Wicks told the San Francisco Chronicle that this bill and passing it will be a top priority of hers in the coming year. All right. Well, that was my story for the month. Now I want to transition over to our senior editor, Alan Monticello. Alan, what have you been following this month?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>My story is, I would say, the latest chapter in the ongoing fights, argument, public debate, whatever you want to call it. About homeless encampments. San Mateo County will soon make it a crime to camp in public and unincorporated areas where shelter beds are available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Can you tell us a little bit more about the particular context around homelessness in San Mateo County? Like, why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well, like all regions in the Bay area, San Mateo County has a housing crisis. It has a homelessness crisis. The most recent data, we have estimated about 1800 people who don’t have a place to live. About a third of those are estimated to be living outside or on the streets. Let’s be clear this law is specific to unincorporated parts of the county, that is, parts of the county that are not part of a city. But it does hit at this issue that residents and advocates and public officials are debating over, which is. And what do you do about homeless encampments?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>How is this law going to work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>There’s a number of criteria that you’d have to meet in order to be charged with a crime. You need to have been given two written warnings and you have to have refused shelter twice. And then on top of that, last week they added a couple more provisions, including that there must be mental health screening before the first warning, and that unhoused people won’t be charged money for storing their belongings. Because what happens a lot during homeless encampments is that people’s belongings get taken away or thrown out or destroyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How do supervisors explain why they want to do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I think it is striking that the board voted unanimously. Our colleague Vanessa Rancaño reported on this for KQED, and one of the people she spoke to was board president Warren Slocum. He really frames it as an issue of public health and safety, saying that, you know, laws like this will help compel people who are otherwise resistant into getting the help that they need resources and, crucially, off the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Warren Slocum: \u003c/strong>This is a, I think, a positive way to encourage homeless residents to get the mental health and drug. Counseling that they need. Plus, get a roof over their heads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I think the operative word there is encourage. There is, I think, much more political will to compel people into shelter, into mental health treatment. If the authorities can show that they’ve refused it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>That’s what the supporters say. But I imagine a lot of people have something to say about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Homelessness advocates are strongly against this, and they and other residents came out and said as much at the Board of Supervisors meeting last week. One of the people who spoke was Tristia Bauman. She’s the directing attorney of housing for the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. She also spoke with our colleague Vanessa Rancaño about this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tristia Bauman: \u003c/strong>In many ways, it is an example of the failed punitive strategy that, cities and counties have attempted to implement in response to, the growing homelessness crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And you know, what Tristia and others are saying is, look, you’re just cracking down on people for living outside. You’re not actually getting at the root causes of homelessness. Again, this is a debate we’re very familiar with in the Bay area. Supporters of law like this will say, well, they’ve refused shelter a few times. So we now have the right to clear the encampment and in some cases, charge them with a crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Advocates and others would say people refuse congregate shelter for a variety of reasons. People don’t feel safe. Some people might not want to leave their stuff there. Maybe they have pets and they’re not allowed. Shelters have all kinds of different rules. You have to leave during certain hours. And so there’s a whole host of reasons why somebody would much rather live outside than live in a congregate shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So this debate played out in San Mateo County. It’s played out in Alameda County, Los Angeles, all over the state, and of course, in San Francisco, where, you know, this is a different story, but the US Supreme Court recently agreed to take up a case that gets at a similar question about what authorities can and can’t do with homeless encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, thank you so much for that, Alan. And last but not least, Maria, what do you got for us today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>We have a another election story, but this time out of San Francisco, where Ryan Khojasteh has officially filed paperwork to declare himself a candidate against Brooke Jenkins in the race for district attorney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay, honestly, that is not a name that I know. Who is this guy? What is his background? What’s his deal?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So he is currently a prosecutor out of Alameda County. He’s 30 years old, which I think is pretty young. And when we’re talking about politics, but I think he’s most known for because he served under Chesa Boudin. But then he was one of 14 other staffers to be fired under Brooke Jenkins when she was appointed as a D.A. by Mayor London Breed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And according to the San Francisco Chronicle, he did say that he believes that he was fired because he wrote an article that was published in SFGate, where he basically talks about reforms that were implemented under Chesa Boudin. That should have continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well, that’s a good segue to the to my next question, Maria, which is what is Ryan Khojasteh: running on?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So this is interesting because he describes himself as having a moderate approach between Chesa Boudin and Brooke Jenkins. And he talked to our colleague Erika Kelly a little bit about this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ryan Khojasteh: \u003c/strong>I would view the past D.A. as progressive and the current DA’s conservative. And I hope to bring a balance and be a responsible, moderating voice on public safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>He talks about both being someone that is willing to prosecute, but he also, at the policy level, is pushing against some of the things that Brooke Jenkins has done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ryan Khojasteh: \u003c/strong>You look at Brooke Jenkins reviving failed policies like the war on drugs. Of course, drug overdose deaths will reach a record level if you just arrest drug users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yet he’s also willing to prosecute and work with police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ryan Khojasteh: \u003c/strong>I’ve actually prosecuted crime and made difficult decisions to hold people in custody. I’ve asked for jail time and have asked for prison time. I’ve worked directly with police and victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>While San Francisco voters won’t be voting on a Da this March, they will be in November. Right? And he is essentially the first candidate to announce that he’s running against Brooke Jenkins. Is that right? What is the significance of this announcement?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Right now, San Francisco really has risen to the national spotlight when it comes to things like crime and addiction and homelessness. So I imagine that this is particularly a race that is going to get a lot of eyes, a lot of attention, a lot of coverage. And we have our first contender here. I imagine there’s going to be more. And so I think this is really getting the wheels in motion. And, you know, it’s almost feels like the engine is starting to turn on for one of the biggest races this season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And that is it for The Bay’s monthly news roundup this January. Producer Maria Esquinca, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And senior editor Alan Montecillo. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Go, Niners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The Bay is a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11974251/january-news-roundup-techs-role-in-media-layoffs-san-mateo-county-criminalizes-camping-sfs-district-attorney-race",
"authors": [
"8654",
"11802",
"11649"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_93",
"news_4020",
"news_33628",
"news_31041",
"news_22598"
],
"featImg": "news_11962789",
"label": "source_news_11974251"
},
"news_11970148": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11970148",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11970148",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1702897217000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "housing-or-wetlands-newark-faces-a-difficult-choice",
"title": "Housing or Wetlands? Newark Faces a Difficult Choice",
"publishDate": 1702897217,
"format": "audio",
"headTitle": "Housing or Wetlands? Newark Faces a Difficult Choice | KQED",
"labelTerm": {},
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two very Bay Area crises – sea level rise and the housing crisis – are colliding in the East Bay city of Newark, where the city will consider plans to build housing on one of the few remnants of the Bay’s vast marshland. It’s a fight for the marshes’ future, which environmentalists say should be maintained as natural flood protection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Links:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985322/bay-area-housing-project-raises-concerns-about-sea-level-rise\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Housing Project Raises Concerns About Sea-Level Rise\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3722034951&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay; local news to keep you rooted. In the East Bay city of Newark, right along the water, you can find vast open wetlands, remnants of what used to be the Bay Area’s expansive marshes. On the other side is an auto yard with rolling hills in the distance. This area of land is facing the threat of sea level rise. It’s also the site of plans to build new housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Some developers there want to build about 600 homes on these two sites, and that’s kind of where the tension is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The city of Newark is debating what kind of future this plot of land will have. Will it be more housing or will it be restored into the kind of vast wetlands that once thrived here? Today, we talk with KQED climate reporter Ezra David Romero about one of the few remaining marshlands in the Bay Area and whether we should build on top of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Before the Bay Area grew up, there were about 150,000 acres of marshland all around the Bay Area, and that’s been reduced to about 10%. And so these were few remaining areas like in Sassoon Marsh or down here and Newark are just the remnants of what was there in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And so now there are plans to potentially build housing in this remaining land, at least in Newark. What type of housing do they want to build here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>So at the sight of the auto wrecking yard, they want to build like 204 single family homes. I sort of describe them as like the American dream style homes, you know, two stories with a big front yard and a big backyard. There’s going to be a skate park in the community. The other property, they want to build something similar. And I think it’ll be a bit more of a mixed use type housing. So some of these small homes may be smaller ones. Those would be kind of on these like three or four manufactured islands within this wetland area. So they’d be in this razed spot and the houses would be all on that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So why build here of all places?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>You know, there’s not that many places to build in the Bay Area because, you know, there’s like something like 8 million people here we’ve developed right up to the shoreline. So some of the only places to build an open land are in places like Newark, where there is open land to build.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Evan Knapp: \u003c/strong>We know we’re in a housing crisis. There’s no doubt about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I spoke with Evan Knapp. He’s with Integral Communities. He’s one of the developers. He said there’s really this need for this middle income earner households, something like teachers and firefighters and people like that. And he believes this is an answer to get housing for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Evan Knapp: \u003c/strong>We can actually better the area by getting rid of an auto dump, providing housing in an urban setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>You know, Newark’s about an hour south of San Francisco if there’s no traffic. And so Evan talked about how, you know, Newark’s a great place to build a family and in like kind of like an Americana style place with a cute downtown and proximity to big cities like San Jose in San Francisco and Oakland. But also you can have like shoreline living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Evan Knapp: \u003c/strong>Every house will have a yard, a side yard, a backyard. Every house will have a driveway. You start checking the boxes, looking at it. It’s an overwhelming positive for the city of community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>There are other groups that are also wanting this to happen. I talked to the representative from the Bay Area Council. That’s a regional business association. They really support this project because they believe it’s going to help create middle income housing. And then there are residents who I spoke to as well that are also for people like Nick Valencia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nick Valencia: \u003c/strong>I tend to trust developers and them kind of coming up with plans on how to mitigate those impacts. I mean, I think the developer obviously has a vested interest. They don’t want to build a community that is just going to get washed away. There’s a couple of different areas too, or I think a lot more people, well, can also help Newark as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So the developers say that this is a great location. We need more housing. This can help make a dent in the housing crisis. But what are the concerns? Generally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think comes down to like the beauty of the bay is that risk and then the future when it comes to sea level rise that these houses would be in jeopardy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Taran Singh: \u003c/strong>I believe that if you build on this and keep building like this, Newark or cities like us would have existential crisis in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I spoke to Taran Singh, he’s this like long time Newark resident. He’s been there more than 15 years. He moved there after college. Do you go to these wetlands a lot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Taran Singh: \u003c/strong>I definitely go every day on and off. My evening routine is to take a walk every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>He’s really concerned that by putting housing there would destroy this, like, vibrant place he loves to go to this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Taran Singh: \u003c/strong>Wetlands lies in the path of so many migrating birds that come and go to the Bay Area. This land is prestigious due to the wetlands that have been here prior to human being inhabiting the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And then secondarily, he’s worried that with climate change as seas rise because of ice sheets melting and the ocean expanding, that these houses will be in jeopardy and that they could be underwater in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Taran Singh: \u003c/strong>These are our only buffer zones for auction as the bay is not expanded. With the melting ice, we have no place for the water to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why environmentalists say these wetlands are worth saving. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>So the entire bay is supposed to rise by about a foot, by 2015. It could rise by more than a meter by the end of the century. And those are like middle of the road levels. Like if the world doesn’t curb its emissions faster, those numbers could be a lot higher. And so this is an area that could soak up the seas like marshes, kind of act like a sponge as water goes into them. And so by putting houses on this marshland or what we call upland, like the little hills next to it would kind of rob Newark of this like natural climate solution that they already have that already exists there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And the second thing is that marshes act like a carbon sink. They pull carbon out of the air and hold it in the ground. And, you know, carbon is what’s warming up the atmosphere. And so they are this like climate solution that pulls the very thing that’s warming our world out of the air and holds it underground. When we have drought or flooding from like big storms or wildfire, it’s here right now. Like we see those effects immediately. But when it comes a sea level rise, it’s this long game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And scientists are studying like how fast Antarctica or Greenland or melting seas could rise faster than what the scientists are actually outlined in these guidelines as of right now. So I think a lot of people hear those headlines and they question these kind of projects right on the day, because while the developer has an idea of like, we’re going to raise these houses like 14 feet, the larger question is like, should we build there if seas are going to rise and we don’t actually know to what level?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what other ideas then, are there for what to do with this land, Ezra?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>So I think at the base level, they want to see this area restored to the wetlands that were once there. And like them, the grassy green areas above them where, like the marshes could migrate to as seas rise. So, like, those marshes have a place to go. I talked to Victor Flores about this. He’s an East Bay resilience manager for the environmental group Greenbelt Alliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Victor Flores: \u003c/strong>Those marshes are some of the greatest carbon capturing systems that we have out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Because there are so few marshlands or wetlands anywhere in the Bay Area. So this could be a really big opportunity to save them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Victor Flores: \u003c/strong>If we missed that opportunity. We’re going to see sea level rise, ground water continue to impact Newark, which it already has been. If you lose this section. That opportunity is going to be gone. You’re not going to come in and bulldoze 200, 600 homes. So if we don’t do this now, we’re probably going to be looking at those impacts pretty soon and regretting those decisions that were made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This story highlights this tension between our very immediate needs for housing in the Bay Area, but also the threat of rising sea levels and climate change. Where does that leave things now? Like what is the status of the project in Newark?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>This project is going to go before the City Council sometime next year, as soon as January, and the City Council will decide what can happen with this property. And so I’m sure there’s going to be a big city council meeting with lots of people in favor and against it, talking about how they feel about it and whether it should be restored, too, or if houses should be built there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Hannon: \u003c/strong>I want to make sure that the community knows that these are not done deals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I spoke to the mayor, Michael Hannon. He said he heard about the project. He hasn’t seen all the formal documents for it. He’s really interested in seeing what the housing opportunities are to fill housing in the town. But he also said, like if it is going to destroy the environment or it like rids the community of a climate solution. He said he’s open to actually hearing that side of the argument.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Hannon: \u003c/strong>I’m really sensitive to the issues that the environmentalists raised. I certainly don’t want to be, you know, approving a project that, you know, ten, 20 years from now. You know, folks that are living in that project are concerned about their own health and safety. And we’re not going to go into any approval of any project blindly without recognizing that these issues occur and these concerns are out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You know, we’re talking about this one random patch of land in Newark. Why are we talking about this now? And what do you think it can tell us about the region as a whole?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think we’re talking about this now because what happens in Newark is like this microcosm of the rest of the Bay Area. We have these housing battles all around the bay, whether that’s in San Francisco or Newark or Menlo Park or Oakland, where people want to live on the shoreline. It’s sort of like this American dream, like you want to have a piece of the shore, you want a beautiful view. But like the climate crisis is like coming head on to that view of that American dream. And so we have this moment in California right now before seas rise to a point where our homes are underwater to make a change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And we have this very small opportunity to restore this kind of land that’s that that is this natural solution. Because the other option is to build seawalls or big barriers in the water or big levees to protect these communities that are like harden the sides of the bay, make it look very different. So this is an opportunity to make it look beautiful and have it be green and lush with birds and things like that. Earlier this week, I went across the bay to Menlo Park where they actually broke a levee and they restored a wetland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>It was like this very beautiful sight, like you saw the water turn this like dry moonscape into like this lush area again. And that’s that is going to help protect the city of Menlo Park in East Palo Alto. It kind of gave me a glimpse of what Newark could have just across the bay, this area that could be protected in this natural way. Out of all the people I talked to, none of them were like climate denying this, right. Like, they all understood that climate change is real. Sea level rise is happening. It’s more about like where they put their trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Do they put their trust in the developer that they’re going to do the right thing and build in a place and like protect this place? We all we all know we need houses. It’s like the basic tenet of life, like you want a place to live, protected from the elements. Right? But what if those elements get a lot worse because of climate change? Is the house going to be okay? So I think that’s the concern of the people I spoke to in the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Ezra, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Ezra David Romero, a climate reporter for KQED. This 30 minute conversation with Ezra was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Allan Montecillo is our senior editor. He scored this episode and added all the tape. If you liked this episode, share it with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to help others find our show. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "In the East Bay city of Newark, city officials are considering plans to build housing an one of the few remaining marshlands in the region. It’s a fight for the marshes’ future, which environmentalists say should be maintained as natural flood protection. ",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1755699843,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": true,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 52,
"wordCount": 2658
},
"headData": {
"title": "Housing or Wetlands? Newark Faces a Difficult Choice | KQED",
"description": "In the East Bay city of Newark, city officials are considering plans to build housing an one of the few remaining marshlands in the region. It’s a fight for the marshes’ future, which environmentalists say should be maintained as natural flood protection. ",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "Housing or Wetlands? Newark Faces a Difficult Choice",
"datePublished": "2023-12-18T03:00:17-08:00",
"dateModified": "2025-08-20T07:24:03-07:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"source": "The Bay",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC3722034951.mp3?updated=1702682527",
"sticky": false,
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11970148/housing-or-wetlands-newark-faces-a-difficult-choice",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two very Bay Area crises – sea level rise and the housing crisis – are colliding in the East Bay city of Newark, where the city will consider plans to build housing on one of the few remnants of the Bay’s vast marshland. It’s a fight for the marshes’ future, which environmentalists say should be maintained as natural flood protection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Links:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985322/bay-area-housing-project-raises-concerns-about-sea-level-rise\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Housing Project Raises Concerns About Sea-Level Rise\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3722034951&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay; local news to keep you rooted. In the East Bay city of Newark, right along the water, you can find vast open wetlands, remnants of what used to be the Bay Area’s expansive marshes. On the other side is an auto yard with rolling hills in the distance. This area of land is facing the threat of sea level rise. It’s also the site of plans to build new housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Some developers there want to build about 600 homes on these two sites, and that’s kind of where the tension is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The city of Newark is debating what kind of future this plot of land will have. Will it be more housing or will it be restored into the kind of vast wetlands that once thrived here? Today, we talk with KQED climate reporter Ezra David Romero about one of the few remaining marshlands in the Bay Area and whether we should build on top of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Before the Bay Area grew up, there were about 150,000 acres of marshland all around the Bay Area, and that’s been reduced to about 10%. And so these were few remaining areas like in Sassoon Marsh or down here and Newark are just the remnants of what was there in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And so now there are plans to potentially build housing in this remaining land, at least in Newark. What type of housing do they want to build here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>So at the sight of the auto wrecking yard, they want to build like 204 single family homes. I sort of describe them as like the American dream style homes, you know, two stories with a big front yard and a big backyard. There’s going to be a skate park in the community. The other property, they want to build something similar. And I think it’ll be a bit more of a mixed use type housing. So some of these small homes may be smaller ones. Those would be kind of on these like three or four manufactured islands within this wetland area. So they’d be in this razed spot and the houses would be all on that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So why build here of all places?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>You know, there’s not that many places to build in the Bay Area because, you know, there’s like something like 8 million people here we’ve developed right up to the shoreline. So some of the only places to build an open land are in places like Newark, where there is open land to build.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Evan Knapp: \u003c/strong>We know we’re in a housing crisis. There’s no doubt about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I spoke with Evan Knapp. He’s with Integral Communities. He’s one of the developers. He said there’s really this need for this middle income earner households, something like teachers and firefighters and people like that. And he believes this is an answer to get housing for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Evan Knapp: \u003c/strong>We can actually better the area by getting rid of an auto dump, providing housing in an urban setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>You know, Newark’s about an hour south of San Francisco if there’s no traffic. And so Evan talked about how, you know, Newark’s a great place to build a family and in like kind of like an Americana style place with a cute downtown and proximity to big cities like San Jose in San Francisco and Oakland. But also you can have like shoreline living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Evan Knapp: \u003c/strong>Every house will have a yard, a side yard, a backyard. Every house will have a driveway. You start checking the boxes, looking at it. It’s an overwhelming positive for the city of community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>There are other groups that are also wanting this to happen. I talked to the representative from the Bay Area Council. That’s a regional business association. They really support this project because they believe it’s going to help create middle income housing. And then there are residents who I spoke to as well that are also for people like Nick Valencia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nick Valencia: \u003c/strong>I tend to trust developers and them kind of coming up with plans on how to mitigate those impacts. I mean, I think the developer obviously has a vested interest. They don’t want to build a community that is just going to get washed away. There’s a couple of different areas too, or I think a lot more people, well, can also help Newark as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So the developers say that this is a great location. We need more housing. This can help make a dent in the housing crisis. But what are the concerns? Generally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think comes down to like the beauty of the bay is that risk and then the future when it comes to sea level rise that these houses would be in jeopardy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Taran Singh: \u003c/strong>I believe that if you build on this and keep building like this, Newark or cities like us would have existential crisis in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I spoke to Taran Singh, he’s this like long time Newark resident. He’s been there more than 15 years. He moved there after college. Do you go to these wetlands a lot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Taran Singh: \u003c/strong>I definitely go every day on and off. My evening routine is to take a walk every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>He’s really concerned that by putting housing there would destroy this, like, vibrant place he loves to go to this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Taran Singh: \u003c/strong>Wetlands lies in the path of so many migrating birds that come and go to the Bay Area. This land is prestigious due to the wetlands that have been here prior to human being inhabiting the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And then secondarily, he’s worried that with climate change as seas rise because of ice sheets melting and the ocean expanding, that these houses will be in jeopardy and that they could be underwater in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Taran Singh: \u003c/strong>These are our only buffer zones for auction as the bay is not expanded. With the melting ice, we have no place for the water to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why environmentalists say these wetlands are worth saving. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>So the entire bay is supposed to rise by about a foot, by 2015. It could rise by more than a meter by the end of the century. And those are like middle of the road levels. Like if the world doesn’t curb its emissions faster, those numbers could be a lot higher. And so this is an area that could soak up the seas like marshes, kind of act like a sponge as water goes into them. And so by putting houses on this marshland or what we call upland, like the little hills next to it would kind of rob Newark of this like natural climate solution that they already have that already exists there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And the second thing is that marshes act like a carbon sink. They pull carbon out of the air and hold it in the ground. And, you know, carbon is what’s warming up the atmosphere. And so they are this like climate solution that pulls the very thing that’s warming our world out of the air and holds it underground. When we have drought or flooding from like big storms or wildfire, it’s here right now. Like we see those effects immediately. But when it comes a sea level rise, it’s this long game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And scientists are studying like how fast Antarctica or Greenland or melting seas could rise faster than what the scientists are actually outlined in these guidelines as of right now. So I think a lot of people hear those headlines and they question these kind of projects right on the day, because while the developer has an idea of like, we’re going to raise these houses like 14 feet, the larger question is like, should we build there if seas are going to rise and we don’t actually know to what level?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what other ideas then, are there for what to do with this land, Ezra?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>So I think at the base level, they want to see this area restored to the wetlands that were once there. And like them, the grassy green areas above them where, like the marshes could migrate to as seas rise. So, like, those marshes have a place to go. I talked to Victor Flores about this. He’s an East Bay resilience manager for the environmental group Greenbelt Alliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Victor Flores: \u003c/strong>Those marshes are some of the greatest carbon capturing systems that we have out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Because there are so few marshlands or wetlands anywhere in the Bay Area. So this could be a really big opportunity to save them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Victor Flores: \u003c/strong>If we missed that opportunity. We’re going to see sea level rise, ground water continue to impact Newark, which it already has been. If you lose this section. That opportunity is going to be gone. You’re not going to come in and bulldoze 200, 600 homes. So if we don’t do this now, we’re probably going to be looking at those impacts pretty soon and regretting those decisions that were made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This story highlights this tension between our very immediate needs for housing in the Bay Area, but also the threat of rising sea levels and climate change. Where does that leave things now? Like what is the status of the project in Newark?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>This project is going to go before the City Council sometime next year, as soon as January, and the City Council will decide what can happen with this property. And so I’m sure there’s going to be a big city council meeting with lots of people in favor and against it, talking about how they feel about it and whether it should be restored, too, or if houses should be built there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Hannon: \u003c/strong>I want to make sure that the community knows that these are not done deals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I spoke to the mayor, Michael Hannon. He said he heard about the project. He hasn’t seen all the formal documents for it. He’s really interested in seeing what the housing opportunities are to fill housing in the town. But he also said, like if it is going to destroy the environment or it like rids the community of a climate solution. He said he’s open to actually hearing that side of the argument.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Hannon: \u003c/strong>I’m really sensitive to the issues that the environmentalists raised. I certainly don’t want to be, you know, approving a project that, you know, ten, 20 years from now. You know, folks that are living in that project are concerned about their own health and safety. And we’re not going to go into any approval of any project blindly without recognizing that these issues occur and these concerns are out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You know, we’re talking about this one random patch of land in Newark. Why are we talking about this now? And what do you think it can tell us about the region as a whole?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>I think we’re talking about this now because what happens in Newark is like this microcosm of the rest of the Bay Area. We have these housing battles all around the bay, whether that’s in San Francisco or Newark or Menlo Park or Oakland, where people want to live on the shoreline. It’s sort of like this American dream, like you want to have a piece of the shore, you want a beautiful view. But like the climate crisis is like coming head on to that view of that American dream. And so we have this moment in California right now before seas rise to a point where our homes are underwater to make a change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>And we have this very small opportunity to restore this kind of land that’s that that is this natural solution. Because the other option is to build seawalls or big barriers in the water or big levees to protect these communities that are like harden the sides of the bay, make it look very different. So this is an opportunity to make it look beautiful and have it be green and lush with birds and things like that. Earlier this week, I went across the bay to Menlo Park where they actually broke a levee and they restored a wetland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>It was like this very beautiful sight, like you saw the water turn this like dry moonscape into like this lush area again. And that’s that is going to help protect the city of Menlo Park in East Palo Alto. It kind of gave me a glimpse of what Newark could have just across the bay, this area that could be protected in this natural way. Out of all the people I talked to, none of them were like climate denying this, right. Like, they all understood that climate change is real. Sea level rise is happening. It’s more about like where they put their trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Do they put their trust in the developer that they’re going to do the right thing and build in a place and like protect this place? We all we all know we need houses. It’s like the basic tenet of life, like you want a place to live, protected from the elements. Right? But what if those elements get a lot worse because of climate change? Is the house going to be okay? So I think that’s the concern of the people I spoke to in the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Ezra, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Ezra David Romero, a climate reporter for KQED. This 30 minute conversation with Ezra was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Allan Montecillo is our senior editor. He scored this episode and added all the tape. If you liked this episode, share it with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to help others find our show. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11970148/housing-or-wetlands-newark-faces-a-difficult-choice",
"authors": [
"8654",
"11746",
"11649",
"11802"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_34165",
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_32945",
"news_255",
"news_22598"
],
"featImg": "news_11970160",
"label": "source_news_11970148"
},
"news_11968220": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11968220",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11968220",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1701082845000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {
"site": "news",
"term": 28779
},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1701082845,
"format": "audio",
"title": "Why Your PG&E Bill is About to Go Up",
"headTitle": "Why Your PG&E Bill is About to Go Up | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"c-message_kit__blocks c-message_kit__blocks--rich_text\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"c-message__message_blocks c-message__message_blocks--rich_text\" data-qa=\"message-text\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"p-block_kit_renderer\" data-qa=\"block-kit-renderer\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"p-block_kit_renderer__block_wrapper p-block_kit_renderer__block_wrapper--first\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"p-rich_text_block\" dir=\"auto\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"p-rich_text_section\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"c-message__reply_bar c-message_kit__thread_replies c-message__reply_bar--progressive-disclosure-tip-wrapper-ia4\" role=\"presentation\" data-qa=\"reply_bar\" data-stringify-ignore=\"true\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Starting in January, PG&E ratepayers can expect their monthly bills to increase by an average of about $30. The utility says the money will go toward important infrastructure projects, including work on power lines that will reduce the risk of wildfires. But is this the best way to pay for it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985398/california-regulators-set-to-vote-on-pges-newest-rate-increase-plan\">PG&E Gets Green Light to Raise Rates for Wildfire Prevention Efforts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2366580289&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. At the end of each month. I get an email in my inbox that fills me with trepidation. It has the same subject line, your PG&E Energy statement is ready to view. Every time I open it, I just hope it isn’t too bad because Californians already pay some of the highest utility bills in the nation. And starting in January, your PG&E bill is going to increase again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>This is a several billion dollar rate increase. So this is really pretty expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Today I speak with KQED senior climate editor Kevin Stark about why our energy bills are going to get more expensive and what PG&E wants to do with that money. Kevin, why is this happening and how did we get here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>What PG&E just did is they just resolved what’s called their rate case? Every few years the utility has to go before state regulators and make a case for their spending priorities. What they’ll charge customers, what they’ll do, the stuff that they’ll build. And this particular plan has a really big project inside of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>What this plan will do is actually allow them to bury more than a thousand miles of power lines underground, especially in the most risky wildfire prone parts of the state. Insulate a bunch of other power lines. It will allow them to do other mitigation work, invest in clean energy and a whole range of other things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>But what I’ve been reporting on and what the big focus of this proposal has been is the wildfire mitigation stuff. It’s part of the story of Jeannie over the last few years that their equipment is outdated. They have not maintained it well. They have been involved in some incredibly tragic incidents. The camp fire was touched off by PGE equipment. We have we have the Dixie Fire, the Zogg Fire. I mean, kind of the list goes on. And a state has really been pushing them to deal with this, to update their equipment. And one of the things that they’ve asked them to do is to bury power lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So this increase in all of our utility bills, that money is meant to go to upgrades basically to make sure that another campfire doesn’t happen again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Yeah. In new places. So this is not going to fix some of the areas that I was talking about. This is like new construction that that needs to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So I know this was finalized at a California Public Utilities Commission meeting which PGE attended. What was that meeting like and what were people there to discuss?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>There was tons of meetings for this, right. So we’ll talk about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I’ll talk about naive of me to think it was just one meeting. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Right. You really had to get through this. This is like, you know, years of debate leading up to this. There was a hearing where they really like rubber to the road. Were debating the details of this plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carla Peterman: \u003c/strong>Good morning. I am Carla Peterman. Executive vice president, corporate affairs for PG&E Corporation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>You know, PG&E had put forward its proposal, which was to bury 2000 miles of power lines to push that on to ratepayers. That would have been a average rate increase of about $40.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So they wanted a bigger plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>They want a bigger plan. And PG&E has a profit incentive here. Like the way that utilities make money is by doing capital projects. They had a very capital intensive plan. So they came to the C, B, C and made their case. And the state officials really balked at the plan for a couple of reasons. The cost is incredibly expensive and also the scale of what they were proposing is not something that utility has a track record of ever completing. And John Reynolds, who is one of the commissioners, made that pointed and clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>John Reynolds: \u003c/strong>Now I’ll offer that. I think it’s uncontroverted here that PGE has never delivered this scale of undergrounding that you’ve proposed here. I have concerns that any failure to meet the plans as you proposed them will result in customers paying for work that doesn’t get done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>PGE had this really pointed back and forth, and Carla Peterman was one of the executives at PGE who was there. And she made the case that basically the utility has been doubling, even tripling the amount of work that it’s done undergrounding lines over the last few years, that it’s really figuring it out and that they can get this done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carla Peterman: \u003c/strong>This is also an area where we have applied the best of the best in terms of our work management tools. We have a command center focused on undergrounding. We are tracking every day progress, understanding where the bottlenecks are. So we are approaching this work differently and that is a part of our strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>And then on top of that, there is just all the other public comment people coming out of the woodwork criticizing the utility advocates, really pushing back on the cost and saying that, you know, this should really be the responsibility of the utility, not of its ratepayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 8: \u003c/strong>And I only reduce my electricity. I don’t turn lights on inside the dog. I don’t watch TV. I have not hit the pilot light. My cats don’t because I can’t afford it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>People are upset and they’re angry and they don’t trust the utility. They don’t feel like they should be paying for this work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 8: \u003c/strong>The having generated communities kills people already raised rates multiple times. And for you to consider that again, it’s really, really turning your back on already struggling payers in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Please vote against the agendas desired exorbitant rate increase and restore rates that are in line with the cost of living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>And then you can read all the comments online like they’re in. I don’t even know how to put it. The incredibly colorful language used to describe the utility and to criticize it. I’m on this stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>A lot of anger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Yes, a lot of anger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What does all of that lead to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>So the end result of the negotiations basically were instead of PGE ratepayers paying to underground 2000 miles of power lines. They’re going to underground about 1200 and then about 800 in which they’re going to insulate the lines, basically put protective covers on them. And that and all of the other facets of this rate case are going to equal an increase on people’s utility bills of about $30 a month, the average utility bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And it could have been more right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>It would have been up above 40.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Coming up, whether there’s a better way to pay for Puccini’s plan to reduce the risk of wildfires. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So we’ve been talking about this plan having rate payers, all of us find these improvements to these equipment. It seems like that’s basically the norm for how we pay for this stuff. Are there other ways to to fund this, though?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Absolutely. Just because it’s the norm does not mean that’s the only way. So there’s sort of three ways that it could get paid for. There’s what’s happening, asking rate payers to foot the bill. And this is how utilities operate. Most utilities in the country, because they’re heavily regulated and they’re monopolies. The other avenues would be that the shareholders that invest in the private company foot the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>The third option would be that the money would come from the state or from basically public infrastructure investment. The shareholders would cover issues in which the utility has messed up. But we’re talking about new construction. So like really the most common way for this to happen is through pushing onto rate payers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Severin Borenstein: \u003c/strong>I think we need to recognize that those are costs that society has to bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>There’s an argument and Severin Borenstein, who is at UC Berkeley, made this case pretty well, that it’s more equitable to have this done through the state budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Severin Borenstein: \u003c/strong>The problem is that when we put it on to utility bills, it is disproportionately paid by low and middle income households. It is much more regressive than paying for it through the state budget, which is primarily financed through income taxes and a bit by sales taxes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>If you’re paying for it through taxes, there’s just a lot of other ways in which the government can either offset the costs. The Earned income tax Credit. It can mean that that low income families don’t bear the burden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Severin Borenstein: \u003c/strong>We are choosing not to do that and say no, that has to be paid for by ratepayers. I think that’s a glaring difference and I think it’s pretty clearly coming from the fact that legislators know that if they don’t pay for this, they can put it on to utility bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Are there any ways that the state could either subsidize the costs for lower income families or just pay for this in a different way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>State Senator Josh Becker is proposing that exact thing, which would be to move this outside of ratepayer increases and make this a publicly funded investment. If you want to look at the politics of it, here is where it gets a little tricky. It’s not hard to see how people could see that as a bailout of genie, but there is a lot of money coming from the federal government and the state already to do infrastructure upgrades. And if this is something that needs to happen, then there’s an argument that that it should happen through public investment. Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I guess the other part of this is I want to believe that this extra money that we’re all going to pay is going to lead to on time construction of these projects. Do we have any indication of whether that’s going to happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>You know, it’s such a great question. This stuff is really, really, really hard to do. There is that reported and is up in the Berkeley Hills where there are people who have been pushing for literally decades, decades to get two miles of power lines underground. And what PGE is talking about in this plan is 2000 miles. What they want to do over the next ten years is 10,000 miles. So I think the bottom line is just this is really complicated, difficult to do, and you need does not have a great track record of doing that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I feel like PGE wasn’t in the headlines that much this year and wildfires weren’t in the news as much. I think we you know, we had a pretty good fire season that said, what do you think this story says about where we are right now, where we’re headed with PGE and this is a big part of our lives. Wildfires, PGE, Climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>The risk dial has gotten turned way up. And I think we maybe don’t feel that quite as much right now because, as you said, this was a pretty gentle wildfire season, All things considered. Last year was also comparatively not. There was some some big and devastating fires, but it was not. 20, 20, 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>No orange sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>No orange sky. But that doesn’t mean that that risk has gone away. And I think maybe that if there’s a big lesson here, it’s that we just we’re running out of space to make mistakes. That leaves us moving forward with trying to figure out how to dial the risk down through mitigation, through reducing emissions, through hardening our systems. Just to put this on a PG and E, like I think the utility is really scrambling to fix that culture to make up for some of the things that it’s done and to try and prevent the next big, huge mega fire. No one wants that. They don’t want that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And then who should pay the cost of that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Who should pay the cost? It’s a huge question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well, Kevin, thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>That was Kevin Stark, senior climate editor for KQED. This episode was cut down and edited by me, Alan Montecillo. Maria Esquinca guest scored it and added all the tape. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED Public Radio in San Francisco. I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": true,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 2446,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 58
},
"modified": 1701302955,
"excerpt": null,
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "View the full episode transcript. Starting in January, PG&E ratepayers can expect their monthly bills to increase by an average of about $30. The utility says the money will go toward important infrastructure projects, including work on power lines that will reduce the risk of wildfires. But is this the best way to pay for",
"title": "Why Your PG&E Bill is About to Go Up | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "Why Your PG&E Bill is About to Go Up",
"datePublished": "2023-11-27T03:00:45-08:00",
"dateModified": "2023-11-29T16:09:15-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "why-your-pge-bill-is-about-to-go-up",
"status": "publish",
"templateType": "standard",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC2366580289.mp3?updated=1700684276",
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11968220/why-your-pge-bill-is-about-to-go-up",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cdiv class=\"c-message_kit__blocks c-message_kit__blocks--rich_text\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"c-message__message_blocks c-message__message_blocks--rich_text\" data-qa=\"message-text\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"p-block_kit_renderer\" data-qa=\"block-kit-renderer\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"p-block_kit_renderer__block_wrapper p-block_kit_renderer__block_wrapper--first\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"p-rich_text_block\" dir=\"auto\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"p-rich_text_section\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"c-message__reply_bar c-message_kit__thread_replies c-message__reply_bar--progressive-disclosure-tip-wrapper-ia4\" role=\"presentation\" data-qa=\"reply_bar\" data-stringify-ignore=\"true\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Starting in January, PG&E ratepayers can expect their monthly bills to increase by an average of about $30. The utility says the money will go toward important infrastructure projects, including work on power lines that will reduce the risk of wildfires. But is this the best way to pay for it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985398/california-regulators-set-to-vote-on-pges-newest-rate-increase-plan\">PG&E Gets Green Light to Raise Rates for Wildfire Prevention Efforts\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2366580289&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. At the end of each month. I get an email in my inbox that fills me with trepidation. It has the same subject line, your PG&E Energy statement is ready to view. Every time I open it, I just hope it isn’t too bad because Californians already pay some of the highest utility bills in the nation. And starting in January, your PG&E bill is going to increase again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>This is a several billion dollar rate increase. So this is really pretty expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Today I speak with KQED senior climate editor Kevin Stark about why our energy bills are going to get more expensive and what PG&E wants to do with that money. Kevin, why is this happening and how did we get here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>What PG&E just did is they just resolved what’s called their rate case? Every few years the utility has to go before state regulators and make a case for their spending priorities. What they’ll charge customers, what they’ll do, the stuff that they’ll build. And this particular plan has a really big project inside of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>What this plan will do is actually allow them to bury more than a thousand miles of power lines underground, especially in the most risky wildfire prone parts of the state. Insulate a bunch of other power lines. It will allow them to do other mitigation work, invest in clean energy and a whole range of other things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>But what I’ve been reporting on and what the big focus of this proposal has been is the wildfire mitigation stuff. It’s part of the story of Jeannie over the last few years that their equipment is outdated. They have not maintained it well. They have been involved in some incredibly tragic incidents. The camp fire was touched off by PGE equipment. We have we have the Dixie Fire, the Zogg Fire. I mean, kind of the list goes on. And a state has really been pushing them to deal with this, to update their equipment. And one of the things that they’ve asked them to do is to bury power lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So this increase in all of our utility bills, that money is meant to go to upgrades basically to make sure that another campfire doesn’t happen again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Yeah. In new places. So this is not going to fix some of the areas that I was talking about. This is like new construction that that needs to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So I know this was finalized at a California Public Utilities Commission meeting which PGE attended. What was that meeting like and what were people there to discuss?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>There was tons of meetings for this, right. So we’ll talk about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I’ll talk about naive of me to think it was just one meeting. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Right. You really had to get through this. This is like, you know, years of debate leading up to this. There was a hearing where they really like rubber to the road. Were debating the details of this plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carla Peterman: \u003c/strong>Good morning. I am Carla Peterman. Executive vice president, corporate affairs for PG&E Corporation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>You know, PG&E had put forward its proposal, which was to bury 2000 miles of power lines to push that on to ratepayers. That would have been a average rate increase of about $40.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So they wanted a bigger plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>They want a bigger plan. And PG&E has a profit incentive here. Like the way that utilities make money is by doing capital projects. They had a very capital intensive plan. So they came to the C, B, C and made their case. And the state officials really balked at the plan for a couple of reasons. The cost is incredibly expensive and also the scale of what they were proposing is not something that utility has a track record of ever completing. And John Reynolds, who is one of the commissioners, made that pointed and clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>John Reynolds: \u003c/strong>Now I’ll offer that. I think it’s uncontroverted here that PGE has never delivered this scale of undergrounding that you’ve proposed here. I have concerns that any failure to meet the plans as you proposed them will result in customers paying for work that doesn’t get done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>PGE had this really pointed back and forth, and Carla Peterman was one of the executives at PGE who was there. And she made the case that basically the utility has been doubling, even tripling the amount of work that it’s done undergrounding lines over the last few years, that it’s really figuring it out and that they can get this done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carla Peterman: \u003c/strong>This is also an area where we have applied the best of the best in terms of our work management tools. We have a command center focused on undergrounding. We are tracking every day progress, understanding where the bottlenecks are. So we are approaching this work differently and that is a part of our strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>And then on top of that, there is just all the other public comment people coming out of the woodwork criticizing the utility advocates, really pushing back on the cost and saying that, you know, this should really be the responsibility of the utility, not of its ratepayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 8: \u003c/strong>And I only reduce my electricity. I don’t turn lights on inside the dog. I don’t watch TV. I have not hit the pilot light. My cats don’t because I can’t afford it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>People are upset and they’re angry and they don’t trust the utility. They don’t feel like they should be paying for this work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 8: \u003c/strong>The having generated communities kills people already raised rates multiple times. And for you to consider that again, it’s really, really turning your back on already struggling payers in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Please vote against the agendas desired exorbitant rate increase and restore rates that are in line with the cost of living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>And then you can read all the comments online like they’re in. I don’t even know how to put it. The incredibly colorful language used to describe the utility and to criticize it. I’m on this stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>A lot of anger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Yes, a lot of anger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What does all of that lead to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>So the end result of the negotiations basically were instead of PGE ratepayers paying to underground 2000 miles of power lines. They’re going to underground about 1200 and then about 800 in which they’re going to insulate the lines, basically put protective covers on them. And that and all of the other facets of this rate case are going to equal an increase on people’s utility bills of about $30 a month, the average utility bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And it could have been more right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>It would have been up above 40.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Coming up, whether there’s a better way to pay for Puccini’s plan to reduce the risk of wildfires. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So we’ve been talking about this plan having rate payers, all of us find these improvements to these equipment. It seems like that’s basically the norm for how we pay for this stuff. Are there other ways to to fund this, though?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Absolutely. Just because it’s the norm does not mean that’s the only way. So there’s sort of three ways that it could get paid for. There’s what’s happening, asking rate payers to foot the bill. And this is how utilities operate. Most utilities in the country, because they’re heavily regulated and they’re monopolies. The other avenues would be that the shareholders that invest in the private company foot the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>The third option would be that the money would come from the state or from basically public infrastructure investment. The shareholders would cover issues in which the utility has messed up. But we’re talking about new construction. So like really the most common way for this to happen is through pushing onto rate payers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Severin Borenstein: \u003c/strong>I think we need to recognize that those are costs that society has to bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>There’s an argument and Severin Borenstein, who is at UC Berkeley, made this case pretty well, that it’s more equitable to have this done through the state budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Severin Borenstein: \u003c/strong>The problem is that when we put it on to utility bills, it is disproportionately paid by low and middle income households. It is much more regressive than paying for it through the state budget, which is primarily financed through income taxes and a bit by sales taxes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>If you’re paying for it through taxes, there’s just a lot of other ways in which the government can either offset the costs. The Earned income tax Credit. It can mean that that low income families don’t bear the burden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Severin Borenstein: \u003c/strong>We are choosing not to do that and say no, that has to be paid for by ratepayers. I think that’s a glaring difference and I think it’s pretty clearly coming from the fact that legislators know that if they don’t pay for this, they can put it on to utility bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Are there any ways that the state could either subsidize the costs for lower income families or just pay for this in a different way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>State Senator Josh Becker is proposing that exact thing, which would be to move this outside of ratepayer increases and make this a publicly funded investment. If you want to look at the politics of it, here is where it gets a little tricky. It’s not hard to see how people could see that as a bailout of genie, but there is a lot of money coming from the federal government and the state already to do infrastructure upgrades. And if this is something that needs to happen, then there’s an argument that that it should happen through public investment. Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I guess the other part of this is I want to believe that this extra money that we’re all going to pay is going to lead to on time construction of these projects. Do we have any indication of whether that’s going to happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>You know, it’s such a great question. This stuff is really, really, really hard to do. There is that reported and is up in the Berkeley Hills where there are people who have been pushing for literally decades, decades to get two miles of power lines underground. And what PGE is talking about in this plan is 2000 miles. What they want to do over the next ten years is 10,000 miles. So I think the bottom line is just this is really complicated, difficult to do, and you need does not have a great track record of doing that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I feel like PGE wasn’t in the headlines that much this year and wildfires weren’t in the news as much. I think we you know, we had a pretty good fire season that said, what do you think this story says about where we are right now, where we’re headed with PGE and this is a big part of our lives. Wildfires, PGE, Climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>The risk dial has gotten turned way up. And I think we maybe don’t feel that quite as much right now because, as you said, this was a pretty gentle wildfire season, All things considered. Last year was also comparatively not. There was some some big and devastating fires, but it was not. 20, 20, 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>No orange sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>No orange sky. But that doesn’t mean that that risk has gone away. And I think maybe that if there’s a big lesson here, it’s that we just we’re running out of space to make mistakes. That leaves us moving forward with trying to figure out how to dial the risk down through mitigation, through reducing emissions, through hardening our systems. Just to put this on a PG and E, like I think the utility is really scrambling to fix that culture to make up for some of the things that it’s done and to try and prevent the next big, huge mega fire. No one wants that. They don’t want that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And then who should pay the cost of that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Who should pay the cost? It’s a huge question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well, Kevin, thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kevin Stark: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>That was Kevin Stark, senior climate editor for KQED. This episode was cut down and edited by me, Alan Montecillo. Maria Esquinca guest scored it and added all the tape. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED Public Radio in San Francisco. I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11968220/why-your-pge-bill-is-about-to-go-up",
"authors": [
"11649",
"11608",
"11802"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_140",
"news_22598",
"news_4463"
],
"featImg": "news_11751033",
"label": "news_28779"
},
"news_11968205": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11968205",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11968205",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1700737252000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1700737252,
"format": "audio",
"title": "Rightnowish: The Public Library is a Sacred Space",
"headTitle": "Rightnowish: The Public Library is a Sacred Space | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As an anxious, homeschooled kid, Mychal Threets found a haven in his local public library. Now he’s a librarian in Fairfield, and he’s recently become famous for talking about his passion for books and libraries on TikTok. In this episode of Rightnowish, host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena talk to Threets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9020810553&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13938083/the-coolest-place-on-earth-the-public-library\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This episode originally aired on Nov. 16, 2023\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>Hi, I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Before I joined KQED, I was spending several evenings a week working on a master’s in library science. And the reason I was doing that was not just because I love libraries, although I do. It’s because I believe in what they stand for and what they mean to people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s often said that libraries are one of the few public spaces that don’t require you to buy anything. It can be a place of wonder for kids and even a refuge for people who don’t have anywhere else to go. One person who knows all about this is Mychal Threets. He’s a librarian at the Fairfield Civic Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he actually rose to fame by making tiktoks about books, the library system and about mental health awareness. Pendarvis Harshaw and Marisol Medina-Cadena spoke to Mychal recently for an episode of KQED’s Rightnowish. And today we’re going to share that conversation with you. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw:\u003c/b> The Fairfield Civic Center Library. What’s the significance of this place to you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets:\u003c/b> So, it literally is my childhood home away from home as a homeschool kid, grew up in this library, came here every single week. As a kid, my mom homeschooled me. It’s where she came to get resources for homeschooling, came to storytimes, came to programs, brought my childhood cat to this library’s pet parade, very proudly held her while she received a ribbon. But then fast forward, I ended up getting my first library card from this library at the age of five. So library cards have always been special to me. I have a library card tattooed on my arm. They’ve just always meant something to me from a very early age. And then this place is also just special to me. Just again, growing up here, first library card, but it’s also where I got my first library job as a shelver. I’ve held several jobs in the library world over the last ten years, and I’m now the supervisor of this library that we’re in right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/b>Was there a specific moment for you as a young adult where it clicked, the significance of this library?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>I don’t think the significance of this library. I think just libraries in general being a safe space for me from a very early age. I’m not shy at all about suffering from mental health, from anxiety, depression, panic disorder, nightmare disorder. I didn’t realize it at the age of eight, that I had anxiety and all those things, but I’ve traced it back to that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets:\u003c/b> …And this library was always very special to me, and that’s where I felt comfortable. The books were my very first friend. If it sounds cliché to say, but it’s very true that I was one of those kids that books meant the world to me because it was hard for me to make friends, let alone as a homeschool kid. But as a shy, introverted, anxious kid, it was even more difficult. So this library was special, and I felt safe… safe here from as early as I could remember. I’ve always felt that way in libraries everywhere I go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena, host: \u003c/b>\u003ci> \u003c/i>How Pen and I found out about you is through the viral videos that you post online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Mychal Threets (in a clip, singing): “\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>There are some books in this house. There are some books in this house. There’s some…\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003ci>”\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/b>And I just want to know, like, what’s the overall message you’re trying to promote about libraries through those videos?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>Yeah, so those videos, I never expected those videos to go viral. And at the time I was hoping that maybe a thousand people would see that video. And my overall message with these videos is just to remind people of one, that the library exists. I think so many people don’t even remember that they have a local library. They don’t realize that the library is more than books. Some libraries have better budgets than other libraries, my library, for example. But you’d be surprised to learn that your library may have more than books, that it has musical instruments, board games, video games, but more importantly, just remind people that they do belong. I feel like I’ve said the word belong 100,000 times since all these videos took off. But like, it’s so… it’s so special to me that that is what the library is for. You could be unhoused, you could be mentally ill, you can be a kid, teenager, grown-up without kids. The library is a place for you. It’s a place where you can be your authentic self, whatever that means to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not a place where you’re going to be judged walking in. There is no expectations. When you come to the local library, you don’t even need a library card. I love when people come into the library and flash a library card like we’re Costco. And I’m like, you don’t have to do that. I love that I can see your library card, but you can just walk in. Like, you can just go, you can read books, you can read the newspaper. We even print out people one time passes for the computer. You don’t even need a library card to use our computers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But so yeah, I think just reminding people that the library exists, that it’s different from what they used to be. We don’t shush people anymore. I’ve been shushed far more times than I’ve shushed people. And just everybody should come and visit their local library. It’s pretty much my whole message behind those videos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena:\u003c/b> Can you set up that viral video that you said got like over a million views? Like what was the message you were saying specifically in that one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>So the first video that took off is the one of the kid who asked me if I’m a boy librarian or a girl librarian where a kid and their grown up were at the… at the desk with me, helping them check out books, and I could see the kid kind of like stealing glances at their grown up. And I was like, oh, they’re going to say something and say… are they going to, are they going to mock my hair? Are they going to mock my shirt? Is it going to be my general appearance? And I was wearing a mask, too, so I just saw I heard the kid kind of like go to their grown up, “Mama, is it a boy librarian or a girl librarian?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you could see, like the grown-ups’ eyes get wide like, oh, how is he going to react to this? But I think the grown-up did a great thing that they were just like, “Oh, let’s let’s ask him. I’m sure, I’m sure he’ll let us know.” And so the kid is like, “Are you a boy librarian or a girl librarian?” And I was like, “Oh, I’m a boy librarian.” And then I shared, I shared that video and then just so many people resonated with it. I think my message behind that video is just to applaud the grown up for saying, ‘Let’s teach my kid something new. Let’s teach him that it’s okay to ask people questions, to be… to be vulnerable.’ So just a kid having the courage to ask, a grown up being like this isn’t a taboo subject, let’s find out if this person is a boy librarian, a girl librarian. Let’s give them the space to say what they are, what they identify with. And then again, I thought that video was going to get maybe a thousand views. And it’s been- just been seen by over a million people now. \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena:\u003c/b> Do people in Fairfield, like when you’re at the grocery store or the gas station, do they recognize you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>A few people do. It’s actually… it’s actually more so outside of Solano County that more people seem to recognize me. I went on a trip to Hawaii and several people were like, Oh, you’re the library guy. You’re that guy from social media. Or I went to like, an Oakland A’s game. And I think like… I think five people, like, made me take selfies with them. But it does happen here in Fairfield. I’ve gone to like, Safeway and people are like, It’s you. I just want to say hi. Or even like I live in an apartment complex not too far from here. I like, I ran downstairs yesterday. The person waiting in the car was like, Oh, it’s you. I’ve seen your videos. I can’t believe it. So I have been recognized. It’s very awkward. It’s very strange. I think I’ve actually, I’ve had like an older library user coming here before, say like, “I have to take a picture with you to show, to show my granddaughter.” But she didn’t know how to take the selfie, so I had to take a selfie for the person, of her and I. So that was probably like the most like, adorable but awkward encounter I’ve had thus far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/b>You mentioned a couple of these before, but when people think of the library, it’s often just books, a place to go, study, and be shushed. I’m wondering what are some of the misconceptions that you’re looking to debunk with your work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>Well, I think I think the first one is the one that we talked about, that libraries are more than books. And this number two is the one that you just talked about, about being shushed. I like to call like, my library, like a loud library, like you have to use like, your library voice to a degree. But I’m trying, in trying to like most to make sure people belong, make sure they’re welcome. Like a little bit of noise is acceptable. Like there have been so many times in my 9, 10 months of being a supervisor back at this library were people with kids who are neurodivergent on the spectrum, have ADHD, other fe- other things, have admitted that they don’t like coming to the library because they feel like they don’t belong, because their kids are going to get shushed. Like “I don’t think my kid will ever be able to become a library kid,” which of course makes me feel very sad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I tell those kids… those kids and those grown ups, I’m like, ‘Just… just try it out. Like, take it, take it different times. Like you can come one visit if it’s too much, go take a step outside, come back inside, come back next week, try again.’ I tell them like if your kid is making noise, being happy, I’m like, I take that as a badge of honor. I’m like, that means your kid is having fun at the library, even if it’s not books they’re having fun with the toys. That’s the whole reason we have a children’s library is for people to, like, learn what the library’s all about. That it is for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the library is no longer a place. I mean, some libraries you are going to get shushed more than others. But my library, Solano County libraries are not ones where you’re often going to get shushed. I mean, you can’t come in and you can’t curse out library staff. You can’t like, just start playing your app videos, your YouTube videos along that as loud as you can. If we get complaints, we’ll talk to you. But there is a certain level of noise that we… that we allow in the library and we’re also doing cool things, like the Vallejo Springstowne Library did a punk rock show not too long ago. They had some punk rock concerts in the back of their parking lot. The Vallejo John F Kennedy Library had the rapper La Russell performing in… in the libraries. So libraries are doing new things. So those are the myths that I want to debunk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw:\u003c/b> And why is it important to have someone like that, like repopularizing the brand of the public library?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>I think… I think that’s why it takes… I mean, you have so many more figures who are like who are making books in libraries popular. Like, you have like, Steph Curry has a book club and Malala has a book club. La Russell has a book. I think Amanda Gorman is a poet who is like taking the world by storm. So she’s a different type of person. But I think it’s important to have these people talking about books, talking about the importance of libraries, because there are so many young people who are listening. I mean, libraries for everybody, kids, teens and adults and grown ups. But the kids are like who we’re trying to reach, who we’re trying to make sure that the world is better for. And having these influential figures makes it so that they know if they like that, they they’re not worried about looking cool. They’re like, Oh, these people are making books cool, they’re making libraries cool. I’m a library nerd. I’ve always thought libraries and books were super cool. So it’s cool to see these cool people who are actually cool making books in libraries cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena:\u003c/b> On that note of like, accessibility, I mean, that’s probably the tenets of public libraries. And you know, we live in an information age where we’re constantly bombarded with information on our phones, computers, anything. So like, what is the role of the library to, like, give quality information, if you will, or like promote media literacy or anything about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>Yeah. There’s so much that the library does for, for promoting literacy, for promoting accessibility. There’s so many different realms, I think just for access, accessibility for literacy, that’s where like, schools and libraries have a great relationship and connection. Schools do something called AR levels, accelerated reader levels. So basically, if you’re at third grade reading level, fourth grade reading level, you’re looking for a book that falls within those levels which is very complicated. And oftentimes it unfortunately sets kids back because kids learn at different rates. So sometimes some kids may not be able to read at the grade level that they’re at. So I mentioned that because libraries don’t have weird- we don’t arrange things by that level. We have like third grade reading lists, but all of our books are just chapter books, picture books, nonfiction books. We don’t break it into first grade, second grade, third grade, because we acknowledge that everybody learns at a different rate, and we want people to feel comfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We want them to fall in love with reading. That’s our important first priority is that falling in love with literature, with literacy, and then we can work on getting you to that grade level. So I think that’s that part of accessibility. But then the other part of accessibility is just making sure that, like we talked about, that there is a place that they can come to. So I think accessibility for the mentally ill, for the unhoused, which I think people don’t often think about them when it comes to accessibility, but there has to be a place for them to flock to, to go to when they have nowhere else to go. And that’s what the public library is. It is a place like we talked about, that there is no expectation. They can just come in out of the elements. They can sit. If you’re having a panic attack, you can come into the library. You can ask us for help. Or as a person who goes through panic attacks, sometimes you can just have a panic attack in peace inside of the library, which I know is a weird thing to say, but at least it is a place of welcoming. And so I think there are so many different aspects of accessibility when it comes to the library and literacy as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/b>You’re very almost profoundly up front about the intersection of mental health and your work. And I’m wondering why is it important for you to share your story first?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>So it’s important for me to share my story of mental health just because I didn’t have any such stories when I was… when I was a kid. I think.. I think I mentioned that, having anxiety at the age of eight, it’s not something I knew what it was. Being 33, mental health was still very stigmatized when I was a kid. So for me, like, I don’t… I don’t have the platform that others seem to think I do, but whatever version of platform I do have, I do want to talk about mental health, just so. just to normalize it, just to show people that it does exist and that it’s okay to not be okay. I made a silly remix of, of, of Get Low by Little Jon. And so like 369 is okay to not be fine…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets (in clip, singing): \u003c/b>“369, it’s okay to not be fine, hope you can crush this day one more time…”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets:\u003c/b> So, I think me talking about it just shows people that there’s other people out there that are suffering but are still persevering, that are still surviving and even being successful because I’ve been a library worker for ten years. So I have a various level of success. So I think talking about mental health just shows people that it’s okay to not be okay. You can keep on going. And oftentimes that’s why I release my library stories. Either I’m having a hard day or people message me on social media and say, ‘Oh, I’m having a hard day. I’m having a really big bout of anxiety.’ So many times the stories I release are dedicated to those people who are having a hard day, or they’re kind of like what I would tell myself on my hard days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think I even made another like, mental health call for help video where I was like, ‘Oh, like if you’re watching this video, like in your bed, laying down right now…’ And so many people were like, ‘I was watching that video laying down in my bed right now.’ I even had a grown-up came- come up to me in the library that day and was like, “Hi, Mr. Michael, I just wanna let you know that I saw your video. And I came to the library. I got out of bed and I visited the library.” So, so that’s super cool to see it happening in real life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/b>The library has kind of become this de facto like support wraparound services because those services often don’t exist in our communities. And so libraries, librarians, and library staff are often like the front lines, if you will, of like mental health, cause they’re coming into contact with people living with mental health. Has there been an experience here, about that, that really crystallized like why it’s important for librarians to have those… that knowledge base?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>Honestly, every day at the public library is a reminder of why it’s important that we do, we need to be aware of these services or at least have the ability to put people in touch with these services. I hear just people telling me like, how much it helps that me and my library staff say hello to them on a daily basis, or people have literally told us like, ‘Oh, you guys, you guys saved my life. Like just by saying hi. Like, you guys actually care. Like we’re actually important to you.’ Or even a day or two ago, I told the story about how there’s an unhoused person on our loading dock, and my staff was like, ‘Oh, we need… we need this person who just moved to a different area.’ That’s okay. They’re blocking the staff entrance. It makes it’s hard for them to come inside. So I went and spoke with that person. I said, ‘Oh, hey, it’s me again. Michael with the library. Just spoke with you not too long ago. I know it feels like it’s been forever. It’s only been an hour. Just seeing if you can try to just get all your stuff moved to a different area. Like you don’t have to go far. I just want my library people to be able to walk through.’ They were like “Sure, sure, I promise. Give me 5 minutes. I’ll try to move as quick as I can, get my stuff away.” And I was about to go inside, I said, ‘You know what? The library is open. You’re more than welcome to come on inside. You can just hang out inside.’ Library was open until 8:00 that day. They were very surprised. They’re like, “Really? Like, I can come inside?” I’m like, ‘Yes. Library’s for you. You belong in this library. Keep on doing your thing.’ Basically, the library is a community hub. The library exists for the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw:\u003c/b> My interest in talking to you is that I see you and also the public library system as an agent of change. When I think of the public library system, when I didn’t have money to go to a coffee shop, I would go to a library and send off my resume and try to get into this economy and work my way up. I also see it as a safe space, as you said, for people experiencing mental health ups and downs, as well as a way to battle some of the things that you see in the news where it’s like everything from book bans to misinformation. And so I front load that question all to ask you, like when you wake up in the morning, do you see yourself as an agent of change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets:\u003c/b> I don’t think I am. But I do believe that every school librarian, public librarian, academic librarian, all the library workers, they’re all agents of change, working to make the world a better place. Be it banned books, celebrating just the freedom to freedom to read. Just saying that we’re not trying to make it any, any big thing. We’re not trying to push anything on you, on your kids. We just want them to be able to see themselves, to feel seen, to feel represented, to feel that they belong. The library is happy. We’re waiting for you. We can’t wait to see you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/b>Big thank you to Mychal Threets! Thanks for the work you do and the service you provide, in real life and online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For all of you interested in learning more about Mychal’s work, you can find him on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram under “Mychal3ts” And that’s spelled M-Y-C-H-A-L, the number 3, TS. He’s also on Facebook under his first name, Mychal spelled M-Y-C-H-A-L and his last name is Threets, T-H-R-E-E-T-S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was hosted by Marisol Medina-Cadena and me, Pendarvis Harshaw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Hambrick. Our engineer is Christopher Beale. And Sheree Bishop is the Rightnowish intern and was the camera person on this trip. Be sure to look out for that video on your social media platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Rightnowish team is also supported by Jen Chien, Ugur Dursun, Holly Kernan, Xorje Olivares, Cesar Saldaña, and Katie Sprenger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thank you all for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode is dedicated to all of the library lovers and a special shout out to those who will soon discover the magic of the local public library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, go get you a mother loving library card, fool. Until next time, peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rightnowish is a KQED production.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": true,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 4617,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 59
},
"modified": 1701212872,
"excerpt": "In this episode of Rightnowish, host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena talk to Mychal Threets, a local librarian who rose to fame on TikTok for talking about his passion for books and mental health. ",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "In this episode of Rightnowish, host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena talk to Mychal Threets, a local librarian who rose to fame on TikTok for talking about his passion for books and mental health. ",
"title": "Rightnowish: The Public Library is a Sacred Space | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "Rightnowish: The Public Library is a Sacred Space",
"datePublished": "2023-11-23T03:00:52-08:00",
"dateModified": "2023-11-28T15:07:52-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "11968205",
"status": "publish",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"templateType": "standard",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC9020810553.mp3?updated=1700678187",
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"source": "The Bay",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11968205/11968205",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As an anxious, homeschooled kid, Mychal Threets found a haven in his local public library. Now he’s a librarian in Fairfield, and he’s recently become famous for talking about his passion for books and libraries on TikTok. In this episode of Rightnowish, host Pendarvis Harshaw and producer Marisol Medina-Cadena talk to Threets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9020810553&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13938083/the-coolest-place-on-earth-the-public-library\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This episode originally aired on Nov. 16, 2023\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>Hi, I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Before I joined KQED, I was spending several evenings a week working on a master’s in library science. And the reason I was doing that was not just because I love libraries, although I do. It’s because I believe in what they stand for and what they mean to people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s often said that libraries are one of the few public spaces that don’t require you to buy anything. It can be a place of wonder for kids and even a refuge for people who don’t have anywhere else to go. One person who knows all about this is Mychal Threets. He’s a librarian at the Fairfield Civic Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he actually rose to fame by making tiktoks about books, the library system and about mental health awareness. Pendarvis Harshaw and Marisol Medina-Cadena spoke to Mychal recently for an episode of KQED’s Rightnowish. And today we’re going to share that conversation with you. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw:\u003c/b> The Fairfield Civic Center Library. What’s the significance of this place to you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets:\u003c/b> So, it literally is my childhood home away from home as a homeschool kid, grew up in this library, came here every single week. As a kid, my mom homeschooled me. It’s where she came to get resources for homeschooling, came to storytimes, came to programs, brought my childhood cat to this library’s pet parade, very proudly held her while she received a ribbon. But then fast forward, I ended up getting my first library card from this library at the age of five. So library cards have always been special to me. I have a library card tattooed on my arm. They’ve just always meant something to me from a very early age. And then this place is also just special to me. Just again, growing up here, first library card, but it’s also where I got my first library job as a shelver. I’ve held several jobs in the library world over the last ten years, and I’m now the supervisor of this library that we’re in right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/b>Was there a specific moment for you as a young adult where it clicked, the significance of this library?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>I don’t think the significance of this library. I think just libraries in general being a safe space for me from a very early age. I’m not shy at all about suffering from mental health, from anxiety, depression, panic disorder, nightmare disorder. I didn’t realize it at the age of eight, that I had anxiety and all those things, but I’ve traced it back to that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets:\u003c/b> …And this library was always very special to me, and that’s where I felt comfortable. The books were my very first friend. If it sounds cliché to say, but it’s very true that I was one of those kids that books meant the world to me because it was hard for me to make friends, let alone as a homeschool kid. But as a shy, introverted, anxious kid, it was even more difficult. So this library was special, and I felt safe… safe here from as early as I could remember. I’ve always felt that way in libraries everywhere I go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena, host: \u003c/b>\u003ci> \u003c/i>How Pen and I found out about you is through the viral videos that you post online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Mychal Threets (in a clip, singing): “\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>There are some books in this house. There are some books in this house. There’s some…\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003ci>”\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/b>And I just want to know, like, what’s the overall message you’re trying to promote about libraries through those videos?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>Yeah, so those videos, I never expected those videos to go viral. And at the time I was hoping that maybe a thousand people would see that video. And my overall message with these videos is just to remind people of one, that the library exists. I think so many people don’t even remember that they have a local library. They don’t realize that the library is more than books. Some libraries have better budgets than other libraries, my library, for example. But you’d be surprised to learn that your library may have more than books, that it has musical instruments, board games, video games, but more importantly, just remind people that they do belong. I feel like I’ve said the word belong 100,000 times since all these videos took off. But like, it’s so… it’s so special to me that that is what the library is for. You could be unhoused, you could be mentally ill, you can be a kid, teenager, grown-up without kids. The library is a place for you. It’s a place where you can be your authentic self, whatever that means to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not a place where you’re going to be judged walking in. There is no expectations. When you come to the local library, you don’t even need a library card. I love when people come into the library and flash a library card like we’re Costco. And I’m like, you don’t have to do that. I love that I can see your library card, but you can just walk in. Like, you can just go, you can read books, you can read the newspaper. We even print out people one time passes for the computer. You don’t even need a library card to use our computers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But so yeah, I think just reminding people that the library exists, that it’s different from what they used to be. We don’t shush people anymore. I’ve been shushed far more times than I’ve shushed people. And just everybody should come and visit their local library. It’s pretty much my whole message behind those videos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena:\u003c/b> Can you set up that viral video that you said got like over a million views? Like what was the message you were saying specifically in that one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>So the first video that took off is the one of the kid who asked me if I’m a boy librarian or a girl librarian where a kid and their grown up were at the… at the desk with me, helping them check out books, and I could see the kid kind of like stealing glances at their grown up. And I was like, oh, they’re going to say something and say… are they going to, are they going to mock my hair? Are they going to mock my shirt? Is it going to be my general appearance? And I was wearing a mask, too, so I just saw I heard the kid kind of like go to their grown up, “Mama, is it a boy librarian or a girl librarian?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you could see, like the grown-ups’ eyes get wide like, oh, how is he going to react to this? But I think the grown-up did a great thing that they were just like, “Oh, let’s let’s ask him. I’m sure, I’m sure he’ll let us know.” And so the kid is like, “Are you a boy librarian or a girl librarian?” And I was like, “Oh, I’m a boy librarian.” And then I shared, I shared that video and then just so many people resonated with it. I think my message behind that video is just to applaud the grown up for saying, ‘Let’s teach my kid something new. Let’s teach him that it’s okay to ask people questions, to be… to be vulnerable.’ So just a kid having the courage to ask, a grown up being like this isn’t a taboo subject, let’s find out if this person is a boy librarian, a girl librarian. Let’s give them the space to say what they are, what they identify with. And then again, I thought that video was going to get maybe a thousand views. And it’s been- just been seen by over a million people now. \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena:\u003c/b> Do people in Fairfield, like when you’re at the grocery store or the gas station, do they recognize you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>A few people do. It’s actually… it’s actually more so outside of Solano County that more people seem to recognize me. I went on a trip to Hawaii and several people were like, Oh, you’re the library guy. You’re that guy from social media. Or I went to like, an Oakland A’s game. And I think like… I think five people, like, made me take selfies with them. But it does happen here in Fairfield. I’ve gone to like, Safeway and people are like, It’s you. I just want to say hi. Or even like I live in an apartment complex not too far from here. I like, I ran downstairs yesterday. The person waiting in the car was like, Oh, it’s you. I’ve seen your videos. I can’t believe it. So I have been recognized. It’s very awkward. It’s very strange. I think I’ve actually, I’ve had like an older library user coming here before, say like, “I have to take a picture with you to show, to show my granddaughter.” But she didn’t know how to take the selfie, so I had to take a selfie for the person, of her and I. So that was probably like the most like, adorable but awkward encounter I’ve had thus far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/b>You mentioned a couple of these before, but when people think of the library, it’s often just books, a place to go, study, and be shushed. I’m wondering what are some of the misconceptions that you’re looking to debunk with your work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>Well, I think I think the first one is the one that we talked about, that libraries are more than books. And this number two is the one that you just talked about, about being shushed. I like to call like, my library, like a loud library, like you have to use like, your library voice to a degree. But I’m trying, in trying to like most to make sure people belong, make sure they’re welcome. Like a little bit of noise is acceptable. Like there have been so many times in my 9, 10 months of being a supervisor back at this library were people with kids who are neurodivergent on the spectrum, have ADHD, other fe- other things, have admitted that they don’t like coming to the library because they feel like they don’t belong, because their kids are going to get shushed. Like “I don’t think my kid will ever be able to become a library kid,” which of course makes me feel very sad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I tell those kids… those kids and those grown ups, I’m like, ‘Just… just try it out. Like, take it, take it different times. Like you can come one visit if it’s too much, go take a step outside, come back inside, come back next week, try again.’ I tell them like if your kid is making noise, being happy, I’m like, I take that as a badge of honor. I’m like, that means your kid is having fun at the library, even if it’s not books they’re having fun with the toys. That’s the whole reason we have a children’s library is for people to, like, learn what the library’s all about. That it is for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the library is no longer a place. I mean, some libraries you are going to get shushed more than others. But my library, Solano County libraries are not ones where you’re often going to get shushed. I mean, you can’t come in and you can’t curse out library staff. You can’t like, just start playing your app videos, your YouTube videos along that as loud as you can. If we get complaints, we’ll talk to you. But there is a certain level of noise that we… that we allow in the library and we’re also doing cool things, like the Vallejo Springstowne Library did a punk rock show not too long ago. They had some punk rock concerts in the back of their parking lot. The Vallejo John F Kennedy Library had the rapper La Russell performing in… in the libraries. So libraries are doing new things. So those are the myths that I want to debunk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw:\u003c/b> And why is it important to have someone like that, like repopularizing the brand of the public library?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>I think… I think that’s why it takes… I mean, you have so many more figures who are like who are making books in libraries popular. Like, you have like, Steph Curry has a book club and Malala has a book club. La Russell has a book. I think Amanda Gorman is a poet who is like taking the world by storm. So she’s a different type of person. But I think it’s important to have these people talking about books, talking about the importance of libraries, because there are so many young people who are listening. I mean, libraries for everybody, kids, teens and adults and grown ups. But the kids are like who we’re trying to reach, who we’re trying to make sure that the world is better for. And having these influential figures makes it so that they know if they like that, they they’re not worried about looking cool. They’re like, Oh, these people are making books cool, they’re making libraries cool. I’m a library nerd. I’ve always thought libraries and books were super cool. So it’s cool to see these cool people who are actually cool making books in libraries cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena:\u003c/b> On that note of like, accessibility, I mean, that’s probably the tenets of public libraries. And you know, we live in an information age where we’re constantly bombarded with information on our phones, computers, anything. So like, what is the role of the library to, like, give quality information, if you will, or like promote media literacy or anything about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>Yeah. There’s so much that the library does for, for promoting literacy, for promoting accessibility. There’s so many different realms, I think just for access, accessibility for literacy, that’s where like, schools and libraries have a great relationship and connection. Schools do something called AR levels, accelerated reader levels. So basically, if you’re at third grade reading level, fourth grade reading level, you’re looking for a book that falls within those levels which is very complicated. And oftentimes it unfortunately sets kids back because kids learn at different rates. So sometimes some kids may not be able to read at the grade level that they’re at. So I mentioned that because libraries don’t have weird- we don’t arrange things by that level. We have like third grade reading lists, but all of our books are just chapter books, picture books, nonfiction books. We don’t break it into first grade, second grade, third grade, because we acknowledge that everybody learns at a different rate, and we want people to feel comfortable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We want them to fall in love with reading. That’s our important first priority is that falling in love with literature, with literacy, and then we can work on getting you to that grade level. So I think that’s that part of accessibility. But then the other part of accessibility is just making sure that, like we talked about, that there is a place that they can come to. So I think accessibility for the mentally ill, for the unhoused, which I think people don’t often think about them when it comes to accessibility, but there has to be a place for them to flock to, to go to when they have nowhere else to go. And that’s what the public library is. It is a place like we talked about, that there is no expectation. They can just come in out of the elements. They can sit. If you’re having a panic attack, you can come into the library. You can ask us for help. Or as a person who goes through panic attacks, sometimes you can just have a panic attack in peace inside of the library, which I know is a weird thing to say, but at least it is a place of welcoming. And so I think there are so many different aspects of accessibility when it comes to the library and literacy as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/b>You’re very almost profoundly up front about the intersection of mental health and your work. And I’m wondering why is it important for you to share your story first?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>So it’s important for me to share my story of mental health just because I didn’t have any such stories when I was… when I was a kid. I think.. I think I mentioned that, having anxiety at the age of eight, it’s not something I knew what it was. Being 33, mental health was still very stigmatized when I was a kid. So for me, like, I don’t… I don’t have the platform that others seem to think I do, but whatever version of platform I do have, I do want to talk about mental health, just so. just to normalize it, just to show people that it does exist and that it’s okay to not be okay. I made a silly remix of, of, of Get Low by Little Jon. And so like 369 is okay to not be fine…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets (in clip, singing): \u003c/b>“369, it’s okay to not be fine, hope you can crush this day one more time…”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets:\u003c/b> So, I think me talking about it just shows people that there’s other people out there that are suffering but are still persevering, that are still surviving and even being successful because I’ve been a library worker for ten years. So I have a various level of success. So I think talking about mental health just shows people that it’s okay to not be okay. You can keep on going. And oftentimes that’s why I release my library stories. Either I’m having a hard day or people message me on social media and say, ‘Oh, I’m having a hard day. I’m having a really big bout of anxiety.’ So many times the stories I release are dedicated to those people who are having a hard day, or they’re kind of like what I would tell myself on my hard days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think I even made another like, mental health call for help video where I was like, ‘Oh, like if you’re watching this video, like in your bed, laying down right now…’ And so many people were like, ‘I was watching that video laying down in my bed right now.’ I even had a grown-up came- come up to me in the library that day and was like, “Hi, Mr. Michael, I just wanna let you know that I saw your video. And I came to the library. I got out of bed and I visited the library.” So, so that’s super cool to see it happening in real life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marisol Medina-Cadena: \u003c/b>The library has kind of become this de facto like support wraparound services because those services often don’t exist in our communities. And so libraries, librarians, and library staff are often like the front lines, if you will, of like mental health, cause they’re coming into contact with people living with mental health. Has there been an experience here, about that, that really crystallized like why it’s important for librarians to have those… that knowledge base?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets: \u003c/b>Honestly, every day at the public library is a reminder of why it’s important that we do, we need to be aware of these services or at least have the ability to put people in touch with these services. I hear just people telling me like, how much it helps that me and my library staff say hello to them on a daily basis, or people have literally told us like, ‘Oh, you guys, you guys saved my life. Like just by saying hi. Like, you guys actually care. Like we’re actually important to you.’ Or even a day or two ago, I told the story about how there’s an unhoused person on our loading dock, and my staff was like, ‘Oh, we need… we need this person who just moved to a different area.’ That’s okay. They’re blocking the staff entrance. It makes it’s hard for them to come inside. So I went and spoke with that person. I said, ‘Oh, hey, it’s me again. Michael with the library. Just spoke with you not too long ago. I know it feels like it’s been forever. It’s only been an hour. Just seeing if you can try to just get all your stuff moved to a different area. Like you don’t have to go far. I just want my library people to be able to walk through.’ They were like “Sure, sure, I promise. Give me 5 minutes. I’ll try to move as quick as I can, get my stuff away.” And I was about to go inside, I said, ‘You know what? The library is open. You’re more than welcome to come on inside. You can just hang out inside.’ Library was open until 8:00 that day. They were very surprised. They’re like, “Really? Like, I can come inside?” I’m like, ‘Yes. Library’s for you. You belong in this library. Keep on doing your thing.’ Basically, the library is a community hub. The library exists for the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw:\u003c/b> My interest in talking to you is that I see you and also the public library system as an agent of change. When I think of the public library system, when I didn’t have money to go to a coffee shop, I would go to a library and send off my resume and try to get into this economy and work my way up. I also see it as a safe space, as you said, for people experiencing mental health ups and downs, as well as a way to battle some of the things that you see in the news where it’s like everything from book bans to misinformation. And so I front load that question all to ask you, like when you wake up in the morning, do you see yourself as an agent of change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mychal Threets:\u003c/b> I don’t think I am. But I do believe that every school librarian, public librarian, academic librarian, all the library workers, they’re all agents of change, working to make the world a better place. Be it banned books, celebrating just the freedom to freedom to read. Just saying that we’re not trying to make it any, any big thing. We’re not trying to push anything on you, on your kids. We just want them to be able to see themselves, to feel seen, to feel represented, to feel that they belong. The library is happy. We’re waiting for you. We can’t wait to see you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pendarvis Harshaw: \u003c/b>Big thank you to Mychal Threets! Thanks for the work you do and the service you provide, in real life and online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For all of you interested in learning more about Mychal’s work, you can find him on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram under “Mychal3ts” And that’s spelled M-Y-C-H-A-L, the number 3, TS. He’s also on Facebook under his first name, Mychal spelled M-Y-C-H-A-L and his last name is Threets, T-H-R-E-E-T-S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was hosted by Marisol Medina-Cadena and me, Pendarvis Harshaw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Hambrick. Our engineer is Christopher Beale. And Sheree Bishop is the Rightnowish intern and was the camera person on this trip. Be sure to look out for that video on your social media platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Rightnowish team is also supported by Jen Chien, Ugur Dursun, Holly Kernan, Xorje Olivares, Cesar Saldaña, and Katie Sprenger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thank you all for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode is dedicated to all of the library lovers and a special shout out to those who will soon discover the magic of the local public library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, go get you a mother loving library card, fool. Until next time, peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rightnowish is a KQED production.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11968205/11968205",
"authors": [
"8654",
"11649",
"11802",
"11528",
"11491"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_32662",
"news_33293",
"news_28147",
"news_22598",
"news_29435"
],
"featImg": "news_11968264",
"label": "source_news_11968205"
},
"news_11968081": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11968081",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11968081",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1700650839000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "what-it-takes-to-return-land-to-native-people-in-the-bay-area",
"title": "What It Takes to Return Land to Native People in the Bay Area",
"publishDate": 1700650839,
"format": "audio",
"headTitle": "What It Takes to Return Land to Native People in the Bay Area | KQED",
"labelTerm": {},
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last year, Oakland returned 5 acres of Joaquin Miller Park to the Sogorea Te’ land trust and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, marking the first time a Bay Area city has given land back to Native Americans.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite no significant opposition to this plan, the process took more than 5 years. So what does it actually take to give land back?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode originally aired on Nov. 28, 2022.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9048366560&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hi, I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Last year, Oakland did something that no other city in the Bay Area had done before; returned land to indigenous people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corrina Gould: \u003c/strong>It’s a place that we imagine not just engaging the tribe but everyone that lives in the Bay Area again, and to reimagine what it would have looked like to reengage with the plants and the trees, to reengage with those things that are necessary for us to live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Five acres of Joaquin Miller Park were given to the Security Land Trust and the Confederated Villages of Lashon. This plan didn’t have any significant opposition. The process still took five whole years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>The reason why it’s taken five years to get to this place is that actually giving land back from a city is not easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Today, we’re revisiting an episode from last November with Ericka Cruz Guevarra and KQED reporter Annelise Finney. We’ll hear about the appetite for returning land to Native people and why actually making it happen is so complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong> Annelise, Let’s start by talking about the land itself. Can you describe for me what it looks like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Sequoia Point is way up. And Joaquin Miller Park. It’s off of Skyline Boulevard, and it’s about five acres. If you drive into it, there’s kind of this like, padded cement area that looks like it used to be a parking lot, but it’s kind of been abandoned by the city. And all around that is this big wooded area. And through the trees you can see views of all of the east bay and then north towards the Coquina Strait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today we’re talking about this example of a city in California giving land back to native tribes. When did you find out this was going to happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So back in September, the city and security, which is a land trust based in the East Bay on the traditional territory of the Confederated Villages of Lushan, held a press conference in Joaquin Miller Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Libby Schaaf: \u003c/strong>Today we are letting healing begin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>The point of this press conference was to announce this land back plan. It’s very personal, but they’ve been working on it since 2017. So at this point, it’s been about five years in the making. But they decided to keep it kind of on the down low until they had worked out a lot of the kinks for the plan. Mayor Libby Schaaf, She did a lot of kind of the talking at the beginning and introducing sort of what this plan with security is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Libby Schaaf: \u003c/strong>So today is a day where we acknowledge the harm that government and colonialization has done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How big of a deal is this for Native American tribes in the Bay Area? Has this ever happened for these tribes before?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So in the Bay Area, there’s never been a land return that came from a municipality. There have been other land returns, but they typically have come from private property owners, some state parks and even some national parks that are kind of outside of the General Bay Area. But Pinnacles, which is sort of south of the Bay Area, closer to Monterey, has also done some work with native tribes in that area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corrina Gould: \u003c/strong>*introducing herself in native language*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So Corrina Gould is the co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust, and she’s also the spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan. The Confederated Villages of Lisjan, are one a loaning group based in sort of the northern part of the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corrina Gould: \u003c/strong>20 something years ago, when Janelle De La Rose, the co founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust, who stands with us today, started this work around sacred site protection in the Bay Area. And most people didn’t know the word colony. No one knew the word Alaskan. And over the last 20 plus years, we worked to protect those sacred sites and those ancestors, and they have protected us. Who knew that 20 plus years later, that land would start to come back to us? And Little Rock…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I want to talk about sort of the how now. I mean, we mentioned how rare this is for a city to do this. And I know that here in the Bay Area, there’s definitely an appetite for movements like land back. Has this process been hard?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Yes, it’s been very complicated. And that’s something that everybody emphasized that this press conference kind of folks from Cigarets and from the city, that the reason why it’s taken five years to get to this place is that actually giving land back from a city is not easy. And it ties into something called federal recognition, which essentially is this federal process that Native American tribes can go through to get sort of federal recognition of their tribe’s history and rights within the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>If you have federal recognition, you get access to federal funding for education and health care, and you also get access to sovereignty on your own land. But in California, it’s really hard to get that type of recognition. To explain this. I’m going to have to give you a little bit of a history lesson. And this may be familiar if you grew up in California, but California before it was part of the United States, was part of Mexico, and before it was part of Mexico, it was actually a Spanish colony. And during the time of Spanish rule, there was a system called the mission system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>But these missions were essentially outposts run by priests who were Spanish, and they functioned essentially like plantations in that they enslaved Native American people and involved them in forced labor. It was also a really deadly experience, in part because the labor was hard and in part because of disease that was brought to native communities that hadn’t been there before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>The Indians would go to those missions and they’re nothing but death camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>When I was learning a little bit more about this process and how it’s impacted federal recognition, I spoke with the tribal leader from the South Bay, whose name is Valentine Lopez. He’s the chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, and he explained that for his ancestors, experience in the mission was incredibly detrimental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>During that time, many of the tribes were wiped out 100%. Many of the other tribes, you know, they survived losing, you know, 96 to 90% of their of their tribal members. And, you know, and that’s the history that was never told.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>The mission experience was just part one. After that, the Spanish were replaced by the Mexican government and that controlled California for a long time, during which point the Bay Area was broken up into these sort of ranch areas, these big ranches where native people were often involved in indentured servitude. And after that, the United States came in California became sort of an American state. And during this time, the government of California adopted policies geared towards the extermination of Native American people in the first State of the Union address of California. The governor at the time said he was going to wage a war against the California Indians. So for Native people, it was just wave after wave of essentially coordinated genocide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>The state of California was largely responsible for that brutal history. And in so many ways, it’s, you know, the history of that destruction and domination of tribes never ended. It continues to this day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How does that brutal history make it more difficult for tribes to eventually gain federal recognition?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>In the late 1970s, the federal government created this process to try to legitimize and provide benefits to some Native American tribes. But within that process, the burden falls on native communities to sort of prove the things that the government evaluates in deciding whether or not to give federal recognition. And those things include sort of proving kind of cultural continuity throughout time, proving that there’s been a governance system over the tribe that’s continued from kind of pre 1900s through to the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>And for Native American communities on the California coast who were subject to sort of this brutality I was describing of the California mission system, it was almost impossible to maintain that type of continuity because this stability for record keeping and providing a consistent sense of community and especially a place based community was nearly impossible. And this is something that Chairman Lopez spoke to as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>So, you know, with those kind of death rates and that kind of brutal history, how we supposed to stay together? You have to have an effective government system, you know, to be federally recognized. How do you have an effective government system? Well, you know, what are you dealing with is just day to day survival and brutality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what does that all mean for tribes here today, including when it comes to efforts to get land back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Essentially, that means that it’s really hard for Bay Area tribes to gain federal recognition. I mean, it’s hard for anybody to get federal recognition. The process takes 30 years. You often have to employ historians and ethnographers lawyers to help you through this process. So it’s difficult for anyone. But in California and in the Bay Area, it’s particularly hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>And for that reason there aren’t any federally recognized, although many tribes. And if you’re not federally recognized, it’s pretty hard to own land because you as a group don’t have any more legal rights than, say, the Breakfast Club of Lafayette. So in order to work around this, a lot of Native communities in the Bay Area have started forming nonprofits or land trusts so that they’re able to hold property in a collective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So it sounds like Oakland can’t give this land to these non federally recognized tribes, but they can give it to a land trust created by these tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, we’ll talk about the deal between native tribes in the city of Oakland and why just giving away the land is a lot harder than it sounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So what exactly did Sogorea Te receive in this transaction with the city of Oakland?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Essentially, the way they worked out this deal is they created what’s called a cultural conservation easement. And what the easement does is it doesn’t sell the land to security. So security doesn’t have all of the property rights, but it does section off specific property rights and it transfer them to security in perpetuity, which means that essentially security owns these rights to this property forever into the future until essentially either the city of Oakland or security ceases to exist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It’s not quite the same as owning the land. Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Right. So there are some rights that the city of Oakland will reserve on this property. One of them is the right to enforce Oakland laws. Oakland also will reserve the right to sort of help with some of the maintenance and help come up with a management plan. But on the other hand, security has the rights to sort of do any type of land management that preserves the environmental quality of the land. So if they want to do native plant restoration or they want to hold ceremony or other types of programing or educational events, all of those rights will belong to them when this deal is finalized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brendan Moriarty: \u003c/strong>It’s like we’re trying to do the right thing and return this land and unwind incredible oppression. And we’re dealing with an institutional environment that is in some ways racist, frankly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Part of the reason they chose a cultural easement is because the city faces certain barriers when it comes to getting rid of public land. This thing I spoke with Brendan Moriarty about, Brendan is the real estate manager for the City of Oakland, which means that his job is to sort of manage the city’s property portfolio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brendan Moriarty: \u003c/strong>It’s been proving really hard to do the right thing. Know, it’s been five years that the city has been working on this and we’re only now the point where we can convey this easement back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So if the city decides they want to sell something that is currently public land, like a section of rock in Miller Park, it triggers a bunch of state laws. And one of those laws called the Surplus Land Act requires the city government to make that land first available to any other public agency who wants it. And then if there’s no public agency who wants it, then make it available to anybody who might develop affordable housing. Because don’t forget, we are in a housing crisis here in the Bay Area in California at large.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So after that, if nobody wants it, the city is then still subject to Sequoia. Sequoia as the California Environmental Quality Act, which is a rule that essentially requires anybody making a change or selling property. Evaluate how that change might impact the environment. Sequoia has become sort of notorious for the way that it can really hold up projects. So the city of Oakland with Cigarets essentially decided that, look, we want to get this land into the hands of security and by extension, people who are part of the Confederated Villages of La Shawn as soon as possible. And it’s going to be a lot faster and a lot more convenient for us to do that through a cultural conservation easement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brendan Moriarty: \u003c/strong>I think we feel like they shouldn’t have so many regulatory hoops to still jump through. But it is the world we all live in. And so I think there’s probably more work to do to make things easier, frankly, for the people, for the poorest people. Giving some land back is one act, but in and of itself is not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I do feel like I have to ask you this question, because I do imagine maybe some listeners hearing that and saying, well, I mean, is this just the government trying to pull one over on Native people again? You know, why not just give them full rights to the land? But I mean, is security okay with this arrangement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>In this case? As far as I can tell, from what security has said, they’re okay with this deal. At an event that was held by security, talking with a lot of other people who have successfully carried out land back programs in the places that they live. Corrina Gould talked about how beginning to get more access to land, especially kind of relatively unfettered access, is in a lot of ways just the first step in kind of completing this dream of having Indigenous leadership over the way we interact with the land and also centering Native people and understanding what it means to live in the Bay Area and how we can care for the environment that ultimately cares for us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corrina Gould: \u003c/strong>That was their staff and the city that really took this under way, did a lot of research try to figure out how to turn loss upside down so that they would work and create a model of change so that it wasn’t just for us. And we really wanted to get it right so that it could be a blueprint for other tribal people to do that in other places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what are the tribes plan to do with the land? What’s their vision for it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So what Corrina has emphasized is wanting this to be a space where the native communities in the Bay Area of many different tribes that people come from have as a place to hold ceremony, to learn about the environment and to reconnect with kind of sort of the native species. And and part of that is through land restoration up there. There’s a lot of non-native species that are on the on the land that are going to become part of this land transfer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>There’s also a hope to create educational programing for non-native residents of the Bay Area to also learn about native history. And ultimately there’s some hope for development. Corrina has talked about wanting to build a sort of ceremonial structure that would be on the cement pad. That’s sort of part of the parking lot that’s up there already. But that is definitely a few years down the road. I think what seems the most exciting is just the opportunity to really vision with way less limits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What implications could what Oakland just did have for maybe other Bay Area cities that are interested in doing something like this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>One thing that Corrina has said and Brendan Moriarty from the city of Oakland said is that part of why they spent so long working on this is because they wanted to create a really good example for other people. And, you know, the land back movement generally has been gaining speed over the last few decades. And a few of the tribal leaders I spoke to kind of highlighted the growth in this movement since the George Floyd murder. And in California, there’s been land back from Eureka all the way to L.A.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>I mean, the Tongva in L.A. now have land back, and urban land is particularly hard to come by. So what’s happening in Oakland is sort of a culmination of, you know, this idea of, okay, let’s focus our energies on returning land to native people, and there’s a role that cities can play. So I think for other folks in the Bay Area, I know many of the leaders that I spoke to are really looking to security and what’s happening in Oakland as a kind of way to push the door open even further in terms of returning land to native people here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Cordero: \u003c/strong>So land back has to include capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Jonathan Cordero is the chairman of the of Ramaytush Ohlone. That is the Ohlone Group that is traditionally from the San Francisco Peninsula. And I was asking him about land back. And one thing he said that stuck out to me was that, you know, without resources land in and of itself, isn’t that useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Cordero: \u003c/strong>If you were to offer us a thousand acres today, I would say no, because we do not have the financial, legal and human resources necessary to tend that land over time. In other words, the the return of land would become a burden, not a benefit, for us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time to restore land that ultimately what a lot of tribes need is affordable housing. I mean, I spoke with tribal leaders from the South Bay who both told me that the majority of their membership lives in the Central Valley, not in the South Bay, because they can’t afford it and because they were forced there and haven’t been able to make it back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So for those people who are hoping that land back will also include a way for tribes to kind of return to their traditional land and live and maintain the land, that is challenging and it requires a lot of resources. And for tribes that are not federally recognized, there’s very little financial support available. And that, unfortunately, is the circumstance of most Bay Area tribes. Many of the tribal leaders that I spoke to emphasized that land back is great, but it’s just the first step.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Annelise, thank you so much for joining us. I always appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo :\u003c/strong>That was Annelise Finney, a producer and reporter for KQED, speaking with Bay host Ericka Cruz Guevarra. This conversation was cut down and edited by me, Alan Montecillo. Ericka Cruz Guevarra scored it and added the tape. Our producer is Maria Esquinca. I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. I hope you have a safe and restful holiday. We’ll talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "Today, The Bay podcast shares an episode from last November about how Oakland returned 5 acres of land to the East Bay Ohlone.",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1721127865,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": true,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 70,
"wordCount": 3758
},
"headData": {
"title": "What It Takes to Return Land to Native People in the Bay Area | KQED",
"description": "Today, The Bay podcast shares an episode from last November about how Oakland returned 5 acres of land to the East Bay Ohlone.",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "What It Takes to Return Land to Native People in the Bay Area",
"datePublished": "2023-11-22T03:00:39-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-07-16T04:04:25-07:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"source": "The Bay",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC9048366560.mp3?updated=1700593988",
"sticky": false,
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11968081/what-it-takes-to-return-land-to-native-people-in-the-bay-area",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last year, Oakland returned 5 acres of Joaquin Miller Park to the Sogorea Te’ land trust and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, marking the first time a Bay Area city has given land back to Native Americans.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite no significant opposition to this plan, the process took more than 5 years. So what does it actually take to give land back?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode originally aired on Nov. 28, 2022.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9048366560&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hi, I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Last year, Oakland did something that no other city in the Bay Area had done before; returned land to indigenous people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corrina Gould: \u003c/strong>It’s a place that we imagine not just engaging the tribe but everyone that lives in the Bay Area again, and to reimagine what it would have looked like to reengage with the plants and the trees, to reengage with those things that are necessary for us to live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Five acres of Joaquin Miller Park were given to the Security Land Trust and the Confederated Villages of Lashon. This plan didn’t have any significant opposition. The process still took five whole years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>The reason why it’s taken five years to get to this place is that actually giving land back from a city is not easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Today, we’re revisiting an episode from last November with Ericka Cruz Guevarra and KQED reporter Annelise Finney. We’ll hear about the appetite for returning land to Native people and why actually making it happen is so complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong> Annelise, Let’s start by talking about the land itself. Can you describe for me what it looks like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Sequoia Point is way up. And Joaquin Miller Park. It’s off of Skyline Boulevard, and it’s about five acres. If you drive into it, there’s kind of this like, padded cement area that looks like it used to be a parking lot, but it’s kind of been abandoned by the city. And all around that is this big wooded area. And through the trees you can see views of all of the east bay and then north towards the Coquina Strait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today we’re talking about this example of a city in California giving land back to native tribes. When did you find out this was going to happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So back in September, the city and security, which is a land trust based in the East Bay on the traditional territory of the Confederated Villages of Lushan, held a press conference in Joaquin Miller Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Libby Schaaf: \u003c/strong>Today we are letting healing begin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>The point of this press conference was to announce this land back plan. It’s very personal, but they’ve been working on it since 2017. So at this point, it’s been about five years in the making. But they decided to keep it kind of on the down low until they had worked out a lot of the kinks for the plan. Mayor Libby Schaaf, She did a lot of kind of the talking at the beginning and introducing sort of what this plan with security is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Libby Schaaf: \u003c/strong>So today is a day where we acknowledge the harm that government and colonialization has done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How big of a deal is this for Native American tribes in the Bay Area? Has this ever happened for these tribes before?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So in the Bay Area, there’s never been a land return that came from a municipality. There have been other land returns, but they typically have come from private property owners, some state parks and even some national parks that are kind of outside of the General Bay Area. But Pinnacles, which is sort of south of the Bay Area, closer to Monterey, has also done some work with native tribes in that area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corrina Gould: \u003c/strong>*introducing herself in native language*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So Corrina Gould is the co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust, and she’s also the spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan. The Confederated Villages of Lisjan, are one a loaning group based in sort of the northern part of the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corrina Gould: \u003c/strong>20 something years ago, when Janelle De La Rose, the co founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust, who stands with us today, started this work around sacred site protection in the Bay Area. And most people didn’t know the word colony. No one knew the word Alaskan. And over the last 20 plus years, we worked to protect those sacred sites and those ancestors, and they have protected us. Who knew that 20 plus years later, that land would start to come back to us? And Little Rock…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I want to talk about sort of the how now. I mean, we mentioned how rare this is for a city to do this. And I know that here in the Bay Area, there’s definitely an appetite for movements like land back. Has this process been hard?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Yes, it’s been very complicated. And that’s something that everybody emphasized that this press conference kind of folks from Cigarets and from the city, that the reason why it’s taken five years to get to this place is that actually giving land back from a city is not easy. And it ties into something called federal recognition, which essentially is this federal process that Native American tribes can go through to get sort of federal recognition of their tribe’s history and rights within the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>If you have federal recognition, you get access to federal funding for education and health care, and you also get access to sovereignty on your own land. But in California, it’s really hard to get that type of recognition. To explain this. I’m going to have to give you a little bit of a history lesson. And this may be familiar if you grew up in California, but California before it was part of the United States, was part of Mexico, and before it was part of Mexico, it was actually a Spanish colony. And during the time of Spanish rule, there was a system called the mission system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>But these missions were essentially outposts run by priests who were Spanish, and they functioned essentially like plantations in that they enslaved Native American people and involved them in forced labor. It was also a really deadly experience, in part because the labor was hard and in part because of disease that was brought to native communities that hadn’t been there before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>The Indians would go to those missions and they’re nothing but death camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>When I was learning a little bit more about this process and how it’s impacted federal recognition, I spoke with the tribal leader from the South Bay, whose name is Valentine Lopez. He’s the chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, and he explained that for his ancestors, experience in the mission was incredibly detrimental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>During that time, many of the tribes were wiped out 100%. Many of the other tribes, you know, they survived losing, you know, 96 to 90% of their of their tribal members. And, you know, and that’s the history that was never told.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>The mission experience was just part one. After that, the Spanish were replaced by the Mexican government and that controlled California for a long time, during which point the Bay Area was broken up into these sort of ranch areas, these big ranches where native people were often involved in indentured servitude. And after that, the United States came in California became sort of an American state. And during this time, the government of California adopted policies geared towards the extermination of Native American people in the first State of the Union address of California. The governor at the time said he was going to wage a war against the California Indians. So for Native people, it was just wave after wave of essentially coordinated genocide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>The state of California was largely responsible for that brutal history. And in so many ways, it’s, you know, the history of that destruction and domination of tribes never ended. It continues to this day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How does that brutal history make it more difficult for tribes to eventually gain federal recognition?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>In the late 1970s, the federal government created this process to try to legitimize and provide benefits to some Native American tribes. But within that process, the burden falls on native communities to sort of prove the things that the government evaluates in deciding whether or not to give federal recognition. And those things include sort of proving kind of cultural continuity throughout time, proving that there’s been a governance system over the tribe that’s continued from kind of pre 1900s through to the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>And for Native American communities on the California coast who were subject to sort of this brutality I was describing of the California mission system, it was almost impossible to maintain that type of continuity because this stability for record keeping and providing a consistent sense of community and especially a place based community was nearly impossible. And this is something that Chairman Lopez spoke to as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valentine Lopez: \u003c/strong>So, you know, with those kind of death rates and that kind of brutal history, how we supposed to stay together? You have to have an effective government system, you know, to be federally recognized. How do you have an effective government system? Well, you know, what are you dealing with is just day to day survival and brutality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what does that all mean for tribes here today, including when it comes to efforts to get land back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Essentially, that means that it’s really hard for Bay Area tribes to gain federal recognition. I mean, it’s hard for anybody to get federal recognition. The process takes 30 years. You often have to employ historians and ethnographers lawyers to help you through this process. So it’s difficult for anyone. But in California and in the Bay Area, it’s particularly hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>And for that reason there aren’t any federally recognized, although many tribes. And if you’re not federally recognized, it’s pretty hard to own land because you as a group don’t have any more legal rights than, say, the Breakfast Club of Lafayette. So in order to work around this, a lot of Native communities in the Bay Area have started forming nonprofits or land trusts so that they’re able to hold property in a collective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So it sounds like Oakland can’t give this land to these non federally recognized tribes, but they can give it to a land trust created by these tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, we’ll talk about the deal between native tribes in the city of Oakland and why just giving away the land is a lot harder than it sounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So what exactly did Sogorea Te receive in this transaction with the city of Oakland?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Essentially, the way they worked out this deal is they created what’s called a cultural conservation easement. And what the easement does is it doesn’t sell the land to security. So security doesn’t have all of the property rights, but it does section off specific property rights and it transfer them to security in perpetuity, which means that essentially security owns these rights to this property forever into the future until essentially either the city of Oakland or security ceases to exist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It’s not quite the same as owning the land. Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Right. So there are some rights that the city of Oakland will reserve on this property. One of them is the right to enforce Oakland laws. Oakland also will reserve the right to sort of help with some of the maintenance and help come up with a management plan. But on the other hand, security has the rights to sort of do any type of land management that preserves the environmental quality of the land. So if they want to do native plant restoration or they want to hold ceremony or other types of programing or educational events, all of those rights will belong to them when this deal is finalized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brendan Moriarty: \u003c/strong>It’s like we’re trying to do the right thing and return this land and unwind incredible oppression. And we’re dealing with an institutional environment that is in some ways racist, frankly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Part of the reason they chose a cultural easement is because the city faces certain barriers when it comes to getting rid of public land. This thing I spoke with Brendan Moriarty about, Brendan is the real estate manager for the City of Oakland, which means that his job is to sort of manage the city’s property portfolio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brendan Moriarty: \u003c/strong>It’s been proving really hard to do the right thing. Know, it’s been five years that the city has been working on this and we’re only now the point where we can convey this easement back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So if the city decides they want to sell something that is currently public land, like a section of rock in Miller Park, it triggers a bunch of state laws. And one of those laws called the Surplus Land Act requires the city government to make that land first available to any other public agency who wants it. And then if there’s no public agency who wants it, then make it available to anybody who might develop affordable housing. Because don’t forget, we are in a housing crisis here in the Bay Area in California at large.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So after that, if nobody wants it, the city is then still subject to Sequoia. Sequoia as the California Environmental Quality Act, which is a rule that essentially requires anybody making a change or selling property. Evaluate how that change might impact the environment. Sequoia has become sort of notorious for the way that it can really hold up projects. So the city of Oakland with Cigarets essentially decided that, look, we want to get this land into the hands of security and by extension, people who are part of the Confederated Villages of La Shawn as soon as possible. And it’s going to be a lot faster and a lot more convenient for us to do that through a cultural conservation easement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brendan Moriarty: \u003c/strong>I think we feel like they shouldn’t have so many regulatory hoops to still jump through. But it is the world we all live in. And so I think there’s probably more work to do to make things easier, frankly, for the people, for the poorest people. Giving some land back is one act, but in and of itself is not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I do feel like I have to ask you this question, because I do imagine maybe some listeners hearing that and saying, well, I mean, is this just the government trying to pull one over on Native people again? You know, why not just give them full rights to the land? But I mean, is security okay with this arrangement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>In this case? As far as I can tell, from what security has said, they’re okay with this deal. At an event that was held by security, talking with a lot of other people who have successfully carried out land back programs in the places that they live. Corrina Gould talked about how beginning to get more access to land, especially kind of relatively unfettered access, is in a lot of ways just the first step in kind of completing this dream of having Indigenous leadership over the way we interact with the land and also centering Native people and understanding what it means to live in the Bay Area and how we can care for the environment that ultimately cares for us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Corrina Gould: \u003c/strong>That was their staff and the city that really took this under way, did a lot of research try to figure out how to turn loss upside down so that they would work and create a model of change so that it wasn’t just for us. And we really wanted to get it right so that it could be a blueprint for other tribal people to do that in other places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what are the tribes plan to do with the land? What’s their vision for it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So what Corrina has emphasized is wanting this to be a space where the native communities in the Bay Area of many different tribes that people come from have as a place to hold ceremony, to learn about the environment and to reconnect with kind of sort of the native species. And and part of that is through land restoration up there. There’s a lot of non-native species that are on the on the land that are going to become part of this land transfer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>There’s also a hope to create educational programing for non-native residents of the Bay Area to also learn about native history. And ultimately there’s some hope for development. Corrina has talked about wanting to build a sort of ceremonial structure that would be on the cement pad. That’s sort of part of the parking lot that’s up there already. But that is definitely a few years down the road. I think what seems the most exciting is just the opportunity to really vision with way less limits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What implications could what Oakland just did have for maybe other Bay Area cities that are interested in doing something like this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>One thing that Corrina has said and Brendan Moriarty from the city of Oakland said is that part of why they spent so long working on this is because they wanted to create a really good example for other people. And, you know, the land back movement generally has been gaining speed over the last few decades. And a few of the tribal leaders I spoke to kind of highlighted the growth in this movement since the George Floyd murder. And in California, there’s been land back from Eureka all the way to L.A.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>I mean, the Tongva in L.A. now have land back, and urban land is particularly hard to come by. So what’s happening in Oakland is sort of a culmination of, you know, this idea of, okay, let’s focus our energies on returning land to native people, and there’s a role that cities can play. So I think for other folks in the Bay Area, I know many of the leaders that I spoke to are really looking to security and what’s happening in Oakland as a kind of way to push the door open even further in terms of returning land to native people here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Cordero: \u003c/strong>So land back has to include capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Jonathan Cordero is the chairman of the of Ramaytush Ohlone. That is the Ohlone Group that is traditionally from the San Francisco Peninsula. And I was asking him about land back. And one thing he said that stuck out to me was that, you know, without resources land in and of itself, isn’t that useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jonathan Cordero: \u003c/strong>If you were to offer us a thousand acres today, I would say no, because we do not have the financial, legal and human resources necessary to tend that land over time. In other words, the the return of land would become a burden, not a benefit, for us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time to restore land that ultimately what a lot of tribes need is affordable housing. I mean, I spoke with tribal leaders from the South Bay who both told me that the majority of their membership lives in the Central Valley, not in the South Bay, because they can’t afford it and because they were forced there and haven’t been able to make it back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>So for those people who are hoping that land back will also include a way for tribes to kind of return to their traditional land and live and maintain the land, that is challenging and it requires a lot of resources. And for tribes that are not federally recognized, there’s very little financial support available. And that, unfortunately, is the circumstance of most Bay Area tribes. Many of the tribal leaders that I spoke to emphasized that land back is great, but it’s just the first step.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Annelise, thank you so much for joining us. I always appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Annelise Finney: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo :\u003c/strong>That was Annelise Finney, a producer and reporter for KQED, speaking with Bay host Ericka Cruz Guevarra. This conversation was cut down and edited by me, Alan Montecillo. Ericka Cruz Guevarra scored it and added the tape. Our producer is Maria Esquinca. I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. I hope you have a safe and restful holiday. We’ll talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11968081/what-it-takes-to-return-land-to-native-people-in-the-bay-area",
"authors": [
"8654",
"11772",
"11649",
"11802"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_21512",
"news_1262",
"news_22598"
],
"featImg": "news_11925212",
"label": "source_news_11968081"
},
"news_11967782": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11967782",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11967782",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1700478017000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1700478017,
"format": "audio",
"title": "Returning to Joy: A Personal Story from Ericka",
"headTitle": "Returning to Joy: A Personal Story from Ericka | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last summer, Ericka told a story live on stage at KQED, at an event hosted by the San Francisco chapter of the Asian American Journalists’ Association called “Hella Asian.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a story about a camping trip she went on with her best friend during the pandemic. It’s also a story about the mental impact of the news, and her sense of safety as attacks on Asians were in the headlines. Today, we’re sharing that story again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8746648822&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode originally aired on Aug. 8, 2022.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. So did you know that our show has made over 800 episodes? I know it’s kind of a wild number, but there are so many gems in there. And this week we’re actually going to share some of those gems from our archives. Most of our episodes are, of course, about local news here in the Bay Area, but we wanted to start off with a very different kind of episode that we made back in 2020 to that summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The San Francisco chapter of the Asian-American Journalists Association held this live community storytelling event at KQED called Hella Asian. And what you’re going to hear today is actually the story that I told before that live audience. It’s a story about a camping trip that I went on with my best friend during the pandemic. It’s also about the mental impact of journalism and the news, especially on journalists of color like myself. And it’s also a story about joy. So we’re going to share that with you today. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So back in the Myspace days, I was really into cameras and taking pictures of things. Taking pictures was a very casual hobby of mine in middle school. I would bring a digital camera to family events and just document them. And my best friend, Rochelle, she’s always been into cameras and taking pictures of things, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>In eighth grade or freshman year, you got a canon? I got a Nikon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s Rochelle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>And we would just take pictures of everything and anything of each other, of our families of, you know, the car across the street. You know, just random things all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Now, a little bit about Rochelle. Rochelle and I have this matching tattoo on our arms of our childhood homes. We grew up on the same street in Sassoon City, California, in one of those suburbs where every other fourth home is the same model. Our childhood homes were identical inside and out. My favorite addendum to this fact is that we even had the same couch as kids twice. We’re also both Filipina American, so we’ve always had a lot to relate on. And photography is just another one of those things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>We rarely had pictures with each other because one was always taking pictures of the other person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Me and Rochelle have been friends for more than 20 years, and when the pandemic hit in 2020, we really didn’t see each other at all. So when the vaccine finally arrived and promised to change life in the pandemic, we got vaccine up as soon as we could and planned a camping trip. It was March of 2021. By this point, I forgot what it was like to plan things and this trip was happening all kind of last minute. But we landed on a place that we’d both never been to before. Kirby Cove in the Marin headlands. We pulled up their reservation page, and there was one available evening for late March at Campsite number one. So we booked it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>I remember we both were just talking about how stressful work was and how working from home was getting. It was getting old. I know we didn’t really see each other, so we just needed that break from. Our everyday lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Now, this was my first big trip out of the house since the start of the pandemic. As a journalist, I needed a break from the news, and Rochelle needed a break from her job as a coordinator for an after school program, which she’d been running via Zoom. We hadn’t had quality time with each other in months. We both needed this. And then Atlanta happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*audio from news clips*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>By this point, I’d seen dozens of stories and photos and videos of Asian elders being beaten and attacked. Oakland and San Francisco were the epicenters of some of the most high profile incidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>I remember during that time, like it was heavy for you. I know. For I know that like work was really stressful because of what’s because of what you just have to cover for your job. All the stories you have to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>As a producer working in local daily news, it was my job to pay attention to those things, to let them swirl in my mind and figure out how to cover them. And no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t look away. I always felt it was my responsibility and my job to bear witness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>A lot of elderly Asian people were, you know, being targeted for, you know, blaming us for, you know, Covid and the whole pandemic. And at that time, I was like living on edge, not for me, but like, for my parents. For your parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When I told my dad about me and Rochelle’s camping trip, I remember him telling me If you don’t go out, nothing bad will ever happen to you. If the six Asian women and two customers killed in Atlanta never left their homes and sure, they might not have been killed by an armed white gunman who targeted Asian businesses because of his, quote, sex addiction. Sometimes when I go out, I worry my dad will prove me right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>But as journalists, we’re not really supposed to have big feelings about the stories that we work on to cover the pain of the pandemic, the failures of our institutions, police violence, attacks on the Asian community and meet our deadlines. Compartmentalizing is a necessary skill. So I spent the week of the Atlanta shooting, shoving my feelings to the back of my mind just to get through work. And by the end of the week, I was just happy to be getting away. I parked my car for one night of camping with my best friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>When we finally got to our campsite. Man, it was very I was I was speechless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Kirby Cove is this amazing grove of cypress and eucalyptus and pine with its own private little beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>One spot that always pops up in my head was this little, like, field of calla lilies. I don’t know if you remember that. And like, the sun was just, like, hitting them from behind and like, yeah, that was just so beautiful. It was like a movie. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One of the descriptions of Kirby Cove on the official Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy website says, quote, No other beach in the world has a view like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>It just felt really nice to just be outdoors and enjoy the vitamin D and like also getting to do that with you. Cause I haven’t like, we haven’t seen each other for so long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Now to get to our campsite, you have to walk from one end of the cove to the other. Campsite number one was the furthest from the entrance. Perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge with San Francisco on the other side. It was the best campsite on the cove. And we felt lucky because for most of the day that we arrived, we were the only ones there. Me and Rochelle pitched our tent and began exploring the cove.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Around the corner from our campsite was Battery Kirby. It’s this large slab of concrete built into the hillside and used to defend the coasts during wartime before the end of World War Two. Batteries like these contained 16 inch guns that fired 2,000 pound projectiles. When we got to battery, Kirby visitors had covered these abandoned structures in chalk drawings and messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>I remember at first we we saw the chalk and we didn’t know. Like we were like, oh, what should we write on this? Because, you know, people were like the other drawings on there were like smiley faces, rainbows or like profanity or whatever. But we had this whole wall empty wall of. Like. Like a canvas. Like what could we write? You started writing. Stop AAPI hate. Because ours is the week leading to our camping trip. That was. It was. It was everywhere. Because maybe it was us also like, Hey, there are Asians here at this campground. Like, we don’t want any harm or whatever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Rochelle wrote, Love us like you love our food under my message on the battery wall and even think about it at the time. But there was so much irony in that act. Yet another example of gun violence in America commemorated on a slab of concrete that once housed weapons of war and domination. After we finished exploring the rest of the cove, we made our way down to the beach and touched the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I marveled at the cliffs walls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There were these amazing indents in the earth that looked like stairs. The roots of the trees that shaded our tent above were poking out. And it was such a beautiful day. As the sun began to set, we walked back through the cove to the entrance where our car was and brought the remainder of our things to our campsite. More campers had begun showing up and pitching their own tents around the cove, and I started to take stock of who else was camping at the cove that night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One campsite was a group of white high school boys with their one Asian friend. At another site was a group of men drinking beers who gave off a bachelor party in the wilderness vibes. I couldn’t help but notice that there weren’t any other women around or any people of color for that matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>With the exception of the one Asian kid. And I started to become painfully aware of my body. To get anywhere. To and from our campsite. We have to pass by Battery Kirby and our chalk messages written in huge letters. But every time we passed it, there was this dread that I could not shake. I just couldn’t bear to look at it. Something inside of me was deeply paranoid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I worried we’d find our messages defaced with either some hateful message or maybe even a Nazi symbol. Something to tell me that someone who doesn’t agree with stopping Asian hate would be here. Something to prove that maybe my dad was right, that I should have just stayed home. And whether these were legitimate fears or not. I started to regret what we wrote on the battery walls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Writing those messages had woken something up in me. They were reminders of the thoughts and feelings I had spent the week shoving to the back of my mind in the wilderness. Your sense of safety is warped when you’re a woman and when you’re out of the house, period. In March of 2021, your sense of safety as an Asian person is warped to. I kept these thoughts to myself, though. I tried over and over again to ignore them. By this point the sun had set and the city was glowing. The other side of our campsite was pitch black. I didn’t want any of these feelings to ruin the trip, so I stuck to the itinerary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’d printed out the New York Times’s 36 Questions that lead to Love before the trip. Me and Rochelle had planned to do this activity together after dinner. According to the preamble to the questions, the idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness. And I learned things about Rochelle that I didn’t know before. I learned that she has a secret hunch about how shall die, that she thinks I am a generous person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We talked about facts about our lives that we forgot were actually wild coincidences like the fact that our dads are from the same town in the Philippines, that they both had three daughters and that we were both the boon souls or the youngest. And how wild it was that the universe had brought their daughters together on this cliff. At that moment, we talked about her mom’s death when we were just freshman in high school, how I didn’t always know how to be helpful after that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>You apologized for like not knowing what to say during that at the time that my mom passed. But it was also like I didn’t expect anything from it when we were 14 because we were so young. And like, it’s something about, like, I never want you to experience. So it was okay. You know, I just appreciated you being here. And I think I like thanked you for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It was the kind of conversation with your best friend that grounds you and brings you back to Earth. The kind of conversation that feels like yet another chapter for two friends just growing up and figuring out how to do life together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>It just felt like our own little, like, therapy session. And just talking about those things with you as my best friend, it just it felt good. It just felt like I got a lot off my chest, my shoulders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I only mentioned my fear and paranoia to Rochelle once. That night she asked me if it was because of the people that we pass by on our way back to the campsite. She knew. She sounded so sure when she said that we were going to be okay, and that comforted me. But I didn’t sleep at all that night. Instead, I gamed out an escape from our spot on the cliff in case someone tried to enter our tent. I even imagined waking up to a group of white men lounging in our chairs and helping themselves to all of our food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Every rustle in the leaves made my heart stop. Rosen’s brother in law slipped a knife in her bag just in case. But we accidentally left it inside of the lockbox that secures our food from wild animals. And it was dozens of feet away from our tent. I tried to focus on the sound of the ocean, but I probably slept a total of three hours that night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>We woke up pretty early. I felt like 7 a.m. and I remember, like, waking up, hearing the waves from the beach. You are already awake, I think. Mm hmm. I asked if you’re okay. And you were telling me you barely slept because you were scared from the night before. But I think just like getting out of our tent and, like, seeing that, like, everything. All our stuff was still there, you know? Mm hmm. Getting that morning sun felt really nice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When we went to the bathroom down the hill from our campsite. The group of high school boys and the bachelor party in the wilderness were all gone. We were alone again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>Like, no, no cars, nothing. Like not even a tent was there? Yeah, it was also just like a relief. Like, I guess that we were safe. Mm hmm. That was, like, the main thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Me and Rochelle ate ramen for breakfast and took in the final hours of the most amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge before it was time to pack up and go home. A week later, I processed our camping trip in therapy. I told my therapist I’d never felt so out of control of my own mind and body. She told me that what I’d experienced was a trauma response, a direct result of my job as a journalist, and a likely culmination of all the information I was consuming about the shooting in Atlanta and the attacks on Asian people leading up to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It was the first time I really cried about what happened to Atlanta. In journalism school, you don’t really learn about the psychological impact of this work or how to mitigate it. And when it’s your community under attack, how do you stop yourself from having big feelings about the story? How do you compartmentalize that? For black, native, Latin, X and Asian journalists. We’re expected to do this every day under the guise of objectivity, when what we really mean to say is the guise of whiteness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>After the Atlanta shooting, Asian journalists reported being told by their superiors that they weren’t allowed to cover the story for fear that Asian reporters couldn’t cover it fairly. By telling journalists of color to remove ourselves from stories. It’s asking us to whitewash them. When in reality our experiences, our hurt, our pain and our fear only illuminate the truth. It wasn’t until weeks later that mean Rochelle developed our film from the trip. When I got the photos back, I was floored. How is it that all I see? Is joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>One of my favorite pictures from the. It was a picture of you. You’re just facing the ocean. And in front of you was the Golden Gate Bridge. You can see faintly the Bay Bridge. I feel like we both captured, like, not just like the beauty of like, curvy cool, but like the beauty of, of us and like each other. Just like looking at those pictures. I was just like a very. Happy time in my life, even though we were both going through our own things. It didn’t. It didn’t show. That’s for sure. And those pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I wondered if my smiles were evidence of a sort of dissonance of how good I had gotten at compartmentalizing. But I think many things can be true at once. I’m glad that this is what I have to remember of our trip. Because they also show me that we can make art out of tragedy and pain. That when I’m afraid, fear insists that I return home to my body. That maybe this is what it looks like to return to my own body. If even for a photo, these photos remind me that it’s our friends, our family, our community who will beckon us home. That it’s them will remind us to smile for the camera. And to remember joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This story was originally written and produced for Hella Asian, a live community event hosted at KQED by the San Francisco chapter of the Asian-American Journalists Association. Thanks so much to the folks behind this live event, especially Ryan Davis, Cecilia Lei and Kristin Huang, who edited the live version of this story. This version was edited by Alan Montecillo. It was produced by me. Shout out also to producer Maria Esquinca for gathering some of the sound that you heard in this episode. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thank you so much for listening. Take care. I’ll talk to you Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": true,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 3506,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 56
},
"modified": 1700688937,
"excerpt": "Last summer, Ericka told a story live on stage at KQED, at an event hosted by the San Francisco chapter of the Asian American Journalists’ Association called “Hella Asian.” Today, we’re sharing that story again.\r\n\r\n",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "Last summer, Ericka told a story live on stage at KQED, at an event hosted by the San Francisco chapter of the Asian American Journalists’ Association called “Hella Asian.” Today, we’re sharing that story again.\r\n\r\n",
"title": "Returning to Joy: A Personal Story from Ericka | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "Returning to Joy: A Personal Story from Ericka",
"datePublished": "2023-11-20T03:00:17-08:00",
"dateModified": "2023-11-22T13:35:37-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "returning-to-joy-a-personal-story-from-ericka",
"status": "publish",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC8746648822.mp3?updated=1700258838",
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"source": "The Bay",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11967782/returning-to-joy-a-personal-story-from-ericka",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last summer, Ericka told a story live on stage at KQED, at an event hosted by the San Francisco chapter of the Asian American Journalists’ Association called “Hella Asian.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a story about a camping trip she went on with her best friend during the pandemic. It’s also a story about the mental impact of the news, and her sense of safety as attacks on Asians were in the headlines. Today, we’re sharing that story again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8746648822&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode originally aired on Aug. 8, 2022.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. So did you know that our show has made over 800 episodes? I know it’s kind of a wild number, but there are so many gems in there. And this week we’re actually going to share some of those gems from our archives. Most of our episodes are, of course, about local news here in the Bay Area, but we wanted to start off with a very different kind of episode that we made back in 2020 to that summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The San Francisco chapter of the Asian-American Journalists Association held this live community storytelling event at KQED called Hella Asian. And what you’re going to hear today is actually the story that I told before that live audience. It’s a story about a camping trip that I went on with my best friend during the pandemic. It’s also about the mental impact of journalism and the news, especially on journalists of color like myself. And it’s also a story about joy. So we’re going to share that with you today. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So back in the Myspace days, I was really into cameras and taking pictures of things. Taking pictures was a very casual hobby of mine in middle school. I would bring a digital camera to family events and just document them. And my best friend, Rochelle, she’s always been into cameras and taking pictures of things, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>In eighth grade or freshman year, you got a canon? I got a Nikon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Here’s Rochelle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>And we would just take pictures of everything and anything of each other, of our families of, you know, the car across the street. You know, just random things all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Now, a little bit about Rochelle. Rochelle and I have this matching tattoo on our arms of our childhood homes. We grew up on the same street in Sassoon City, California, in one of those suburbs where every other fourth home is the same model. Our childhood homes were identical inside and out. My favorite addendum to this fact is that we even had the same couch as kids twice. We’re also both Filipina American, so we’ve always had a lot to relate on. And photography is just another one of those things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>We rarely had pictures with each other because one was always taking pictures of the other person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Me and Rochelle have been friends for more than 20 years, and when the pandemic hit in 2020, we really didn’t see each other at all. So when the vaccine finally arrived and promised to change life in the pandemic, we got vaccine up as soon as we could and planned a camping trip. It was March of 2021. By this point, I forgot what it was like to plan things and this trip was happening all kind of last minute. But we landed on a place that we’d both never been to before. Kirby Cove in the Marin headlands. We pulled up their reservation page, and there was one available evening for late March at Campsite number one. So we booked it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>I remember we both were just talking about how stressful work was and how working from home was getting. It was getting old. I know we didn’t really see each other, so we just needed that break from. Our everyday lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Now, this was my first big trip out of the house since the start of the pandemic. As a journalist, I needed a break from the news, and Rochelle needed a break from her job as a coordinator for an after school program, which she’d been running via Zoom. We hadn’t had quality time with each other in months. We both needed this. And then Atlanta happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*audio from news clips*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>By this point, I’d seen dozens of stories and photos and videos of Asian elders being beaten and attacked. Oakland and San Francisco were the epicenters of some of the most high profile incidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>I remember during that time, like it was heavy for you. I know. For I know that like work was really stressful because of what’s because of what you just have to cover for your job. All the stories you have to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>As a producer working in local daily news, it was my job to pay attention to those things, to let them swirl in my mind and figure out how to cover them. And no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t look away. I always felt it was my responsibility and my job to bear witness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>A lot of elderly Asian people were, you know, being targeted for, you know, blaming us for, you know, Covid and the whole pandemic. And at that time, I was like living on edge, not for me, but like, for my parents. For your parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When I told my dad about me and Rochelle’s camping trip, I remember him telling me If you don’t go out, nothing bad will ever happen to you. If the six Asian women and two customers killed in Atlanta never left their homes and sure, they might not have been killed by an armed white gunman who targeted Asian businesses because of his, quote, sex addiction. Sometimes when I go out, I worry my dad will prove me right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>But as journalists, we’re not really supposed to have big feelings about the stories that we work on to cover the pain of the pandemic, the failures of our institutions, police violence, attacks on the Asian community and meet our deadlines. Compartmentalizing is a necessary skill. So I spent the week of the Atlanta shooting, shoving my feelings to the back of my mind just to get through work. And by the end of the week, I was just happy to be getting away. I parked my car for one night of camping with my best friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>When we finally got to our campsite. Man, it was very I was I was speechless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Kirby Cove is this amazing grove of cypress and eucalyptus and pine with its own private little beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>One spot that always pops up in my head was this little, like, field of calla lilies. I don’t know if you remember that. And like, the sun was just, like, hitting them from behind and like, yeah, that was just so beautiful. It was like a movie. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One of the descriptions of Kirby Cove on the official Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy website says, quote, No other beach in the world has a view like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>It just felt really nice to just be outdoors and enjoy the vitamin D and like also getting to do that with you. Cause I haven’t like, we haven’t seen each other for so long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Now to get to our campsite, you have to walk from one end of the cove to the other. Campsite number one was the furthest from the entrance. Perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge with San Francisco on the other side. It was the best campsite on the cove. And we felt lucky because for most of the day that we arrived, we were the only ones there. Me and Rochelle pitched our tent and began exploring the cove.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Around the corner from our campsite was Battery Kirby. It’s this large slab of concrete built into the hillside and used to defend the coasts during wartime before the end of World War Two. Batteries like these contained 16 inch guns that fired 2,000 pound projectiles. When we got to battery, Kirby visitors had covered these abandoned structures in chalk drawings and messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>I remember at first we we saw the chalk and we didn’t know. Like we were like, oh, what should we write on this? Because, you know, people were like the other drawings on there were like smiley faces, rainbows or like profanity or whatever. But we had this whole wall empty wall of. Like. Like a canvas. Like what could we write? You started writing. Stop AAPI hate. Because ours is the week leading to our camping trip. That was. It was. It was everywhere. Because maybe it was us also like, Hey, there are Asians here at this campground. Like, we don’t want any harm or whatever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Rochelle wrote, Love us like you love our food under my message on the battery wall and even think about it at the time. But there was so much irony in that act. Yet another example of gun violence in America commemorated on a slab of concrete that once housed weapons of war and domination. After we finished exploring the rest of the cove, we made our way down to the beach and touched the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I marveled at the cliffs walls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>There were these amazing indents in the earth that looked like stairs. The roots of the trees that shaded our tent above were poking out. And it was such a beautiful day. As the sun began to set, we walked back through the cove to the entrance where our car was and brought the remainder of our things to our campsite. More campers had begun showing up and pitching their own tents around the cove, and I started to take stock of who else was camping at the cove that night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One campsite was a group of white high school boys with their one Asian friend. At another site was a group of men drinking beers who gave off a bachelor party in the wilderness vibes. I couldn’t help but notice that there weren’t any other women around or any people of color for that matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>With the exception of the one Asian kid. And I started to become painfully aware of my body. To get anywhere. To and from our campsite. We have to pass by Battery Kirby and our chalk messages written in huge letters. But every time we passed it, there was this dread that I could not shake. I just couldn’t bear to look at it. Something inside of me was deeply paranoid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I worried we’d find our messages defaced with either some hateful message or maybe even a Nazi symbol. Something to tell me that someone who doesn’t agree with stopping Asian hate would be here. Something to prove that maybe my dad was right, that I should have just stayed home. And whether these were legitimate fears or not. I started to regret what we wrote on the battery walls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Writing those messages had woken something up in me. They were reminders of the thoughts and feelings I had spent the week shoving to the back of my mind in the wilderness. Your sense of safety is warped when you’re a woman and when you’re out of the house, period. In March of 2021, your sense of safety as an Asian person is warped to. I kept these thoughts to myself, though. I tried over and over again to ignore them. By this point the sun had set and the city was glowing. The other side of our campsite was pitch black. I didn’t want any of these feelings to ruin the trip, so I stuck to the itinerary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’d printed out the New York Times’s 36 Questions that lead to Love before the trip. Me and Rochelle had planned to do this activity together after dinner. According to the preamble to the questions, the idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness. And I learned things about Rochelle that I didn’t know before. I learned that she has a secret hunch about how shall die, that she thinks I am a generous person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We talked about facts about our lives that we forgot were actually wild coincidences like the fact that our dads are from the same town in the Philippines, that they both had three daughters and that we were both the boon souls or the youngest. And how wild it was that the universe had brought their daughters together on this cliff. At that moment, we talked about her mom’s death when we were just freshman in high school, how I didn’t always know how to be helpful after that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>You apologized for like not knowing what to say during that at the time that my mom passed. But it was also like I didn’t expect anything from it when we were 14 because we were so young. And like, it’s something about, like, I never want you to experience. So it was okay. You know, I just appreciated you being here. And I think I like thanked you for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It was the kind of conversation with your best friend that grounds you and brings you back to Earth. The kind of conversation that feels like yet another chapter for two friends just growing up and figuring out how to do life together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>It just felt like our own little, like, therapy session. And just talking about those things with you as my best friend, it just it felt good. It just felt like I got a lot off my chest, my shoulders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I only mentioned my fear and paranoia to Rochelle once. That night she asked me if it was because of the people that we pass by on our way back to the campsite. She knew. She sounded so sure when she said that we were going to be okay, and that comforted me. But I didn’t sleep at all that night. Instead, I gamed out an escape from our spot on the cliff in case someone tried to enter our tent. I even imagined waking up to a group of white men lounging in our chairs and helping themselves to all of our food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Every rustle in the leaves made my heart stop. Rosen’s brother in law slipped a knife in her bag just in case. But we accidentally left it inside of the lockbox that secures our food from wild animals. And it was dozens of feet away from our tent. I tried to focus on the sound of the ocean, but I probably slept a total of three hours that night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>We woke up pretty early. I felt like 7 a.m. and I remember, like, waking up, hearing the waves from the beach. You are already awake, I think. Mm hmm. I asked if you’re okay. And you were telling me you barely slept because you were scared from the night before. But I think just like getting out of our tent and, like, seeing that, like, everything. All our stuff was still there, you know? Mm hmm. Getting that morning sun felt really nice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>When we went to the bathroom down the hill from our campsite. The group of high school boys and the bachelor party in the wilderness were all gone. We were alone again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>Like, no, no cars, nothing. Like not even a tent was there? Yeah, it was also just like a relief. Like, I guess that we were safe. Mm hmm. That was, like, the main thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Me and Rochelle ate ramen for breakfast and took in the final hours of the most amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge before it was time to pack up and go home. A week later, I processed our camping trip in therapy. I told my therapist I’d never felt so out of control of my own mind and body. She told me that what I’d experienced was a trauma response, a direct result of my job as a journalist, and a likely culmination of all the information I was consuming about the shooting in Atlanta and the attacks on Asian people leading up to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It was the first time I really cried about what happened to Atlanta. In journalism school, you don’t really learn about the psychological impact of this work or how to mitigate it. And when it’s your community under attack, how do you stop yourself from having big feelings about the story? How do you compartmentalize that? For black, native, Latin, X and Asian journalists. We’re expected to do this every day under the guise of objectivity, when what we really mean to say is the guise of whiteness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>After the Atlanta shooting, Asian journalists reported being told by their superiors that they weren’t allowed to cover the story for fear that Asian reporters couldn’t cover it fairly. By telling journalists of color to remove ourselves from stories. It’s asking us to whitewash them. When in reality our experiences, our hurt, our pain and our fear only illuminate the truth. It wasn’t until weeks later that mean Rochelle developed our film from the trip. When I got the photos back, I was floored. How is it that all I see? Is joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rochelle: \u003c/strong>One of my favorite pictures from the. It was a picture of you. You’re just facing the ocean. And in front of you was the Golden Gate Bridge. You can see faintly the Bay Bridge. I feel like we both captured, like, not just like the beauty of like, curvy cool, but like the beauty of, of us and like each other. Just like looking at those pictures. I was just like a very. Happy time in my life, even though we were both going through our own things. It didn’t. It didn’t show. That’s for sure. And those pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I wondered if my smiles were evidence of a sort of dissonance of how good I had gotten at compartmentalizing. But I think many things can be true at once. I’m glad that this is what I have to remember of our trip. Because they also show me that we can make art out of tragedy and pain. That when I’m afraid, fear insists that I return home to my body. That maybe this is what it looks like to return to my own body. If even for a photo, these photos remind me that it’s our friends, our family, our community who will beckon us home. That it’s them will remind us to smile for the camera. And to remember joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This story was originally written and produced for Hella Asian, a live community event hosted at KQED by the San Francisco chapter of the Asian-American Journalists Association. Thanks so much to the folks behind this live event, especially Ryan Davis, Cecilia Lei and Kristin Huang, who edited the live version of this story. This version was edited by Alan Montecillo. It was produced by me. Shout out also to producer Maria Esquinca for gathering some of the sound that you heard in this episode. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thank you so much for listening. Take care. I’ll talk to you Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11967782/returning-to-joy-a-personal-story-from-ericka",
"authors": [
"8654",
"11649",
"11802"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_2670",
"news_2109",
"news_22598"
],
"featImg": "news_11967786",
"label": "source_news_11967782"
},
"news_11967633": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11967633",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11967633",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1700218825000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "heres-where-bay-area-electeds-stand-on-israels-siege-of-gaza",
"title": "Here’s Where Bay Area Electeds Stand on Israel’s Siege of Gaza",
"publishDate": 1700218825,
"format": "audio",
"headTitle": "Here’s Where Bay Area Electeds Stand on Israel’s Siege of Gaza | KQED",
"labelTerm": {},
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With thousands of people taking to the streets on either side of the issue of Israel’s siege of Gaza, how are the Bay Area’s representatives in Congress weighing their position on the issue?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC4669437820\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\">Apply to be our intern!\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong> Hey, it’s Ericka and it’s deadline day. If you want to be our intern here at the bay and help us make this show, you better get your application in. It’s 16 hours a week. Yes, it is paid. And you get to work with me. So get that app in. Check out the link in our show notes for that. All right. Here’s the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Hamas’s attack on Israel and Israel’s siege of Gaza in response has drawn thousands of people to the streets in protest. You’ll hear demands for a ceasefire and calls to bring home the Israeli hostages. You’ll also hear cries to call your reps. So amidst the protests and public outrage, how exactly are our Bay Area representatives weighing their stance in Congress?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>It’s not just what is my sort of emotional reaction to what’s happening in Gaza. It’s the broader diplomatic, political, economic and military picture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today I talk with KQED political correspondent Marisa Lagos about where the Bay Area’s representatives in Congress stand on the situation in Gaza. So, Marisa, we sent you on a little journey to see where the Bay Area’s elected leaders and our congressional delegation stands on Israel and Palestine and what’s happening in Gaza. And one person that you wanted to talk to to sort of get inside the minds of these electeds was Congressman Ro Khanna. Remind us who he is and why did you want to talk to him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Well, one, because he’s willing to talk honestly. He is one of our most accessible public officials in the Bay Area. And it’s not just that he’ll jump on the phone with you. It’s that he’s unusually sort of willing to be open about his thought processes and like answer tough questions, I would say. When he started his career, he was very much aligned with the sort of Bernie Sanders wing of the party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>But over the years in Congress, we’ve seen him become a pragmatic progressive. There’s thoughts that he might want to run for president one day. He represents Silicon Valley, and I think he often is taking a little bit of a less sort of reflexive, progressive stance, one that’s more nuanced and one that at times might sort of alienate some of his constituencies, quite frankly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, how does he describe the politics around this particular issue in this moment? This seems to be one of those thornier ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Yeah, we talked a couple of days ago, right after he had actually talked to the head of the United Nations agency that assist Palestinian refugees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>Well, it’s one of the most morally complex issues I’ve had to deal with in my seven years in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>You know, he described the October 7th attack by Hamas against Israeli citizens as brutal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>And hostages were take it said, what had to be some response to that, to hold that Israel perpetrated that act of terror accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>And I think that, you know, he was very clear in his feeling that while Israel has a right to, you know, defend itself, you cannot rationalize 500 civilian casualties in order to get to one Hamas fighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>It’s just heartbreaking to watch that devastation. I’m fighting in Gaza, 1.5 million people displaced. Today I hosted a member’s briefing with the commissioner general open where he said 60 squirrels had been hit with bombs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>So I do think that he, you know, is starting this needle and is definitely, on a personal level, very empathetic and and sort of watching very closely what is happening in Gaza to civilians there. You know, I think pretty strong language from a member of Congress. That.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>They shouldn’t be bombing on their schools. They shouldn’t be bombing mosques, churches, hospitals. And if they married Hamas terrorists, they’re off with 500 civilians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Strong language. But that being said, what has his official position been on this issue?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>He opposes a cease fire like most members of Congress. He says that he cannot make that argument.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>That’s the biggest trauma for the state of Israel since its founding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>You know, he says that Israel needs to be responding in a way that does protect civilian life. But he has pretty much rejected flatly outright calls for an actual cease fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>I mean, the United States may have agreed to a cease fire after 911.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>So what we’re hearing from folks who are protesting is that they want a cease fire now. They want an end to the shelling, the fighting. They want Israel to essentially withdraw and engage in diplomatic talks. The argument, obviously, from folks who want a cease fire is that you have more than 11,000 civilians who have been collateral damage in this horrific assault and that that is sort of the only option for actually saving lives. On the other side, you have a lot of politicians like Ro Khanna saying, no, that’s not reasonable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>They’re starting to understand that. Just psychologically, Pat And I told her, Sam said I spoke with them. It is just very. You can’t take any action against this terrorism that just happened to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Why is that? Marisa, like, how does someone like Ro Khanna, who is seeing what’s happening in Gaza and is pretty horrified by it, then how does he come to that sort of political calculation? Like what are all the things that he’s weighing here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Well, I think he’s thinking about. Both his sort of personal beliefs around this. I think he’s thinking about what a cease fire means. Obviously thinking about, you know, what’s happening in Gaza, but also from the perspective of the Israeli government and the citizens there. And, you know, how horrifying what happened on October 7th was. And so I think that he is thinking about this, you know, in the context of like how we might respond to a terror attack at home here in the U.S..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I imagine he’s also thinking about his constituents and the needs of his particular district. How does he talk about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, I think he’s definitely. Listening both to constituents who are calling and writing and protesting in the streets. I think to be clear, it’s not to say that for someone like him, he’s only hearing from constituents calling for a cease fire. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>And certainly a constituent feedback has an impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>He also, as we mentioned, represents Silicon Valley. I think that there are business, tech, military interests that align here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>There’s obviously play a role that the army military ties with Israel and it certainly has ties to Silicon Valley. Intel in my district is the largest private sector employer in Israel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>He sits on committees. He’s getting briefings that we’re not privy to likely like, those are the things that I think a lot of members of Congress are talking about that goes into this. It’s not just what is my sort of emotional reaction to what’s happening in Gaza. It’s the broader diplomatic, political, economic and military picture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, zooming out here, how does Roxana’s stance on this issue, which is to oppose a ceasefire, how does that square with the rest of the Bay Area’s congressional delegation? Are most Bay Area representatives pretty much on the same page on this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>We’ve actually seen a number of joint statements from folks like Nancy Pelosi, zoe lofgren, from the peninsula, Anna Eshoo, who also represents, you know, parts of San Jose, Silicon Valley. Many of them have made comments similar to Khanna’s, talking about the need to protect civilian life. They all have called for some sort of humanitarian pause or pauses in order to allow civilians to escape Gaza. But they almost entirely and in unity, have spoken very powerfully and strongly in support for Israel and, you know, its ability to defend itself. In some cases, it’s sort of obligation to defend itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>And I was sort of surprised. I mean, we do live in one of the most progressive regions in the United States. We have, compared to many parts of the country, a much larger both Jewish and Arab Muslim populations. And so this is definitely something that people here care about and are thinking about. We’ve seen protests there. There’s one going on as we tape this Thursday morning blocking the entire Bay Bridge. But there is not a lot of daylight between what our representatives are saying or our senators, for that matter, and the position, the official position of the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why most Bay area congressmembers oppose a ceasefire in Gaza. All except for one. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, can you maybe tick through some of the notable folks and the range of their stances on this, Marisa? And especially like the folks who are opposed to a cease fire. Why? Why is that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>I mean, Nancy Pelosi called a cease fire a gift to Hamas. Other than Joe Biden, I feel like she has spoken most personally about this issue. They’re both Catholic. They’ve spent time in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Pelosi: \u003c/strong>Mike Pappas was their head of interfaith council. And he said that that Christians, Catholics, everyone, every religion was mourning for the Israelis and sending their support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>She was on stage with us in October here at KQED and has been just absolute in her support for Israel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Pelosi: \u003c/strong>I mean, I’m not a big fan of the current government of of Israel. And all that you say is a concern. But none of it none of it makes any difference when when military force comes in and starts killing civilians and kidnaping and the rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Other members of Congress are maybe sort of less personally attached to this or just don’t have the kind of history that somebody like Nancy Pelosi does. Kevin Mullane, for example, on the peninsula, a relatively new member of Congress, he has also supported Israel defending itself. He has called for Unitarian pause. These members, whatever they’re doing, and they are steadfast in their support for the Israeli position at this point, or at least Israel’s, you know, ability to defend itself are definitely getting their own sort of incoming from their constituents. And I think, yeah, I think it’s a tough one. I think it’s a tough one for all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay. So for the most part, California’s congressional delegation is pretty lockstep on this, as you say. But there is one huge exception, and that’s Representative Barbara Lee, who represents parts of the East Bay, including Oakland. And she’s kind of a lone wolf in terms of her position on the conflict compared to the rest of the California delegation. Right. Tell me about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>She is the one member of our delegation from the Bay Area who has called for a cease fire and actually co-sponsored a resolution in Congress calling for that. You know, this fits with not just her district, but Barbara Lee is sort of historic positioning when it comes to conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barbara Lee: \u003c/strong>Mr. Speaker, members, I rise today really with a very heavy heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>She is probably best known as the only member of Congress who voted against military authorized resolution right after 911.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barbara Lee: \u003c/strong>September 11th changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States. This is a very complex…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>You know, she explicitly said that what happened was horrific, but she did not believe that our action was going to make it less likely that somebody would attack us again. You could sort of superimpose that argument on to what is happening now that folks who support a cease fire believe that what the Israeli military is doing in Gaza is actually sort of making the situation more dynamic, more likely to cause harm to civilians, and that she just does not, you know, see that as the right call from a military diplomatic perspective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, it’s so interesting to sort of get a sense of all the different ways our representatives are sort of weighing their decisions and how they’re making them and how they’re navigating it. But one thing I find really interesting is that there are so many things, Marissa, that I feel like divide Democrats and Republicans, but this issue doesn’t seem to divide them all that much at all. But the divide that I feel like I am seeing is happening within the Democratic Party specifically. Is that an accurate way to think about this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>100%, I mean, when you look at the actual voters, if you look at the public, Democrats are pretty split. So NPR, PBS actually put out a poll just this week. When you just ask about their sympathies in the conflict, it was evenly split between Israel and Palestinian groups. Even more striking is that you have more than half of Democrats saying that Israel’s response so far has been too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>That’s 56%. And Democrats, meanwhile, around 52% of Republicans say it’s been about right. I think that in general policy in the U.S. since essentially Israel’s founding, has been in support of Israel. I mean, since essentially 1948, we have seen in general a pretty strong sort of American policy towards not just supporting Israel from a diplomatic perspective, but giving it money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Janine Zacharia: \u003c/strong>When I was in Washington and long before that, that Israel pretty much enjoyed bipartisan support for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>I talked to Janine Zacharia. She’s a Stanford lecturer. She is a former Washington Post Jerusalem bureau chief. And she talked about the fact that there is a real sea change, particularly among Democrats, when we talk about this issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Janine Zacharia: \u003c/strong>And she didn’t have anybody so forcefully or really at all saying that this was a kind of a legitimate resistance the way that you had after the October 7th massacres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Young people, people who are not white people who are under the age of 45 are far more likely to say that Israel’s response has been too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Janine Zacharia: \u003c/strong>On the Democratic side, there has become a splintering on this issue. That feels new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what is this all going to mean moving forward, Marissa, that we are seeing some of these fissures and these splits among Democrats on this issue, especially with the election?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>You know, I don’t see that this issue is going to threaten any individual member of Congress in the Bay Area. Like everything in politics, these folks are going to be defending their record on a wide variety of issues from the economy, how they’re dealing with issues here at home, homelessness and affordability, all those things. In general, people are not one issue voters for, you know, that type of office. That’s not to say nobody will take this into account and choose to change their vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>But I haven’t seen any like, you know, real, you know, challenging from sort of well-funded, serious candidates to any of these people. I think for Joe Biden, it’s an open question. And I think this gets back to sort of this question of like, does it all matter? Does the protests matter? Does the calling of your representative matter? We have seen the language of even President Biden shift significantly over recent weeks as Israel’s response has gotten more intense and has caused so many civilian casualties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Biden: \u003c/strong>You have a circumstance where the first war crimes being committed by Hamas, by having their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital. And that’s a fact. That’s what’s happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Just Wednesday night in the Bay Area. The president defended Israel’s assault on a hospital in Gaza. But he’s also talking very forcefully about, in the long run, a two state solution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Biden: \u003c/strong>But I can tell you, I don’t think it all ends until there’s a two state solution. I made it clear to the Israelis, I think it’s a big mistake for them to think they’re going to occupy Gaza and maintain Gaza. I don’t think that works. And so I think you’re going to see first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Everyone I talked to from, you know, the congressmen to these experts at Stanford said that is in part because of what the public is saying and doing. Right. Like, I don’t think they’re going to change the American position towards Israel overnight. But I do think that if you are in elected office, you are looking around and seeing where the public is. And you’re going to, if not switch your position immediately, at least be taking that into account as things moves forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Marissa, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>My pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Marisa Lagos, a political correspondent for KQED and co-host of the Political Breakdown podcast. By the way, KQED has got a whole guide on how to call your representative. You can find it at kqed.org/explainers. This 35 minute conversation with Marisa was cut down, edited and produced by Maria Esquinca. I pitched this episode, scored it, and added all the tape. Guy Marzorati was our editor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The rest of our podcast team at KQED includes Jen Chien, art director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager, Cesar Saldana, our podcast engagement producer, Maha Sanad, our podcast Engagement Intern. And Holly Kernan, our Chief Content Officer. And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thank you so much for listening this week. Hope you all have a restful weekend. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "How are the Bay Area’s representatives in Congress weighing their position on what's happening in Gaza?",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1721129563,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": true,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 72,
"wordCount": 3363
},
"headData": {
"title": "Here’s Where Bay Area Electeds Stand on Israel’s Siege of Gaza | KQED",
"description": "How are the Bay Area’s representatives in Congress weighing their position on what's happening in Gaza?",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "Here’s Where Bay Area Electeds Stand on Israel’s Siege of Gaza",
"datePublished": "2023-11-17T03:00:25-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-07-16T04:32:43-07:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"source": "The Bay",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC4669437820.mp3",
"sticky": false,
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11967633/heres-where-bay-area-electeds-stand-on-israels-siege-of-gaza",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With thousands of people taking to the streets on either side of the issue of Israel’s siege of Gaza, how are the Bay Area’s representatives in Congress weighing their position on the issue?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC4669437820\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\">Apply to be our intern!\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong> Hey, it’s Ericka and it’s deadline day. If you want to be our intern here at the bay and help us make this show, you better get your application in. It’s 16 hours a week. Yes, it is paid. And you get to work with me. So get that app in. Check out the link in our show notes for that. All right. Here’s the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Hamas’s attack on Israel and Israel’s siege of Gaza in response has drawn thousands of people to the streets in protest. You’ll hear demands for a ceasefire and calls to bring home the Israeli hostages. You’ll also hear cries to call your reps. So amidst the protests and public outrage, how exactly are our Bay Area representatives weighing their stance in Congress?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>It’s not just what is my sort of emotional reaction to what’s happening in Gaza. It’s the broader diplomatic, political, economic and military picture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today I talk with KQED political correspondent Marisa Lagos about where the Bay Area’s representatives in Congress stand on the situation in Gaza. So, Marisa, we sent you on a little journey to see where the Bay Area’s elected leaders and our congressional delegation stands on Israel and Palestine and what’s happening in Gaza. And one person that you wanted to talk to to sort of get inside the minds of these electeds was Congressman Ro Khanna. Remind us who he is and why did you want to talk to him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Well, one, because he’s willing to talk honestly. He is one of our most accessible public officials in the Bay Area. And it’s not just that he’ll jump on the phone with you. It’s that he’s unusually sort of willing to be open about his thought processes and like answer tough questions, I would say. When he started his career, he was very much aligned with the sort of Bernie Sanders wing of the party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>But over the years in Congress, we’ve seen him become a pragmatic progressive. There’s thoughts that he might want to run for president one day. He represents Silicon Valley, and I think he often is taking a little bit of a less sort of reflexive, progressive stance, one that’s more nuanced and one that at times might sort of alienate some of his constituencies, quite frankly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, how does he describe the politics around this particular issue in this moment? This seems to be one of those thornier ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Yeah, we talked a couple of days ago, right after he had actually talked to the head of the United Nations agency that assist Palestinian refugees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>Well, it’s one of the most morally complex issues I’ve had to deal with in my seven years in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>You know, he described the October 7th attack by Hamas against Israeli citizens as brutal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>And hostages were take it said, what had to be some response to that, to hold that Israel perpetrated that act of terror accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>And I think that, you know, he was very clear in his feeling that while Israel has a right to, you know, defend itself, you cannot rationalize 500 civilian casualties in order to get to one Hamas fighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>It’s just heartbreaking to watch that devastation. I’m fighting in Gaza, 1.5 million people displaced. Today I hosted a member’s briefing with the commissioner general open where he said 60 squirrels had been hit with bombs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>So I do think that he, you know, is starting this needle and is definitely, on a personal level, very empathetic and and sort of watching very closely what is happening in Gaza to civilians there. You know, I think pretty strong language from a member of Congress. That.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>They shouldn’t be bombing on their schools. They shouldn’t be bombing mosques, churches, hospitals. And if they married Hamas terrorists, they’re off with 500 civilians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Strong language. But that being said, what has his official position been on this issue?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>He opposes a cease fire like most members of Congress. He says that he cannot make that argument.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>That’s the biggest trauma for the state of Israel since its founding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>You know, he says that Israel needs to be responding in a way that does protect civilian life. But he has pretty much rejected flatly outright calls for an actual cease fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>I mean, the United States may have agreed to a cease fire after 911.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>So what we’re hearing from folks who are protesting is that they want a cease fire now. They want an end to the shelling, the fighting. They want Israel to essentially withdraw and engage in diplomatic talks. The argument, obviously, from folks who want a cease fire is that you have more than 11,000 civilians who have been collateral damage in this horrific assault and that that is sort of the only option for actually saving lives. On the other side, you have a lot of politicians like Ro Khanna saying, no, that’s not reasonable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>They’re starting to understand that. Just psychologically, Pat And I told her, Sam said I spoke with them. It is just very. You can’t take any action against this terrorism that just happened to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Why is that? Marisa, like, how does someone like Ro Khanna, who is seeing what’s happening in Gaza and is pretty horrified by it, then how does he come to that sort of political calculation? Like what are all the things that he’s weighing here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Well, I think he’s thinking about. Both his sort of personal beliefs around this. I think he’s thinking about what a cease fire means. Obviously thinking about, you know, what’s happening in Gaza, but also from the perspective of the Israeli government and the citizens there. And, you know, how horrifying what happened on October 7th was. And so I think that he is thinking about this, you know, in the context of like how we might respond to a terror attack at home here in the U.S..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I imagine he’s also thinking about his constituents and the needs of his particular district. How does he talk about that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, I think he’s definitely. Listening both to constituents who are calling and writing and protesting in the streets. I think to be clear, it’s not to say that for someone like him, he’s only hearing from constituents calling for a cease fire. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>And certainly a constituent feedback has an impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>He also, as we mentioned, represents Silicon Valley. I think that there are business, tech, military interests that align here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ro Khanna: \u003c/strong>There’s obviously play a role that the army military ties with Israel and it certainly has ties to Silicon Valley. Intel in my district is the largest private sector employer in Israel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>He sits on committees. He’s getting briefings that we’re not privy to likely like, those are the things that I think a lot of members of Congress are talking about that goes into this. It’s not just what is my sort of emotional reaction to what’s happening in Gaza. It’s the broader diplomatic, political, economic and military picture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, zooming out here, how does Roxana’s stance on this issue, which is to oppose a ceasefire, how does that square with the rest of the Bay Area’s congressional delegation? Are most Bay Area representatives pretty much on the same page on this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>We’ve actually seen a number of joint statements from folks like Nancy Pelosi, zoe lofgren, from the peninsula, Anna Eshoo, who also represents, you know, parts of San Jose, Silicon Valley. Many of them have made comments similar to Khanna’s, talking about the need to protect civilian life. They all have called for some sort of humanitarian pause or pauses in order to allow civilians to escape Gaza. But they almost entirely and in unity, have spoken very powerfully and strongly in support for Israel and, you know, its ability to defend itself. In some cases, it’s sort of obligation to defend itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>And I was sort of surprised. I mean, we do live in one of the most progressive regions in the United States. We have, compared to many parts of the country, a much larger both Jewish and Arab Muslim populations. And so this is definitely something that people here care about and are thinking about. We’ve seen protests there. There’s one going on as we tape this Thursday morning blocking the entire Bay Bridge. But there is not a lot of daylight between what our representatives are saying or our senators, for that matter, and the position, the official position of the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why most Bay area congressmembers oppose a ceasefire in Gaza. All except for one. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, can you maybe tick through some of the notable folks and the range of their stances on this, Marisa? And especially like the folks who are opposed to a cease fire. Why? Why is that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>I mean, Nancy Pelosi called a cease fire a gift to Hamas. Other than Joe Biden, I feel like she has spoken most personally about this issue. They’re both Catholic. They’ve spent time in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Pelosi: \u003c/strong>Mike Pappas was their head of interfaith council. And he said that that Christians, Catholics, everyone, every religion was mourning for the Israelis and sending their support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>She was on stage with us in October here at KQED and has been just absolute in her support for Israel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nancy Pelosi: \u003c/strong>I mean, I’m not a big fan of the current government of of Israel. And all that you say is a concern. But none of it none of it makes any difference when when military force comes in and starts killing civilians and kidnaping and the rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Other members of Congress are maybe sort of less personally attached to this or just don’t have the kind of history that somebody like Nancy Pelosi does. Kevin Mullane, for example, on the peninsula, a relatively new member of Congress, he has also supported Israel defending itself. He has called for Unitarian pause. These members, whatever they’re doing, and they are steadfast in their support for the Israeli position at this point, or at least Israel’s, you know, ability to defend itself are definitely getting their own sort of incoming from their constituents. And I think, yeah, I think it’s a tough one. I think it’s a tough one for all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay. So for the most part, California’s congressional delegation is pretty lockstep on this, as you say. But there is one huge exception, and that’s Representative Barbara Lee, who represents parts of the East Bay, including Oakland. And she’s kind of a lone wolf in terms of her position on the conflict compared to the rest of the California delegation. Right. Tell me about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>She is the one member of our delegation from the Bay Area who has called for a cease fire and actually co-sponsored a resolution in Congress calling for that. You know, this fits with not just her district, but Barbara Lee is sort of historic positioning when it comes to conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barbara Lee: \u003c/strong>Mr. Speaker, members, I rise today really with a very heavy heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>She is probably best known as the only member of Congress who voted against military authorized resolution right after 911.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barbara Lee: \u003c/strong>September 11th changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States. This is a very complex…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>You know, she explicitly said that what happened was horrific, but she did not believe that our action was going to make it less likely that somebody would attack us again. You could sort of superimpose that argument on to what is happening now that folks who support a cease fire believe that what the Israeli military is doing in Gaza is actually sort of making the situation more dynamic, more likely to cause harm to civilians, and that she just does not, you know, see that as the right call from a military diplomatic perspective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, it’s so interesting to sort of get a sense of all the different ways our representatives are sort of weighing their decisions and how they’re making them and how they’re navigating it. But one thing I find really interesting is that there are so many things, Marissa, that I feel like divide Democrats and Republicans, but this issue doesn’t seem to divide them all that much at all. But the divide that I feel like I am seeing is happening within the Democratic Party specifically. Is that an accurate way to think about this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>100%, I mean, when you look at the actual voters, if you look at the public, Democrats are pretty split. So NPR, PBS actually put out a poll just this week. When you just ask about their sympathies in the conflict, it was evenly split between Israel and Palestinian groups. Even more striking is that you have more than half of Democrats saying that Israel’s response so far has been too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>That’s 56%. And Democrats, meanwhile, around 52% of Republicans say it’s been about right. I think that in general policy in the U.S. since essentially Israel’s founding, has been in support of Israel. I mean, since essentially 1948, we have seen in general a pretty strong sort of American policy towards not just supporting Israel from a diplomatic perspective, but giving it money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Janine Zacharia: \u003c/strong>When I was in Washington and long before that, that Israel pretty much enjoyed bipartisan support for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>I talked to Janine Zacharia. She’s a Stanford lecturer. She is a former Washington Post Jerusalem bureau chief. And she talked about the fact that there is a real sea change, particularly among Democrats, when we talk about this issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Janine Zacharia: \u003c/strong>And she didn’t have anybody so forcefully or really at all saying that this was a kind of a legitimate resistance the way that you had after the October 7th massacres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Young people, people who are not white people who are under the age of 45 are far more likely to say that Israel’s response has been too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Janine Zacharia: \u003c/strong>On the Democratic side, there has become a splintering on this issue. That feels new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what is this all going to mean moving forward, Marissa, that we are seeing some of these fissures and these splits among Democrats on this issue, especially with the election?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>You know, I don’t see that this issue is going to threaten any individual member of Congress in the Bay Area. Like everything in politics, these folks are going to be defending their record on a wide variety of issues from the economy, how they’re dealing with issues here at home, homelessness and affordability, all those things. In general, people are not one issue voters for, you know, that type of office. That’s not to say nobody will take this into account and choose to change their vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>But I haven’t seen any like, you know, real, you know, challenging from sort of well-funded, serious candidates to any of these people. I think for Joe Biden, it’s an open question. And I think this gets back to sort of this question of like, does it all matter? Does the protests matter? Does the calling of your representative matter? We have seen the language of even President Biden shift significantly over recent weeks as Israel’s response has gotten more intense and has caused so many civilian casualties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Biden: \u003c/strong>You have a circumstance where the first war crimes being committed by Hamas, by having their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital. And that’s a fact. That’s what’s happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Just Wednesday night in the Bay Area. The president defended Israel’s assault on a hospital in Gaza. But he’s also talking very forcefully about, in the long run, a two state solution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joe Biden: \u003c/strong>But I can tell you, I don’t think it all ends until there’s a two state solution. I made it clear to the Israelis, I think it’s a big mistake for them to think they’re going to occupy Gaza and maintain Gaza. I don’t think that works. And so I think you’re going to see first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>Everyone I talked to from, you know, the congressmen to these experts at Stanford said that is in part because of what the public is saying and doing. Right. Like, I don’t think they’re going to change the American position towards Israel overnight. But I do think that if you are in elected office, you are looking around and seeing where the public is. And you’re going to, if not switch your position immediately, at least be taking that into account as things moves forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Marissa, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos: \u003c/strong>My pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Marisa Lagos, a political correspondent for KQED and co-host of the Political Breakdown podcast. By the way, KQED has got a whole guide on how to call your representative. You can find it at kqed.org/explainers. This 35 minute conversation with Marisa was cut down, edited and produced by Maria Esquinca. I pitched this episode, scored it, and added all the tape. Guy Marzorati was our editor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The rest of our podcast team at KQED includes Jen Chien, art director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager, Cesar Saldana, our podcast engagement producer, Maha Sanad, our podcast Engagement Intern. And Holly Kernan, our Chief Content Officer. And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thank you so much for listening this week. Hope you all have a restful weekend. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11967633/heres-where-bay-area-electeds-stand-on-israels-siege-of-gaza",
"authors": [
"8654",
"3239",
"11802",
"227"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_30358",
"news_6631",
"news_33333",
"news_177",
"news_22598"
],
"featImg": "news_11967684",
"label": "source_news_11967633"
},
"news_11967317": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11967317",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11967317",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1700046015000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1700046015,
"format": "audio",
"title": "A Music Class is Helping Farmworkers Heal in Half Moon Bay",
"headTitle": "A Music Class is Helping Farmworkers Heal in Half Moon Bay | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In January, a gunman killed 7 farmworkers at two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay. Months later, one community group has been trying to use accordion classes as a way to help farmworkers heal from the trauma.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\">Apply to be our intern!\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2503620378&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Hey, it’s Ericka. Quick little note. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity to help us make this show. The internship runs from January through June of 2024. So if you’ve got love for local news, the Bay Area and podcasting. Let’s chat. The deadline to apply is November 17th. We’ll give you a link to the application in our show notes. All right. Here’s the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Most Wednesday nights inside of a red barn in Half Moon Bay, you can hear the sound of farm workers learning how to play the accordion together. It’s a way to learn something new and spend time with people, but it’s also a form of therapy. Back in January, a gunman made his way through two farms, just like this one in Half Moon Bay, killing seven farm workers and completely rocking the community. And even though the camera crews are long gone, the pain of what happened here still lives on, which is why one community group has set up this small program to help these farmworkers heal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>You know, I think that music elevates a soul. It speaks to the soul. It brings in memories of harm, calls to the joy. Sadness, too. But it’s also like a central language, I think, of healing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, we take you inside the program in Half Moon Bay that’s offering healing through music. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So I went to Cabrillo Farms and Half Moon Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Blanca Torres is a producer and reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>It’s right off Highway one. I drive down this dirt road and it’s lined by fields on each side, and there’s all this beautiful produce growing out of the ground. I arrived at this barn, you know, it’s just a regular farm. So I went to real farms to observe a music class for farm workers that was sponsored by Atlas, which stands for Uganda Latinos as one year, which means helping Latinos dream. And the idea behind the class was to provide, you know, not just accordion lessons, but also music therapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>One by one, the students started coming in for the lesson and they are carrying these big black, bulky backpacks. And inside is their accordions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>And it was immediately kind of a very convivial atmosphere. Like everyone was excited to see each other. But you could tell people were excited to be there for the music and to see each other and to to have these, you know, this experience together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So you went to Half Moon Bay to see about this program. How did it come about and what is the purpose of it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>You know, ALAS’ intention with it was to use music as therapy and to help students who normally wouldn’t have access to a music class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>ALAS was born from the cultural arts. We were born from political mariachi music celebration, Cultura.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>And so Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga is the founder and executive director of Ayudando Latinos A Soñar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>And we really believe in the power of cultural good to like culture as healing. I’m a clinician, so I do mental health therapy, and we understand that mental health is a big part of our program, along with the cultural arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>You know, she has made it very clear that the intention is to to use music, not just as this is a fun pastime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>The sensory part of it is so important. We know that in order to heal trauma there, they say that one of the best ways of healing trauma is through sensory integration, and they do a lot of sensory work for trauma survivors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>And after the mass shooting in January, Alaska is really trying to think of ways to address the community trauma and to actually bring a program into the fields directly and to connect their labor, you know, their daily existence with art and culture in a way that would promote healing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>They’re going out, working the fields, coming home, eating, getting dressed, and then practicing. And so just thinking about how that stimulating them, too, is really impressive. And for us in this work, we see how they’re moving their fingers or having to think in different ways from, you know, stretching out the accordion sound, the music, the scales. It’s a lot that happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, tell me a little bit about some of the people in the class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So the classes, six students, which they told me was on purpose so that it would be a sizable group, but enough that the instructor could focus on each student. And so some of the students in the class were. The youngest one I talked to is 22 years old. There was someone who was into his sixties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>I talked to Yesenia, who lives and works at Gabriel Farms and is a mom and was just really excited to learn to play music so that she could just play her accordion during family gatherings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>Most of the students I talked to had never even picked up an accordion or any instrument. One of those students who had had no musical experience was Pedro Romero Perez, who is a survivor of the mass shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pedro Romero Perez: \u003c/strong>*speaking in Spanish*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>He’s recovering. He’s actually not working right now because of, you know, his healing process. And he did express a lot of appreciation for the program. And, you know, when I asked him, how do you feel about being here, he said he was excited and that it was this calm moment. You know, having these weekly classes was like an opportunity for him to not be at home, to be around other people, to kind of focus on something else besides what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pedro Romero Perez: \u003c/strong>*speaking in Spanish*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>About a week before I visited, ALAS had coordinated a community altar for Delos Martos, and he had put up an altar for his brother who passed away during the shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This class is a direct result of the shooting that happened in January. I feel like I totally understand, like the role and idea of music being healing, but why the accordion specifically? Why accordion classes?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So the accordion is a very integral instrument in Mexican music in a lot of different genres. A lot of the students in the class are from Mexico, and these classes were specifically focusing on like norteno music, which is literally means like music from the north and is a specific genre of Mexican music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>But you hear accordion music and popular music and just different genres. So the accordion is a very familiar sound. So when Alan was designing this classic specifically, we’re thinking about how to make it feel comforting and make it reminiscent of home. And, you know, for the music to feel like something you would want to listen to or play when you’re just hanging out with your family on a Sunday afternoon or something like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hernan Hernandez Jr: \u003c/strong>It’s that instrument that’s we can say very much that it’s our own. It’s our it’s our instrument, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So the instructor is Hernan Hernandez Jr, and his father is one of the members of Lost Egress and Northway, which is a huge Nathaniel band in Mexico. They’ve sold over 36 million records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, for for folks who aren’t familiar with his family’s background, you described it to me yesterday as being like having the son of Mick Jagger teaching you the accordion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>I know. The reason I compared him to sort of being a spy on a like a pretty major band, like The Rolling Stones. I mean, I think that’s, you know, that little sticky desert. They’re just so big in Mexico and they’ve been around for so many decades and had so many hits and and they’ve been around for something like 50 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hernan Hernandez Jr: \u003c/strong>My dad and my uncles are kind of that that tortured that light for it for their people, you know. And so he they kind of always instilled that into us. You know, it doesn’t matter at the end of the day where you come from, we come into this world with nothing and we leave this world with nothing. We’re all born the same way. We all have the same type of blood. And what’s important is that we give back to our people. And so I think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>They actually did a fundraiser for us after the shooting, and that was one of his introductions to to the organization. And so our last thing came to him and said, you know, will you teach this class? And he had never taught music classes, but he was he jumped at it because he just thought it would be a really great opportunity to give back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what does Hernan say about what he’s seen as an instructor? And I guess like the role that he sees music playing for the students that he’s that he’s teaching in Half Moon Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>I think for Hernan you know, he talked about how, you know, just spending time with the students and getting to know them and getting to know their stories and just seeing their progress. Right. And it’s not like they’re all trying to be professional musicians or anything like that, but just to see them grow so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hernan Hernandez Jr: \u003c/strong>You know, like I said, just anyone who lives here on the farm has two kids and and they’re in there with us learning accordion as well. And they’re listening and they’re watching. And and it’s cool to really just kind of see that, you know, like there’s something that like, like my father showed me pass it down to me, his uncles pass it down to him. And we’re kind of doing the same thing for this next generations, you know, even if they don’t decide to pursue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>The happiness, the satisfaction that you get from seeing that progress as a student and for him as a as an instructor, you know, he talked about how that was that was really special for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hernan Hernandez Jr: \u003c/strong>And as Latinos, I think that’s kind of what our community is lacking opportunities. And so that to me is what I see here. You know, this is a great opportunity for them to be able to learn something new, open their minds to something new. And even if it’s not according, that’s going to do it, but or music, but it will guide them into something new and something positive. And at the end of the day, that’s really what we’re trying to do just create a positive environment for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So at one point they wanted to engage in a song and so and non started playing upward. The Nagra, which is a famous song. Everyone was singing along because everyone knows the song.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>And it’s actually a song about a couple where the parents of the young woman in this couple are keeping her from her love. And the leopard going negative means the black door. In the black door is like a metaphor for the parents keeping her from her true love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What is your biggest takeaway from this story?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So I grew up in an agricultural community in eastern Washington, and I actually when I was a kid, my dad, who worked full time at a potato processing plant, sometimes when he would have summer vacation, he would take me and my siblings out to the cherry harvest, which was during the summer, just to kind of show us like this is what agricultural work is like. This is what it’s like to work with your hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>We want our strawberries to cost $2 at the supermarket, but somebody had to pick that by hand. That’s honest, decent work that people are doing and should be well compensated for and should be treated as full people. Farm workers aren’t just here to get up at the break of dawn to pick our food, right? They also have interests and families and hobbies and trauma that they’re dealing with and deserve to to also, you know, not be forgotten once the headlines go away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Blanca, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>Thank you, Ericka. And the whole Bay team. This was really fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Blanca Torres, a producer and reporter for KQED. This 28 minute conversation with Blanca was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Maria Esquinca is our producer. She scored this episode and added all the tape. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. And if you’re not already subscribed to our show on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is, you’re listening, so you never miss a beat. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": true,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 2487,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 54
},
"modified": 1700688950,
"excerpt": "A community group has been trying to use accordion classes to help Half Moon Bay farmworkers heal from the trauma of January's mass shooting.",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "A community group has been trying to use accordion classes to help Half Moon Bay farmworkers heal from the trauma of January's mass shooting.",
"title": "A Music Class is Helping Farmworkers Heal in Half Moon Bay | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "A Music Class is Helping Farmworkers Heal in Half Moon Bay",
"datePublished": "2023-11-15T03:00:15-08:00",
"dateModified": "2023-11-22T13:35:50-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "a-music-class-is-helping-farmworkers-heal-in-half-moon-bay",
"status": "publish",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC2503620378.mp3?updated=1700001812",
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"source": "The Bay",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11967317/a-music-class-is-helping-farmworkers-heal-in-half-moon-bay",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In January, a gunman killed 7 farmworkers at two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay. Months later, one community group has been trying to use accordion classes as a way to help farmworkers heal from the trauma.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\">Apply to be our intern!\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2503620378&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Hey, it’s Ericka. Quick little note. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity to help us make this show. The internship runs from January through June of 2024. So if you’ve got love for local news, the Bay Area and podcasting. Let’s chat. The deadline to apply is November 17th. We’ll give you a link to the application in our show notes. All right. Here’s the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Most Wednesday nights inside of a red barn in Half Moon Bay, you can hear the sound of farm workers learning how to play the accordion together. It’s a way to learn something new and spend time with people, but it’s also a form of therapy. Back in January, a gunman made his way through two farms, just like this one in Half Moon Bay, killing seven farm workers and completely rocking the community. And even though the camera crews are long gone, the pain of what happened here still lives on, which is why one community group has set up this small program to help these farmworkers heal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>You know, I think that music elevates a soul. It speaks to the soul. It brings in memories of harm, calls to the joy. Sadness, too. But it’s also like a central language, I think, of healing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, we take you inside the program in Half Moon Bay that’s offering healing through music. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So I went to Cabrillo Farms and Half Moon Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Blanca Torres is a producer and reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>It’s right off Highway one. I drive down this dirt road and it’s lined by fields on each side, and there’s all this beautiful produce growing out of the ground. I arrived at this barn, you know, it’s just a regular farm. So I went to real farms to observe a music class for farm workers that was sponsored by Atlas, which stands for Uganda Latinos as one year, which means helping Latinos dream. And the idea behind the class was to provide, you know, not just accordion lessons, but also music therapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>One by one, the students started coming in for the lesson and they are carrying these big black, bulky backpacks. And inside is their accordions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>And it was immediately kind of a very convivial atmosphere. Like everyone was excited to see each other. But you could tell people were excited to be there for the music and to see each other and to to have these, you know, this experience together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So you went to Half Moon Bay to see about this program. How did it come about and what is the purpose of it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>You know, ALAS’ intention with it was to use music as therapy and to help students who normally wouldn’t have access to a music class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>ALAS was born from the cultural arts. We were born from political mariachi music celebration, Cultura.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>And so Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga is the founder and executive director of Ayudando Latinos A Soñar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>And we really believe in the power of cultural good to like culture as healing. I’m a clinician, so I do mental health therapy, and we understand that mental health is a big part of our program, along with the cultural arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>You know, she has made it very clear that the intention is to to use music, not just as this is a fun pastime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>The sensory part of it is so important. We know that in order to heal trauma there, they say that one of the best ways of healing trauma is through sensory integration, and they do a lot of sensory work for trauma survivors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>And after the mass shooting in January, Alaska is really trying to think of ways to address the community trauma and to actually bring a program into the fields directly and to connect their labor, you know, their daily existence with art and culture in a way that would promote healing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga: \u003c/strong>They’re going out, working the fields, coming home, eating, getting dressed, and then practicing. And so just thinking about how that stimulating them, too, is really impressive. And for us in this work, we see how they’re moving their fingers or having to think in different ways from, you know, stretching out the accordion sound, the music, the scales. It’s a lot that happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, tell me a little bit about some of the people in the class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So the classes, six students, which they told me was on purpose so that it would be a sizable group, but enough that the instructor could focus on each student. And so some of the students in the class were. The youngest one I talked to is 22 years old. There was someone who was into his sixties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>I talked to Yesenia, who lives and works at Gabriel Farms and is a mom and was just really excited to learn to play music so that she could just play her accordion during family gatherings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>Most of the students I talked to had never even picked up an accordion or any instrument. One of those students who had had no musical experience was Pedro Romero Perez, who is a survivor of the mass shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pedro Romero Perez: \u003c/strong>*speaking in Spanish*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>He’s recovering. He’s actually not working right now because of, you know, his healing process. And he did express a lot of appreciation for the program. And, you know, when I asked him, how do you feel about being here, he said he was excited and that it was this calm moment. You know, having these weekly classes was like an opportunity for him to not be at home, to be around other people, to kind of focus on something else besides what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pedro Romero Perez: \u003c/strong>*speaking in Spanish*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>About a week before I visited, ALAS had coordinated a community altar for Delos Martos, and he had put up an altar for his brother who passed away during the shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This class is a direct result of the shooting that happened in January. I feel like I totally understand, like the role and idea of music being healing, but why the accordion specifically? Why accordion classes?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So the accordion is a very integral instrument in Mexican music in a lot of different genres. A lot of the students in the class are from Mexico, and these classes were specifically focusing on like norteno music, which is literally means like music from the north and is a specific genre of Mexican music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>But you hear accordion music and popular music and just different genres. So the accordion is a very familiar sound. So when Alan was designing this classic specifically, we’re thinking about how to make it feel comforting and make it reminiscent of home. And, you know, for the music to feel like something you would want to listen to or play when you’re just hanging out with your family on a Sunday afternoon or something like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hernan Hernandez Jr: \u003c/strong>It’s that instrument that’s we can say very much that it’s our own. It’s our it’s our instrument, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So the instructor is Hernan Hernandez Jr, and his father is one of the members of Lost Egress and Northway, which is a huge Nathaniel band in Mexico. They’ve sold over 36 million records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, for for folks who aren’t familiar with his family’s background, you described it to me yesterday as being like having the son of Mick Jagger teaching you the accordion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>I know. The reason I compared him to sort of being a spy on a like a pretty major band, like The Rolling Stones. I mean, I think that’s, you know, that little sticky desert. They’re just so big in Mexico and they’ve been around for so many decades and had so many hits and and they’ve been around for something like 50 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hernan Hernandez Jr: \u003c/strong>My dad and my uncles are kind of that that tortured that light for it for their people, you know. And so he they kind of always instilled that into us. You know, it doesn’t matter at the end of the day where you come from, we come into this world with nothing and we leave this world with nothing. We’re all born the same way. We all have the same type of blood. And what’s important is that we give back to our people. And so I think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>They actually did a fundraiser for us after the shooting, and that was one of his introductions to to the organization. And so our last thing came to him and said, you know, will you teach this class? And he had never taught music classes, but he was he jumped at it because he just thought it would be a really great opportunity to give back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, what does Hernan say about what he’s seen as an instructor? And I guess like the role that he sees music playing for the students that he’s that he’s teaching in Half Moon Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>I think for Hernan you know, he talked about how, you know, just spending time with the students and getting to know them and getting to know their stories and just seeing their progress. Right. And it’s not like they’re all trying to be professional musicians or anything like that, but just to see them grow so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hernan Hernandez Jr: \u003c/strong>You know, like I said, just anyone who lives here on the farm has two kids and and they’re in there with us learning accordion as well. And they’re listening and they’re watching. And and it’s cool to really just kind of see that, you know, like there’s something that like, like my father showed me pass it down to me, his uncles pass it down to him. And we’re kind of doing the same thing for this next generations, you know, even if they don’t decide to pursue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>The happiness, the satisfaction that you get from seeing that progress as a student and for him as a as an instructor, you know, he talked about how that was that was really special for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hernan Hernandez Jr: \u003c/strong>And as Latinos, I think that’s kind of what our community is lacking opportunities. And so that to me is what I see here. You know, this is a great opportunity for them to be able to learn something new, open their minds to something new. And even if it’s not according, that’s going to do it, but or music, but it will guide them into something new and something positive. And at the end of the day, that’s really what we’re trying to do just create a positive environment for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So at one point they wanted to engage in a song and so and non started playing upward. The Nagra, which is a famous song. Everyone was singing along because everyone knows the song.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>And it’s actually a song about a couple where the parents of the young woman in this couple are keeping her from her love. And the leopard going negative means the black door. In the black door is like a metaphor for the parents keeping her from her true love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What is your biggest takeaway from this story?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>So I grew up in an agricultural community in eastern Washington, and I actually when I was a kid, my dad, who worked full time at a potato processing plant, sometimes when he would have summer vacation, he would take me and my siblings out to the cherry harvest, which was during the summer, just to kind of show us like this is what agricultural work is like. This is what it’s like to work with your hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>We want our strawberries to cost $2 at the supermarket, but somebody had to pick that by hand. That’s honest, decent work that people are doing and should be well compensated for and should be treated as full people. Farm workers aren’t just here to get up at the break of dawn to pick our food, right? They also have interests and families and hobbies and trauma that they’re dealing with and deserve to to also, you know, not be forgotten once the headlines go away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Blanca, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blanca Torres: \u003c/strong>Thank you, Ericka. And the whole Bay team. This was really fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Blanca Torres, a producer and reporter for KQED. This 28 minute conversation with Blanca was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Maria Esquinca is our producer. She scored this episode and added all the tape. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. And if you’re not already subscribed to our show on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is, you’re listening, so you never miss a beat. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11967317/a-music-class-is-helping-farmworkers-heal-in-half-moon-bay",
"authors": [
"8654",
"11666",
"11802",
"11649"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_18269",
"news_1164",
"news_1425",
"news_22598",
"news_2138"
],
"featImg": "news_11966734",
"label": "source_news_11967317"
},
"news_11966931": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11966931",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11966931",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1699873248000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "sold-out-the-oakland-block-thats-ditching-natural-gas",
"title": "Sold Out: The Oakland Block That’s Ditching Natural Gas",
"publishDate": 1699873248,
"format": "quote",
"headTitle": "Sold Out: The Oakland Block That’s Ditching Natural Gas | KQED",
"labelTerm": {},
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from homes and buildings — from the appliances we use to keep ourselves warm and our families fed. In this episode of KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\">Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America\u003c/a>, we head to a neighborhood in Oakland that is taking a revolutionary approach to reducing their emissions: by electrifying together, all at once.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8848715021\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A full transcript will be available 1–2 workdays after the episode’s publication.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to Keep You Rooted. A quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from homes and buildings, from the appliances we use to keep ourselves warm and feed our families. We know that replacing gas powered appliances with electric ones can help, but that process can take a long time and cost a lot of money. In the latest season of Sold Out Rethinking Housing in America, KQED reporters explore the intersection of climate change and our state’s housing crisis. And in this episode, KQED’s Laura Klivans takes us to one neighborhood in Oakland that’s taking a revolutionary approach to reducing carbon emissions by electrifying together all at once. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>There’s a street in Oakland, a cul de sac. As you walk toward its end. It gets quieter and quieter. You’ll find all kinds of people here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*voices from the community*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The tight knit community here is due in large part to a handful of people. One of them is musician, Isaac Zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Isaac’s all about community. He’s the kind of guy who reaches out. He doesn’t just give a thumbs up on a text message. He hurts it. Seven years ago, Isaac and his wife Vivian, bought a home here. One of the first things they did was kick off a block party, which has become an August tradition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>We went door to door and introduced ourselves and encouraged people to come. And, you know, we had no idea if it would happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>But people came. Someone made a cake and they sang Happy Birthday to the Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>Which has become a ritual since then. So there were some very funny things like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>But it takes real work to build those ties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>There is a sense of camaraderie on the block, but it feels tenuous sometimes. Part of that, I think, is having a group that’s so diverse racially and class wise. Like, there’s just a lot to sift through to, like, find each other and feel connected and feel like we can trust each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Isaac is the one who first heard about an interesting opportunity. A friend sent him an email that read Do you and your neighbors want to save money on your energy bills, reduce carbon emissions and survive the next power outage?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>Basically, I read it as like free solar for everybody on my block. That sounds great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>But it’s not just free solar. It’s a research project called Eco BLOCK, and it’s run out of UC Berkeley. The point is to figure out how to quickly cut the carbon pollution produced by existing homes. That means replacing inefficient appliances, installing solar panels and connecting those solar powered homes to a battery that can keep the lights on when all else fails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>There was a plan to have like a shared electric vehicle on the block.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>And all these perks would be free. In turn, the researchers at UC Berkeley would get to learn. Can this be replicated? What does it take legally, financially, and technically to pull it off? And super important. What does it take socially? Homeowners would need to sign on and some would need to help manage community assets like a shared backup battery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>Party application was like, draw us a map of all the houses that have signed off and said they want to participate. So I to be honest, I fudged that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>About a month after he turned in the application, Isaac heard their block was a finalist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>In their competitive juices, got flowing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Again. He went door to door like he did for the block party. He signed folks up for real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>We did finally get word that we were being chosen to be the eco block, which was felt like a huge victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Vivian Santana Pacheco is married to Isaac. This community is a huge part of her life, too. All these veggies bursting from garden boxes on the street, they’re mostly her doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vivian Santana Pacheco: \u003c/strong>I’ve been helping people use the space that they have to to grow food. And like I started a ton of tomatoes in my living room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Vivian thinks about the climate crisis all the time. She’s one of five homeowners who’s leading the neighborhood association for Eco BLOCK. And here’s one other big reason she and Isaac are so invested. Now, their four year old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>His name is Moisés. But right now he’s, you know, a cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Now we want this world to be a habitable one for him. Being able to say like we did as much as we could to be part of that, and already I felt like we’re behind and that I’m not doing enough. This feels more tangible than showing up to a protest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Across the street and just a few doors down, I meet up with another family, Ismael Plascencia, or IS shows me around the two bedroom apartment they rent. There’s a lot of life packed in here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>It’s a leopard gecko. Sometimes he can call or.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>And up in the tall Tupperware on the mantle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>The spider was. It was like a tiny house spider. And we’ve been raising it for the past two months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Plus, there are snails. A lot of snails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Jr.: \u003c/strong>I think I have 21 of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>That’s six year old Ismael Junior. Both Ismail’s plus mom, Cheryl Kleinsmith and their daughter moved here about five years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>It’s nice. Just tons of windows. And then we realized how hot it got this place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cheryl Kleinsmith: \u003c/strong>When it’s hot, it’s hot. When it’s cold, it’s very cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>So when they heard about Eco block, they wanted in, but they would need to get their property owners to sign on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>I reached out to them and they’re like, Oh, yeah, this is some guy’s been calling us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>That guy was Isaac.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>It’s like, it’s too good to be true. We we don’t want to do any of that. And, you know, I was like, well, it does kind of sound too good to be true. I get that. But I’m like, you know, what do you have to lose? I’m like, you know, it’s it’s going to increase your property value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The owners agreed as long as is, and Cheryl went to the meetings and shared back. While they don’t own their place now, they’d like to someday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>I was super interested in the project, so I’m like, even just for educational purposes, I’d love to just sit at all these meetings or totally would do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>One of the upgrades Cheryl is and other neighbors would get is a heat pump. It’s a machine that works as both a heater and an AC. It’s electric and way more efficient than the wall heater they never turn on. They’d get to ditch their gas powered water heater, too. Right now, it sits behind a wooden door in their kitchen. When that’s gone and the new electric water heater is installed outside, Cheryl’s got a vision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cheryl Kleinsmith: \u003c/strong>Maybe that’s crazy, but one of the things I’m most excited about is getting a pantry instead of a water heater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Is and Cheryl both grew up here in Oakland. They both work in Oakland. She’s a scheduler in a surgeon’s office, and he runs community programs for an art school. Even as rents have increased. They’ve made it work to stay and raise their kids here. What they saw in Eco BLOCK was a commitment to all of Oakland, not just the wealthier parts of the city where people could probably afford to upgrade their own homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>They presented this like this opportunity to transform Oakland in a way that, you know, I don’t think that that most folks would have prioritized a community like this. But projects like this are just you know, they’re inspiring to me just to know that we can transform a neighbor. That could potentially transform a whole community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>This project didn’t start with the residents, though. It started in the minds of researchers like Therese Peffer. She walks me around the block, often stopping as she goes through an invisible mental checklist. Right now she’s kicking around leaves and staring at the sidewalk beneath her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>I was told that there was a water meter seven feet away from that train and see if.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>She’s looking for a spot where she could place a charger for a shared electric vehicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>Because it has to be so far away from the pole for the meter from a fire hose. Oh, it can’t be so close to that. Oh, here. There’s a red curb here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Most of her days are made up of details like this. This is where the electrification rubber meets the road. Therese has been fascinated with energy for decades. She spent a chunk of her toes living off the grid in Oregon in a community powered by just the sun and wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>And I just learned a ton about really living within your means, especially your energy means. I brought up a toaster oven one time and we could only use it when the sun was very plentiful that day. No clouds. And if the wind was blowing really hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>She became captivated by how to reduce carbon emissions that come from people’s homes, not the brand new ones, like at that futuristic Southern California development, but the homes that have been around for decades. Here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>Two thirds of all homes in California were built before energy codes, no insulation, single pane windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>A.k.a. a huge waste of energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>New construction is easy, right? And it’s sexy and it’s fun, but it’s not where the biggest problem is. If we’re going to try to really combat climate change, it is looking at the existing buildings in this country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Tackle them separately. Home by home, appliance by appliance. It would take a long time. It would be expensive and it would exclude people who can’t afford to electrify. Tackle one block together. You could buy appliances in bulk. Guarantee work for contractors. Drive down the cost. You could have neighbors talking up the benefits to their peers to make it work on eco block. Theresa needs to bring together a whole host of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>People, contractor, architect, experts on microgrid, experts on energy inside the home. We have a civil engineer. We have a mobility expert, solar contractor, urban planners, energy regulatory lawyer, cooperative lawyer. I have a real estate lawyer and they don’t have the same language attached to each other. So it takes a lot of meetings to kind of figure that out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>It’s an intimidating idea, but Terrace loves being a bridge between all these people and the residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>Something about tapping into a community and strengthening the real relationships with people, not the Facebook relationships or Instagram or whatever, but the door to door, the face to face, the people that pass you day to day on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Eco BLOCK draws folks in. Well, most folks. Hello. How’s it going?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>Oh, pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>I meet Steve Johnson midday on a Saturday. He just came back from a coffee with his buddies. A ritual he’s followed for about 40 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>A little bit of iced tea right here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Oh, thank you so much. Sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>Okay. Well, this house was bought by my immigrant grandparents in 1925. So this house has been in my family for almost 100 years. Matter of fact, my mother was born in that room over there. Well, in 1930, you know, that’s the way they did it. She was born at home on some newspapers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Steve remembers coming here when he was a kid, hanging out with his grandparents, especially in the backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>This actually is an apple tree that my father gave me. Planted it, like 25 years ago. No way. My grandmother planted that tree maybe 1990 years ago. These two houses over here were a giant vacant lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>He points to the house next door. And. And is this place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>And those two vacant lots were a gigantic garden. It was a huge victory garden when I was a young boy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Steve bought the house from his grandmother nearly 50 years ago, and he rebuilt it himself. He’s a retired contractor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, I spent maybe 30 years on and off remodeling this house, and I just finally got it completely remodeled. And for my taste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>He insulated it, added skylights and even put in his own greywater system that runs water from his drains straight to his garden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>So every time I take a shower, I’m watering the apple tree or something like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The guy generally uses very little energy. So by all accounts, you’d think he’d be all in on eco block. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, I’m 70 years old. I just didn’t want to go through a lot of new construction all over again because I really don’t need it. I wanted to show you this is my puny bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>His monthly electricity bill is 46 bucks. And Steve’s not the only holdout. Ten out of the 25 buildings here have not signed on to Eco block. Some people don’t want to be so tied to their neighbors. Others have done unpermitted work on their homes and despite assurances from the city, are worried they’ll get in trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>And then the other thing is that any time we have a family party, I do all the cooking for everybody. I just can’t imagine not cooking on gas. And the whole eco block wanted to take away the gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Capping off the gas line was one dream for this project. But here’s the thing. State code says that if one person on a block wants a gas appliance, the whole gas line stretching invisibly below our feet must stay. That means the utility has to maintain it and customers have to pay for it. So Steve said no, but it wasn’t so easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>There was a little bit of peer pressure in the beginning when everybody was sort of recruiting to have everybody sign up to join the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Even before Steve felt a bit of a generational divide. He’s in his seventies. The residents leaning eco block are decades younger. He says they worked hard to include him anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>Still, if you weren’t really all for it, then everybody’s trying to convince you why you should be for it. And I kind of felt that I was starting to get sort of left out of the general scene, even though I’m kind of like the senior citizen on this block.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>It’s not that Steve doesn’t care about reducing carbon emissions. He just thinks we should tackle other stuff first, like airplanes or shipping. He has real concerns about the supply of energy, the cost. What would happen if there were a power outage?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>It’s just there is overwhelmingly, sweepingly changing everything in my life that I wanted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>And he’s not alone. People have all kinds of cultural and emotional ties to things like gas stoves. There is a fear of change, and not everyone wants to move so fast. When you compare Echo BLOCK to what it looked like at the start of the project, here’s what you’ll notice. Not much has changed. Why the Street was chosen for the project right at the start of 2020. You may remember the life altering events of that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>The pandemic has pushed prices beyond what anyone might have expected. For those renovating, building a home, or buying one from a developer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Tyrese says they couldn’t get the lumber to shore up roofs for solar. And this was on top of a budget based on 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>Numbers, and they were just woefully inadequate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The budget they’re working with to electrify one city block is slightly more than 8 million bucks. Five of that comes from the state. The rest is from an anonymous donor. So Theresa’s constantly applying for more grants to supplement that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>The fact that the project has stretched out so long that eats away at our budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The project’s scope has shrunk. Some residents told me they’d be getting new doors and stoves. They won’t remember that micro-grid and shared battery. While I was reporting this story, the grant for it fell through. At this point, residents will mainly be getting insulation, heat pumps and solar panels and red tape from the city, and utility keeps slowing down the process. After I first talked with residents, Pegg and he decided to upgrade the electric lines on the street to support a bigger load. While the utility fast tracked the process, it will still take around six more months for the residents. The waiting can be frustrating and is most apparent in little ways, like Isaac and Vivian’s fridge. They’re pretty sure the project won’t provide one, but they’re holding out hope that some additional grant will come through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>They’re grateful. They don’t have to deal with all the details, all the behind the scenes work, but they feel some pressure that this succeeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>As I was like going door to door and trying to get people to sign a letter of intent to be part of the eco block, I think probably some of that was like, did they trust me or not? You know, I often felt like some of my credibility as a neighbor is on the line here of this project going well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>In the few months I spent reporting this story, I started rooting for Eco BLOCK. They’re trying something new. If the project works, it could inspire other neighborhoods across the Bay Area and the country. But when you look at what this group set out to do, it doesn’t seem like they’ll achieve it. And that made me feel discouraged. Time is not on our side. As we race to cut the harmful pollution our society was built on. If eco block can’t make it work, maybe this type of electrification is a nonstarter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ram Rajagopal: \u003c/strong>The way I see it is the opposite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Ram Rajagopal is an engineering professor at Stanford University. He’s not involved in this project but works on similar ones. He says as a society, we’re past the first phase of electrification when it was a niche.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ram Rajagopal: \u003c/strong>And it’s usually the super rich dude in Palo Alto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>But now electrification is going mainstream. Heat pumps outsold gas furnaces for the first time last year, and the Biden administration passed a major climate law offering billions for households to electrify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ram Rajagopal: \u003c/strong>The fact that we’re all frustrated now is a good sign because we’re frustrated by the right thing. We’re really trying to replace these things and we are now seeing the roadblocks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Eco BLOCK may not be the perfect model for neighborhood scale electrification. It’s more of a rough draft. It is a research project. There are lessons in its successes and in its failures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ram Rajagopal: \u003c/strong>It would be a mistake to say, okay, we’re not going to support this eco block project because of, you know, things are too slow. Actually, I would say we now need to give them money to figure out how to make it go fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>He thinks we need hundreds of projects like this one all over the country to figure out every day crucial details. A block is a place we live. We rent or buy. We come with excitement. Or just because this place was the right size at the right price at the right time. We spend our days here, we hear the same sounds as our neighbors. We watch the same colors move across the sky. But a lot of times we don’t know each other’s names. And that’s where this Oakland block is different. Tyreece, the researcher, feels that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>We’ve struck a chord here. Oh, we just need to finish it. But but I think there’s something exciting about working with your neighbors. You’re building those relationships and building that social resilience, I call it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>It’s not some utopia, but it is a place where social ties are stronger because of this shared project where people could help to shield each other from extreme heat, wildfire smoke, power outages. Here’s Vivian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I feel like all of this is helping us remember that we’re like, interconnected and that we can rely on each other. And I think that that’s the only way that we’re going to solve this climate crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>In early fall, construction finally began. Homes are getting new insulation. Heat pumps are going in. With luck, residents will be able to actually connect their new electric appliances to the power grid this winter. And come summer, any and all residents will celebrate together at their annual block party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was KQED reporter Laura Klivans. You can find more from the latest season of Sold Out Rethinking Housing in America wherever You Get Your Podcasts. This episode was written and reported by Laura Klivans, and it was edited by Kevin Stark and Erica Kelly and engineered by Brendan Willard. The series is hosted by Erin Baldassari. Shout out as well to the KQED Podcast team. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager, Cesar Saldana and Maha Sanad for engagement support, and Holly Kernan, our chief Content officer. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "A quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from homes and buildings.",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1726000631,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": true,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 111,
"wordCount": 4151
},
"headData": {
"title": "Sold Out: The Oakland Block That’s Ditching Natural Gas | KQED",
"description": "A quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from homes and buildings.",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "Sold Out: The Oakland Block That’s Ditching Natural Gas",
"datePublished": "2023-11-13T03:00:48-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-09-10T13:37:11-07:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"source": "The Bay",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC8848715021.mp3?updated=1699567687",
"sticky": false,
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11966931/sold-out-the-oakland-block-thats-ditching-natural-gas",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from homes and buildings — from the appliances we use to keep ourselves warm and our families fed. In this episode of KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\">Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America\u003c/a>, we head to a neighborhood in Oakland that is taking a revolutionary approach to reducing their emissions: by electrifying together, all at once.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8848715021\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A full transcript will be available 1–2 workdays after the episode’s publication.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to Keep You Rooted. A quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from homes and buildings, from the appliances we use to keep ourselves warm and feed our families. We know that replacing gas powered appliances with electric ones can help, but that process can take a long time and cost a lot of money. In the latest season of Sold Out Rethinking Housing in America, KQED reporters explore the intersection of climate change and our state’s housing crisis. And in this episode, KQED’s Laura Klivans takes us to one neighborhood in Oakland that’s taking a revolutionary approach to reducing carbon emissions by electrifying together all at once. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>There’s a street in Oakland, a cul de sac. As you walk toward its end. It gets quieter and quieter. You’ll find all kinds of people here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*voices from the community*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The tight knit community here is due in large part to a handful of people. One of them is musician, Isaac Zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Isaac’s all about community. He’s the kind of guy who reaches out. He doesn’t just give a thumbs up on a text message. He hurts it. Seven years ago, Isaac and his wife Vivian, bought a home here. One of the first things they did was kick off a block party, which has become an August tradition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>We went door to door and introduced ourselves and encouraged people to come. And, you know, we had no idea if it would happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>But people came. Someone made a cake and they sang Happy Birthday to the Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>Which has become a ritual since then. So there were some very funny things like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>But it takes real work to build those ties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>There is a sense of camaraderie on the block, but it feels tenuous sometimes. Part of that, I think, is having a group that’s so diverse racially and class wise. Like, there’s just a lot to sift through to, like, find each other and feel connected and feel like we can trust each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Isaac is the one who first heard about an interesting opportunity. A friend sent him an email that read Do you and your neighbors want to save money on your energy bills, reduce carbon emissions and survive the next power outage?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>Basically, I read it as like free solar for everybody on my block. That sounds great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>But it’s not just free solar. It’s a research project called Eco BLOCK, and it’s run out of UC Berkeley. The point is to figure out how to quickly cut the carbon pollution produced by existing homes. That means replacing inefficient appliances, installing solar panels and connecting those solar powered homes to a battery that can keep the lights on when all else fails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>There was a plan to have like a shared electric vehicle on the block.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>And all these perks would be free. In turn, the researchers at UC Berkeley would get to learn. Can this be replicated? What does it take legally, financially, and technically to pull it off? And super important. What does it take socially? Homeowners would need to sign on and some would need to help manage community assets like a shared backup battery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>Party application was like, draw us a map of all the houses that have signed off and said they want to participate. So I to be honest, I fudged that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>About a month after he turned in the application, Isaac heard their block was a finalist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>In their competitive juices, got flowing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Again. He went door to door like he did for the block party. He signed folks up for real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>We did finally get word that we were being chosen to be the eco block, which was felt like a huge victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Vivian Santana Pacheco is married to Isaac. This community is a huge part of her life, too. All these veggies bursting from garden boxes on the street, they’re mostly her doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vivian Santana Pacheco: \u003c/strong>I’ve been helping people use the space that they have to to grow food. And like I started a ton of tomatoes in my living room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Vivian thinks about the climate crisis all the time. She’s one of five homeowners who’s leading the neighborhood association for Eco BLOCK. And here’s one other big reason she and Isaac are so invested. Now, their four year old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>His name is Moisés. But right now he’s, you know, a cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Now we want this world to be a habitable one for him. Being able to say like we did as much as we could to be part of that, and already I felt like we’re behind and that I’m not doing enough. This feels more tangible than showing up to a protest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Across the street and just a few doors down, I meet up with another family, Ismael Plascencia, or IS shows me around the two bedroom apartment they rent. There’s a lot of life packed in here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>It’s a leopard gecko. Sometimes he can call or.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>And up in the tall Tupperware on the mantle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>The spider was. It was like a tiny house spider. And we’ve been raising it for the past two months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Plus, there are snails. A lot of snails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Jr.: \u003c/strong>I think I have 21 of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>That’s six year old Ismael Junior. Both Ismail’s plus mom, Cheryl Kleinsmith and their daughter moved here about five years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>It’s nice. Just tons of windows. And then we realized how hot it got this place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cheryl Kleinsmith: \u003c/strong>When it’s hot, it’s hot. When it’s cold, it’s very cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>So when they heard about Eco block, they wanted in, but they would need to get their property owners to sign on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>I reached out to them and they’re like, Oh, yeah, this is some guy’s been calling us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>That guy was Isaac.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>It’s like, it’s too good to be true. We we don’t want to do any of that. And, you know, I was like, well, it does kind of sound too good to be true. I get that. But I’m like, you know, what do you have to lose? I’m like, you know, it’s it’s going to increase your property value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The owners agreed as long as is, and Cheryl went to the meetings and shared back. While they don’t own their place now, they’d like to someday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>I was super interested in the project, so I’m like, even just for educational purposes, I’d love to just sit at all these meetings or totally would do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>One of the upgrades Cheryl is and other neighbors would get is a heat pump. It’s a machine that works as both a heater and an AC. It’s electric and way more efficient than the wall heater they never turn on. They’d get to ditch their gas powered water heater, too. Right now, it sits behind a wooden door in their kitchen. When that’s gone and the new electric water heater is installed outside, Cheryl’s got a vision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cheryl Kleinsmith: \u003c/strong>Maybe that’s crazy, but one of the things I’m most excited about is getting a pantry instead of a water heater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Is and Cheryl both grew up here in Oakland. They both work in Oakland. She’s a scheduler in a surgeon’s office, and he runs community programs for an art school. Even as rents have increased. They’ve made it work to stay and raise their kids here. What they saw in Eco BLOCK was a commitment to all of Oakland, not just the wealthier parts of the city where people could probably afford to upgrade their own homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ismael Plascencia: \u003c/strong>They presented this like this opportunity to transform Oakland in a way that, you know, I don’t think that that most folks would have prioritized a community like this. But projects like this are just you know, they’re inspiring to me just to know that we can transform a neighbor. That could potentially transform a whole community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>This project didn’t start with the residents, though. It started in the minds of researchers like Therese Peffer. She walks me around the block, often stopping as she goes through an invisible mental checklist. Right now she’s kicking around leaves and staring at the sidewalk beneath her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>I was told that there was a water meter seven feet away from that train and see if.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>She’s looking for a spot where she could place a charger for a shared electric vehicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>Because it has to be so far away from the pole for the meter from a fire hose. Oh, it can’t be so close to that. Oh, here. There’s a red curb here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Most of her days are made up of details like this. This is where the electrification rubber meets the road. Therese has been fascinated with energy for decades. She spent a chunk of her toes living off the grid in Oregon in a community powered by just the sun and wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>And I just learned a ton about really living within your means, especially your energy means. I brought up a toaster oven one time and we could only use it when the sun was very plentiful that day. No clouds. And if the wind was blowing really hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>She became captivated by how to reduce carbon emissions that come from people’s homes, not the brand new ones, like at that futuristic Southern California development, but the homes that have been around for decades. Here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>Two thirds of all homes in California were built before energy codes, no insulation, single pane windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>A.k.a. a huge waste of energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>New construction is easy, right? And it’s sexy and it’s fun, but it’s not where the biggest problem is. If we’re going to try to really combat climate change, it is looking at the existing buildings in this country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Tackle them separately. Home by home, appliance by appliance. It would take a long time. It would be expensive and it would exclude people who can’t afford to electrify. Tackle one block together. You could buy appliances in bulk. Guarantee work for contractors. Drive down the cost. You could have neighbors talking up the benefits to their peers to make it work on eco block. Theresa needs to bring together a whole host of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>People, contractor, architect, experts on microgrid, experts on energy inside the home. We have a civil engineer. We have a mobility expert, solar contractor, urban planners, energy regulatory lawyer, cooperative lawyer. I have a real estate lawyer and they don’t have the same language attached to each other. So it takes a lot of meetings to kind of figure that out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>It’s an intimidating idea, but Terrace loves being a bridge between all these people and the residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>Something about tapping into a community and strengthening the real relationships with people, not the Facebook relationships or Instagram or whatever, but the door to door, the face to face, the people that pass you day to day on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Eco BLOCK draws folks in. Well, most folks. Hello. How’s it going?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>Oh, pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>I meet Steve Johnson midday on a Saturday. He just came back from a coffee with his buddies. A ritual he’s followed for about 40 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>A little bit of iced tea right here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Oh, thank you so much. Sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>Okay. Well, this house was bought by my immigrant grandparents in 1925. So this house has been in my family for almost 100 years. Matter of fact, my mother was born in that room over there. Well, in 1930, you know, that’s the way they did it. She was born at home on some newspapers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Steve remembers coming here when he was a kid, hanging out with his grandparents, especially in the backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>This actually is an apple tree that my father gave me. Planted it, like 25 years ago. No way. My grandmother planted that tree maybe 1990 years ago. These two houses over here were a giant vacant lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>He points to the house next door. And. And is this place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>And those two vacant lots were a gigantic garden. It was a huge victory garden when I was a young boy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Steve bought the house from his grandmother nearly 50 years ago, and he rebuilt it himself. He’s a retired contractor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, I spent maybe 30 years on and off remodeling this house, and I just finally got it completely remodeled. And for my taste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>He insulated it, added skylights and even put in his own greywater system that runs water from his drains straight to his garden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>So every time I take a shower, I’m watering the apple tree or something like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The guy generally uses very little energy. So by all accounts, you’d think he’d be all in on eco block. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, I’m 70 years old. I just didn’t want to go through a lot of new construction all over again because I really don’t need it. I wanted to show you this is my puny bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>His monthly electricity bill is 46 bucks. And Steve’s not the only holdout. Ten out of the 25 buildings here have not signed on to Eco block. Some people don’t want to be so tied to their neighbors. Others have done unpermitted work on their homes and despite assurances from the city, are worried they’ll get in trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>And then the other thing is that any time we have a family party, I do all the cooking for everybody. I just can’t imagine not cooking on gas. And the whole eco block wanted to take away the gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Capping off the gas line was one dream for this project. But here’s the thing. State code says that if one person on a block wants a gas appliance, the whole gas line stretching invisibly below our feet must stay. That means the utility has to maintain it and customers have to pay for it. So Steve said no, but it wasn’t so easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>There was a little bit of peer pressure in the beginning when everybody was sort of recruiting to have everybody sign up to join the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Even before Steve felt a bit of a generational divide. He’s in his seventies. The residents leaning eco block are decades younger. He says they worked hard to include him anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>Still, if you weren’t really all for it, then everybody’s trying to convince you why you should be for it. And I kind of felt that I was starting to get sort of left out of the general scene, even though I’m kind of like the senior citizen on this block.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>It’s not that Steve doesn’t care about reducing carbon emissions. He just thinks we should tackle other stuff first, like airplanes or shipping. He has real concerns about the supply of energy, the cost. What would happen if there were a power outage?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>It’s just there is overwhelmingly, sweepingly changing everything in my life that I wanted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>And he’s not alone. People have all kinds of cultural and emotional ties to things like gas stoves. There is a fear of change, and not everyone wants to move so fast. When you compare Echo BLOCK to what it looked like at the start of the project, here’s what you’ll notice. Not much has changed. Why the Street was chosen for the project right at the start of 2020. You may remember the life altering events of that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Johnson: \u003c/strong>The pandemic has pushed prices beyond what anyone might have expected. For those renovating, building a home, or buying one from a developer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Tyrese says they couldn’t get the lumber to shore up roofs for solar. And this was on top of a budget based on 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>Numbers, and they were just woefully inadequate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The budget they’re working with to electrify one city block is slightly more than 8 million bucks. Five of that comes from the state. The rest is from an anonymous donor. So Theresa’s constantly applying for more grants to supplement that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>The fact that the project has stretched out so long that eats away at our budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>The project’s scope has shrunk. Some residents told me they’d be getting new doors and stoves. They won’t remember that micro-grid and shared battery. While I was reporting this story, the grant for it fell through. At this point, residents will mainly be getting insulation, heat pumps and solar panels and red tape from the city, and utility keeps slowing down the process. After I first talked with residents, Pegg and he decided to upgrade the electric lines on the street to support a bigger load. While the utility fast tracked the process, it will still take around six more months for the residents. The waiting can be frustrating and is most apparent in little ways, like Isaac and Vivian’s fridge. They’re pretty sure the project won’t provide one, but they’re holding out hope that some additional grant will come through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>They’re grateful. They don’t have to deal with all the details, all the behind the scenes work, but they feel some pressure that this succeeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isaac Zones: \u003c/strong>As I was like going door to door and trying to get people to sign a letter of intent to be part of the eco block, I think probably some of that was like, did they trust me or not? You know, I often felt like some of my credibility as a neighbor is on the line here of this project going well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>In the few months I spent reporting this story, I started rooting for Eco BLOCK. They’re trying something new. If the project works, it could inspire other neighborhoods across the Bay Area and the country. But when you look at what this group set out to do, it doesn’t seem like they’ll achieve it. And that made me feel discouraged. Time is not on our side. As we race to cut the harmful pollution our society was built on. If eco block can’t make it work, maybe this type of electrification is a nonstarter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ram Rajagopal: \u003c/strong>The way I see it is the opposite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Ram Rajagopal is an engineering professor at Stanford University. He’s not involved in this project but works on similar ones. He says as a society, we’re past the first phase of electrification when it was a niche.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ram Rajagopal: \u003c/strong>And it’s usually the super rich dude in Palo Alto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>But now electrification is going mainstream. Heat pumps outsold gas furnaces for the first time last year, and the Biden administration passed a major climate law offering billions for households to electrify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ram Rajagopal: \u003c/strong>The fact that we’re all frustrated now is a good sign because we’re frustrated by the right thing. We’re really trying to replace these things and we are now seeing the roadblocks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>Eco BLOCK may not be the perfect model for neighborhood scale electrification. It’s more of a rough draft. It is a research project. There are lessons in its successes and in its failures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ram Rajagopal: \u003c/strong>It would be a mistake to say, okay, we’re not going to support this eco block project because of, you know, things are too slow. Actually, I would say we now need to give them money to figure out how to make it go fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>He thinks we need hundreds of projects like this one all over the country to figure out every day crucial details. A block is a place we live. We rent or buy. We come with excitement. Or just because this place was the right size at the right price at the right time. We spend our days here, we hear the same sounds as our neighbors. We watch the same colors move across the sky. But a lot of times we don’t know each other’s names. And that’s where this Oakland block is different. Tyreece, the researcher, feels that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Therese Peffer: \u003c/strong>We’ve struck a chord here. Oh, we just need to finish it. But but I think there’s something exciting about working with your neighbors. You’re building those relationships and building that social resilience, I call it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>It’s not some utopia, but it is a place where social ties are stronger because of this shared project where people could help to shield each other from extreme heat, wildfire smoke, power outages. Here’s Vivian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I feel like all of this is helping us remember that we’re like, interconnected and that we can rely on each other. And I think that that’s the only way that we’re going to solve this climate crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Laura Klivans: \u003c/strong>In early fall, construction finally began. Homes are getting new insulation. Heat pumps are going in. With luck, residents will be able to actually connect their new electric appliances to the power grid this winter. And come summer, any and all residents will celebrate together at their annual block party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was KQED reporter Laura Klivans. You can find more from the latest season of Sold Out Rethinking Housing in America wherever You Get Your Podcasts. This episode was written and reported by Laura Klivans, and it was edited by Kevin Stark and Erica Kelly and engineered by Brendan Willard. The series is hosted by Erin Baldassari. Shout out as well to the KQED Podcast team. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager, Cesar Saldana and Maha Sanad for engagement support, and Holly Kernan, our chief Content officer. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11966931/sold-out-the-oakland-block-thats-ditching-natural-gas",
"authors": [
"8654",
"8648"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_34165",
"news_6266",
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_255",
"news_20013",
"news_1775",
"news_22598"
],
"featImg": "news_11966934",
"label": "source_news_11966931"
},
"news_11967004": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11967004",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11967004",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1699614049000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "thousands-are-coming-to-sf-next-week-heres-how-itll-affect-life-in-the-city",
"title": "Thousands Are Coming to SF Next Week for APEC. Here’s How It’ll Affect Life in the City",
"publishDate": 1699614049,
"format": "audio",
"headTitle": "Thousands Are Coming to SF Next Week for APEC. Here’s How It’ll Affect Life in the City | KQED",
"labelTerm": {},
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next week, San Francisco is hosting its largest international event since 1945. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference — or APEC — is expected to bring at least 10,000 visitors and foreign dignitaries to the city. With lots to prove to its guests, including President Joe Biden, San Francisco has ramped up preparations that have already affected local residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8767008858&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apply to be our intern!\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/apec-2023\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">APEC 2023 San Francisco City Guide \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED: \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965942\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From Street Closures to Security Checks, What to Know About SF APEC 2023\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A full transcript will be available 1–2 workdays after the episode’s publication.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Hey, it’s Ericka. Quick little note. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity to help us make this show. The internship runs from January through June of 2024. So if you’ve got love for local news, the Bay Area and podcasting. Let’s chat. The deadline to apply is November 17th. We’ll give you a link to the application in our show notes. All right. Here’s the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. San Francisco has been preparing for months for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, or APEC. Thousands of visitors, business leaders and foreign dignitaries are expected to flood the city, and local officials are hoping they’ll spend lots of money here and come away with a good impression of San Francisco. And if you live, work or commute into the city, there are several ways that this conference is going to affect you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It’s been dubbed the largest international event that San Francisco has hosted since 1945.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>APEC is already having an impact on traffic in the city’s south of market and people living in homeless encampments say they’re being asked to move out of sight because between Maryland and Breed’s reelection and all that bad press about the so-called doom loop, the city’s got a lot to prove. Today, how San Francisco is preparing for APEC and how it might affect you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>A lot of people are comparing it to when San Francisco hosted the Super Bowl a few years ago. But think of this as like a Super Bowl for presidents and prime ministers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Sydney Johnson is a reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Roughly, it will be taking place from about November 11th to the 19th. But most of the events and an impact for people who are in the city or commuting in and out of the city will be around the 14th to the 17th. Tens of thousands of people are expected to come to the event, whether those are attendees, journalists, company CEOs, presidents, prime ministers, President Biden will be there, along with more than a dozen other heads of state Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, the Philippines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Even China’s president Xi Jinping, is expected to join. Although not officially confirmed yet, there is a lot riding on this. For one, there is a lot of important diplomacy work that’s going to be happening inside meetings all week. But it’s also a big chance for San Francisco to really put its best foot forward, so to speak, and try to counter some of those so-called doom loop narratives that we’ve been hearing all about around crime and homelessness. So there’s a lot riding on this event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about driving into the city. Should I drive into San Francisco from Vallejo next week or no?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It really wouldn’t if I were. You and I have some friends in other industries whose bosses have, you know, straight up told them, don’t come in next week. Work from home. There is going to be a lane on the Bay Bridge that’s closed going both ways. And also there’s going to be freeway on ramps and off ramps in the downtown area that are totally closed as well. So it’s important to check that, too. You might not even be able to get off at the stop that you need to if you did wait through all of that traffic. Bart and Caltrain are not planning any disruptions. So really, if you have to get into the city, that could be your safest route. But still do plan to give yourself extra time if you are going to commute in and out of San Francisco next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Certain streets will be closed off as well. And as we were talking about earlier, there to be a lot of security, Secret Service and heads of state. What is that going to look like and what neighborhoods will be affected the most by this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So streets around Soma, Nob Hill and the eastern waterfront are going to be most impacted on certain blocks. You will have to do a security check to get through. It will pretty much just be a bag check. But residents and employees of businesses in those areas will all be subject to that type of screening. There are also going to be some blocks in these areas where cars cannot pass through and others where cars that do need to pass through, say, like commercial delivery trucks, they will have to go through a vehicle screening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So, you know, definitely on the one hand, you’re going to want to probably avoid some of that if you can. But obviously, some people won’t be able to choose that. And it’s important to know that businesses in those areas will be open. You know, if you need to go to your pharmacy or pick up groceries, you can still do that, but you’ll probably have to be on foot. And, you know, it might also be a sight to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know another thing folks are anticipating are protests all around San Francisco. Can you talk a little bit about that as well?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Certainly what we’ve heard already is that there are groups that are planning protests both around the specific leaders that are going to be in town that week. These are some of the wealthiest, most powerful leaders that are going to be flying in on private jets. And there’s definitely going to be some climate protesters happening, as well as civil rights protesters. And there are also protesters who are planning to come out and criticize some of the CEOs and companies that are going to be represented at this conference. Also, there’s definitely going to be planned disruptions from the city, but also disruptions to those plans from protesters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know we are still a few days away, but there has been a lot of prep already starting. And if you live in San Francisco, you’ve probably seen a little bit of it. What has been the mood in San Francisco in the last couple of days in this sort of lead up into APEC?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>I think there’s some anxiety. You know, people want to put San Francisco in a really positive light and there’s some excitement that comes with that, too, right? It’s a really big opportunity for San Francisco to, you know, show everything that it’s capable of, of being and providing. The city has been advertising this event on bus stops and billboards doing door to door outreach to businesses and residents in the high security zone areas. So, you know, let’s just say it’s really hard to not know that APEC is happening in San Francisco right now. If you live or work here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, what San Francisco is doing to try and impress its visitors. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It clearly is a really big deal that San Francisco is holding this. I mean, these adjustments being made to the city are, I think, a clear indication of that. But I think there is also, of course, the this bigger question of the city’s image here. London Breed is up for reelection next year. So how is the city been preparing for APEC on this front?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>London Breed really wants to say, hey, come to our city, do business here, visit us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>A successful APEC’s what it looks like for me is that everyone is able to do what they intend to do in a safe way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And she actually talked about this recently on KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>Whether it’s the folks who are attending the CEO summit and the various events, going to our restaurants, shopping in our various shopping areas, it’s not just about APEC. It’s about our communities. It’s about the money that conventions and tourism generates to help support this population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So San Francisco has been raising millions of dollars over the last few months from companies like Apple. Actually, one of the biggest donors was a casino in the North Bay. With that money, San Francisco has been really just trying to get prepared for this event. The city has really cleaned up. U.N. Plaza, I walked through there yesterday and there’s a new skatepark and some new greenery that’s been out there. So, you know, of course, I think Brad wants this to be a safe and, you know, politically successful event as a place where, you know, San Francisco can say, look, we can host these types of of events and we can really be a global city. But, you know, also really hoping to put San Francisco in a better light that it’s been recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What is this meant for homelessness? That is such a huge part of the image that San Francisco has really been known for. So what does this mean for for folks on the streets?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So the city started doing outreach around a park and, you know, homelessness in the areas around these venues weeks, if not months ago. Well, I have been told by city officials is that the vicinity around the conference, so the areas near Mosconi Center and Nob Hill are definitely going to be prioritized. And so, you know, there’s kind of this big elephant in the room because San Francisco also has a lack of shelter beds and and housing overall for people who need it. There’s probably going to be some relief there because we’re getting into the winter months and the city will be opening up some of its winter shelter beds that usually only come online when the weather gets colder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And that means that there’s going to be a little over 300 more shelter beds that are open. But that’s still such a drop in the bucket. And there’s going to be a lot of back and forth over priorities. Should a bed be prioritized for someone who is, you know, sleeping right outside a conference venue, or should it be for someone who’s been on the waitlist already waiting for a spot in a shelter for potentially days? You know, I just looked at the city’s online shelter waitlist and it has over 400 people on it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What does this mean for sweeps then? Has that been happening already in some of these areas where a peak is going to happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Yes, they have been asking people to move. I was walking around Soma kind of in the area where the conference is going to be, and I actually ended up talking to two people. Earnings are Tage and Matt and they’ve been sleeping rough outside in that area for several weeks. And they told me that a week ago they were sleeping in an alley under the 80 freeway overpass and they were woken up by a team of street crews, police, public works asking them to move. Matt told me that he heard that Biden was going to be coming into town and that it was going to be near the area that they had been staying in and they didn’t receive an offer for a shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>That’s what they told me. And the city is required to offer that when it does these types of resolutions. So it’s complicated because the city is also right now facing this lawsuit over how it handles homelessness and particularly how it treats people during encampment clearings. But I asked, what are you guys going to do now? You know, the conference is a week away and they’re still in kind of the area that they’ve been staying at. And Taj just said they don’t know and they’re just trying to stay anywhere that they won’t get harassed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, city leaders seem really concerned about making sure that APEC goes well. Do you think that whatever happens next week is going to affect the city’s image at all?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>I do. I think that what happens next week is important. I think that the stories that come out of it and the stories that we tell ourselves about it is going to have an impact. But I also think we’ve seen, you know, this pendulum swing back and forth a lot over the years, for decades even. And in many ways, San Francisco has always represented a little bit more than what it actually is as a progressive city, in my view. So I think the real question is whether the city will be able to keep up the positive image if it is able to achieve that next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I think that’s a big question here. Like, are things just going to kind of revert back to the way they were before APEC and before all these heads of state came to San Francisco? Like once APEC is over? I think that’s a big question on people’s minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It is, and it’s definitely on my mind, too. You know, that was on Taj and Matt’s mind to you know, the flipside to that I did hear was that these types of events show what the city can do. It shows that the city can really make San Francisco look great and it can open up more, you know, shelter beds and these differing agencies can be mobilized. But the the will and the resources to give actual long term solutions to these problems that are going to exist well beyond APEC. I think that’s where a lot of the disappointment has sunk in. But really, you know, that’s one of those things that we’ll have to see once that happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Sydney, I guess we’ll be watching what happens next week. Thanks so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Of course. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Sydney Johnson, a reporter for KQED. Again, APEC takes place in downtown San Francisco this Saturday through next Friday. You can sign up to get alerts about APEC related disruptions by texting APEC 2023 to 888777. That’s APEC 2023 to 888777. We’ll also leave you a link to the city’s guide on how to prepare for street closures, transit impact, all that jazz in our show notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This 30 minute conversation with Sydney was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Allen Montecillo is our senior editor. He scored this episode and added all the tape shout out as well To the rest of our podcast squad here at KQED. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. Cesar Saldana, our podcast engagement producer. Maha Sanad, our podcast engagement intern. And Holly Kernan, our Chief Content officer. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "With lots to prove to its visitors, including President Joe Biden, San Francisco has ramped up preparations for The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference — or APEC. ",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1722986809,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": true,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 44,
"wordCount": 2839
},
"headData": {
"title": "Thousands Are Coming to SF Next Week for APEC. Here’s How It’ll Affect Life in the City | KQED",
"description": "With lots to prove to its visitors, including President Joe Biden, San Francisco has ramped up preparations for The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference — or APEC. ",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "Thousands Are Coming to SF Next Week for APEC. Here’s How It’ll Affect Life in the City",
"datePublished": "2023-11-10T03:00:49-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-08-06T16:26:49-07:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"source": "The Bay",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC8848715021.mp3?updated=1699567969",
"sticky": false,
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11967004/thousands-are-coming-to-sf-next-week-heres-how-itll-affect-life-in-the-city",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next week, San Francisco is hosting its largest international event since 1945. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference — or APEC — is expected to bring at least 10,000 visitors and foreign dignitaries to the city. With lots to prove to its guests, including President Joe Biden, San Francisco has ramped up preparations that have already affected local residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8767008858&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apply to be our intern!\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/apec-2023\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">APEC 2023 San Francisco City Guide \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED: \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965942\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From Street Closures to Security Checks, What to Know About SF APEC 2023\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A full transcript will be available 1–2 workdays after the episode’s publication.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Hey, it’s Ericka. Quick little note. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity to help us make this show. The internship runs from January through June of 2024. So if you’ve got love for local news, the Bay Area and podcasting. Let’s chat. The deadline to apply is November 17th. We’ll give you a link to the application in our show notes. All right. Here’s the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. San Francisco has been preparing for months for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, or APEC. Thousands of visitors, business leaders and foreign dignitaries are expected to flood the city, and local officials are hoping they’ll spend lots of money here and come away with a good impression of San Francisco. And if you live, work or commute into the city, there are several ways that this conference is going to affect you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It’s been dubbed the largest international event that San Francisco has hosted since 1945.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>APEC is already having an impact on traffic in the city’s south of market and people living in homeless encampments say they’re being asked to move out of sight because between Maryland and Breed’s reelection and all that bad press about the so-called doom loop, the city’s got a lot to prove. Today, how San Francisco is preparing for APEC and how it might affect you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>A lot of people are comparing it to when San Francisco hosted the Super Bowl a few years ago. But think of this as like a Super Bowl for presidents and prime ministers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Sydney Johnson is a reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Roughly, it will be taking place from about November 11th to the 19th. But most of the events and an impact for people who are in the city or commuting in and out of the city will be around the 14th to the 17th. Tens of thousands of people are expected to come to the event, whether those are attendees, journalists, company CEOs, presidents, prime ministers, President Biden will be there, along with more than a dozen other heads of state Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, the Philippines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Even China’s president Xi Jinping, is expected to join. Although not officially confirmed yet, there is a lot riding on this. For one, there is a lot of important diplomacy work that’s going to be happening inside meetings all week. But it’s also a big chance for San Francisco to really put its best foot forward, so to speak, and try to counter some of those so-called doom loop narratives that we’ve been hearing all about around crime and homelessness. So there’s a lot riding on this event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about driving into the city. Should I drive into San Francisco from Vallejo next week or no?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It really wouldn’t if I were. You and I have some friends in other industries whose bosses have, you know, straight up told them, don’t come in next week. Work from home. There is going to be a lane on the Bay Bridge that’s closed going both ways. And also there’s going to be freeway on ramps and off ramps in the downtown area that are totally closed as well. So it’s important to check that, too. You might not even be able to get off at the stop that you need to if you did wait through all of that traffic. Bart and Caltrain are not planning any disruptions. So really, if you have to get into the city, that could be your safest route. But still do plan to give yourself extra time if you are going to commute in and out of San Francisco next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Certain streets will be closed off as well. And as we were talking about earlier, there to be a lot of security, Secret Service and heads of state. What is that going to look like and what neighborhoods will be affected the most by this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So streets around Soma, Nob Hill and the eastern waterfront are going to be most impacted on certain blocks. You will have to do a security check to get through. It will pretty much just be a bag check. But residents and employees of businesses in those areas will all be subject to that type of screening. There are also going to be some blocks in these areas where cars cannot pass through and others where cars that do need to pass through, say, like commercial delivery trucks, they will have to go through a vehicle screening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So, you know, definitely on the one hand, you’re going to want to probably avoid some of that if you can. But obviously, some people won’t be able to choose that. And it’s important to know that businesses in those areas will be open. You know, if you need to go to your pharmacy or pick up groceries, you can still do that, but you’ll probably have to be on foot. And, you know, it might also be a sight to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know another thing folks are anticipating are protests all around San Francisco. Can you talk a little bit about that as well?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Certainly what we’ve heard already is that there are groups that are planning protests both around the specific leaders that are going to be in town that week. These are some of the wealthiest, most powerful leaders that are going to be flying in on private jets. And there’s definitely going to be some climate protesters happening, as well as civil rights protesters. And there are also protesters who are planning to come out and criticize some of the CEOs and companies that are going to be represented at this conference. Also, there’s definitely going to be planned disruptions from the city, but also disruptions to those plans from protesters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know we are still a few days away, but there has been a lot of prep already starting. And if you live in San Francisco, you’ve probably seen a little bit of it. What has been the mood in San Francisco in the last couple of days in this sort of lead up into APEC?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>I think there’s some anxiety. You know, people want to put San Francisco in a really positive light and there’s some excitement that comes with that, too, right? It’s a really big opportunity for San Francisco to, you know, show everything that it’s capable of, of being and providing. The city has been advertising this event on bus stops and billboards doing door to door outreach to businesses and residents in the high security zone areas. So, you know, let’s just say it’s really hard to not know that APEC is happening in San Francisco right now. If you live or work here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, what San Francisco is doing to try and impress its visitors. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It clearly is a really big deal that San Francisco is holding this. I mean, these adjustments being made to the city are, I think, a clear indication of that. But I think there is also, of course, the this bigger question of the city’s image here. London Breed is up for reelection next year. So how is the city been preparing for APEC on this front?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>London Breed really wants to say, hey, come to our city, do business here, visit us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>A successful APEC’s what it looks like for me is that everyone is able to do what they intend to do in a safe way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And she actually talked about this recently on KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>Whether it’s the folks who are attending the CEO summit and the various events, going to our restaurants, shopping in our various shopping areas, it’s not just about APEC. It’s about our communities. It’s about the money that conventions and tourism generates to help support this population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So San Francisco has been raising millions of dollars over the last few months from companies like Apple. Actually, one of the biggest donors was a casino in the North Bay. With that money, San Francisco has been really just trying to get prepared for this event. The city has really cleaned up. U.N. Plaza, I walked through there yesterday and there’s a new skatepark and some new greenery that’s been out there. So, you know, of course, I think Brad wants this to be a safe and, you know, politically successful event as a place where, you know, San Francisco can say, look, we can host these types of of events and we can really be a global city. But, you know, also really hoping to put San Francisco in a better light that it’s been recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What is this meant for homelessness? That is such a huge part of the image that San Francisco has really been known for. So what does this mean for for folks on the streets?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So the city started doing outreach around a park and, you know, homelessness in the areas around these venues weeks, if not months ago. Well, I have been told by city officials is that the vicinity around the conference, so the areas near Mosconi Center and Nob Hill are definitely going to be prioritized. And so, you know, there’s kind of this big elephant in the room because San Francisco also has a lack of shelter beds and and housing overall for people who need it. There’s probably going to be some relief there because we’re getting into the winter months and the city will be opening up some of its winter shelter beds that usually only come online when the weather gets colder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And that means that there’s going to be a little over 300 more shelter beds that are open. But that’s still such a drop in the bucket. And there’s going to be a lot of back and forth over priorities. Should a bed be prioritized for someone who is, you know, sleeping right outside a conference venue, or should it be for someone who’s been on the waitlist already waiting for a spot in a shelter for potentially days? You know, I just looked at the city’s online shelter waitlist and it has over 400 people on it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What does this mean for sweeps then? Has that been happening already in some of these areas where a peak is going to happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Yes, they have been asking people to move. I was walking around Soma kind of in the area where the conference is going to be, and I actually ended up talking to two people. Earnings are Tage and Matt and they’ve been sleeping rough outside in that area for several weeks. And they told me that a week ago they were sleeping in an alley under the 80 freeway overpass and they were woken up by a team of street crews, police, public works asking them to move. Matt told me that he heard that Biden was going to be coming into town and that it was going to be near the area that they had been staying in and they didn’t receive an offer for a shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>That’s what they told me. And the city is required to offer that when it does these types of resolutions. So it’s complicated because the city is also right now facing this lawsuit over how it handles homelessness and particularly how it treats people during encampment clearings. But I asked, what are you guys going to do now? You know, the conference is a week away and they’re still in kind of the area that they’ve been staying at. And Taj just said they don’t know and they’re just trying to stay anywhere that they won’t get harassed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, city leaders seem really concerned about making sure that APEC goes well. Do you think that whatever happens next week is going to affect the city’s image at all?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>I do. I think that what happens next week is important. I think that the stories that come out of it and the stories that we tell ourselves about it is going to have an impact. But I also think we’ve seen, you know, this pendulum swing back and forth a lot over the years, for decades even. And in many ways, San Francisco has always represented a little bit more than what it actually is as a progressive city, in my view. So I think the real question is whether the city will be able to keep up the positive image if it is able to achieve that next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I think that’s a big question here. Like, are things just going to kind of revert back to the way they were before APEC and before all these heads of state came to San Francisco? Like once APEC is over? I think that’s a big question on people’s minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>It is, and it’s definitely on my mind, too. You know, that was on Taj and Matt’s mind to you know, the flipside to that I did hear was that these types of events show what the city can do. It shows that the city can really make San Francisco look great and it can open up more, you know, shelter beds and these differing agencies can be mobilized. But the the will and the resources to give actual long term solutions to these problems that are going to exist well beyond APEC. I think that’s where a lot of the disappointment has sunk in. But really, you know, that’s one of those things that we’ll have to see once that happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Sydney, I guess we’ll be watching what happens next week. Thanks so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Of course. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Sydney Johnson, a reporter for KQED. Again, APEC takes place in downtown San Francisco this Saturday through next Friday. You can sign up to get alerts about APEC related disruptions by texting APEC 2023 to 888777. That’s APEC 2023 to 888777. We’ll also leave you a link to the city’s guide on how to prepare for street closures, transit impact, all that jazz in our show notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This 30 minute conversation with Sydney was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Allen Montecillo is our senior editor. He scored this episode and added all the tape shout out as well To the rest of our podcast squad here at KQED. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. Cesar Saldana, our podcast engagement producer. Maha Sanad, our podcast engagement intern. And Holly Kernan, our Chief Content officer. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Peace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11967004/thousands-are-coming-to-sf-next-week-heres-how-itll-affect-life-in-the-city",
"authors": [
"8654",
"11840",
"11649",
"11802"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_1867",
"news_6931",
"news_22598"
],
"featImg": "news_11966994",
"label": "source_news_11967004"
},
"news_11966693": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "news_11966693",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "11966693",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1699441246000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1699441246,
"format": "audio",
"title": "South Bay Conservatives Are Trying to Gain a Foothold on Local School Boards",
"headTitle": "South Bay Conservatives Are Trying to Gain a Foothold on Local School Boards | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As red states pass laws targeting transgender rights and LGBTQ-inclusive education, conservatives in the South Bay have formed their own strategy: focusing on local, nonpartisan school board races.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7626700938\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Hey, it’s Ericka. Quick little note. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity to help us make this show. The internship runs from January through June of 2024. So if you’ve got love for local news, the Bay Area and podcasting. Let’s chat. The deadline to apply is November 17th. We’ll leave you a link to the application in our show notes. All right. Here’s the show. I’m Ericka Cruz GuevarRa and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Back in August, a group of people gathered inside a local church, a little south of Willow Glen in San Jose. They opened the meeting with a prayer. But this wasn’t a church meeting. It was a gathering hosted by the Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women about what’s getting taught in public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*audio from meeting*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The prayer was part of a call to bring like minded conservatives together and prepare them for public office in particular, to try and encourage more conservatives to get into the management and oversight of public schools in the South Bay. By running for school board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, the conservative groups in the South Bay who want to take control of public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>What really fascinated me about the meeting was it kind of gave a peek behind the curtain of how these groups are talking, you know, behind closed doors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Guy Marzorati is a political correspondent for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So at the meeting, you had Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women, some of the successful conservative school board candidates in the South Bay. And then this leader of a local group that’s called Informed Parents of Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, tell me about them. I know they were there. Who was there representing that group and what was he talking about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Right. So you had Larry Pegram, who’s the head of informed Parents of Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>We are here to restore parental rights, to regain parental control, to oppose, CRT, to oppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>He’s a former San Jose City Council member who served in the seventies and really for the decades since has been a big activist locally against gay rights. He fought against anti-discrimination ordinances in the eighties. He fought against gay marriage. And so his group right now is focused on encouraging parents to opt their kids out of sex ed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>We do support health based sex education, and that teaches the reproductive cycle. Biology. Is a concept.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Not only was he there encouraging and supporting people to run for office, but he kind of really laid out the link between what his group was doing around curriculum and then getting people to run for school board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>The Importance of parents organizations. Hugely important because when this gentleman and this gentleman decide that they want to stand up and be a school board member, they need help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And Pegram said his hope is that all these parents kind of connect and then form local groups in their district, these parent groups. And then when a conservative candidate runs for office, these parent groups are going to kind of serve as a backbone for the campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>And here’s the one I like. You have to create a volunteer army.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know one candidate who’d actually won a school board seat. Linda Chavez, was at this meeting. Who is she and what did she have to say at the meeting?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So Linda Chavez is basically an example of someone who has built political power at the school board level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linda Chavez: \u003c/strong>You are only running against yourself. You can either win or lose. And I guess what I’m like losing. I’m a sore loser. I hate losting, losing if for losers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>She won a seat as a trustee in the Alamo Park Elementary School District on San Jose’s East Side back in 2018. So she’s been kind of a success story of this local conservative movement. When Chavez ran, she had three priorities. Number one, focus on student achievement. Number two, rebuild the trust of our community. And number three, work with everyone toward a common goal. That sounds pretty innocuous. It sounds like, you know, everyone could get behind those three priorities. But when she was speaking at the meeting to potential candidates and talking about why she had run in the first place, she said it was the, quote, gay stuff that was happening in the school district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linda Chavez: \u003c/strong>So I decided I’m going to run. Why? Because they were hurting the children. They had just finished passing all of this stuff. And this is one of the first districts did it. And I looked around and says, this is all going to go this way. Not on my watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So, Guy, these groups are having meetings like this to try and rally folks of similar minds and goals to run for school board seats. But why school board seats?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I think there’s no doubt that it’s been a national effort among conservatives to build power at the school board level. This is especially a focus in California, because, look, conservatives have not done well electorally in this state writ large. But the thing about school board is it’s not a partizan race. You’re not running with an R next your name or a D next to your name. So the state Republican Party has made a concerted effort to win school board seats, really, because there’s an opening in which conservatives can, you know, get on the ballot in a low information election. It’s not something people are particularly paying attention to and they’re not weighed down by the designation of being a Republican candidate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, based on what we heard from the meeting, these organizations and these candidates sound very hostile to LGBTQ people. I mean, talking about passing all this, quote unquote, gay stuff. What do these groups have to say about that and what are they advocating for in public?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so informed parents of Silicon Valley. Their stated goal is to teach parents about their ability to remove kids from classes they view as inappropriate. And what they’re really targeting is comprehensive sex education, which in California also includes like LGBTQ class, inclusive language, and also HIV AIDS prevention education. That’s really where they’re trying to say, like parents, try to opt your kids out of these classes. And in the case of comprehensive sex ed, these are classes that are required under state law. But the state is also already required to tell parents you have the ability to opt out. So that’s what their stated goal is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>We are not involved in politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>When I interviewed Larry Pegram, who runs a group, he said, Our group is not about politics. We’re not involved in any of this. We’re strictly just to disseminate information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>We’re involved in parents rights and the responsibilities of parents to raise their children. I didn’t speak with prospective candidates. I talked about what our organization was doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>But this meeting offered a really different window into their aims and kind of stated goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>Our organization for Parents of Silicon Valley is dedicated to helping you candidates get elected. That’s that’s what we’re about now. We’re a51 C3 organization. We don’t do this intake. We do not. Endorse any candidate. But people that think like us. We’re an education organization and we can help educate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Pegram is up there in this meeting giving candidates advice and really talking through how his group and the activities of his group are connected to electing more conservative school board members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How successful have they been so far actually gaining ground in Silicon Valley, actually winning school board seats?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Last year, there were four school board candidates that were backed by this Republican women’s group who actually won in the South Bay. So that in itself might be kind of surprising. Like this is a liberal area for school board candidates. One on the other hand, like there are more than a hundred school board members in the South Bay. So the conservative members are making up a pretty small fraction of that. But I would say school boards, it’s in many cases like a five member board. You only have to win a few candidates in a specific district to really exert a lot of control and make a lot of difference on issues like curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, what happened when San Jose could no longer ignore informed parents of Silicon Valley? Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is still the Bay Area and I have to imagine a lot of parents and elected leaders would be pretty angry to hear about these efforts by informed parents. How do people start to become aware of these groups and what they’re doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yes, So informed parents really got on the radar of local elected officials at the start of this school year. You had volunteers with the group going to school sites and handing out leaflets. They look kind of like bookmarks that were encouraging parents to pull their kids out of sex ed. But the bookmarks had really harsh language on them, saying things like, your children are at risk. Schools are teaching gender confusion. And that’s when the backlash against these groups really, you know, kicked off and went to another level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So a couple weeks ago, the San Jose City Council met to take up a resolution that on its face was about supporting the city’s LGBTQ plus community. But once the discussion really started, it was clear that the real purpose and genesis of this resolution was to denounce the Informed parents group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pam Foley: \u003c/strong>We must not let them win or even think they win. These fliers contain misinformation and hateful dog whistles that target our LGBTQ community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So you had Pam Foley, a councilmember who co-wrote the resolution, really speaking out about the canvasing activity of inform parents, the ways in which they distributed this literature, the ways in which they described what was happening in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pam Foley: \u003c/strong>I’ve asked the clerk to project the two sided pamphlets that were being passed out by these individuals at Bagby. One says Your children are at risk. Talks about teachers indoctrinating children. I was on the school board for 14 years. That isn’t true. And to all the teachers in the room, I know that’s not true. The schools are a safe place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know one council member in particular was actually really emotional about this issue. Can you tell me about City council member Omar Torres?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Omar Torres is the first openly gay Latino councilmember in San Jose’s history. He also coauthored this resolution. And a few times he just was overwhelmed when he began to speak on this issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Omar Torres: \u003c/strong>I’m trying to regain my composure, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I think you had other council members kind of going over to him on the dais and like patting him on the back, consoling him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Ultimately, he he spoke and he spoke really personally about the issue and the ways in which he sees these efforts by conservative groups as an effort to push LGBTQ students, as he put it, back into the closet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Omar Torres: \u003c/strong>As a gay brown male. I’ve experienced the struggle of of of trying to be proud of who I am in the face of adversity. And I stand here crying not only as a council member, but as a human who has been the target of hate solely because of my sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what ultimately was the result of the meeting and what does it mean exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Ultimately, on a unanimous vote, the council approved this resolution. The meeting itself showed that, you know, these elected officials wanted to put these conservative groups in the spotlight. They wanted to bring out, you know, supporters of the LGBTQ community in the city to speak in public comment, which happens. And I think this is really going to be kind of setting the stage for school board campaigns in 2024, which is perhaps an effort by, you know, allies of the of San Jose’s and the South Bay’s LGBTQ community to really spotlight these school board races and what’s happening in schools. Oftentimes school board elections go under the radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And I think the council wanted to make sure they were kind of planting the flag. And to me, it kind of set the stage for the kind of confrontations, because there were folks who came to the meeting and spoke in support of some of these conservative groups, setting up the kind of confrontations we might see on the ballot next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, guys, it strikes me that this is sort of, I guess, the Bay Area’s version of what we’ve seen in red states with, you know, the passage of all these anti LGBTQ laws, many of them targeted at schools and kids. And like, what do you think this ultimately means for voters as we were thinking about, you know, 2024?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, I think what you’re seeing happening on the school board level in the Bay Area is, you know, in the minds of some just the latest iteration of pushback against the LGBTQ community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Melissa Michelson: \u003c/strong>It’s the same playbook that was used to say gay people are scary. We don’t want people grooming our children to think that they’re gay or lesbian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I talked to Dr. Melissa Michelson, who is a political science professor at Menlo College, and she laid it out as the latest iteration of the culture wars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Melissa Michelson: \u003c/strong>The culture wars are all about finding that new thing that divides and tries to, you know, to pull away from the opposition’s coalition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>She compared it to, you know, the pushback against gay rights and gay marriage more than a decade ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Melissa Michelson: \u003c/strong>It’s old, it’s new, and things are always kind of more susceptible to being exploited as a culture war issue when it comes to vulnerable populations like small children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>What’s going on in schools? What books are available in school libraries? What’s the curriculum that’s being taught? How are we treating transgender students? That’s become kind of the new frontier that can inflame parents are ultimately inflame voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Guy, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>My pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Guy Marzorati, a political correspondent for KQED. This 26 minute conversation with Guy was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Alan Montecillo is our senior editor. He scored this episode and added all the tape music courtesy of the audio network. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": true,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 2788,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 67
},
"modified": 1700688969,
"excerpt": "Conservatives in the South Bay are focusing their efforts on local, nonpartisan school board races.",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "Conservatives in the South Bay are focusing their efforts on local, nonpartisan school board races.",
"title": "South Bay Conservatives Are Trying to Gain a Foothold on Local School Boards | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "NewsArticle",
"headline": "South Bay Conservatives Are Trying to Gain a Foothold on Local School Boards",
"datePublished": "2023-11-08T03:00:46-08:00",
"dateModified": "2023-11-22T13:36:09-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"isAccessibleForFree": "True",
"publisher": {
"@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
"@id": "https://www.kqed.org/#organization",
"name": "KQED",
"logo": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"url": "https://www.kqed.org",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/KQED",
"https://twitter.com/KQED",
"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/",
"https://www.tiktok.com/@kqedofficial",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/kqed",
"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeC0IOo7i1P_61zVUWbJ4nw"
]
}
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "south-bay-conservatives-are-trying-to-gain-a-foothold-on-local-school-boards",
"status": "publish",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"audioUrl": "https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC7626700938.mp3?updated=1699395149",
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"source": "The Bay",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/news/11966693/south-bay-conservatives-are-trying-to-gain-a-foothold-on-local-school-boards",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As red states pass laws targeting transgender rights and LGBTQ-inclusive education, conservatives in the South Bay have formed their own strategy: focusing on local, nonpartisan school board races.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7626700938\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Hey, it’s Ericka. Quick little note. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity to help us make this show. The internship runs from January through June of 2024. So if you’ve got love for local news, the Bay Area and podcasting. Let’s chat. The deadline to apply is November 17th. We’ll leave you a link to the application in our show notes. All right. Here’s the show. I’m Ericka Cruz GuevarRa and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Back in August, a group of people gathered inside a local church, a little south of Willow Glen in San Jose. They opened the meeting with a prayer. But this wasn’t a church meeting. It was a gathering hosted by the Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women about what’s getting taught in public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*audio from meeting*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The prayer was part of a call to bring like minded conservatives together and prepare them for public office in particular, to try and encourage more conservatives to get into the management and oversight of public schools in the South Bay. By running for school board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, the conservative groups in the South Bay who want to take control of public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>What really fascinated me about the meeting was it kind of gave a peek behind the curtain of how these groups are talking, you know, behind closed doors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Guy Marzorati is a political correspondent for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So at the meeting, you had Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women, some of the successful conservative school board candidates in the South Bay. And then this leader of a local group that’s called Informed Parents of Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, tell me about them. I know they were there. Who was there representing that group and what was he talking about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Right. So you had Larry Pegram, who’s the head of informed Parents of Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>We are here to restore parental rights, to regain parental control, to oppose, CRT, to oppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>He’s a former San Jose City Council member who served in the seventies and really for the decades since has been a big activist locally against gay rights. He fought against anti-discrimination ordinances in the eighties. He fought against gay marriage. And so his group right now is focused on encouraging parents to opt their kids out of sex ed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>We do support health based sex education, and that teaches the reproductive cycle. Biology. Is a concept.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Not only was he there encouraging and supporting people to run for office, but he kind of really laid out the link between what his group was doing around curriculum and then getting people to run for school board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>The Importance of parents organizations. Hugely important because when this gentleman and this gentleman decide that they want to stand up and be a school board member, they need help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And Pegram said his hope is that all these parents kind of connect and then form local groups in their district, these parent groups. And then when a conservative candidate runs for office, these parent groups are going to kind of serve as a backbone for the campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>And here’s the one I like. You have to create a volunteer army.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know one candidate who’d actually won a school board seat. Linda Chavez, was at this meeting. Who is she and what did she have to say at the meeting?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So Linda Chavez is basically an example of someone who has built political power at the school board level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linda Chavez: \u003c/strong>You are only running against yourself. You can either win or lose. And I guess what I’m like losing. I’m a sore loser. I hate losting, losing if for losers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>She won a seat as a trustee in the Alamo Park Elementary School District on San Jose’s East Side back in 2018. So she’s been kind of a success story of this local conservative movement. When Chavez ran, she had three priorities. Number one, focus on student achievement. Number two, rebuild the trust of our community. And number three, work with everyone toward a common goal. That sounds pretty innocuous. It sounds like, you know, everyone could get behind those three priorities. But when she was speaking at the meeting to potential candidates and talking about why she had run in the first place, she said it was the, quote, gay stuff that was happening in the school district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linda Chavez: \u003c/strong>So I decided I’m going to run. Why? Because they were hurting the children. They had just finished passing all of this stuff. And this is one of the first districts did it. And I looked around and says, this is all going to go this way. Not on my watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So, Guy, these groups are having meetings like this to try and rally folks of similar minds and goals to run for school board seats. But why school board seats?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I think there’s no doubt that it’s been a national effort among conservatives to build power at the school board level. This is especially a focus in California, because, look, conservatives have not done well electorally in this state writ large. But the thing about school board is it’s not a partizan race. You’re not running with an R next your name or a D next to your name. So the state Republican Party has made a concerted effort to win school board seats, really, because there’s an opening in which conservatives can, you know, get on the ballot in a low information election. It’s not something people are particularly paying attention to and they’re not weighed down by the designation of being a Republican candidate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, based on what we heard from the meeting, these organizations and these candidates sound very hostile to LGBTQ people. I mean, talking about passing all this, quote unquote, gay stuff. What do these groups have to say about that and what are they advocating for in public?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so informed parents of Silicon Valley. Their stated goal is to teach parents about their ability to remove kids from classes they view as inappropriate. And what they’re really targeting is comprehensive sex education, which in California also includes like LGBTQ class, inclusive language, and also HIV AIDS prevention education. That’s really where they’re trying to say, like parents, try to opt your kids out of these classes. And in the case of comprehensive sex ed, these are classes that are required under state law. But the state is also already required to tell parents you have the ability to opt out. So that’s what their stated goal is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>We are not involved in politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>When I interviewed Larry Pegram, who runs a group, he said, Our group is not about politics. We’re not involved in any of this. We’re strictly just to disseminate information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>We’re involved in parents rights and the responsibilities of parents to raise their children. I didn’t speak with prospective candidates. I talked about what our organization was doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>But this meeting offered a really different window into their aims and kind of stated goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Larry Pegram: \u003c/strong>Our organization for Parents of Silicon Valley is dedicated to helping you candidates get elected. That’s that’s what we’re about now. We’re a51 C3 organization. We don’t do this intake. We do not. Endorse any candidate. But people that think like us. We’re an education organization and we can help educate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Pegram is up there in this meeting giving candidates advice and really talking through how his group and the activities of his group are connected to electing more conservative school board members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How successful have they been so far actually gaining ground in Silicon Valley, actually winning school board seats?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Last year, there were four school board candidates that were backed by this Republican women’s group who actually won in the South Bay. So that in itself might be kind of surprising. Like this is a liberal area for school board candidates. One on the other hand, like there are more than a hundred school board members in the South Bay. So the conservative members are making up a pretty small fraction of that. But I would say school boards, it’s in many cases like a five member board. You only have to win a few candidates in a specific district to really exert a lot of control and make a lot of difference on issues like curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, what happened when San Jose could no longer ignore informed parents of Silicon Valley? Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is still the Bay Area and I have to imagine a lot of parents and elected leaders would be pretty angry to hear about these efforts by informed parents. How do people start to become aware of these groups and what they’re doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yes, So informed parents really got on the radar of local elected officials at the start of this school year. You had volunteers with the group going to school sites and handing out leaflets. They look kind of like bookmarks that were encouraging parents to pull their kids out of sex ed. But the bookmarks had really harsh language on them, saying things like, your children are at risk. Schools are teaching gender confusion. And that’s when the backlash against these groups really, you know, kicked off and went to another level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So a couple weeks ago, the San Jose City Council met to take up a resolution that on its face was about supporting the city’s LGBTQ plus community. But once the discussion really started, it was clear that the real purpose and genesis of this resolution was to denounce the Informed parents group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pam Foley: \u003c/strong>We must not let them win or even think they win. These fliers contain misinformation and hateful dog whistles that target our LGBTQ community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>So you had Pam Foley, a councilmember who co-wrote the resolution, really speaking out about the canvasing activity of inform parents, the ways in which they distributed this literature, the ways in which they described what was happening in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pam Foley: \u003c/strong>I’ve asked the clerk to project the two sided pamphlets that were being passed out by these individuals at Bagby. One says Your children are at risk. Talks about teachers indoctrinating children. I was on the school board for 14 years. That isn’t true. And to all the teachers in the room, I know that’s not true. The schools are a safe place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I know one council member in particular was actually really emotional about this issue. Can you tell me about City council member Omar Torres?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Omar Torres is the first openly gay Latino councilmember in San Jose’s history. He also coauthored this resolution. And a few times he just was overwhelmed when he began to speak on this issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Omar Torres: \u003c/strong>I’m trying to regain my composure, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I think you had other council members kind of going over to him on the dais and like patting him on the back, consoling him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Ultimately, he he spoke and he spoke really personally about the issue and the ways in which he sees these efforts by conservative groups as an effort to push LGBTQ students, as he put it, back into the closet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Omar Torres: \u003c/strong>As a gay brown male. I’ve experienced the struggle of of of trying to be proud of who I am in the face of adversity. And I stand here crying not only as a council member, but as a human who has been the target of hate solely because of my sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what ultimately was the result of the meeting and what does it mean exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Ultimately, on a unanimous vote, the council approved this resolution. The meeting itself showed that, you know, these elected officials wanted to put these conservative groups in the spotlight. They wanted to bring out, you know, supporters of the LGBTQ community in the city to speak in public comment, which happens. And I think this is really going to be kind of setting the stage for school board campaigns in 2024, which is perhaps an effort by, you know, allies of the of San Jose’s and the South Bay’s LGBTQ community to really spotlight these school board races and what’s happening in schools. Oftentimes school board elections go under the radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>And I think the council wanted to make sure they were kind of planting the flag. And to me, it kind of set the stage for the kind of confrontations, because there were folks who came to the meeting and spoke in support of some of these conservative groups, setting up the kind of confrontations we might see on the ballot next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, guys, it strikes me that this is sort of, I guess, the Bay Area’s version of what we’ve seen in red states with, you know, the passage of all these anti LGBTQ laws, many of them targeted at schools and kids. And like, what do you think this ultimately means for voters as we were thinking about, you know, 2024?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, I think what you’re seeing happening on the school board level in the Bay Area is, you know, in the minds of some just the latest iteration of pushback against the LGBTQ community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Melissa Michelson: \u003c/strong>It’s the same playbook that was used to say gay people are scary. We don’t want people grooming our children to think that they’re gay or lesbian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I talked to Dr. Melissa Michelson, who is a political science professor at Menlo College, and she laid it out as the latest iteration of the culture wars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Melissa Michelson: \u003c/strong>The culture wars are all about finding that new thing that divides and tries to, you know, to pull away from the opposition’s coalition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>She compared it to, you know, the pushback against gay rights and gay marriage more than a decade ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dr. Melissa Michelson: \u003c/strong>It’s old, it’s new, and things are always kind of more susceptible to being exploited as a culture war issue when it comes to vulnerable populations like small children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>What’s going on in schools? What books are available in school libraries? What’s the curriculum that’s being taught? How are we treating transgender students? That’s become kind of the new frontier that can inflame parents are ultimately inflame voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Guy, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati: \u003c/strong>My pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Guy Marzorati, a political correspondent for KQED. This 26 minute conversation with Guy was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Alan Montecillo is our senior editor. He scored this episode and added all the tape music courtesy of the audio network. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11966693/south-bay-conservatives-are-trying-to-gain-a-foothold-on-local-school-boards",
"authors": [
"8654",
"227",
"11802",
"11649"
],
"programs": [
"news_28779"
],
"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
],
"tags": [
"news_18541",
"news_33464",
"news_31987",
"news_21285",
"news_22598"
],
"featImg": "news_11966695",
"label": "source_news_11966693"
}
},
"podcastsReducer": {
"isFetching": false,
"fetchFailed": false,
"hasFetched": false,
"podcasts": {}
},
"radioProgramsReducer": {
"isFetching": false,
"fetchFailed": false,
"hasFetched": false,
"radioPrograms": {}
},
"radioSearchSegmentsReducer": {},
"programsReducer": {
"all-things-considered": {
"id": "all-things-considered",
"title": "All Things Considered",
"info": "Every weekday, \u003cem>All Things Considered\u003c/em> hosts Robert Siegel, Audie Cornish, Ari Shapiro, and Kelly McEvers present the program's trademark mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and offbeat features. Michel Martin hosts on the weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 1pm-2pm, 4:30pm-6:30pm\u003cbr />SAT-SUN 5pm-6pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/All-Things-Considered-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/all-things-considered/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/all-things-considered"
},
"american-suburb-podcast": {
"id": "american-suburb-podcast",
"title": "American Suburb: The Podcast",
"tagline": "The flip side of gentrification, told through one town",
"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/American-Suburb-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/american-suburb-podcast",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 19
},
"link": "/news/series/american-suburb-podcast/",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/RBrW",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?mt=2&id=1287748328",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/American-Suburb-p1086805/",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/series/american-suburb-podcast/feed/podcast",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkMzMDExODgxNjA5"
}
},
"baycurious": {
"id": "baycurious",
"title": "Bay Curious",
"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Bay-Curious-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Bay Curious",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/baycurious",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 3
},
"link": "/podcasts/baycurious",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/category/bay-curious-podcast/feed/podcast",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9a90d476-aa04-455d-9a4c-0871ed6216d4/bay-curious",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/bay-curious",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/6O76IdmhixfijmhTZLIJ8k"
}
},
"bbc-world-service": {
"id": "bbc-world-service",
"title": "BBC World Service",
"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9pm-10pm, TUE-FRI 1am-2am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_world_service",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "BBC World Service"
},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/global-news-podcast/id135067274?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/BBC-World-Service-p455581/",
"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
}
},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The California Report",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kqeds-the-california-report/id79681292",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/26099305-72af-4542-9dde-ac1807fe36d5/kqed-s-the-california-report",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432285393/the-california-report",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqedfm-kqeds-the-california-report-podcast-8838",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/tcram/feed/podcast"
}
},
"californiareportmagazine": {
"id": "californiareportmagazine",
"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Magazine-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The California Report Magazine",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 10
},
"link": "/californiareportmagazine",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-california-report-magazine/id1314750545",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/564733126/the-california-report-magazine",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/the-california-report-magazine",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/tcrmag/feed/podcast"
}
},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
"title": "Close All Tabs",
"tagline": "Your irreverent guide to the trends redefining our world",
"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CAT_2_Tile-scaled.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Close All Tabs",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 1
},
"link": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/close-all-tabs/id214663465",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC6993880386",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/92d9d4ac-67a3-4eed-b10a-fb45d45b1ef2/close-all-tabs",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/6LAJFHnGK1pYXYzv6SIol6?si=deb0cae19813417c"
}
},
"code-switch-life-kit": {
"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
"airtime": "SUN 9pm-10pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Code-Switch-Life-Kit-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/code-switch-life-kit",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/1112190608?mt=2&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/3bExJ9JQpkwNhoHvaIIuyV",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510312/podcast.xml"
}
},
"commonwealth-club": {
"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.commonwealthclub.org/podcasts",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/commonwealth-club-of-california-podcast/id976334034?mt=2",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Commonwealth-Club-of-California-p1060/"
}
},
"forum": {
"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/forum",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kqeds-forum/id73329719",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432307980/forum",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqedfm-kqeds-forum-podcast",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC9557381633"
}
},
"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/4s8b",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
}
},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 7pm-8pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fresh-Air-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/4s8b",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Fresh-Air-p17/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
}
},
"here-and-now": {
"id": "here-and-now",
"title": "Here & Now",
"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
"airtime": "MON-THU 11am-12pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Here-And-Now-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/here-and-now",
"subsdcribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?mt=2&id=426698661",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Here--Now-p211/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
}
},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/hiddenbrain.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908750?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Hidden-Brain-p787503/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510308/podcast.xml"
}
},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Arts--Culture-Podcasts/How-I-Built-This-p910896/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
}
},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
"imageAlt": "KQED Hyphenación",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hyphenaci%C3%B3n/id1191591838",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
"youtube": "https://www.youtube.com/c/kqedarts",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6c3dd23c-93fb-4aab-97ba-1725fa6315f1/hyphenaci%C3%B3n",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
}
},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/790253322/the-political-mind-of-jerry-brown",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/series/jerrybrown/feed/podcast/",
"tuneIn": "http://tun.in/pjGcK",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/the-political-mind-of-jerry-brown",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/54C1dmuyFyKMFttY6X2j6r?si=K8SgRCoISNK6ZbjpXrX5-w",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/44420f75-3b0e-4301-ab3b-16da6b09e543/the-political-mind-of-jerry-brown"
}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/xtTd",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Latino-USA-p621/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=201853034&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/APM-Marketplace-p88/",
"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"
}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"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",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/onourwatch",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0OLWoyizopu6tY1XiuX70x",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-Our-Watch-p1436229/",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"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",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Perspectives",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id73801135",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"
}
},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"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",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/M4f5",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Planet-Money-p164680/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
}
},
"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",
"imageAlt": "KQED Political Breakdown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-breakdown/id1327641087",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/572155894/political-breakdown",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/political-breakdown",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/07RVyIjIdk2WDuVehvBMoN",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/political-breakdown/feed/podcast"
}
},
"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/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/possible/id1677184070",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
}
},
"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",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pri.org/programs/the-world",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "PRI"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pri-the-world",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pris-the-world-latest-edition/id278196007?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/PRIs-The-World-p24/",
"rss": "http://feeds.feedburner.com/pri/theworld"
}
},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
"airtime": "SUN 12am-1am, SAT 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/radiolab1400.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/radiolab/",
"meta": {
"site": "science",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/radiolab",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/radiolab/id152249110?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/RadioLab-p68032/",
"rss": "https://feeds.wnyc.org/radiolab"
}
},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/reveal300px.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/reveal",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/reveal/id886009669",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Reveal-p679597/",
"rss": "http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"
}
},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Rightnowish-Podcast-Tile-500x500-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Rightnowish with Pendarvis Harshaw",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/rightnowish",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 16
},
"link": "/podcasts/rightnowish",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/721590300/rightnowish",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/rightnowish/feed/podcast",
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rightnowish/id1482187648",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/rightnowish",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkMxMjU5MTY3NDc4",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/7kEJuafTzTVan7B78ttz1I"
}
},
"science-friday": {
"id": "science-friday",
"title": "Science Friday",
"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
"airtime": "FRI 11am-1pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Science-Friday-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/science-friday",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/science-friday",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=73329284&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Science-Friday-p394/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/science-friday"
}
},
"snap-judgment": {
"id": "snap-judgment",
"title": "Snap Judgment",
"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
"airtime": "SAT 1pm-2pm, 9pm-10pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Snap-Judgment-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Snap Judgment",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://snapjudgment.org",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 4
},
"link": "https://snapjudgment.org",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/snap-judgment/id283657561",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/449018144/snap-judgment",
"stitcher": "https://www.pandora.com/podcast/snap-judgment/PC:241?source=stitcher-sunset",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/3Cct7ZWmxHNAtLgBTqjC5v",
"rss": "https://snap.feed.snapjudgment.org/"
}
},
"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Sold-Out-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/soldout",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 13
},
"link": "/podcasts/soldout",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/911586047/s-o-l-d-o-u-t-a-new-future-for-housing",
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introducing-sold-out-rethinking-housing-in-america/id1531354937",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/soldout",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/38dTBSk2ISFoPiyYNoKn1X",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/sold-out-rethinking-housing-in-america",
"tunein": "https://tunein.com/radio/SOLD-OUT-Rethinking-Housing-in-America-p1365871/"
}
},
"spooked": {
"id": "spooked",
"title": "Spooked",
"tagline": "True-life supernatural stories",
"info": "",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Spooked-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Spooked",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://spookedpodcast.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 7
},
"link": "https://spookedpodcast.org/",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spooked/id1279361017",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/549547848/snap-judgment-presents-spooked",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/76571Rfl3m7PLJQZKQIGCT",
"rss": "https://feeds.simplecast.com/TBotaapn"
}
},
"tech-nation": {
"id": "tech-nation",
"title": "Tech Nation Radio Podcast",
"info": "Tech Nation is a weekly public radio program, hosted by Dr. Moira Gunn. Founded in 1993, it has grown from a simple interview show to a multi-faceted production, featuring conversations with noted technology and science leaders, and a weekly science and technology-related commentary.",
"airtime": "FRI 10pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Tech-Nation-Radio-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://technation.podomatic.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "science",
"source": "Tech Nation Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/tech-nation",
"subscribe": {
"rss": "https://technation.podomatic.com/rss2.xml"
}
},
"ted-radio-hour": {
"id": "ted-radio-hour",
"title": "TED Radio Hour",
"info": "The TED Radio Hour is a journey through fascinating ideas, astonishing inventions, fresh approaches to old problems, and new ways to think and create.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm, SAT 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/tedRadioHour.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/?showDate=2018-06-22",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/ted-radio-hour",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/8vsS",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=523121474&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/TED-Radio-Hour-p418021/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510298/podcast.xml"
}
},
"thebay": {
"id": "thebay",
"title": "The Bay",
"tagline": "Local news to keep you rooted",
"info": "Host Devin Katayama walks you through the biggest story of the day with reporters and newsmakers.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Bay-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Bay",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/thebay",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 2
},
"link": "/podcasts/thebay",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bay/id1350043452",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/d800ea4c-7a2c-42f2-b861-edaf78a5db0b/the-bay",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/586725995/the-bay",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/the-bay",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/4BIKBKIujizLHlIlBNaAqQ",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC8259786327"
}
},
"thelatest": {
"id": "thelatest",
"title": "The Latest",
"tagline": "Trusted local news in real time",
"info": "",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/The-Latest-2025-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Latest",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/thelatest",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 6
},
"link": "/thelatest",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-latest-from-kqed/id1197721799",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1257949365/the-latest-from-k-q-e-d",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/5KIIXMgM9GTi5AepwOYvIZ?si=bd3053fec7244dba",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC9137121918"
}
},
"theleap": {
"id": "theleap",
"title": "The Leap",
"tagline": "What if you closed your eyes, and jumped?",
"info": "Stories about people making dramatic, risky changes, told by award-winning public radio reporter Judy Campbell.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Leap-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Leap",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/theleap",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 17
},
"link": "/podcasts/theleap",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-leap/id1046668171",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/447248267/the-leap",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/the-leap",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/3sSlVHHzU0ytLwuGs1SD1U",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/programs/the-leap/feed/podcast"
}
},
"the-moth-radio-hour": {
"id": "the-moth-radio-hour",
"title": "The Moth Radio Hour",
"info": "Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented thousands of true stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. Moth storytellers stand alone, under a spotlight, with only a microphone and a roomful of strangers. The storyteller and the audience embark on a high-wire act of shared experience which is both terrifying and exhilarating. Since 2008, The Moth podcast has featured many of our favorite stories told live on Moth stages around the country. For information on all of our programs and live events, visit themoth.org.",
"airtime": "SAT 8pm-9pm and SUN 11am-12pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/theMoth.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://themoth.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "prx"
},
"link": "/radio/program/the-moth-radio-hour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-moth-podcast/id275699983?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/The-Moth-p273888/",
"rss": "http://feeds.themoth.org/themothpodcast"
}
},
"the-new-yorker-radio-hour": {
"id": "the-new-yorker-radio-hour",
"title": "The New Yorker Radio Hour",
"info": "The New Yorker Radio Hour is a weekly program presented by the magazine's editor, David Remnick, and produced by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Each episode features a diverse mix of interviews, profiles, storytelling, and an occasional burst of humor inspired by the magazine, and shaped by its writers, artists, and editors. This isn't a radio version of a magazine, but something all its own, reflecting the rich possibilities of audio storytelling and conversation. Theme music for the show was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of tUnE-YArDs.",
"airtime": "SAT 10am-11am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-New-Yorker-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/tnyradiohour",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/the-new-yorker-radio-hour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1050430296",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/New-Yorker-Radio-Hour-p803804/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/newyorkerradiohour"
}
},
"the-sam-sanders-show": {
"id": "the-sam-sanders-show",
"title": "The Sam Sanders Show",
"info": "One of public radio's most dynamic voices, Sam Sanders helped launch The NPR Politics Podcast and hosted NPR's hit show It's Been A Minute. Now, the award-winning host returns with something brand new, The Sam Sanders Show. Every week, Sam Sanders and friends dig into the culture that shapes our lives: what's driving the biggest trends, how artists really think, and even the memes you can't stop scrolling past. Sam is beloved for his way of unpacking the world and bringing you up close to fresh currents and engaging conversations. The Sam Sanders Show is smart, funny and always a good time.",
"airtime": "FRI 12-1pm AND SAT 11am-12pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/The-Sam-Sanders-Show-Podcast-Tile-400x400-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.kcrw.com/shows/the-sam-sanders-show/latest",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "KCRW"
},
"link": "https://www.kcrw.com/shows/the-sam-sanders-show/latest",
"subscribe": {
"rss": "https://feed.cdnstream1.com/zjb/feed/download/ac/28/59/ac28594c-e1d0-4231-8728-61865cdc80e8.xml"
}
},
"the-splendid-table": {
"id": "the-splendid-table",
"title": "The Splendid Table",
"info": "\u003cem>The Splendid Table\u003c/em> hosts our nation's conversations about cooking, sustainability and food culture.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Splendid-Table-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.splendidtable.org/",
"airtime": "SUN 10-11 pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/the-splendid-table"
},
"this-american-life": {
"id": "this-american-life",
"title": "This American Life",
"info": "This American Life is a weekly public radio show, heard by 2.2 million people on more than 500 stations. Another 2.5 million people download the weekly podcast. It is hosted by Ira Glass, produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media, delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange, and has won all of the major broadcasting awards.",
"airtime": "SAT 12pm-1pm, 7pm-8pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/thisAmericanLife.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.thisamericanlife.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "wbez"
},
"link": "/radio/program/this-american-life",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=201671138&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"rss": "https://www.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/rss.xml"
}
},
"tinydeskradio": {
"id": "tinydeskradio",
"title": "Tiny Desk Radio",
"info": "We're bringing the best of Tiny Desk to the airwaves, only on public radio.",
"airtime": "SUN 8pm and SAT 9pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/300x300-For-Member-Station-Logo-Tiny-Desk-Radio-@2x.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/g-s1-52030/tiny-desk-radio",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/tinydeskradio",
"subscribe": {
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/g-s1-52030/rss.xml"
}
},
"wait-wait-dont-tell-me": {
"id": "wait-wait-dont-tell-me",
"title": "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!",
"info": "Peter Sagal and Bill Kurtis host the weekly NPR News quiz show alongside some of the best and brightest news and entertainment personalities.",
"airtime": "SUN 10am-11am, SAT 11am-12pm, SAT 6pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Wait-Wait-Podcast-Tile-300x300-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/wait-wait-dont-tell-me/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/wait-wait-dont-tell-me",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/Xogv",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=121493804&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Wait-Wait-Dont-Tell-Me-p46/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/344098539/podcast.xml"
}
},
"weekend-edition-saturday": {
"id": "weekend-edition-saturday",
"title": "Weekend Edition Saturday",
"info": "Weekend Edition Saturday wraps up the week's news and offers a mix of analysis and features on a wide range of topics, including arts, sports, entertainment, and human interest stories. The two-hour program is hosted by NPR's Peabody Award-winning Scott Simon.",
"airtime": "SAT 5am-10am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Weekend-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-saturday/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/weekend-edition-saturday"
},
"weekend-edition-sunday": {
"id": "weekend-edition-sunday",
"title": "Weekend Edition Sunday",
"info": "Weekend Edition Sunday features interviews with newsmakers, artists, scientists, politicians, musicians, writers, theologians and historians. The program has covered news events from Nelson Mandela's 1990 release from a South African prison to the capture of Saddam Hussein.",
"airtime": "SUN 5am-10am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Weekend-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-sunday/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/weekend-edition-sunday"
}
},
"racesReducer": {},
"racesGenElectionReducer": {},
"racesGenElection2026Reducer": {},
"radioSchedulesReducer": {},
"listsReducer": {
"posts/news?program=the-bay": {
"isFetching": false,
"latestQuery": {
"from": 72,
"size": 12
},
"vitalsOnly": false,
"totalRequested": 12,
"isLoading": false,
"isLoadingMore": true,
"total": {
"value": 924,
"relation": "eq"
},
"items": [
"news_11974886",
"news_11974251",
"news_11970148",
"news_11968220",
"news_11968205",
"news_11968081",
"news_11967782",
"news_11967633",
"news_11967317",
"news_11966931",
"news_11967004",
"news_11966693"
],
"complete": true
}
},
"recallGuideReducer": {
"intros": {},
"policy": {},
"candidates": {}
},
"savedArticleReducer": {
"articles": [],
"status": {}
},
"newslettersReducer": {
"isFetching": false,
"fetchFailed": false,
"hasFetched": false,
"newsletters": {},
"isSubscribing": false,
"isUnsubscribing": false,
"subscribedNewsletters": {}
},
"termsReducer": {
"about": {
"name": "About",
"type": "terms",
"id": "about",
"slug": "about",
"link": "/about",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"arts": {
"name": "Arts & Culture",
"grouping": [
"arts",
"pop",
"trulyca"
],
"description": "KQED Arts provides daily in-depth coverage of the Bay Area's music, art, film, performing arts, literature and arts news, as well as cultural commentary and criticism.",
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts",
"slug": "arts",
"link": "/arts",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"artschool": {
"name": "Art School",
"parent": "arts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "artschool",
"slug": "artschool",
"link": "/artschool",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"bayareabites": {
"name": "KQED food",
"grouping": [
"food",
"bayareabites",
"checkplease"
],
"parent": "food",
"type": "terms",
"id": "bayareabites",
"slug": "bayareabites",
"link": "/food",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"bayareahiphop": {
"name": "Bay Area Hiphop",
"type": "terms",
"id": "bayareahiphop",
"slug": "bayareahiphop",
"link": "/bayareahiphop",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"campaign21": {
"name": "Campaign 21",
"type": "terms",
"id": "campaign21",
"slug": "campaign21",
"link": "/campaign21",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"careers": {
"name": "Careers",
"type": "terms",
"id": "careers",
"slug": "careers",
"link": "/careers",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"checkplease": {
"name": "KQED food",
"grouping": [
"food",
"bayareabites",
"checkplease"
],
"parent": "food",
"type": "terms",
"id": "checkplease",
"slug": "checkplease",
"link": "/food",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"education": {
"name": "Education",
"grouping": [
"education"
],
"type": "terms",
"id": "education",
"slug": "education",
"link": "/education",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"elections": {
"name": "Elections",
"type": "terms",
"id": "elections",
"slug": "elections",
"link": "/elections",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"events": {
"name": "Events",
"type": "terms",
"id": "events",
"slug": "events",
"link": "/events",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"event": {
"name": "Event",
"alias": "events",
"type": "terms",
"id": "event",
"slug": "event",
"link": "/event",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"filmschoolshorts": {
"name": "Film School Shorts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "filmschoolshorts",
"slug": "filmschoolshorts",
"link": "/filmschoolshorts",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"food": {
"name": "KQED food",
"grouping": [
"food",
"bayareabites",
"checkplease"
],
"type": "terms",
"id": "food",
"slug": "food",
"link": "/food",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"forum": {
"name": "Forum",
"relatedContentQuery": "posts/forum?",
"parent": "news",
"type": "terms",
"id": "forum",
"slug": "forum",
"link": "/forum",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"futureofyou": {
"name": "Future of You",
"grouping": [
"science",
"futureofyou"
],
"parent": "science",
"type": "terms",
"id": "futureofyou",
"slug": "futureofyou",
"link": "/futureofyou",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"jpepinheart": {
"name": "KQED food",
"relatedContentQuery": "posts/food,bayareabites,checkplease",
"parent": "food",
"type": "terms",
"id": "jpepinheart",
"slug": "jpepinheart",
"link": "/food",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"liveblog": {
"name": "Live Blog",
"type": "terms",
"id": "liveblog",
"slug": "liveblog",
"link": "/liveblog",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"livetv": {
"name": "Live TV",
"parent": "tv",
"type": "terms",
"id": "livetv",
"slug": "livetv",
"link": "/livetv",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"lowdown": {
"name": "The Lowdown",
"relatedContentQuery": "posts/lowdown?",
"parent": "news",
"type": "terms",
"id": "lowdown",
"slug": "lowdown",
"link": "/lowdown",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"mindshift": {
"name": "Mindshift",
"parent": "news",
"description": "MindShift explores the future of education by highlighting the innovative – and sometimes counterintuitive – ways educators and parents are helping all children succeed.",
"type": "terms",
"id": "mindshift",
"slug": "mindshift",
"link": "/mindshift",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"news": {
"name": "News",
"grouping": [
"news",
"forum"
],
"type": "terms",
"id": "news",
"slug": "news",
"link": "/news",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"newsletters": {
"name": "newsletters",
"type": "terms",
"id": "newsletters",
"slug": "newsletters",
"link": "/newsletters",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"perspectives": {
"name": "Perspectives",
"parent": "radio",
"type": "terms",
"id": "perspectives",
"slug": "perspectives",
"link": "/perspectives",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"podcasts": {
"name": "Podcasts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "podcasts",
"slug": "podcasts",
"link": "/podcasts",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"pop": {
"name": "Pop",
"parent": "arts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "pop",
"slug": "pop",
"link": "/pop",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"pressroom": {
"name": "Pressroom",
"type": "terms",
"id": "pressroom",
"slug": "pressroom",
"link": "/pressroom",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"quest": {
"name": "Quest",
"parent": "science",
"type": "terms",
"id": "quest",
"slug": "quest",
"link": "/quest",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"radio": {
"name": "Radio",
"grouping": [
"forum",
"perspectives"
],
"description": "Listen to KQED Public Radio – home of Forum and The California Report – on 88.5 FM in San Francisco, 89.3 FM in Sacramento, 88.3 FM in Santa Rosa and 88.1 FM in Martinez.",
"type": "terms",
"id": "radio",
"slug": "radio",
"link": "/radio",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"root": {
"name": "KQED",
"image": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"imageWidth": 1200,
"imageHeight": 630,
"headData": {
"title": "KQED | News, Radio, Podcasts, TV | Public Media for Northern California",
"description": "KQED provides public radio, television, and independent reporting on issues that matter to the Bay Area. We’re the NPR and PBS member station for Northern California."
},
"type": "terms",
"id": "root",
"slug": "root",
"link": "/root",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"science": {
"name": "Science",
"grouping": [
"science",
"futureofyou"
],
"description": "KQED Science brings you award-winning science and environment coverage from the Bay Area and beyond.",
"type": "terms",
"id": "science",
"slug": "science",
"link": "/science",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"stateofhealth": {
"name": "State of Health",
"parent": "science",
"type": "terms",
"id": "stateofhealth",
"slug": "stateofhealth",
"link": "/stateofhealth",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"support": {
"name": "Support",
"type": "terms",
"id": "support",
"slug": "support",
"link": "/support",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"thedolist": {
"name": "The Do List",
"parent": "arts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "thedolist",
"slug": "thedolist",
"link": "/thedolist",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"trulyca": {
"name": "Truly CA",
"grouping": [
"arts",
"pop",
"trulyca"
],
"parent": "arts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "trulyca",
"slug": "trulyca",
"link": "/trulyca",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"tv": {
"name": "TV",
"type": "terms",
"id": "tv",
"slug": "tv",
"link": "/tv",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"voterguide": {
"name": "Voter Guide",
"parent": "elections",
"alias": "elections",
"type": "terms",
"id": "voterguide",
"slug": "voterguide",
"link": "/voterguide",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"guiaelectoral": {
"name": "Guia Electoral",
"parent": "elections",
"alias": "elections",
"type": "terms",
"id": "guiaelectoral",
"slug": "guiaelectoral",
"link": "/guiaelectoral",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"news_program_the-bay": {
"isLoading": true
},
"news_28779": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_28779",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "28779",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "The Bay",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "program",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": "The Bay is a daily news and culture program from KQED that covers the latest headlines, trends, and stories that matter to the Bay Area.",
"title": "The Bay Area Archives | KQED",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 28796,
"slug": "the-bay",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/program/the-bay"
},
"source_news_11974886": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11974886",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11974251": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11974251",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11970148": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11970148",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11968205": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11968205",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11968081": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11968081",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11967782": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11967782",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11967633": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11967633",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11967317": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11967317",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11966931": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11966931",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11967004": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11967004",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"source_news_11966693": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_news_11966693",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "The Bay",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay",
"isLoading": false
},
"news_33520": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_33520",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "33520",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Podcast",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Podcast Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 33537,
"slug": "podcast",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/category/podcast"
},
"news_31961": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_31961",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "31961",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "California storm",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "California storm Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 31978,
"slug": "california-storm",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/california-storm"
},
"news_140": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_140",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "140",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "PG&E",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "PG&E Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 144,
"slug": "pge",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/pge"
},
"news_1084": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_1084",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "1084",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "power outage",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "power outage Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1095,
"slug": "power-outage",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/power-outage"
},
"news_22598": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_22598",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "22598",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "The Bay",
"description": "\u003cimg class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-11638190\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/02/TheBay_1200x6301.png\" alt=\"\" />\r\n\u003cbr/>\r\n\r\nEvery good story starts local. So that’s where we start. \u003ci>The Bay\u003c/i> is storytelling for daily news. KQED host Devin Katayama talks with reporters to help us make sense of what’s happening in the Bay Area. One story. One conversation. One idea.\r\n\r\n\u003cstrong>Subscribe to The Bay:\u003c/strong>\r\n\r\n\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bay/id1350043452?mt=2\">\u003cimg src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/Listen_on_Apple_Podcasts_sRGB_US-e1515635079510.png\" />\u003c/a>",
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": "Every good story starts local. So that’s where we start. The Bay is storytelling for daily news. KQED host Devin Katayama talks with reporters to help us make sense of what’s happening in the Bay Area. One story. One conversation. One idea. Subscribe to The Bay:",
"title": "The Bay Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 22615,
"slug": "the-bay",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/the-bay"
},
"news_8": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_8",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "8",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "News",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "News Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 8,
"slug": "news",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/category/news"
},
"news_93": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_93",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "93",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Google",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Google Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 96,
"slug": "google",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/google"
},
"news_4020": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_4020",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "4020",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"name": "Homelessness",
"slug": "homelessness",
"taxonomy": "tag",
"description": null,
"featImg": null,
"headData": {
"title": "Homelessness | KQED News",
"description": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogDescription": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"twDescription": null,
"twImgId": null,
"metaRobotsNoIndex": "index"
},
"ttid": 4039,
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/homelessness"
},
"news_33628": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_33628",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "33628",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "San Mateo County Board of Supervisors",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "San Mateo County Board of Supervisors Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 33645,
"slug": "san-mateo-county-board-of-supervisors",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/san-mateo-county-board-of-supervisors"
},
"news_31041": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_31041",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "31041",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"name": "SF DA recall",
"slug": "sf-da-recall",
"taxonomy": "tag",
"description": null,
"featImg": null,
"headData": {
"title": "SF DA recall | KQED News",
"description": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogDescription": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"twDescription": null,
"twImgId": null,
"metaRobotsNoIndex": "noindex"
},
"ttid": 31058,
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/sf-da-recall"
},
"news_34165": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_34165",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "34165",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"name": "Climate",
"slug": "climate",
"taxonomy": "category",
"description": null,
"featImg": null,
"headData": {
"title": "Climate Archives | KQED News",
"description": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogDescription": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"twDescription": null,
"twImgId": null
},
"ttid": 34182,
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/category/climate"
},
"news_32945": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_32945",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "32945",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "bay area housing",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "bay area housing Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 32962,
"slug": "bay-area-housing",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/bay-area-housing"
},
"news_255": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_255",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "255",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "climate change",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "climate change Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 263,
"slug": "climate-change",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/climate-change"
},
"news_4463": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_4463",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "4463",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "wildfires",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "wildfires Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 4482,
"slug": "wildfires",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/wildfires"
},
"news_32662": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_32662",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "32662",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "arts and culture",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "arts and culture Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 32679,
"slug": "arts-and-culture",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/arts-and-culture"
},
"news_33293": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_33293",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "33293",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Fairfield Civic Center Library",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Fairfield Civic Center Library Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 33310,
"slug": "fairfield-civic-center-library",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/fairfield-civic-center-library"
},
"news_28147": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_28147",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "28147",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "library",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "library Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 28164,
"slug": "library",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/library"
},
"news_29435": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_29435",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "29435",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "tiktok",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "tiktok Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 29452,
"slug": "tiktok",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/tiktok"
},
"news_21512": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_21512",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "21512",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Native American",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Native American Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 21529,
"slug": "native-american",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/native-american"
},
"news_1262": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_1262",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "1262",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "native americans",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "native americans Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1274,
"slug": "native-americans",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/native-americans"
},
"news_2670": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_2670",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "2670",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "journalism",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "journalism Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 2687,
"slug": "journalism",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/journalism"
},
"news_2109": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_2109",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "2109",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "mental health",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "mental health Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 2124,
"slug": "mental-health",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/mental-health"
},
"news_30358": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_30358",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "30358",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"name": "congressional delegation",
"slug": "congressional-delegation",
"taxonomy": "tag",
"description": null,
"featImg": null,
"headData": {
"title": "congressional delegation | KQED News",
"description": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogDescription": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"twDescription": null,
"twImgId": null,
"metaRobotsNoIndex": "noindex"
},
"ttid": 30375,
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/congressional-delegation"
},
"news_6631": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_6631",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "6631",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Gaza",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Gaza Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 6655,
"slug": "gaza",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/gaza"
},
"news_33333": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_33333",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "33333",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Israel-Hamas War",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Israel-Hamas War Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 33350,
"slug": "israel-hamas-war",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/israel-hamas-war"
},
"news_177": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_177",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "177",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Nancy Pelosi",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Nancy Pelosi Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 184,
"slug": "nancy-pelosi",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/nancy-pelosi"
},
"news_18269": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_18269",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "18269",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "farmworkers",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "farmworkers Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 18303,
"slug": "farmworkers",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/farmworkers"
},
"news_1164": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_1164",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "1164",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Half Moon Bay",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Half Moon Bay Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1175,
"slug": "half-moon-bay",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/half-moon-bay"
},
"news_1425": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_1425",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "1425",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "music",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "music Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1437,
"slug": "music",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/music"
},
"news_2138": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_2138",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "2138",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "trauma",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "trauma Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 2153,
"slug": "trauma",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/trauma"
},
"news_6266": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_6266",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "6266",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Housing",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Housing Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 6290,
"slug": "housing",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/category/housing"
},
"news_20013": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_20013",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "20013",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "education",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "education Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 20030,
"slug": "education",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/education"
},
"news_1775": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_1775",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "1775",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "housing",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "housing Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1790,
"slug": "housing",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/housing"
},
"news_1867": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_1867",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "1867",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "APEC",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "APEC Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1882,
"slug": "apec",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/apec"
},
"news_6931": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_6931",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "6931",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "London Breed",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "London Breed Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 6955,
"slug": "london-breed",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/london-breed"
},
"news_18541": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_18541",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "18541",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "San Jose",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "San Jose Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 91,
"slug": "san-jose",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/san-jose"
},
"news_31987": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_31987",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "31987",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "school board races",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "school board races Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 32004,
"slug": "school-board-races",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/school-board-races"
},
"news_21285": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "news_21285",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "news",
"id": "21285",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "South Bay",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "South Bay Archives | KQED News",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 21302,
"slug": "south-bay",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/news/tag/south-bay"
}
},
"userPermissionsReducer": {
"wpLoggedIn": false
},
"eventsReducer": {},
"fssReducer": {},
"tvDailyScheduleReducer": {},
"tvWeeklyScheduleReducer": {},
"tvPrimetimeScheduleReducer": {},
"tvMonthlyScheduleReducer": {},
"userAccountReducer": {
"user": {
"email": null,
"emailStatus": "EMAIL_UNVALIDATED",
"loggedStatus": "LOGGED_OUT",
"loggingChecked": false,
"articles": [],
"firstName": null,
"lastName": null,
"phoneNumber": null,
"fetchingMembership": false,
"membershipError": false,
"memberships": [
{
"id": null,
"startDate": null,
"firstName": null,
"lastName": null,
"familyNumber": null,
"memberNumber": null,
"memberSince": null,
"expirationDate": null,
"pfsEligible": false,
"isSustaining": false,
"membershipLevel": "Prospect",
"membershipStatus": "Non Member",
"lastGiftDate": null,
"renewalDate": null,
"lastDonationAmount": null
}
]
},
"authModal": {
"isOpen": false,
"view": "LANDING_VIEW"
},
"error": null
},
"youthMediaReducer": {},
"checkPleaseReducer": {
"filterData": {
"region": {
"key": "Restaurant Region",
"filters": [
"Any Region"
]
},
"cuisine": {
"key": "Restaurant Cuisine",
"filters": [
"Any Cuisine"
]
}
},
"restaurantDataById": {},
"restaurantIdsSorted": [],
"error": null
},
"userAgentReducer": {
"userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)",
"isBot": true
}
}
