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"title": "The Bay Area's Only Palestinian-American Elected Official Speaks Out On the War in Gaza",
"headTitle": "The Bay Area’s Only Palestinian-American Elected Official Speaks Out On the War in Gaza | 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\">Foster City is home to one of the\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13934383/palestine-cultural-day-foster-city\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> largest annual gatherings of Palestinians \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in the Bay Area. It’s also where Councilmember Sam Hindi holds office as one of the few elected officials of Palestinian heritage in California. Today, we talk with Hindi about how the war in Gaza has affected him — as an elected official, as a father, and as a Palestinian-American.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6577254913&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\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 style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to The Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. For 36 years, one of the largest Palestinian celebrations here in the Bay Area had been held in San Francisco’s Hall of Flowers. People from all over the region flocked to this yearly celebration, and eventually the hall’s capacity of 3000 people just couldn’t fit the amount of people showing up to this celebration every year. So, in 2018, the Palestine Day Cultural Festival was moved to Foster City, a community of about 33,000 people in San Mateo County. That same year, a man by the name of Sam Hindi had been elected mayor of Foster City, becoming only the second Palestinian American to hold elected office in the state of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>My name is Ericka, I’m here to interview Sam Hindi:. And we’re in the lobby. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Ericka? Hi, Ericka. A pleasure to meet you. Pleasure. Thank you for coming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Hi. Maria. Nice to meet you\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Nice to meet you, Maria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Maria, Alan, and I recently went to Foster City to talk with Sam Hindi. We took an elevator up to his office on the second floor of City Hall, which revealed a perfect view of the San Mateo Bridge in the distance. The bridge looks amazing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s really cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, yeah. I mean, this whole area here. Yeah. This used to be light industrial, And this year we have added so much needed housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Usually, Councilmember Hindi talks about stuff you’d expect from a local politician in the bay. Things like housing, public safety, access to parks. But we visited him to discuss his unique perspective as one of just a few Palestinian-American elected officials in the country. First Councilmember, I’ll have you just introduce yourself as your first and last name and then tell us what you do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Sure. My name is Sam Hindi – last name H-I-N-D-I. I am a current councilmember here in Foster City. I used to be mayor and 2018-2019. My family’s story really begins with my grandparents from both my mom’s side and my dad’s side becoming refugees in 1948. They come from a town on the northern coast of what used to be Palestine. At the time it was called Akka. In English, it was called Acre, and my grandfather from my dad’s side, he let his family kind of go to Lebanon and he stayed behind, fighting for his village and for his country until he got injured and he had to evacuate and followed the family to Lebanon. You know, I’m someone who grew up in Lebanon during the civil war. So I understand I firsthand experience impact of war. My family basically ended up being scattered all over the world. I still have family in Lebanon. I still have family in Palestine. We grew up with Palestine in our mind. Our people has been subjected to colonization and occupation for 75 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What brought you to Foster City specifically?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>I immigrated in 1983 to the United States, and I was in Southern California. I went to college in Long Beach State, and that’s where I pursued my education. And while I was in college, I started a family business along with my brothers. And we had a career service. And then in 1992, we expanded from Southern California to Northern California. I actually stumbled over Foster City. I didn’t know that Foster City existed. I was shopping at a Middle Eastern store and started the conversation, and I told them I was thinking of moving to Burlingame and they said, ‘Well, you work in Union City. Why don’t you check out Foster City?’ I said, ‘Where is that?’ And I came to Foster City in 1992, fell in love with it. The community is such a great, diverse community that welcomes everybody. And after that, I got married and raised my children. My children were born in Foster City and went to Foster City schools. So, this is home for us. I’ve been here for so many years now, since 1992.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what about your family? Are your brothers in Foster City as well? Are they still in Southern California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>You know, Palestinians end up being everywhere and scattered everywhere because we are homeless. That’s really what we are. We are stateless. So, I have two brothers in Southern California. I have one brother in Canada. I have one sister in New York. I have one sister still in Lebanon. And if I could tell you about my extended family, there’s some in Germany, some I mean, all over Europe, some in Dubai, Saudi Arabia. It’s just wherever you can make a living, wherever you could go, because, you know, wherever you are, the concentration of the Palestinian community in Lebanon or Syria or Jordan and the camps is not really a future to have a economic and financial future. So, you end up taking the opportunities wherever you can in this large world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>On October 13th, Councilmember Hindi posted on his personal Facebook page saying, “The attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians, including killing, injuring and kidnaping, are reprehensible and war crimes.” He went on to write that “destroying and flattening entire neighborhoods in Gaza could not be justified or explained as self-defense. The footage from Gaza of civilian casualties is horrifying and beyond description.” For weeks now, Hindi has been glued to Al-Jazeera and sharing social media posts from the ground in Gaza. And he also believes very strongly that the U.S. is complicit in the killing of civilians in Palestine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>As the U.S. government, we are guilty of genocide just as much as Israel is guilty of genocide. There is no question in my mind about this. After October 7, people were talking about, well, especially elected official in the Western world and here, you know, Israel has a right to defend itself. I think every nation has a right to defend itself. Not just Israel. That goes without saying. Let me ask these questions: is laying a siege on 2.2 million civilians, not allowing food, water, medical supplies to come in, is that defending yourself? Is bombarding homes defending yourself? Is bombing mosques and churches defending yourself? Is killing over 9000 civilians – over 3000 of them are children – defending yourself? I cannot fathom how anyone, and mainly our US administration – how do you think what is happening, by having this genocide being committed, by the suffering of so many people, by shattering the lives of so many people, gonna get us closer to peace or security? I argue that it does completely the opposite. I say it will harden more people. You will have more militant because the scars of war do not to you in one day or two. I, for one, was one of those who was hopeful for a two-state solution. And I have a lot of reservations on the Oslo Accord, but I’m talking about the principle of coexistence, the principle of making peace, the principle of living together. Unfortunately, what has happened and transpired since: the constant land theft of Palestinian land in Jerusalem and the West Bank and expanding the settlement enterprise, taking the indigenous people, kicking them out of their homes, stealing the land and building settlement on it, and all the violations of human rights and all the crimes that has been committed against the Palestinian people. Israel has been getting away with it with impunity. Unfortunately, from our country, the United States and the rest of the Western world, most of the Western world, not all of them. So I don’t see how that could happen. It’s really – and it’s kind of ironic that you hear Biden and his administration we are for a two state solution. Either they are disingenuous or they don’t know what they are talking about. And I don’t think they don’t know what they are talking about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>After the break, Sam Hindi talks about what role he thinks local elected officials in the Bay Area can play in this international conflict. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I want to ask you how you’re thinking about your role in this moment as a city councilor, as an American, as a Palestinian-American. What have your conversations been like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>So, that’s a very important question. I mean, I have different hats and I wear those different hats and different roles. My job as a city council member is to be representing my entire community, not just a Palestinian communities, and not just my personal views as a Palestinian American. My job is to make sure the well-being of my entire community, those on either side or those who are not even involved, that they are being respected, that we are careful how people on the other side in our community are mourning as well. We have civilians in Israel who got killed as well. And I mourn all civilians. I represent the residents of Foster City equally. But with that being said, you ask me, what do I do? I continue to reach out to our congressional representatives to share with them the perspective and the feelings of the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim community, and quite frankly, our allies, who most of them are Jewish. Jewish Voice for Peace [and] Not In Our Name: those two organization are advocating for a cease fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Have you had a chance to actually get on the phone with some of these congressional representatives you’ve reached out to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>I have. Our congressional representative for our district is Kevin Mullin. But we’ve been reaching out to other issues and not just our local representative. Obviously, you know, our community is in a lot of pain. Our children in school are scared and being called terrorists. They’re being singled out. We make sure we reach out to the attorney general of the state of California, Rob Bonta, to make him aware of these things. We continue to be anxious, continue to be scared, and we feel abandoned quite, quite frankly, by our leadership in Washington. We feel betrayed by the Biden administration, and he better be careful. He is losing, if not already lost a lot of votes, not just from Palestinians, not just from Arabs, not just from Muslims, but also from our allies. Actions have consequences and hopefully that will be reflected on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You are a city councilor of this one particular city. But we have seen Richmond, California, you know, pass a resolution standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine. I’m curious how you see your role in that way. Are there any conversations happening in Foster City, for example, about that kind of thing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>That’s a very tough and important question. And just to be clear, a resolution of any kind on international policy is symbolic, although it’s important sometimes to be symbolic. I’m not dismissing the importance. It’s very important. Basically, what Richmond said, in essence, we don’t want to be silent and we’re speaking out to what we see is wrong as crime. Others have reservations. I think it was an important move for the Richmond City Council to articulate their values for human rights and for freedom. Here in Foster City, I have not approached it. And…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Would you like to see something like that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>I do. You know, on the city council. I’m one of five. To get anything done, you need at least two more people. I don’t think we’ll have three, so I weigh, is it worth going through the exercise and have the divisiveness in the community and not having the outcome? Because, you know, you’re going to open the debate and you’re going to have the divisiveness. For that reason, you way. What’s the point? What’s the value? I’m not here to divide my community. Yes, I’m here to lead. And I would love my community to see the injustice and to say that. To be fair to my colleagues, I have not approached them. I’m not suggesting that they are not or they are. I don’t know. But my gut feeling is I don’t have three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What are the conversations that you’re having with your kids right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>So my kids are at an age now that they really understand everything on their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How old are they?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>I have a 26, 24, and 21. My wife and I never kind of put them in and really drilled in them the Palestinian issue. They organically have seen because, unfortunately, what we are seeing now is this is like what, the fourth time at least, in Gaza. So, they grew up experiencing these things just from far away from the United States. But it’s organically had the connection they did on their own. My parents actually, the one thing that they drilled in our mind, me and my siblings, is we don’t have a problem with the Jewish religion and the Jews. This is about Zionism and the theft of Palestine. So, that is what my parents drilled in our heads. Be careful when you speak and be careful who you target with your speech. This is not a religious war. This is about colonialism and settlement and occupation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for taking the time and for speaking with us and sitting down. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Well, thank you so much for reaching out and really for providing me the medium to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Sam Hindi, a city council member in Foster City. This conversation was pitched and produced by me. It was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo and Maria Esquinca, who scored this episode. 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",
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"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\">Foster City is home to one of the\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13934383/palestine-cultural-day-foster-city\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> largest annual gatherings of Palestinians \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in the Bay Area. It’s also where Councilmember Sam Hindi holds office as one of the few elected officials of Palestinian heritage in California. Today, we talk with Hindi about how the war in Gaza has affected him — as an elected official, as a father, and as a Palestinian-American.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6577254913&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/div>",
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"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 style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to The Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. For 36 years, one of the largest Palestinian celebrations here in the Bay Area had been held in San Francisco’s Hall of Flowers. People from all over the region flocked to this yearly celebration, and eventually the hall’s capacity of 3000 people just couldn’t fit the amount of people showing up to this celebration every year. So, in 2018, the Palestine Day Cultural Festival was moved to Foster City, a community of about 33,000 people in San Mateo County. That same year, a man by the name of Sam Hindi had been elected mayor of Foster City, becoming only the second Palestinian American to hold elected office in the state of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>My name is Ericka, I’m here to interview Sam Hindi:. And we’re in the lobby. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Ericka? Hi, Ericka. A pleasure to meet you. Pleasure. Thank you for coming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Hi. Maria. Nice to meet you\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Nice to meet you, Maria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Maria, Alan, and I recently went to Foster City to talk with Sam Hindi. We took an elevator up to his office on the second floor of City Hall, which revealed a perfect view of the San Mateo Bridge in the distance. The bridge looks amazing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That’s really cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Yeah, yeah. I mean, this whole area here. Yeah. This used to be light industrial, And this year we have added so much needed housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Usually, Councilmember Hindi talks about stuff you’d expect from a local politician in the bay. Things like housing, public safety, access to parks. But we visited him to discuss his unique perspective as one of just a few Palestinian-American elected officials in the country. First Councilmember, I’ll have you just introduce yourself as your first and last name and then tell us what you do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Sure. My name is Sam Hindi – last name H-I-N-D-I. I am a current councilmember here in Foster City. I used to be mayor and 2018-2019. My family’s story really begins with my grandparents from both my mom’s side and my dad’s side becoming refugees in 1948. They come from a town on the northern coast of what used to be Palestine. At the time it was called Akka. In English, it was called Acre, and my grandfather from my dad’s side, he let his family kind of go to Lebanon and he stayed behind, fighting for his village and for his country until he got injured and he had to evacuate and followed the family to Lebanon. You know, I’m someone who grew up in Lebanon during the civil war. So I understand I firsthand experience impact of war. My family basically ended up being scattered all over the world. I still have family in Lebanon. I still have family in Palestine. We grew up with Palestine in our mind. Our people has been subjected to colonization and occupation for 75 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What brought you to Foster City specifically?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>I immigrated in 1983 to the United States, and I was in Southern California. I went to college in Long Beach State, and that’s where I pursued my education. And while I was in college, I started a family business along with my brothers. And we had a career service. And then in 1992, we expanded from Southern California to Northern California. I actually stumbled over Foster City. I didn’t know that Foster City existed. I was shopping at a Middle Eastern store and started the conversation, and I told them I was thinking of moving to Burlingame and they said, ‘Well, you work in Union City. Why don’t you check out Foster City?’ I said, ‘Where is that?’ And I came to Foster City in 1992, fell in love with it. The community is such a great, diverse community that welcomes everybody. And after that, I got married and raised my children. My children were born in Foster City and went to Foster City schools. So, this is home for us. I’ve been here for so many years now, since 1992.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what about your family? Are your brothers in Foster City as well? Are they still in Southern California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>You know, Palestinians end up being everywhere and scattered everywhere because we are homeless. That’s really what we are. We are stateless. So, I have two brothers in Southern California. I have one brother in Canada. I have one sister in New York. I have one sister still in Lebanon. And if I could tell you about my extended family, there’s some in Germany, some I mean, all over Europe, some in Dubai, Saudi Arabia. It’s just wherever you can make a living, wherever you could go, because, you know, wherever you are, the concentration of the Palestinian community in Lebanon or Syria or Jordan and the camps is not really a future to have a economic and financial future. So, you end up taking the opportunities wherever you can in this large world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>On October 13th, Councilmember Hindi posted on his personal Facebook page saying, “The attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians, including killing, injuring and kidnaping, are reprehensible and war crimes.” He went on to write that “destroying and flattening entire neighborhoods in Gaza could not be justified or explained as self-defense. The footage from Gaza of civilian casualties is horrifying and beyond description.” For weeks now, Hindi has been glued to Al-Jazeera and sharing social media posts from the ground in Gaza. And he also believes very strongly that the U.S. is complicit in the killing of civilians in Palestine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>As the U.S. government, we are guilty of genocide just as much as Israel is guilty of genocide. There is no question in my mind about this. After October 7, people were talking about, well, especially elected official in the Western world and here, you know, Israel has a right to defend itself. I think every nation has a right to defend itself. Not just Israel. That goes without saying. Let me ask these questions: is laying a siege on 2.2 million civilians, not allowing food, water, medical supplies to come in, is that defending yourself? Is bombarding homes defending yourself? Is bombing mosques and churches defending yourself? Is killing over 9000 civilians – over 3000 of them are children – defending yourself? I cannot fathom how anyone, and mainly our US administration – how do you think what is happening, by having this genocide being committed, by the suffering of so many people, by shattering the lives of so many people, gonna get us closer to peace or security? I argue that it does completely the opposite. I say it will harden more people. You will have more militant because the scars of war do not to you in one day or two. I, for one, was one of those who was hopeful for a two-state solution. And I have a lot of reservations on the Oslo Accord, but I’m talking about the principle of coexistence, the principle of making peace, the principle of living together. Unfortunately, what has happened and transpired since: the constant land theft of Palestinian land in Jerusalem and the West Bank and expanding the settlement enterprise, taking the indigenous people, kicking them out of their homes, stealing the land and building settlement on it, and all the violations of human rights and all the crimes that has been committed against the Palestinian people. Israel has been getting away with it with impunity. Unfortunately, from our country, the United States and the rest of the Western world, most of the Western world, not all of them. So I don’t see how that could happen. It’s really – and it’s kind of ironic that you hear Biden and his administration we are for a two state solution. Either they are disingenuous or they don’t know what they are talking about. And I don’t think they don’t know what they are talking about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>After the break, Sam Hindi talks about what role he thinks local elected officials in the Bay Area can play in this international conflict. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I want to ask you how you’re thinking about your role in this moment as a city councilor, as an American, as a Palestinian-American. What have your conversations been like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>So, that’s a very important question. I mean, I have different hats and I wear those different hats and different roles. My job as a city council member is to be representing my entire community, not just a Palestinian communities, and not just my personal views as a Palestinian American. My job is to make sure the well-being of my entire community, those on either side or those who are not even involved, that they are being respected, that we are careful how people on the other side in our community are mourning as well. We have civilians in Israel who got killed as well. And I mourn all civilians. I represent the residents of Foster City equally. But with that being said, you ask me, what do I do? I continue to reach out to our congressional representatives to share with them the perspective and the feelings of the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim community, and quite frankly, our allies, who most of them are Jewish. Jewish Voice for Peace [and] Not In Our Name: those two organization are advocating for a cease fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Have you had a chance to actually get on the phone with some of these congressional representatives you’ve reached out to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>I have. Our congressional representative for our district is Kevin Mullin. But we’ve been reaching out to other issues and not just our local representative. Obviously, you know, our community is in a lot of pain. Our children in school are scared and being called terrorists. They’re being singled out. We make sure we reach out to the attorney general of the state of California, Rob Bonta, to make him aware of these things. We continue to be anxious, continue to be scared, and we feel abandoned quite, quite frankly, by our leadership in Washington. We feel betrayed by the Biden administration, and he better be careful. He is losing, if not already lost a lot of votes, not just from Palestinians, not just from Arabs, not just from Muslims, but also from our allies. Actions have consequences and hopefully that will be reflected on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You are a city councilor of this one particular city. But we have seen Richmond, California, you know, pass a resolution standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine. I’m curious how you see your role in that way. Are there any conversations happening in Foster City, for example, about that kind of thing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>That’s a very tough and important question. And just to be clear, a resolution of any kind on international policy is symbolic, although it’s important sometimes to be symbolic. I’m not dismissing the importance. It’s very important. Basically, what Richmond said, in essence, we don’t want to be silent and we’re speaking out to what we see is wrong as crime. Others have reservations. I think it was an important move for the Richmond City Council to articulate their values for human rights and for freedom. Here in Foster City, I have not approached it. And…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Would you like to see something like that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>I do. You know, on the city council. I’m one of five. To get anything done, you need at least two more people. I don’t think we’ll have three, so I weigh, is it worth going through the exercise and have the divisiveness in the community and not having the outcome? Because, you know, you’re going to open the debate and you’re going to have the divisiveness. For that reason, you way. What’s the point? What’s the value? I’m not here to divide my community. Yes, I’m here to lead. And I would love my community to see the injustice and to say that. To be fair to my colleagues, I have not approached them. I’m not suggesting that they are not or they are. I don’t know. But my gut feeling is I don’t have three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What are the conversations that you’re having with your kids right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>So my kids are at an age now that they really understand everything on their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How old are they?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>I have a 26, 24, and 21. My wife and I never kind of put them in and really drilled in them the Palestinian issue. They organically have seen because, unfortunately, what we are seeing now is this is like what, the fourth time at least, in Gaza. So, they grew up experiencing these things just from far away from the United States. But it’s organically had the connection they did on their own. My parents actually, the one thing that they drilled in our mind, me and my siblings, is we don’t have a problem with the Jewish religion and the Jews. This is about Zionism and the theft of Palestine. So, that is what my parents drilled in our heads. Be careful when you speak and be careful who you target with your speech. This is not a religious war. This is about colonialism and settlement and occupation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for taking the time and for speaking with us and sitting down. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Sam Hindi: \u003c/strong>Well, thank you so much for reaching out and really for providing me the medium to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Sam Hindi, a city council member in Foster City. This conversation was pitched and produced by me. It was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo and Maria Esquinca, who scored this episode. 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>"
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"title": "California Lifts Decades-Old Ban on Lowrider Cruising",
"headTitle": "California Lifts Decades-Old Ban on Lowrider Cruising | 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\">California has lifted a decades-old ban on lowrider cruising. The state, widely understood as the birthplace of lowrider culture, has also historically been unfriendly to it. For decades, lowriding was blamed for traffic and alleged connections to gang violence. KQED’s Paloma Yaritza Abarca explains the years-long fight by community members to let their cars ride freely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2187121227&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. California is the birthplace of lowrider culture. That cool procession of candy colored vintage cars modified to bump up and down thanks to advanced hydraulics. Driving slowly so you could get a good look at the details, the rims, the leather seats, the drip. It’s a decades old tradition, an art form really celebrated mostly by California’s Latino community. And while born here, it wasn’t always accepted here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>I mean, I grew up in San Jose, born and raised and being a young Chicano driving through the cities, even before the cruising ban was in place. You know, I got pulled over so many times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>For years, statewide bans on cruising and low riding have led to a criminalization of the culture. But now those bands are being lifted. Today I talk with KQED’s Latinx engagement producer Paloma Yaritza Abarca about a new law that lifts decades old bans on lowriders and cruising and the communities in the Bay Area who fought to make it happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>This car culture dates back to the forties with Chicanos, Latinos and other cultures alike. They’re heavily modified classic cars that have hydraulic systems that allow them to bounce, they lower them, lift them. When I was young, my dad had a late nineties Ford F-150. It was a burgundy, like shiny color, had like velvet seats inside, you know, like all these very, like, unique details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>The music that you tend to hear is usually oldies. Lowriders also tend to bump cumbia, Spanish or English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>When it comes to, like, the aesthetic, white tee khakis. You know, Cortez’s zoot suits were also a very big part of this culture, you know, And it’s a whole lifestyle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know you talked with folks here in the Bay Area who are part of this community. Can you introduce me to David Polanco and tell me who he is and where he’s from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>David is the president of the United Lowrider Council of San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>I think really heavily influenced by lowrider. I see them every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>He grew up around lowriders and not just because of it being big in San Jose, but because two of his best friend’s parents owned car shops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>We were given the opportunity to work on cars and help paint cars and put wire and tire tires and wheels on em and in lowriders and the body shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>And his dad didn’t own a lowrider himself, but his dad took pride in his car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>We grew up poor, you know, and our cars that we have was in windows. Got to be clean, tires got to be clean. So it was kind of like lowrider mentality of from him back when he was doing it, when he was younger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>And David kind of like held on to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>Every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, you know, there’d be a lowrider parked in the front yard or something of a cousin or an uncle or somebody, you know, with the stereo blaring. We didn’t have boomboxes back then, Right? What you had was your cousin’s Impala with six paintings in the trunk open as an equalizer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>And it was cool to also learn that he actually still has one of his old school Chevelle cars that was actually gifted to him by his father in law. And that’s a car that he still has and to this day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, how does he talk about the role that cruising and also the cruising community has played in his life?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>He did share that, you know, being a young Chicano in the city even before, like the cruising ban was placed. The unfortunate thing is that he grew up around a time where folks were getting targeted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>That’s that’s what the cruising was all about. The police chief and other police have all said it was a tool to, you know, really just to profile you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>He also has these memories where, you know, he kept on getting stopped. He kept on getting profiled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>And we always called his shopping. You know, he fit the profile around. You got four guys in the same car. You know, you’re young. You got a mustache.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>You know, he kept on getting stopped. He kept on getting profiled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>Got pulled over so many times. And and to be honest, no tickets to my trip, my first ticket till I was, like, 37 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, let’s talk about that idea a little bit more, because as much as this is about art and community, this is a community that’s been very stigmatized in California, as you were just talking about. Can you tell me a little bit more about that history of how this culture of cruising became sort of stigmatized and criminalized in California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>The purpose of law writing, you know, it’s to be cruising and, you know, as slow as possible, exhibiting your customized vehicles, showing off your culture, everything you put into your car. But it has been associated with street racing and gang members, especially through movies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>We always go back to what’s the average person know about their and how are they going to know about law writing this? There’s nothing really positive out there for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>That’s not to say that gang members weren’t riding in these cars. I don’t want to say that at all, because they were. And David shared that himself. But that’s not the whole community. And what the cops were doing here is that they were stigmatizing the community as a whole and making it seem like just anyone riding in a lowrider was a gang member or was associated with something negative, which wasn’t the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Eventually the stigma against low riding manifested into laws. In the 1980s, California began allowing cities and towns to place bans on cruising, citing concerns about traffic congestion and gang violence, and even made it illegal to modify cars to make them low. San Jose implemented its own ban in 1986. So now, in addition to police harassment, low riders face the threat of fines, fees and even having their cars towed. But the culture never went away. And in more recent years, things have started to change. And it all started at the local level. After the break, we’re going to talk about an effort to decriminalize low riders in San Jose and how the movement expanded from there. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You know, Paloma, we’re talking about this community because in recent years there have actually been pushes across the state to lift these bands that we were just talking about on cruising, including in San Jose. What have people like David been doing to try and change the narrative around cruising?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>So to change the narrative around low riding, you know, there’s been a lot more community events happening with these low riders. For example, there was a time where a whole bunch of low riders got together to protest for farm workers rights. There was another moment in San Francisco where the Lowrider Council from San Francisco, which is ran by Roberto Hernandez, who is also the founder of Mission Food Hub. They pulled up one day to a community event that the Mission Food Hub was having, which is a place that tends to give groceries and food to local community members. Lowriders pulled up to this event and helped pass out groceries, and so Lowriders have been trying to do a lot more community work to show that they are part of the community, that it’s not just gang members and all this negativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*news clip audio*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza: Abarca \u003c/strong>Raul Peralez, who is a former San Jose council member and he is now a San Jose police officer, has been pushing for this change heavily because he also has had this kind of experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Raul Peralez: \u003c/strong>I always remained respectful and often engaged with the officers asking why I was being detained in such a manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Last year, law enforcement officials pushed back on the idea of lifting San Jose’s ban, proposing to only let lowriders cruise during police sanctioned events. But the city ultimately decided to lift the bans entirely and voted to end fees and fines associated with cruising. And this year, advocates for low riders took this fight statewide. Some of that organizing that was happening locally in San Jose eventually turned into a broader statewide movement in the form of a bill known as AB 436. It actually passed in the legislature and has since been signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. What does this law do exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>This repeals the statewide ban on cruising, and it was introduced by Assembly member David Alvarez. The changes that come with it depend on the county, for one. We know that lowriders won’t be targeted for driving down a certain block. We also know that no cruising signs are going to be removed if they haven’t yet from certain blocks. And now it’s when communities and county and counties are working together even more to make this a successful rollout so they can have resources for traffic. And so this has passed. But now it’s when like the work is going to start even more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lorraine Quiñones: \u003c/strong>So how do we all come together to make AB 436 a successful rollout?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>Lorraine Quiñones is a very big advocate for the Lowrider community coming out of Los Angeles. And she played a very big role in making sure that a lot of signatures were collected from the community for a be for 36 to make sure that it passed and to also make sure that the governor just saw that, you know, there was members that wanted this to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lorraine Quiñones: \u003c/strong>It’s an empowering move that, okay, I did this, what else can I do for my community? What else can we do together?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What do you think the lifting of this ban could mean for the future of low riding and cruising.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>That folks are going to be able to be out in the streets, you know, of course, with regulations and resources, but they’ll be out in the streets and community comfortably. And San Jose’s actually has been a hub for low riding since the 1940s. In January of 1977, San Jose State University students Sonny Madrid, Larry Gonzalez and David Nunez published the first issue of the Lowrider magazine, which is a very popular magazine within the Lowrider community that showcases lowriders Showcases are it has their own models, you know, and that’s that’s something that came out of here from San Jose. And so there’s history here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AJ Noriega: \u003c/strong>I just I think it’s important to make people feel that they’re important. I see you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>AJ Noriega, she is the founder and president of Chicano Dreams, which is this brand new low riding club from San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AJ Noriega: \u003c/strong>When I was in high school, I was talking to my friend and I was like, you know, one day I’m going to buy a lowrider. I’m going to start my own club. There’s going to be all females.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>It’s funny because when I actually went to go interview her, there was already kids around there, you know, in their little lowrider bikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AJ Noriega: \u003c/strong>When I think of the future, I think of my nieces. I think of like the other young girls in the community, like stepping up and owning their place. And I hope that I can be that person that inspires them to to really just, go for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>So, yeah, it’s it’s going to continue to get passed down. And if this law sticks around, it’s going to be a smoother process for them going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Paloma, thank you so much for talking about this with me. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>And of course, thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Paloma Yaritza Abarca, a Latinx engagement producer at KQED. This conversation with Paloma was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Maria Esquinca is our producer, she scored this episode and added all the tape. Additional production support from me. Shout out as well to the rest of our podcast team here at KQED. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts, Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. Cesar Saldana, our engagement producer, Maha Sanad, our engagement intern, and Holly Kiernan, our chief content officer. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-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\">California has lifted a decades-old ban on lowrider cruising. The state, widely understood as the birthplace of lowrider culture, has also historically been unfriendly to it. For decades, lowriding was blamed for traffic and alleged connections to gang violence. KQED’s Paloma Yaritza Abarca explains the years-long fight by community members to let their cars ride freely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2187121227&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\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. California is the birthplace of lowrider culture. That cool procession of candy colored vintage cars modified to bump up and down thanks to advanced hydraulics. Driving slowly so you could get a good look at the details, the rims, the leather seats, the drip. It’s a decades old tradition, an art form really celebrated mostly by California’s Latino community. And while born here, it wasn’t always accepted here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>I mean, I grew up in San Jose, born and raised and being a young Chicano driving through the cities, even before the cruising ban was in place. You know, I got pulled over so many times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>For years, statewide bans on cruising and low riding have led to a criminalization of the culture. But now those bands are being lifted. Today I talk with KQED’s Latinx engagement producer Paloma Yaritza Abarca about a new law that lifts decades old bans on lowriders and cruising and the communities in the Bay Area who fought to make it happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>This car culture dates back to the forties with Chicanos, Latinos and other cultures alike. They’re heavily modified classic cars that have hydraulic systems that allow them to bounce, they lower them, lift them. When I was young, my dad had a late nineties Ford F-150. It was a burgundy, like shiny color, had like velvet seats inside, you know, like all these very, like, unique details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>The music that you tend to hear is usually oldies. Lowriders also tend to bump cumbia, Spanish or English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>When it comes to, like, the aesthetic, white tee khakis. You know, Cortez’s zoot suits were also a very big part of this culture, you know, And it’s a whole lifestyle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know you talked with folks here in the Bay Area who are part of this community. Can you introduce me to David Polanco and tell me who he is and where he’s from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>David is the president of the United Lowrider Council of San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>I think really heavily influenced by lowrider. I see them every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>He grew up around lowriders and not just because of it being big in San Jose, but because two of his best friend’s parents owned car shops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>We were given the opportunity to work on cars and help paint cars and put wire and tire tires and wheels on em and in lowriders and the body shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>And his dad didn’t own a lowrider himself, but his dad took pride in his car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>We grew up poor, you know, and our cars that we have was in windows. Got to be clean, tires got to be clean. So it was kind of like lowrider mentality of from him back when he was doing it, when he was younger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>And David kind of like held on to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>Every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, you know, there’d be a lowrider parked in the front yard or something of a cousin or an uncle or somebody, you know, with the stereo blaring. We didn’t have boomboxes back then, Right? What you had was your cousin’s Impala with six paintings in the trunk open as an equalizer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>And it was cool to also learn that he actually still has one of his old school Chevelle cars that was actually gifted to him by his father in law. And that’s a car that he still has and to this day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, how does he talk about the role that cruising and also the cruising community has played in his life?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>He did share that, you know, being a young Chicano in the city even before, like the cruising ban was placed. The unfortunate thing is that he grew up around a time where folks were getting targeted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>That’s that’s what the cruising was all about. The police chief and other police have all said it was a tool to, you know, really just to profile you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>He also has these memories where, you know, he kept on getting stopped. He kept on getting profiled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>And we always called his shopping. You know, he fit the profile around. You got four guys in the same car. You know, you’re young. You got a mustache.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>You know, he kept on getting stopped. He kept on getting profiled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>Got pulled over so many times. And and to be honest, no tickets to my trip, my first ticket till I was, like, 37 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, let’s talk about that idea a little bit more, because as much as this is about art and community, this is a community that’s been very stigmatized in California, as you were just talking about. Can you tell me a little bit more about that history of how this culture of cruising became sort of stigmatized and criminalized in California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>The purpose of law writing, you know, it’s to be cruising and, you know, as slow as possible, exhibiting your customized vehicles, showing off your culture, everything you put into your car. But it has been associated with street racing and gang members, especially through movies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David Polanco: \u003c/strong>We always go back to what’s the average person know about their and how are they going to know about law writing this? There’s nothing really positive out there for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>That’s not to say that gang members weren’t riding in these cars. I don’t want to say that at all, because they were. And David shared that himself. But that’s not the whole community. And what the cops were doing here is that they were stigmatizing the community as a whole and making it seem like just anyone riding in a lowrider was a gang member or was associated with something negative, which wasn’t the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Eventually the stigma against low riding manifested into laws. In the 1980s, California began allowing cities and towns to place bans on cruising, citing concerns about traffic congestion and gang violence, and even made it illegal to modify cars to make them low. San Jose implemented its own ban in 1986. So now, in addition to police harassment, low riders face the threat of fines, fees and even having their cars towed. But the culture never went away. And in more recent years, things have started to change. And it all started at the local level. After the break, we’re going to talk about an effort to decriminalize low riders in San Jose and how the movement expanded from there. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You know, Paloma, we’re talking about this community because in recent years there have actually been pushes across the state to lift these bands that we were just talking about on cruising, including in San Jose. What have people like David been doing to try and change the narrative around cruising?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>So to change the narrative around low riding, you know, there’s been a lot more community events happening with these low riders. For example, there was a time where a whole bunch of low riders got together to protest for farm workers rights. There was another moment in San Francisco where the Lowrider Council from San Francisco, which is ran by Roberto Hernandez, who is also the founder of Mission Food Hub. They pulled up one day to a community event that the Mission Food Hub was having, which is a place that tends to give groceries and food to local community members. Lowriders pulled up to this event and helped pass out groceries, and so Lowriders have been trying to do a lot more community work to show that they are part of the community, that it’s not just gang members and all this negativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*news clip audio*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza: Abarca \u003c/strong>Raul Peralez, who is a former San Jose council member and he is now a San Jose police officer, has been pushing for this change heavily because he also has had this kind of experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Raul Peralez: \u003c/strong>I always remained respectful and often engaged with the officers asking why I was being detained in such a manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Last year, law enforcement officials pushed back on the idea of lifting San Jose’s ban, proposing to only let lowriders cruise during police sanctioned events. But the city ultimately decided to lift the bans entirely and voted to end fees and fines associated with cruising. And this year, advocates for low riders took this fight statewide. Some of that organizing that was happening locally in San Jose eventually turned into a broader statewide movement in the form of a bill known as AB 436. It actually passed in the legislature and has since been signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. What does this law do exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>This repeals the statewide ban on cruising, and it was introduced by Assembly member David Alvarez. The changes that come with it depend on the county, for one. We know that lowriders won’t be targeted for driving down a certain block. We also know that no cruising signs are going to be removed if they haven’t yet from certain blocks. And now it’s when communities and county and counties are working together even more to make this a successful rollout so they can have resources for traffic. And so this has passed. But now it’s when like the work is going to start even more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lorraine Quiñones: \u003c/strong>So how do we all come together to make AB 436 a successful rollout?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>Lorraine Quiñones is a very big advocate for the Lowrider community coming out of Los Angeles. And she played a very big role in making sure that a lot of signatures were collected from the community for a be for 36 to make sure that it passed and to also make sure that the governor just saw that, you know, there was members that wanted this to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lorraine Quiñones: \u003c/strong>It’s an empowering move that, okay, I did this, what else can I do for my community? What else can we do together?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What do you think the lifting of this ban could mean for the future of low riding and cruising.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>That folks are going to be able to be out in the streets, you know, of course, with regulations and resources, but they’ll be out in the streets and community comfortably. And San Jose’s actually has been a hub for low riding since the 1940s. In January of 1977, San Jose State University students Sonny Madrid, Larry Gonzalez and David Nunez published the first issue of the Lowrider magazine, which is a very popular magazine within the Lowrider community that showcases lowriders Showcases are it has their own models, you know, and that’s that’s something that came out of here from San Jose. And so there’s history here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AJ Noriega: \u003c/strong>I just I think it’s important to make people feel that they’re important. I see you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>AJ Noriega, she is the founder and president of Chicano Dreams, which is this brand new low riding club from San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AJ Noriega: \u003c/strong>When I was in high school, I was talking to my friend and I was like, you know, one day I’m going to buy a lowrider. I’m going to start my own club. There’s going to be all females.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>It’s funny because when I actually went to go interview her, there was already kids around there, you know, in their little lowrider bikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AJ Noriega: \u003c/strong>When I think of the future, I think of my nieces. I think of like the other young girls in the community, like stepping up and owning their place. And I hope that I can be that person that inspires them to to really just, go for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>So, yeah, it’s it’s going to continue to get passed down. And if this law sticks around, it’s going to be a smoother process for them going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Paloma, thank you so much for talking about this with me. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paloma Yaritza Abarca: \u003c/strong>And of course, thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Paloma Yaritza Abarca, a Latinx engagement producer at KQED. This conversation with Paloma was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Maria Esquinca is our producer, she scored this episode and added all the tape. Additional production support from me. Shout out as well to the rest of our podcast team here at KQED. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts, Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. Cesar Saldana, our engagement producer, Maha Sanad, our engagement intern, and Holly Kiernan, our chief content officer. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"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\">Mayor London Breed and Gov. Gavin Newsom have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965813/sf-wants-to-charge-drug-dealers-with-homicide-but-could-it-lead-to-more-overdose-deaths\">announced a plan\u003c/a> for San Francisco to charge some drug dealers with murder starting next year. Will it scare suppliers from selling in San Francisco, or deter people from seeking help?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Apply to be our intern!\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\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=KQINC7719690643\" 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>[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 wants to send a message to drug dealers that if your drugs lead to an overdose death, then you can be charged with murder. Starting next year, San Francisco is going to start investigating drug overdose deaths as homicides. And Mayor London Breed hopes this will scare dealers out of town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>Do you want to send a message loud and clear to those who come to San Francisco or who deal drugs in any capacity in San Francisco, especially a deadly substance like fentanyl, that you will be held accountable?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today we talk with KQED, Sydney Johnson, about this new policy change and whether it can help address the city’s overdose crisis. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How bad is San Francisco’s overdose problem? So far this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>San Francisco is currently on track to have more overdose deaths this year than it’s ever experienced in the city’s history.\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>In 2020, there were 725 overdose deaths, and the city has had at least 625. As of September four this year alone. That’s putting it on track to go past 2020s record. We know that the drug supply has become increasingly more dangerous. It’s riskier because fentanyl is far more prevalent and the illicit drug supply than it was, say, you know, five years ago. Then you can look at the reasons why perhaps it’s getting worse from, you know, what what the city is doing about it type of perspective. And that’s kind of where we get into some of the politics that we’re going to be discussing here, which is how the city is responding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>Well. Hi, everyone. I’m San Francisco Mayor London Breed and today along with the governor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So last week San Francisco Mayor London Breed said that San Francisco will begin charging some drug dealers with homicide if an overdose death can be clearly traced back to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>And this is an important step necessary to address public safety in San Francisco. And we are grateful to our public safety partners and especially to our governor, for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>She announced this alongside Governor Gavin Newsom, who is supporting this. District attorney Brooke Jenkins has mentioned wanting to take this step in the past. The city’s police chief is behind it. There are also leaders from the California Highway Patrol and from the National Guard that are supportive of this as well. So she did not necessarily make this decision without some pretty notable support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What does she say about the rationale behind this at the press conference?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Essentially, Breed said that the idea is to deter drug dealing in San Francisco by sending a message to dealers that the city will not tolerate opioid dealing and it will not tolerate overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>We’ve seen on average at least 500 people lose their lives to just fentanyl alone. And how deadly this drug is is impacting the quality of life of San Francisco differently than almost any other drug we’ve encountered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And she also said it could potentially provide some sort of justice for families and friends of the deceased.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>Well, we hope that dealers will decide that San Francisco is not the place for them to be dealing, period. And these people who are dealing these drugs need to be held accountable in a way that they haven’t been before. And this will be a tool necessary to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How is this different from the way that overdoses are investigated now in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So selling illicit substances is a crime and the city arrests and jails people who are caught for drug dealing sometimes. But overdose deaths are not typically investigated as a murder, you know, unless there’s some sort of foul play suspected. Often cases are handled by the medical examiner who can determine what substances led to an accidental overdose death. And that’s partly because it’s difficult to assign blame sometimes for overdose deaths, even to a supplier. You know, people sometimes use drugs in their community with friends, a partner, you know, even family. In some cases, people won’t want to press those kinds of charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How will this actually work and how will the police go about investigating these cases?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So Breed announced that local and state agencies would be working together. This actually started in April when Mayor Breed announced a new partnership with the Cal Guard and with the California Highway Patrol. And the plan then was to better coordinate these agencies so they can better tackle drug dealing and trafficking. And this announcement last week about charging some drug dealers with homicide charges takes that a step further. So there’s still some lingering questions about what this will actually look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And not every overdose death will be investigated as a homicide. Certainly, some will still be declared accidental. But Breed said that in cases where at the scene of an overdose death, there’s ample evidence to trace an overdose death back to a specific person or supplier, that those cases could be investigated using the same process that law enforcement would use in the case of a homicide. So calling on witnesses, gathering evidence and ultimately presenting murder charges that would go through the courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know that the mayor is really touting this as a way to really discourage drug crime and overdose deaths in San Francisco. Do we know if it would actually do that? What do experts say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>We don’t know what the actual outcome of this will look like, but there is certainly already some pushback and research that would suggest that it’s possibly going to have some unintended outcomes. That’s concerning people like Angela Chan, who’s the assistant chief attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angela Chan: \u003c/strong>This approach that the city right now is taking is really damaging and harmful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>She said that this could cause some people to avoid calling 911 for help when overdoses do happen, and it could entrench people into even more shame and fear, making it less likely to seek treatment or call for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angela Chan: \u003c/strong>What we know for 50 years of the war on drugs is the best way and the most effective way to address this is to treat this as what it really is, which is a public health crisis, and to offer people treatment, low barrier treatment, also to offer harm reduction supplies such as Narcan, such as fentanyl, testing, stress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Health. Right. 360 is one of the city’s largest drug treatment providers. And they came out very opposed to this, basically saying that this is a repeat of many failed war on drugs tactics and really had some similar concerns as the public defender’s office saying that this would further increase shame and make it more difficult for people who don’t want to get in trouble with the law to get help and really is deterring, I think, some people from potentially, you know, entering treatment, but also just getting help for their friends in those emergency situations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I want to come back to these prosecutions, Sydney, because that’s really what we’re talking about here. Is San Francisco an outlier in doing this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>San Francisco is not necessarily an outlier here. This is a strategy that other cities and even some states have been talking about for years as fentanyl has caused more and more chaos in the drug supply. More leaders have touted this as an option to come out swinging tough on crime. But we don’t necessarily have a great data set at this point for how often these charges are leading to convictions or whether it’s having a noticeable impact on the drug crisis in those communities. We can look at San Diego County as an example. And there, you know, the worst year on record for drug overdose deaths was in 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>We saw then that there was 1300 overdose deaths and last year was almost exactly the same. There was just a handful fewer. And this year, the most recent data we have available for San Diego County is from August. And by then, for the year to date, there were 732 overdose deaths. Was slightly less, but still on track to be pretty close to the year prior. So even though San Diego was being pointed to by Mayor London Breed as a place that is doing this and having some success with it, you know, in short, it’s it’s really difficult to know if that is even having the impact that they want it to have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I guess, Sydney, it seems like it remains to be seen if this will work the way London Breed wants it to work. But it seems like everyone is worried about the city’s overdose crisis. And this is one way that the city is trying to address this. Why do you think this is happening now, though?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So if we zoom out, there’s several different things at play here. Breed says that this new approach will start next year, which is an election year here in San Francisco. And drugs and homelessness are major platform issues for breed and other candidates. So Breed is right now positioning herself as a tougher on crime. Mayor. Just two weeks ago, she announced there’s going to be a ballot measure that will go before voters next year that would do a handful of different things to strengthen local police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>That ballot measure would strengthen police by giving them more freedom to do things like car chases. It would reduce some of their reporting and documentation requirements, which was a big product of some of the anti-bias push that we saw in 2020. And it would even weaken the Police Citizen Oversight Commission. So this more recent announcement seems to go hand in hand with some of those types of announcements she’s been making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what questions do you have moving forward, Sydney, about this policy and how it’s going to work, I guess, moving forward?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>I’m really curious what cases the city does choose to make a model out of this. You know, if it really is something that they’re going to lean into or something that they’re kind of using as, you know, maybe more of a threat right now. And I’ll certainly be following the overdose death numbers closely. I think for me, that should be the the thing that we’re paying attention to the most here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, fentanyl is an issue across the state and across the country. San Francisco is no different in its struggle to get a grip on this crisis. But locally, overdose deaths have only increased following some of the changes the city made this year to its approach. And even though it’s hard to attribute that to any one thing, you know, it’ll be really interesting to see if that trajectory does continue or change over time. And, you know, I certainly hope it doesn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m sure a lot of cities are going to be watching to see what happens in San Francisco. Thank you so much, Sydney, for sharing your reporting. I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Thanks, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Sydney Johnson, a reporter for KQED. This 28 minute conversation with Sidney was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Allan 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",
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"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\">Mayor London Breed and Gov. Gavin Newsom have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965813/sf-wants-to-charge-drug-dealers-with-homicide-but-could-it-lead-to-more-overdose-deaths\">announced a plan\u003c/a> for San Francisco to charge some drug dealers with murder starting next year. Will it scare suppliers from selling in San Francisco, or deter people from seeking help?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Apply to be our intern!\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\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=KQINC7719690643\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\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. 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 wants to send a message to drug dealers that if your drugs lead to an overdose death, then you can be charged with murder. Starting next year, San Francisco is going to start investigating drug overdose deaths as homicides. And Mayor London Breed hopes this will scare dealers out of town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>Do you want to send a message loud and clear to those who come to San Francisco or who deal drugs in any capacity in San Francisco, especially a deadly substance like fentanyl, that you will be held accountable?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today we talk with KQED, Sydney Johnson, about this new policy change and whether it can help address the city’s overdose crisis. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How bad is San Francisco’s overdose problem? So far this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>San Francisco is currently on track to have more overdose deaths this year than it’s ever experienced in the city’s history.\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>In 2020, there were 725 overdose deaths, and the city has had at least 625. As of September four this year alone. That’s putting it on track to go past 2020s record. We know that the drug supply has become increasingly more dangerous. It’s riskier because fentanyl is far more prevalent and the illicit drug supply than it was, say, you know, five years ago. Then you can look at the reasons why perhaps it’s getting worse from, you know, what what the city is doing about it type of perspective. And that’s kind of where we get into some of the politics that we’re going to be discussing here, which is how the city is responding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>Well. Hi, everyone. I’m San Francisco Mayor London Breed and today along with the governor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So last week San Francisco Mayor London Breed said that San Francisco will begin charging some drug dealers with homicide if an overdose death can be clearly traced back to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>And this is an important step necessary to address public safety in San Francisco. And we are grateful to our public safety partners and especially to our governor, for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>She announced this alongside Governor Gavin Newsom, who is supporting this. District attorney Brooke Jenkins has mentioned wanting to take this step in the past. The city’s police chief is behind it. There are also leaders from the California Highway Patrol and from the National Guard that are supportive of this as well. So she did not necessarily make this decision without some pretty notable support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What does she say about the rationale behind this at the press conference?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Essentially, Breed said that the idea is to deter drug dealing in San Francisco by sending a message to dealers that the city will not tolerate opioid dealing and it will not tolerate overdose deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>We’ve seen on average at least 500 people lose their lives to just fentanyl alone. And how deadly this drug is is impacting the quality of life of San Francisco differently than almost any other drug we’ve encountered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And she also said it could potentially provide some sort of justice for families and friends of the deceased.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor London Breed: \u003c/strong>Well, we hope that dealers will decide that San Francisco is not the place for them to be dealing, period. And these people who are dealing these drugs need to be held accountable in a way that they haven’t been before. And this will be a tool necessary to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How is this different from the way that overdoses are investigated now in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So selling illicit substances is a crime and the city arrests and jails people who are caught for drug dealing sometimes. But overdose deaths are not typically investigated as a murder, you know, unless there’s some sort of foul play suspected. Often cases are handled by the medical examiner who can determine what substances led to an accidental overdose death. And that’s partly because it’s difficult to assign blame sometimes for overdose deaths, even to a supplier. You know, people sometimes use drugs in their community with friends, a partner, you know, even family. In some cases, people won’t want to press those kinds of charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How will this actually work and how will the police go about investigating these cases?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So Breed announced that local and state agencies would be working together. This actually started in April when Mayor Breed announced a new partnership with the Cal Guard and with the California Highway Patrol. And the plan then was to better coordinate these agencies so they can better tackle drug dealing and trafficking. And this announcement last week about charging some drug dealers with homicide charges takes that a step further. So there’s still some lingering questions about what this will actually look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>And not every overdose death will be investigated as a homicide. Certainly, some will still be declared accidental. But Breed said that in cases where at the scene of an overdose death, there’s ample evidence to trace an overdose death back to a specific person or supplier, that those cases could be investigated using the same process that law enforcement would use in the case of a homicide. So calling on witnesses, gathering evidence and ultimately presenting murder charges that would go through the courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I know that the mayor is really touting this as a way to really discourage drug crime and overdose deaths in San Francisco. Do we know if it would actually do that? What do experts say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>We don’t know what the actual outcome of this will look like, but there is certainly already some pushback and research that would suggest that it’s possibly going to have some unintended outcomes. That’s concerning people like Angela Chan, who’s the assistant chief attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angela Chan: \u003c/strong>This approach that the city right now is taking is really damaging and harmful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>She said that this could cause some people to avoid calling 911 for help when overdoses do happen, and it could entrench people into even more shame and fear, making it less likely to seek treatment or call for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angela Chan: \u003c/strong>What we know for 50 years of the war on drugs is the best way and the most effective way to address this is to treat this as what it really is, which is a public health crisis, and to offer people treatment, low barrier treatment, also to offer harm reduction supplies such as Narcan, such as fentanyl, testing, stress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Health. Right. 360 is one of the city’s largest drug treatment providers. And they came out very opposed to this, basically saying that this is a repeat of many failed war on drugs tactics and really had some similar concerns as the public defender’s office saying that this would further increase shame and make it more difficult for people who don’t want to get in trouble with the law to get help and really is deterring, I think, some people from potentially, you know, entering treatment, but also just getting help for their friends in those emergency situations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I want to come back to these prosecutions, Sydney, because that’s really what we’re talking about here. Is San Francisco an outlier in doing this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>San Francisco is not necessarily an outlier here. This is a strategy that other cities and even some states have been talking about for years as fentanyl has caused more and more chaos in the drug supply. More leaders have touted this as an option to come out swinging tough on crime. But we don’t necessarily have a great data set at this point for how often these charges are leading to convictions or whether it’s having a noticeable impact on the drug crisis in those communities. We can look at San Diego County as an example. And there, you know, the worst year on record for drug overdose deaths was in 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>We saw then that there was 1300 overdose deaths and last year was almost exactly the same. There was just a handful fewer. And this year, the most recent data we have available for San Diego County is from August. And by then, for the year to date, there were 732 overdose deaths. Was slightly less, but still on track to be pretty close to the year prior. So even though San Diego was being pointed to by Mayor London Breed as a place that is doing this and having some success with it, you know, in short, it’s it’s really difficult to know if that is even having the impact that they want it to have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I guess, Sydney, it seems like it remains to be seen if this will work the way London Breed wants it to work. But it seems like everyone is worried about the city’s overdose crisis. And this is one way that the city is trying to address this. Why do you think this is happening now, though?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>So if we zoom out, there’s several different things at play here. Breed says that this new approach will start next year, which is an election year here in San Francisco. And drugs and homelessness are major platform issues for breed and other candidates. So Breed is right now positioning herself as a tougher on crime. Mayor. Just two weeks ago, she announced there’s going to be a ballot measure that will go before voters next year that would do a handful of different things to strengthen local police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>That ballot measure would strengthen police by giving them more freedom to do things like car chases. It would reduce some of their reporting and documentation requirements, which was a big product of some of the anti-bias push that we saw in 2020. And it would even weaken the Police Citizen Oversight Commission. So this more recent announcement seems to go hand in hand with some of those types of announcements she’s been making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what questions do you have moving forward, Sydney, about this policy and how it’s going to work, I guess, moving forward?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>I’m really curious what cases the city does choose to make a model out of this. You know, if it really is something that they’re going to lean into or something that they’re kind of using as, you know, maybe more of a threat right now. And I’ll certainly be following the overdose death numbers closely. I think for me, that should be the the thing that we’re paying attention to the most here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, fentanyl is an issue across the state and across the country. San Francisco is no different in its struggle to get a grip on this crisis. But locally, overdose deaths have only increased following some of the changes the city made this year to its approach. And even though it’s hard to attribute that to any one thing, you know, it’ll be really interesting to see if that trajectory does continue or change over time. And, you know, I certainly hope it doesn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m sure a lot of cities are going to be watching to see what happens in San Francisco. Thank you so much, Sydney, for sharing your reporting. I appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sydney Johnson: \u003c/strong>Thanks, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Sydney Johnson, a reporter for KQED. This 28 minute conversation with Sidney was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Allan 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>"
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"title": "KQED Live: Listening to Young Elected Leaders",
"headTitle": "KQED Live: Listening to Young Elected Leaders | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last week, KQED and the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good at the University of San Francisco convened some of the Bay Area’s youngest elected officials — Assemblymember Alex Lee, Hercules Mayor Alexander Walker-Griffin, and Sunnyvale Councilmember Alysa Cisneros — to share their experiences in conversation with politics correspondent Guy Marzorati and USF student fellow Caitlin Kennedy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\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 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=KQINC8373713352&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Watch the full event on \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dTi6KaDpag\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">YouTube\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For more information about KQED Live events, go to kqed.org/live\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. Young people are underrepresented in all levels of government. But take a look at what’s happening locally. And you can see that things are changing even if it’s happening slowly. Just take a look at Assembly member Alex Lee, who made history in 2020 when he became the youngest Asian-American, first openly bisexual and first Gen Z legislator in California history. And he’s not the only elected leader injecting new life into halls of power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>Last year, the City of Hercules swore in Alexander Walker-Griffin as mayor, at 25 years old. And in Sunnyvale, residents elected 33 year old Alysa Cisneros to city council, where she would become the first openly queer woman to hold the title as vice mayor. It’s a unique perspective. And today we’re going to hear from these young electeds. Last week, they sat down with KQED Guy Marzorati and USF student fellow Caitlin Kennedy to talk about things like running for office during COVID, how to balance working in government with your personal life, and to share their visions for our region’s future. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Well, thank you all so much for taking the time to join us tonight. I know Tuesday night is usually city council night, so I know you all are, you know, missing some important stuff. But we appreciate you being here. And, you know, as we mentioned, a lot of folks in politics are a lot older than you all. You all got into this elected official game at a fairly young age. So we want to start kind of getting to know how that came about, what was kind of the moment or experiences that sparked your interest in public service and maybe Mayor Walker Griffin, we can start with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Yeah. Thank you, Guy. And then just thank you, everybody, for having me here. Really For me? You know, I got into politics around the age of ten. My grandmother, who came from the Jim Crow South, came to California and has always emphasized civic engagement. So that was something that was really important to me. And when I was 17, I was walking along our city’s waterfront and I thought it was super, super dirty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>And so I go to our city council meeting, say, Hey, I’ll clean up for free, just give me the paperwork, whatever I need. Our old city manager told me no. And that’s the point really, where I just said, Hey, I have to get involved. And so that’s what led me to want to increasingly just increase my civic engagement and get involved in different things. So from there I went to the States Community College Board, served as my community college student body president, which ultimately led me where I am today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>Council Member Cisneros, is there a specific moment that really drove you into politics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>So I had my daughter when I was 19 years old, and my life was pretty hard, I’ll be honest. Right? Didn’t have a lot of money. I was doing a lot of things on my own, hadn’t gone to college, didn’t know what I was doing. And I read this book called Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. And reading that book at that point in time in my life made me realize the reasons why my life is so hard isn’t because I’m not capable or isn’t it because other people who are living in poverty aren’t capable? It’s because there are systems that are designed to make it more difficult for some people to get ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>And that’s just the way society is designed. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. And so I needed a job at the time and there was a candidate that was hiring anyone, no experience, just whoever it is. And that candidate was Barack Obama. Yeah, in 2007. So primary leading into that first election and I just kind of stuck around. I ended up working on campaigns professionally. After that, I was doing some public policy work, consulting on various issues and candidate campaigns, went to college, did all of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>And so I’ve been doing this for about six years now, and I never thought that I would be elected, thought I have master’s in public policy staff level doing that side of it. But it was actually the pandemic that really propelled me into that opportunity and going to districts in my in my hometown, so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>I mean, that’s something that strikes me about all three of you didn’t just wake up into government. You’ve been kind of working in civic issues and working in in government as you led up to become an elected official. But assembly member for you going straight to the Capitol, straight to the state legislature in 2020, what was that moment for you? That was both you know, I’m interested in this. I want to get involved in government. And then what was kind of the push to say, I want to be the candidate?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Yeah, I guess it’s fun enough to tie in with the councilmembers story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mean, I for my district where I grew up in the South, we I was kind of the average person that really just wanted to go to class, go home and hang with your friends. I didn’t really do any clubs. I didn’t really do any of those stuff until maybe the last the last part of being in high school because it looked better on your college applications than I did for that. And, you know, at the time, I remember deciding, you know, you’re asking 17 year olds decide what you can do with the rest of your life. And there’s college apps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I was deciding between my hobby of doing filmmaking or this thing that started popping into my mind about doing politics and was actually at the time when I was applying to schools. And it shows you how when I decided it was the reelection campaign for Barack Obama. So it was around 2012, right? So the election time was right then. And I thought, well, this seems like a neat thing I could do to help people and probably has more stability than Hollywood. So I’ll try to do this one instead. So I applied for a place I political science at. UC Davis never looked back. I was a student senator, then became UC Davis as president during when Donald Trump became president as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>And funny enough, I, I tell all young people this is like during those experiences of being in student government I’m sure Alex can relate is I thought I never want to do government ever again because in many ways it’s the same kind of petty disputes, the interpersonal politics that exists. But things just lined up and opportunity happened and I ran a longshot campaign and end up here. But I think it’s something remarkable to say that up here you have people who are very, very young, who are mayors and vice mayors who are changing the way that California is. And I think it’s remarkable. I got to be part of that generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>So and I know elections can be hard. Campaigning can be hard if we can talk. Talk about some of the hurdles that you’ve all reached. CISNEROS If we could start with you. Do you agree that we have a Jaron Talkers problem and the government currently?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Well, that’s a really interesting way to put that. I you know, I have some really wonderful colleagues who are from other generations. But there is a problem when you have a serious lack of an entire portion of the population. And that issues really related to the ability, number one, to stay in the community where you grew up and to develop roots, because we have a massive housing crisis and an affordability crisis in our region. So not having that stability makes the idea of engaging on that deeper level really difficult for people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Additionally, I mean, young young people who are working professionals are disincentivized from joining councils, especially if you get paid at all. And I have the highest part time council in Santa Clara County where we put in a whopping $30,000 a year. It’s not part time. You spend a lot more time than that and you’re having to negotiate, you know, the cost benefit analysis, just balancing your life. So there isn’t a lot of opportunities in leadership. If you’re young, it’s designed for people who are either independently wealthy or retired. So that is a problem because you only get one perspective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Assembly member Lee, how do you see that balance in Sacramento? Because this is one of the arguments for term limits in the early nineties was there you had folks that were at the Capitol wielding influence for decades and decades. But the flip side of that is the Capitol lost a lot of experience. And it turned out that lobbyists and people kind of who worked in the Capitol ended up knowing more than the electeds themselves. So how do you view the balance of kind of needing to get new blood in the Capitol with that kind of institutional knowledge?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, I firmly have been public, but I support term limits. And I think now that our new compromise of term limits has worked out, I think it is good. We had the first round of term limits that were very punitive. I think they were designed that way because the public was very angry at the way Sacramento was. Sure, you had a lot of experience, but you also had a infamy from the people up there. And they were doing a lot of shady things that I don’t think would have survived today. But I think now that the term limits are 12 years total, whether you serve any combo or blend between the Senate and the Assembly, I think that’s a good place to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>I frankly think it could be a little bit longer, but we haven’t. I think we’re we’re seeing a rebalance now where the legislators, their staff and the people we trust in that certain that sense of we want to be in power through democracy are now the ones who have had the experience and expertise. And I’ve come in at a very interesting time because I came in in 2020, obviously dynamic, which is interesting, but in of itself is that the first class of the new term limit legislators are terming out this coming this following election cycle and there’s only like six of them. They came in like 40. So even on average, most politicians turn over in six, eight years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>They either quit. Something happens to them, they’re forced to quit or they get promoted. Right? I think promoted if another job. So it’s this kind of natural turnover like this, frankly, I’ll spend joining the calls that Congress should have at least like an 18 year term limit to. I’m not convinced that someone can start a career and then by ten to end at it becomes from an infant to an adult that it’s not time for you to move on. Yes, there’s a lot of experience, but it’s also important to refresh legislature constantly to have those perspectives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>And if it weren’t for term, it’s for better or for worse, depending on who I say yes to. You wouldn’t have me. You wouldn’t have me in the legislature either. But it also gives stability in that sense, too. So, you know, for me, I term out in 2032 and I’m already thinking about who should replace me and who we should cultivate to carry on that movement. But it creates instability versus, you know, for instance, we had dramatically in the U.S. Senate write someone had to die and then suddenly things change, Right? Like that should not be the way we do things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>We don’t live in a medieval aristocracy. We live in a democracy in which you should be able to safely plan this. And if someone has 20 years, 12 years, whatever is to do the job they’re here for and they’re successful at it or they weren’t successful, I think it’s a good enough amount of time to do a job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>And Mayor Walker-Griffin, maybe you can speak on the process. Citizens pay for the gerund talker C assured the Trump term is considering term limits and the issues surrounding that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Yeah, and so similar to my colleagues, I also got elected and became a councilmember in 2020. Craziest time to campaign was during the pandemic, but in my city’s 123 year history and the first councilmember, first mayor to have ever grown up in the city. And so one of the reasons what made me want to run was I always felt like that perspective was missing. And so when we talk about someone who’s been sitting behind the dais for 20 years, usually that person has ran for some other office at some point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Very rarely have you seen somebody that stagnant and just want that office, but it becomes sort of a relevancy issue. I don’t know what I could talk about of my council 16 years down the road and I’m almost hitting 20 years on it. So and I also think about to life the missing perspective. Every city changes about 5 to 10 years. If you walk around Hercules right now, the average family hasn’t lived in town for more than seven years. So it’s a completely constant new, fresh. Perspective, and I think we want to honor that. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>So when we talk about like the next wave, the next people that we want to see in these sort of elected offices, we’re thinking about that new relevant problem, similar to what a family member Lee mentioned. If you’ve been in office for 50 years, how can you talk about being relevant to the problem? How can you sit there having a rifle in your hand and not know how to use it? If your staff has to guide you on how to how Facebook works, you know, Instagram works. I think you might need to check out. We’ll give you a nice proclamation or something like that, but it’s time to go at that point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Well, let’s talk a little bit about campaigning. You all campaigned during the pandemic. For some of you, the first time the first campaigns you were running was during COVID. And mayor, we actually have a photo of you here. I think going out and doing the doing the work of sign holding out during COVID. I mean, kind of take us through that experience. And as someone who I know you had worked for other elected officials in the past, was there something that you may be brought to the campaign where it was like, I’ve seen someone do it this way. I know, I know. I need to carry this forward or I know I don’t want to do this as a candidate or as an elected official.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Well, first thing I would have done if I knew somebody was taking a picture of me, I would put lotion on my elbows to let them do so. But one thing that I told myself that I wouldn’t do was be the elected official that disappears after election time. So people always tell me, why do you give out your number to people when you’re campaigning? Well, I’m like, well, I told them I wanted to be accessible. I told them I wanted to represent them. So why not be accessible, right? Why I do that open door. But it’s not a burner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>You’re giving in the real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>My mom, because of my number more than I do. So just let me. But another thing that I definitely did learn was just that connectedness and meeting people where they were. It was so weird knocking on doors and not talking to people physically, I was talking to ring. So for like the first year after, like winning my election, I would be a lucky, safe way and somebody would come up to me like, Hey, we talked to my doorbell and I’m like, Yeah, house you. Yeah, good to see you. But another thing that I that I say that I would not do, that I would have done differently was I wouldn’t have put so much of an emphasis on yard signs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>We had a huge digital presence. But this, again, this is where the generational conflict was happening. You don’t have your yard signs. You don’t have your yard signs out. Well, I just spent three grands on digital ads are going to be running 24 seven for the next couple of weeks. No, that’s not going to win. No, that’s not going to win. So I think I would have worked with more people who are a little more relevant to how technology works. Are things in a place where possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>And Assemblymember, do you have anything to add?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Ranger The pandemic was certainly interesting challenge. So I had obviously the primary and the general. I won the primary on March 3rd, 2020. My county, Santa Clara County, was the first county to shut down on March 17th. So sorry. I recount often is on March 11th. I went up to Sacramento. I met with the speaker, Anthony Rendon, at the time and he congratulated me. He said, You did really good. It’s very impressive knowing who you are and how this happened. But and I remember saying to him, This is really nice of you, and to have this nice meeting in the speaker’s office, everything, but I’m going to lose, you know, the data is going to change and I’m going to fall out of the top two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>But it didn’t. And then obviously, the world changed really rapidly. I did not declare victory until April 24th, which was when the results were actually certified. I literally no one in our team could really believe it. But frankly, you know, if we California did not say we want to speak first on the presidential election and we had a June primary, I don’t know if I would have won because most of our campaign was in doorknocking and talking to people face to face. Yes, it got to the point where I’m talking to people through ring and social media, but that was the heart of our campaign. So I don’t know if I would have won without that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>And you had the Bernie effect, right? The presidential primary was going on. You were running as a progressive. And it’s interesting. You were running as a endorser, Bernie, and you were endorsed by Bernie. And exactly so. But you were running in, you know, South Bay, parts of San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont, that I think people might not associate with being the most progressive parts of the Bay Area. So how did you make your message, connect with residents or is that outdated? Did you find that people were you know, that that is a place that that kind of message could be embraced?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Yeah, Progressive is all about being rooted in people. So if our message is about being attitudes of people and making sure that everyday families have access to health care, housing, political rights, civil rights, then it actually engages a lot of people. One fact that I’ve always been astounded by and why I didn’t think I was supposed to win was that general wisdom is that the early vote is the more conservative older vote I won on the first ballot. I kept winning as it going on, and then the late vote, if you will, which are generally supposed to be younger, more progressive people, boosted me up even higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>But I did really well at the early vote. And from what I’ve now, being in office three years is that I think a lot of our message of what we talk about resonates with people of all ages and sometimes political parties, political partizanship that they think they have. Because what I talk about is getting corporate money out of politics. You should not have an elite system in our democracy. We should have housing for everyone. And how we shouldn’t means test to death everything that the government. Comes and helps you with. And even though that’s a broad reaching kind of progressive idea, I find a lot of older folks, even in my community, say, actually, you might have a point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Or I argue the Republicans at door be like, Well, maybe you’re right about this. And, you know, especially what we know in my district is that and I’m one of two legislators doesn’t take any corporate money whatsoever in the legislature. It’s immensely popular in a district. And people want that source of integrity, even though, of course, in our hyper political world that’s, you know, super far left or whatever it is. I think normal people everyday want those things and that’s what my district connects with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>And to add on to that a little bit, something that we all have in common, right? We were elected in 2020. That’s a presidential election year where I think you see a lot of the difference and you get a skewed, older, skewed conservative voter base is the off year elections. And when I think about that, I feel so fortunate to be in that presidential election year because you do have more people just turning out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>It’s really hard to turn people out and keep people engaged through those less, you know, the smaller campaigns, because I like to say Joe Biden, he did a lot for my campaign. He really turned out the vote for me. I Joe Biden going ahead and reminding people, fill out your ballots, make sure you’re doing that. And that’s a huge help to more progressive candidates. You have people who are turning out for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>In council member to follow up. We have a photo here of you on your campaign trail in 2020. What was it like campaigning for the first time during the height of the pandemic?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Like I said, I had worked on many, many a campaign and the first thing I had to do was forget a lot of everything that I’d learned because it no longer applied. I didn’t knock any doors, actually zero. It was not something that my community was appreciative of when other candidates did it. So I kind of listened to that and went full digital. And something that I did during the campaign was I had a, you know, a team of filmmakers. I had my volunteers make COVID checking calls through the election saying, I’m here with Alyssa Cisneros, this campaign, but we’re not here to talk about her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Do you have the resources that you need? Because a lot of times when you’re speaking to voters, you’re you’re talking to them because you want to know what they’re concerned about and what they care about. And during the pandemic in 2020, we knew what people were concerned about. In that moment. I was just running in the general and really tuning in to that and being responsive in a different way. It was a lot of digital phone banking and text banking huge as well as I have a there in that image.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>My my door hangers. We did hang doors, we didn’t do the conversations and then lawn signs, but lawn signs don’t vote. I had some volunteers at the local maker’s center. Go ahead and print up some of those cool Alysa campaign branded masks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>Assembly member Lee as the first Gen Z Ledger state legislator. Have you experienced any discomfort from your fellow colleagues about your age, and have you ever experienced feelings of imposter syndrome?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>All the time. All the time. Oftentimes, my colleagues like to remind us that I am younger than them, even though I don’t bring it up. So they’ll all, though, often hear this right? They’re like, Oh, this thing happened in 1985 or something. Oh, you were born yet? And I was like, I mean, we know. I mean, I’m not going to bring in how old you are that what it’s like. But it seems to be very often that they like to bring those things up and then they’ll be surprised when I understand some sort of like seventies reference or something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>And I’m like, I know what the Internet is. I can search things. And we know pop culture existed too. So it happens a lot. I will say I think oftentimes that what we still struggle with, even from other Democrats, is that I get talked down to a lot. Often I think I’m giving the benefit of the doubt. I think it is that they see their children in me. So it’s like when we have a disagreement, they try to bring down that tone, which I’ve not seen them do to other colleagues. But to be frank, even if every disagreement and I’ve had to have a stern talking to you sometimes that you can’t talk to me like that, like I’m your son or something, I’m your colleague.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>So it’s happened, unfortunately, and it’s unfortunately in our space. We have to reassert ourselves that we are equals. I’m not better than you. I’m not worse than you were equals. So it happens a lot, you know, And with imposter syndrome, you know, it’s all the time. I actually don’t think I have imposter syndrome anymore because I’ve just accepted that I’m doing everything I’m doing that I don’t exactly know if this is right, but I feel like it’s right. So I’m just going to do it. And that’s what hey, that’s what got me to win elections. So I said this. I’m just going to embrace that, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Council Member Mayor, I saw you both nodding through that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Yeah. Something I hear a lot and have since I decided to run. And it it really didn’t happen so much in my career. In public policy. You look too young to be a council member. My I’m 35 years old. I don’t feel particularly young or you don’t look like a council member last year. You don’t look like a vice mayor. And it begs the question, what do they look like? You might forget. I have 16 years of experience doing this, right? So age doesn’t necessarily come with that experience. You can be relatively young, unfortunately, like relatively young and still come in more experience than most council members do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>So I do have to reassert that. And the imposter syndrome was really hard because like I said, I’d been treated with a lot of respect in my former roles at the beginning of being elected so hard. But when you realize you have a community around you, you get the people together to hype you up and say like, No, that’s, you know, swear words are there. You should remember exactly how much you know. Right. And and the longer you do it, the easier it gets. I think you develop a thick skin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Yeah, I totally agree with both of my colleagues up here. I mean, for me, I think where I really was able to, I still experience it, but nip the sort of imposter syndrome in the butt was when I was 20 and we were starting. KALB Right. College and got to talk to Governor Brown. He came to our board meeting. He’s sitting right across from me. And I did tell him everything that was wrong with it. So one of the things is telling them that, hey, Governor, we don’t have the broadband to support this infrastructure throughout the state. This is this is in 2018 before the pandemic and this conversation even start with broadband.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>And then so I get ripped apart by some people, like through my email while the meeting was still going on. So it was really crazy experiencing that. But then after that, me and Governor Brown are sitting directly in front of each other having lunch and I’m like, So governor, what are you going to do next now that you’re turning out? He says, Kid, I’m making olive oil with this fork pointed at me. And then so at that moment I was like, okay, all imposter syndrome is lost. But I really had to remember that like when you’re sitting right there, that kind of moments happening. I had to remember to myself that I’m here and now, as the mayor, you’re coming to me for something, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>More often than not, people will see the age before they see the resume. So, for example, you know, in 2018, for most people don’t know this, I was the campfire in paradise. So when people were hearing about the casualties that were happening, that was me and my friends keeping a tally on that and running those numbers. So people will oftentimes never see that. At 20 years old, I voted to make community college tuition free and I’ve been doing all this stuff before. I was even old enough to drink. They just see how old you are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Had a meeting with some folks not too long ago. I have this jacket that says Alex Walker-Griffin. Mayor, come up, sit down at the table. And they said, Oh, so you worked for the mayor. And I said, Well, he’ll be here any minute now. So it happens a lot. But you know what? You have to laugh about it, right? And then so if people follow me on social media, you’ll you’ll see my mid-morning rant after the gym. And so sometimes I’ll talk about that kind of stuff. But at the end of day, you got to effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>And Mayor, maybe you can speak on some of the sacrifices of the jobs. I know. I’m sure there’s moments where you have to skip some social events and miss out seeing your friends and family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Oh, absolutely. I mean, being getting elected at 23 now I’m 26. Most of my friends are still going to the club, so it’s not like I’m going to be joining them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>You’re like, there’s this really important sequel appeal that I have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Right, exactly. So I have to be like, Hey, guys, I can’t join you tonight because I don’t want you guys can take your pictures with your bottle of Hennessy or whatever. I can’t partake in that. But even sort of a little things, right? Like, you know, you just have to be kind of cognizant of how things will present potentially projects to the public, but also to have a full time job. And so just it happens every single week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>You have to have a meeting or you’ll have an event that you have to skip out on simply because the requirements for it, whether I’m talking to my city manager or I’m talking to someone who wants to do something in town, it always collides. But I think the big benefit for me is I’m a bachelor, so I don’t have to think about like, you know, how this is going to impact my children or I think about like my spouse or something like that. So that’s part of the one benefit that’s been in my favor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>And Councilmember, did that do the kind of juggling work and family change at all as an elected official versus kind of your past roles, your past work? Did it get more difficult?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Yeah, Yeah, of course it does. It does get harder because before even though like the long hours, right. My my kid, bless her, she is used to that. I know that that’s I have a lot of evening engagements. That’s kind of been the thing. But it’s different when you’re also so public facing in a lot of ways. Your life is an open book, and so the kind of anonymity you could have as a staffer or is just somebody who works in a research firm or in a public policy shop is different. So you have to think about how your actions are going to go ahead and perhaps reflect on your family, like is this going to do it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Because one of the sacrifices you make is really to your safety, especially women in politics right now. Right. I’ve had stalkers. I’ve had to move into a more secure building because of threats to my safety over things like votes. So just being in the public eye. So the kind of sacrifices that my family have to make for me is is balancing that, like where we’re actually physically safer to the point where we’re packing stuff. Right. And in terms of balancing it on my kids a little bit older. So less of that demands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>But when I talk to people with younger kids especially, there is a lot that you miss there. And because especially around election time, you have a lot of weekend stuff too. So you have to be able to find that time to spend quality time throughout the week as best you can. It’s really easy to lose touch with people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>In Council member I know we talked about your campaigning during the pandemic. Civic participation changed tremendously during the pandemic. Is there any risk of going back to the old ways, like knocking on doors, having the yard signs, stuff like that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Well, this I’m running again in 2024 and engaging civically in, as far as I know, at least now. Right. But, you know, with the world as it’s been, I don’t make any guesses for what tomorrow is going to be like or or what’s going to be required of me during this campaign, because we live in unprecedented times every single day. I think we were talking about that earlier, and I am looking forward to getting back to that door to door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Right. And but we do have more tools in our toolkit. There are some silver linings to the pandemic. I look forward to continuing having a robust digital presence. Right. Especially because young voters are still reached base that way. But there are so many opportunities. When you talk to someone face to face, it’s a little bit irreplaceable because instead of hearing from me on the phone or over text or one of my volunteers being able to talk to me and know who I am builds a really important trust, especially if you have like a a district like mine where you have only about 12,000 voters, you can actually go and talk to everyone if you really get a good pair of sneakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>So I’m looking forward to that a lot. But we can take a lot of lessons about what it means to reach people who we weren’t able to reach before because of those challenges with COVID. And we all learned both as candidates and as governments, how to do that. And, you know, we’d be remiss not to continue doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Right. I mean, city council meetings, the state legislature, suddenly it was all available on Zoom and you could listen to hours and hours of public comment from the comfort of your living room. So, I mean, that kind of access. Is there a concern that maybe that goes away? Is that something, at least in Hercules, that you’re you want to make a part of council engagement going forward?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Well, actually, it’s unfortunate We had to do is we actually had to in so many other cities in the area and actually throughout the country had to do this. We had to cut public comment on Zoom because there’s been a wide variety of people throughout the country calling in and saying some of the most horrible things that you could ever say. So it is unfortunate that that is the case, but that does not mean the accessibility has gone away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>So one way that we’ve definitely stepped up our game in terms of being able to reach our constituents, either from the city council perspective or through the city perspective is we have an app online in addition to every other Well, we have an app that you can download to your phone. So rather than you calling 510245, blah, blah, blah, you just take a picture of whatever problem it is on the street or whatever, and it goes directly to our public works team. But I do think that it is a little scary to think that we have some bad actors who are doing a good thing, and we don’t know when it’s necessarily going to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>But up until literally last or last meeting two weeks ago, all of our meetings have been on Zoom and it’s been great to have people who traditionally would have never come in, especially some of the senior populations that can’t make it out and make it out on Tuesday at 7 p.m. or working families have and participate online has been great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>We went to full it. We decided as a council to do permanent hybrid meetings. So we meet in City Hall, but we also had that zoom component and we have not shut down public comment, remote public comment yet and we really hope we don’t have to because that is such a huge way we get participation. In fact, we often get more people participating in public comment on Zoom than we do in person. Actually, that’s most common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>And so what people don’t realize, it’s like you can go ahead and your email, your your congressman and you’ll hopefully get something back from a staff member. But your city council members, your you and your assembly member with your district staff, we’re here and you can talk to us. And engaging the democratic process is so important. So even though that Zoombombing is happening, I’m like, I want to stick it out and see what we can do to curb it. And you know, I’m more stubborn than they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>So in the legislature, we’ve unfortunately mostly got away with the Zoom comments now to the discretion of committee chairs now. So I think in the Assembly I am one of two committees that still take a Zoom public comment. Yes, it is riddled with people who have very terrible things to say, but that’s I still believe in reducing the barriers for public participation. In my first year in office, I thought I was going to author a slam dunk exhibit. I said, Wow, we learn during the pandemic that Zoom comment and Zoom hybrid meetings work so well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Let’s just keep this forever. That was one of the hardest rules I ever worked on. The first time the cities opposed it because they said it costs too much, it’s impossible to do. And then suddenly everyone was doing I mean, everyone was basically doing it. So I said, I don’t understand. How you doing exactly? I mean, everyone is doing it. But the city is still said that it was too cost prohibitive, you couldn’t do it, etc., etc.. And then I made this big compromise where, okay, why don’t you just do it for the big cities, Right? Theoretically speaking, even though the technology scale is the same, no matter if you’re L.A. or if you’re Sunnyvale, why don’t we just try to do it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Yeah, unfortunately, that got vetoed and still hasn’t been been the same since. But I still think it’s important for city councils if you’re able to do it, to do the hybrid method, because it really does reduce a lot those barriers, especially in Sacramento, where you’d really legitimately have to take an entire day to come up to do your 30 seconds. It would means a lot to people. So that’s why I keep it in my own committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>All right. Well, we are going to have to leave the conversation there. Thank you three so much for coming out, spending time with us and giving us some insight into your work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>That was KQED Politics and Government reporter Guy Marzorati and USF student fellow Caitlin Kennedy in conversation with Assembly member Alex Lee, Hercules Mayor Alexander Walker-Griffin and Sunnyvale Councilmember Alysa Cisneros. If you want to watch, the full live event, will leave you a link in our shownotes. This KQED Live event was produced by Ryan Davis. It was cut down and edited by our senior editor, Alan Montecillo. By the way, there are a bunch of really cool live events happening all the time at our headquarters in San Francisco. For more on all the upcoming ones, go to KQED.org/Live. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last week, KQED and the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good at the University of San Francisco convened some of the Bay Area’s youngest elected officials — Assemblymember Alex Lee, Hercules Mayor Alexander Walker-Griffin, and Sunnyvale Councilmember Alysa Cisneros — to share their experiences in conversation with politics correspondent Guy Marzorati and USF student fellow Caitlin Kennedy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\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 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=KQINC8373713352&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Watch the full event on \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dTi6KaDpag\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">YouTube\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For more information about KQED Live events, go to kqed.org/live\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/div>",
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"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. Young people are underrepresented in all levels of government. But take a look at what’s happening locally. And you can see that things are changing even if it’s happening slowly. Just take a look at Assembly member Alex Lee, who made history in 2020 when he became the youngest Asian-American, first openly bisexual and first Gen Z legislator in California history. And he’s not the only elected leader injecting new life into halls of power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>Last year, the City of Hercules swore in Alexander Walker-Griffin as mayor, at 25 years old. And in Sunnyvale, residents elected 33 year old Alysa Cisneros to city council, where she would become the first openly queer woman to hold the title as vice mayor. It’s a unique perspective. And today we’re going to hear from these young electeds. Last week, they sat down with KQED Guy Marzorati and USF student fellow Caitlin Kennedy to talk about things like running for office during COVID, how to balance working in government with your personal life, and to share their visions for our region’s future. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Well, thank you all so much for taking the time to join us tonight. I know Tuesday night is usually city council night, so I know you all are, you know, missing some important stuff. But we appreciate you being here. And, you know, as we mentioned, a lot of folks in politics are a lot older than you all. You all got into this elected official game at a fairly young age. So we want to start kind of getting to know how that came about, what was kind of the moment or experiences that sparked your interest in public service and maybe Mayor Walker Griffin, we can start with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Yeah. Thank you, Guy. And then just thank you, everybody, for having me here. Really For me? You know, I got into politics around the age of ten. My grandmother, who came from the Jim Crow South, came to California and has always emphasized civic engagement. So that was something that was really important to me. And when I was 17, I was walking along our city’s waterfront and I thought it was super, super dirty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>And so I go to our city council meeting, say, Hey, I’ll clean up for free, just give me the paperwork, whatever I need. Our old city manager told me no. And that’s the point really, where I just said, Hey, I have to get involved. And so that’s what led me to want to increasingly just increase my civic engagement and get involved in different things. So from there I went to the States Community College Board, served as my community college student body president, which ultimately led me where I am today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>Council Member Cisneros, is there a specific moment that really drove you into politics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>So I had my daughter when I was 19 years old, and my life was pretty hard, I’ll be honest. Right? Didn’t have a lot of money. I was doing a lot of things on my own, hadn’t gone to college, didn’t know what I was doing. And I read this book called Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. And reading that book at that point in time in my life made me realize the reasons why my life is so hard isn’t because I’m not capable or isn’t it because other people who are living in poverty aren’t capable? It’s because there are systems that are designed to make it more difficult for some people to get ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>And that’s just the way society is designed. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. And so I needed a job at the time and there was a candidate that was hiring anyone, no experience, just whoever it is. And that candidate was Barack Obama. Yeah, in 2007. So primary leading into that first election and I just kind of stuck around. I ended up working on campaigns professionally. After that, I was doing some public policy work, consulting on various issues and candidate campaigns, went to college, did all of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>And so I’ve been doing this for about six years now, and I never thought that I would be elected, thought I have master’s in public policy staff level doing that side of it. But it was actually the pandemic that really propelled me into that opportunity and going to districts in my in my hometown, so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>I mean, that’s something that strikes me about all three of you didn’t just wake up into government. You’ve been kind of working in civic issues and working in in government as you led up to become an elected official. But assembly member for you going straight to the Capitol, straight to the state legislature in 2020, what was that moment for you? That was both you know, I’m interested in this. I want to get involved in government. And then what was kind of the push to say, I want to be the candidate?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Yeah, I guess it’s fun enough to tie in with the councilmembers story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mean, I for my district where I grew up in the South, we I was kind of the average person that really just wanted to go to class, go home and hang with your friends. I didn’t really do any clubs. I didn’t really do any of those stuff until maybe the last the last part of being in high school because it looked better on your college applications than I did for that. And, you know, at the time, I remember deciding, you know, you’re asking 17 year olds decide what you can do with the rest of your life. And there’s college apps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I was deciding between my hobby of doing filmmaking or this thing that started popping into my mind about doing politics and was actually at the time when I was applying to schools. And it shows you how when I decided it was the reelection campaign for Barack Obama. So it was around 2012, right? So the election time was right then. And I thought, well, this seems like a neat thing I could do to help people and probably has more stability than Hollywood. So I’ll try to do this one instead. So I applied for a place I political science at. UC Davis never looked back. I was a student senator, then became UC Davis as president during when Donald Trump became president as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>And funny enough, I, I tell all young people this is like during those experiences of being in student government I’m sure Alex can relate is I thought I never want to do government ever again because in many ways it’s the same kind of petty disputes, the interpersonal politics that exists. But things just lined up and opportunity happened and I ran a longshot campaign and end up here. But I think it’s something remarkable to say that up here you have people who are very, very young, who are mayors and vice mayors who are changing the way that California is. And I think it’s remarkable. I got to be part of that generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>So and I know elections can be hard. Campaigning can be hard if we can talk. Talk about some of the hurdles that you’ve all reached. CISNEROS If we could start with you. Do you agree that we have a Jaron Talkers problem and the government currently?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Well, that’s a really interesting way to put that. I you know, I have some really wonderful colleagues who are from other generations. But there is a problem when you have a serious lack of an entire portion of the population. And that issues really related to the ability, number one, to stay in the community where you grew up and to develop roots, because we have a massive housing crisis and an affordability crisis in our region. So not having that stability makes the idea of engaging on that deeper level really difficult for people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Additionally, I mean, young young people who are working professionals are disincentivized from joining councils, especially if you get paid at all. And I have the highest part time council in Santa Clara County where we put in a whopping $30,000 a year. It’s not part time. You spend a lot more time than that and you’re having to negotiate, you know, the cost benefit analysis, just balancing your life. So there isn’t a lot of opportunities in leadership. If you’re young, it’s designed for people who are either independently wealthy or retired. So that is a problem because you only get one perspective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Assembly member Lee, how do you see that balance in Sacramento? Because this is one of the arguments for term limits in the early nineties was there you had folks that were at the Capitol wielding influence for decades and decades. But the flip side of that is the Capitol lost a lot of experience. And it turned out that lobbyists and people kind of who worked in the Capitol ended up knowing more than the electeds themselves. So how do you view the balance of kind of needing to get new blood in the Capitol with that kind of institutional knowledge?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, I firmly have been public, but I support term limits. And I think now that our new compromise of term limits has worked out, I think it is good. We had the first round of term limits that were very punitive. I think they were designed that way because the public was very angry at the way Sacramento was. Sure, you had a lot of experience, but you also had a infamy from the people up there. And they were doing a lot of shady things that I don’t think would have survived today. But I think now that the term limits are 12 years total, whether you serve any combo or blend between the Senate and the Assembly, I think that’s a good place to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>I frankly think it could be a little bit longer, but we haven’t. I think we’re we’re seeing a rebalance now where the legislators, their staff and the people we trust in that certain that sense of we want to be in power through democracy are now the ones who have had the experience and expertise. And I’ve come in at a very interesting time because I came in in 2020, obviously dynamic, which is interesting, but in of itself is that the first class of the new term limit legislators are terming out this coming this following election cycle and there’s only like six of them. They came in like 40. So even on average, most politicians turn over in six, eight years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>They either quit. Something happens to them, they’re forced to quit or they get promoted. Right? I think promoted if another job. So it’s this kind of natural turnover like this, frankly, I’ll spend joining the calls that Congress should have at least like an 18 year term limit to. I’m not convinced that someone can start a career and then by ten to end at it becomes from an infant to an adult that it’s not time for you to move on. Yes, there’s a lot of experience, but it’s also important to refresh legislature constantly to have those perspectives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>And if it weren’t for term, it’s for better or for worse, depending on who I say yes to. You wouldn’t have me. You wouldn’t have me in the legislature either. But it also gives stability in that sense, too. So, you know, for me, I term out in 2032 and I’m already thinking about who should replace me and who we should cultivate to carry on that movement. But it creates instability versus, you know, for instance, we had dramatically in the U.S. Senate write someone had to die and then suddenly things change, Right? Like that should not be the way we do things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>We don’t live in a medieval aristocracy. We live in a democracy in which you should be able to safely plan this. And if someone has 20 years, 12 years, whatever is to do the job they’re here for and they’re successful at it or they weren’t successful, I think it’s a good enough amount of time to do a job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>And Mayor Walker-Griffin, maybe you can speak on the process. Citizens pay for the gerund talker C assured the Trump term is considering term limits and the issues surrounding that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Yeah, and so similar to my colleagues, I also got elected and became a councilmember in 2020. Craziest time to campaign was during the pandemic, but in my city’s 123 year history and the first councilmember, first mayor to have ever grown up in the city. And so one of the reasons what made me want to run was I always felt like that perspective was missing. And so when we talk about someone who’s been sitting behind the dais for 20 years, usually that person has ran for some other office at some point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Very rarely have you seen somebody that stagnant and just want that office, but it becomes sort of a relevancy issue. I don’t know what I could talk about of my council 16 years down the road and I’m almost hitting 20 years on it. So and I also think about to life the missing perspective. Every city changes about 5 to 10 years. If you walk around Hercules right now, the average family hasn’t lived in town for more than seven years. So it’s a completely constant new, fresh. Perspective, and I think we want to honor that. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>So when we talk about like the next wave, the next people that we want to see in these sort of elected offices, we’re thinking about that new relevant problem, similar to what a family member Lee mentioned. If you’ve been in office for 50 years, how can you talk about being relevant to the problem? How can you sit there having a rifle in your hand and not know how to use it? If your staff has to guide you on how to how Facebook works, you know, Instagram works. I think you might need to check out. We’ll give you a nice proclamation or something like that, but it’s time to go at that point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Well, let’s talk a little bit about campaigning. You all campaigned during the pandemic. For some of you, the first time the first campaigns you were running was during COVID. And mayor, we actually have a photo of you here. I think going out and doing the doing the work of sign holding out during COVID. I mean, kind of take us through that experience. And as someone who I know you had worked for other elected officials in the past, was there something that you may be brought to the campaign where it was like, I’ve seen someone do it this way. I know, I know. I need to carry this forward or I know I don’t want to do this as a candidate or as an elected official.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Well, first thing I would have done if I knew somebody was taking a picture of me, I would put lotion on my elbows to let them do so. But one thing that I told myself that I wouldn’t do was be the elected official that disappears after election time. So people always tell me, why do you give out your number to people when you’re campaigning? Well, I’m like, well, I told them I wanted to be accessible. I told them I wanted to represent them. So why not be accessible, right? Why I do that open door. But it’s not a burner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>You’re giving in the real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>My mom, because of my number more than I do. So just let me. But another thing that I definitely did learn was just that connectedness and meeting people where they were. It was so weird knocking on doors and not talking to people physically, I was talking to ring. So for like the first year after, like winning my election, I would be a lucky, safe way and somebody would come up to me like, Hey, we talked to my doorbell and I’m like, Yeah, house you. Yeah, good to see you. But another thing that I that I say that I would not do, that I would have done differently was I wouldn’t have put so much of an emphasis on yard signs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>We had a huge digital presence. But this, again, this is where the generational conflict was happening. You don’t have your yard signs. You don’t have your yard signs out. Well, I just spent three grands on digital ads are going to be running 24 seven for the next couple of weeks. No, that’s not going to win. No, that’s not going to win. So I think I would have worked with more people who are a little more relevant to how technology works. Are things in a place where possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>And Assemblymember, do you have anything to add?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Ranger The pandemic was certainly interesting challenge. So I had obviously the primary and the general. I won the primary on March 3rd, 2020. My county, Santa Clara County, was the first county to shut down on March 17th. So sorry. I recount often is on March 11th. I went up to Sacramento. I met with the speaker, Anthony Rendon, at the time and he congratulated me. He said, You did really good. It’s very impressive knowing who you are and how this happened. But and I remember saying to him, This is really nice of you, and to have this nice meeting in the speaker’s office, everything, but I’m going to lose, you know, the data is going to change and I’m going to fall out of the top two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>But it didn’t. And then obviously, the world changed really rapidly. I did not declare victory until April 24th, which was when the results were actually certified. I literally no one in our team could really believe it. But frankly, you know, if we California did not say we want to speak first on the presidential election and we had a June primary, I don’t know if I would have won because most of our campaign was in doorknocking and talking to people face to face. Yes, it got to the point where I’m talking to people through ring and social media, but that was the heart of our campaign. So I don’t know if I would have won without that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>And you had the Bernie effect, right? The presidential primary was going on. You were running as a progressive. And it’s interesting. You were running as a endorser, Bernie, and you were endorsed by Bernie. And exactly so. But you were running in, you know, South Bay, parts of San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont, that I think people might not associate with being the most progressive parts of the Bay Area. So how did you make your message, connect with residents or is that outdated? Did you find that people were you know, that that is a place that that kind of message could be embraced?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Yeah, Progressive is all about being rooted in people. So if our message is about being attitudes of people and making sure that everyday families have access to health care, housing, political rights, civil rights, then it actually engages a lot of people. One fact that I’ve always been astounded by and why I didn’t think I was supposed to win was that general wisdom is that the early vote is the more conservative older vote I won on the first ballot. I kept winning as it going on, and then the late vote, if you will, which are generally supposed to be younger, more progressive people, boosted me up even higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>But I did really well at the early vote. And from what I’ve now, being in office three years is that I think a lot of our message of what we talk about resonates with people of all ages and sometimes political parties, political partizanship that they think they have. Because what I talk about is getting corporate money out of politics. You should not have an elite system in our democracy. We should have housing for everyone. And how we shouldn’t means test to death everything that the government. Comes and helps you with. And even though that’s a broad reaching kind of progressive idea, I find a lot of older folks, even in my community, say, actually, you might have a point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Or I argue the Republicans at door be like, Well, maybe you’re right about this. And, you know, especially what we know in my district is that and I’m one of two legislators doesn’t take any corporate money whatsoever in the legislature. It’s immensely popular in a district. And people want that source of integrity, even though, of course, in our hyper political world that’s, you know, super far left or whatever it is. I think normal people everyday want those things and that’s what my district connects with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>And to add on to that a little bit, something that we all have in common, right? We were elected in 2020. That’s a presidential election year where I think you see a lot of the difference and you get a skewed, older, skewed conservative voter base is the off year elections. And when I think about that, I feel so fortunate to be in that presidential election year because you do have more people just turning out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>It’s really hard to turn people out and keep people engaged through those less, you know, the smaller campaigns, because I like to say Joe Biden, he did a lot for my campaign. He really turned out the vote for me. I Joe Biden going ahead and reminding people, fill out your ballots, make sure you’re doing that. And that’s a huge help to more progressive candidates. You have people who are turning out for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>In council member to follow up. We have a photo here of you on your campaign trail in 2020. What was it like campaigning for the first time during the height of the pandemic?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Like I said, I had worked on many, many a campaign and the first thing I had to do was forget a lot of everything that I’d learned because it no longer applied. I didn’t knock any doors, actually zero. It was not something that my community was appreciative of when other candidates did it. So I kind of listened to that and went full digital. And something that I did during the campaign was I had a, you know, a team of filmmakers. I had my volunteers make COVID checking calls through the election saying, I’m here with Alyssa Cisneros, this campaign, but we’re not here to talk about her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Do you have the resources that you need? Because a lot of times when you’re speaking to voters, you’re you’re talking to them because you want to know what they’re concerned about and what they care about. And during the pandemic in 2020, we knew what people were concerned about. In that moment. I was just running in the general and really tuning in to that and being responsive in a different way. It was a lot of digital phone banking and text banking huge as well as I have a there in that image.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>My my door hangers. We did hang doors, we didn’t do the conversations and then lawn signs, but lawn signs don’t vote. I had some volunteers at the local maker’s center. Go ahead and print up some of those cool Alysa campaign branded masks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>Assembly member Lee as the first Gen Z Ledger state legislator. Have you experienced any discomfort from your fellow colleagues about your age, and have you ever experienced feelings of imposter syndrome?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>All the time. All the time. Oftentimes, my colleagues like to remind us that I am younger than them, even though I don’t bring it up. So they’ll all, though, often hear this right? They’re like, Oh, this thing happened in 1985 or something. Oh, you were born yet? And I was like, I mean, we know. I mean, I’m not going to bring in how old you are that what it’s like. But it seems to be very often that they like to bring those things up and then they’ll be surprised when I understand some sort of like seventies reference or something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>And I’m like, I know what the Internet is. I can search things. And we know pop culture existed too. So it happens a lot. I will say I think oftentimes that what we still struggle with, even from other Democrats, is that I get talked down to a lot. Often I think I’m giving the benefit of the doubt. I think it is that they see their children in me. So it’s like when we have a disagreement, they try to bring down that tone, which I’ve not seen them do to other colleagues. But to be frank, even if every disagreement and I’ve had to have a stern talking to you sometimes that you can’t talk to me like that, like I’m your son or something, I’m your colleague.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>So it’s happened, unfortunately, and it’s unfortunately in our space. We have to reassert ourselves that we are equals. I’m not better than you. I’m not worse than you were equals. So it happens a lot, you know, And with imposter syndrome, you know, it’s all the time. I actually don’t think I have imposter syndrome anymore because I’ve just accepted that I’m doing everything I’m doing that I don’t exactly know if this is right, but I feel like it’s right. So I’m just going to do it. And that’s what hey, that’s what got me to win elections. So I said this. I’m just going to embrace that, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Council Member Mayor, I saw you both nodding through that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Yeah. Something I hear a lot and have since I decided to run. And it it really didn’t happen so much in my career. In public policy. You look too young to be a council member. My I’m 35 years old. I don’t feel particularly young or you don’t look like a council member last year. You don’t look like a vice mayor. And it begs the question, what do they look like? You might forget. I have 16 years of experience doing this, right? So age doesn’t necessarily come with that experience. You can be relatively young, unfortunately, like relatively young and still come in more experience than most council members do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>So I do have to reassert that. And the imposter syndrome was really hard because like I said, I’d been treated with a lot of respect in my former roles at the beginning of being elected so hard. But when you realize you have a community around you, you get the people together to hype you up and say like, No, that’s, you know, swear words are there. You should remember exactly how much you know. Right. And and the longer you do it, the easier it gets. I think you develop a thick skin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Yeah, I totally agree with both of my colleagues up here. I mean, for me, I think where I really was able to, I still experience it, but nip the sort of imposter syndrome in the butt was when I was 20 and we were starting. KALB Right. College and got to talk to Governor Brown. He came to our board meeting. He’s sitting right across from me. And I did tell him everything that was wrong with it. So one of the things is telling them that, hey, Governor, we don’t have the broadband to support this infrastructure throughout the state. This is this is in 2018 before the pandemic and this conversation even start with broadband.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>And then so I get ripped apart by some people, like through my email while the meeting was still going on. So it was really crazy experiencing that. But then after that, me and Governor Brown are sitting directly in front of each other having lunch and I’m like, So governor, what are you going to do next now that you’re turning out? He says, Kid, I’m making olive oil with this fork pointed at me. And then so at that moment I was like, okay, all imposter syndrome is lost. But I really had to remember that like when you’re sitting right there, that kind of moments happening. I had to remember to myself that I’m here and now, as the mayor, you’re coming to me for something, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>More often than not, people will see the age before they see the resume. So, for example, you know, in 2018, for most people don’t know this, I was the campfire in paradise. So when people were hearing about the casualties that were happening, that was me and my friends keeping a tally on that and running those numbers. So people will oftentimes never see that. At 20 years old, I voted to make community college tuition free and I’ve been doing all this stuff before. I was even old enough to drink. They just see how old you are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Had a meeting with some folks not too long ago. I have this jacket that says Alex Walker-Griffin. Mayor, come up, sit down at the table. And they said, Oh, so you worked for the mayor. And I said, Well, he’ll be here any minute now. So it happens a lot. But you know what? You have to laugh about it, right? And then so if people follow me on social media, you’ll you’ll see my mid-morning rant after the gym. And so sometimes I’ll talk about that kind of stuff. But at the end of day, you got to effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>And Mayor, maybe you can speak on some of the sacrifices of the jobs. I know. I’m sure there’s moments where you have to skip some social events and miss out seeing your friends and family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Oh, absolutely. I mean, being getting elected at 23 now I’m 26. Most of my friends are still going to the club, so it’s not like I’m going to be joining them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>You’re like, there’s this really important sequel appeal that I have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Right, exactly. So I have to be like, Hey, guys, I can’t join you tonight because I don’t want you guys can take your pictures with your bottle of Hennessy or whatever. I can’t partake in that. But even sort of a little things, right? Like, you know, you just have to be kind of cognizant of how things will present potentially projects to the public, but also to have a full time job. And so just it happens every single week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>You have to have a meeting or you’ll have an event that you have to skip out on simply because the requirements for it, whether I’m talking to my city manager or I’m talking to someone who wants to do something in town, it always collides. But I think the big benefit for me is I’m a bachelor, so I don’t have to think about like, you know, how this is going to impact my children or I think about like my spouse or something like that. So that’s part of the one benefit that’s been in my favor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>And Councilmember, did that do the kind of juggling work and family change at all as an elected official versus kind of your past roles, your past work? Did it get more difficult?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Yeah, Yeah, of course it does. It does get harder because before even though like the long hours, right. My my kid, bless her, she is used to that. I know that that’s I have a lot of evening engagements. That’s kind of been the thing. But it’s different when you’re also so public facing in a lot of ways. Your life is an open book, and so the kind of anonymity you could have as a staffer or is just somebody who works in a research firm or in a public policy shop is different. So you have to think about how your actions are going to go ahead and perhaps reflect on your family, like is this going to do it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Because one of the sacrifices you make is really to your safety, especially women in politics right now. Right. I’ve had stalkers. I’ve had to move into a more secure building because of threats to my safety over things like votes. So just being in the public eye. So the kind of sacrifices that my family have to make for me is is balancing that, like where we’re actually physically safer to the point where we’re packing stuff. Right. And in terms of balancing it on my kids a little bit older. So less of that demands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>But when I talk to people with younger kids especially, there is a lot that you miss there. And because especially around election time, you have a lot of weekend stuff too. So you have to be able to find that time to spend quality time throughout the week as best you can. It’s really easy to lose touch with people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caitlin Kennedy \u003c/strong>In Council member I know we talked about your campaigning during the pandemic. Civic participation changed tremendously during the pandemic. Is there any risk of going back to the old ways, like knocking on doors, having the yard signs, stuff like that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Well, this I’m running again in 2024 and engaging civically in, as far as I know, at least now. Right. But, you know, with the world as it’s been, I don’t make any guesses for what tomorrow is going to be like or or what’s going to be required of me during this campaign, because we live in unprecedented times every single day. I think we were talking about that earlier, and I am looking forward to getting back to that door to door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>Right. And but we do have more tools in our toolkit. There are some silver linings to the pandemic. I look forward to continuing having a robust digital presence. Right. Especially because young voters are still reached base that way. But there are so many opportunities. When you talk to someone face to face, it’s a little bit irreplaceable because instead of hearing from me on the phone or over text or one of my volunteers being able to talk to me and know who I am builds a really important trust, especially if you have like a a district like mine where you have only about 12,000 voters, you can actually go and talk to everyone if you really get a good pair of sneakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>So I’m looking forward to that a lot. But we can take a lot of lessons about what it means to reach people who we weren’t able to reach before because of those challenges with COVID. And we all learned both as candidates and as governments, how to do that. And, you know, we’d be remiss not to continue doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>Right. I mean, city council meetings, the state legislature, suddenly it was all available on Zoom and you could listen to hours and hours of public comment from the comfort of your living room. So, I mean, that kind of access. Is there a concern that maybe that goes away? Is that something, at least in Hercules, that you’re you want to make a part of council engagement going forward?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>Well, actually, it’s unfortunate We had to do is we actually had to in so many other cities in the area and actually throughout the country had to do this. We had to cut public comment on Zoom because there’s been a wide variety of people throughout the country calling in and saying some of the most horrible things that you could ever say. So it is unfortunate that that is the case, but that does not mean the accessibility has gone away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>So one way that we’ve definitely stepped up our game in terms of being able to reach our constituents, either from the city council perspective or through the city perspective is we have an app online in addition to every other Well, we have an app that you can download to your phone. So rather than you calling 510245, blah, blah, blah, you just take a picture of whatever problem it is on the street or whatever, and it goes directly to our public works team. But I do think that it is a little scary to think that we have some bad actors who are doing a good thing, and we don’t know when it’s necessarily going to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexander Walker-Griffin \u003c/strong>But up until literally last or last meeting two weeks ago, all of our meetings have been on Zoom and it’s been great to have people who traditionally would have never come in, especially some of the senior populations that can’t make it out and make it out on Tuesday at 7 p.m. or working families have and participate online has been great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>We went to full it. We decided as a council to do permanent hybrid meetings. So we meet in City Hall, but we also had that zoom component and we have not shut down public comment, remote public comment yet and we really hope we don’t have to because that is such a huge way we get participation. In fact, we often get more people participating in public comment on Zoom than we do in person. Actually, that’s most common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alysa Cisneros \u003c/strong>And so what people don’t realize, it’s like you can go ahead and your email, your your congressman and you’ll hopefully get something back from a staff member. But your city council members, your you and your assembly member with your district staff, we’re here and you can talk to us. And engaging the democratic process is so important. So even though that Zoombombing is happening, I’m like, I want to stick it out and see what we can do to curb it. And you know, I’m more stubborn than they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>So in the legislature, we’ve unfortunately mostly got away with the Zoom comments now to the discretion of committee chairs now. So I think in the Assembly I am one of two committees that still take a Zoom public comment. Yes, it is riddled with people who have very terrible things to say, but that’s I still believe in reducing the barriers for public participation. In my first year in office, I thought I was going to author a slam dunk exhibit. I said, Wow, we learn during the pandemic that Zoom comment and Zoom hybrid meetings work so well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Let’s just keep this forever. That was one of the hardest rules I ever worked on. The first time the cities opposed it because they said it costs too much, it’s impossible to do. And then suddenly everyone was doing I mean, everyone was basically doing it. So I said, I don’t understand. How you doing exactly? I mean, everyone is doing it. But the city is still said that it was too cost prohibitive, you couldn’t do it, etc., etc.. And then I made this big compromise where, okay, why don’t you just do it for the big cities, Right? Theoretically speaking, even though the technology scale is the same, no matter if you’re L.A. or if you’re Sunnyvale, why don’t we just try to do it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Lee \u003c/strong>Yeah, unfortunately, that got vetoed and still hasn’t been been the same since. But I still think it’s important for city councils if you’re able to do it, to do the hybrid method, because it really does reduce a lot those barriers, especially in Sacramento, where you’d really legitimately have to take an entire day to come up to do your 30 seconds. It would means a lot to people. So that’s why I keep it in my own committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati \u003c/strong>All right. Well, we are going to have to leave the conversation there. Thank you three so much for coming out, spending time with us and giving us some insight into your work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>That was KQED Politics and Government reporter Guy Marzorati and USF student fellow Caitlin Kennedy in conversation with Assembly member Alex Lee, Hercules Mayor Alexander Walker-Griffin and Sunnyvale Councilmember Alysa Cisneros. If you want to watch, the full live event, will leave you a link in our shownotes. This KQED Live event was produced by Ryan Davis. It was cut down and edited by our senior editor, Alan Montecillo. By the way, there are a bunch of really cool live events happening all the time at our headquarters in San Francisco. For more on all the upcoming ones, go to KQED.org/Live. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "the-bays-october-news-roundup-richmond-stands-with-palestine-cruise-suspended-in-sf-a-win-for-child-care-workers",
"title": "The Bay’s October News Roundup: Richmond Stands With Palestine, Cruise Suspended in SF, A Win For Child Care Workers",
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"headTitle": "The Bay’s October News Roundup: Richmond Stands With Palestine, Cruise Suspended in SF, A Win For Child Care Workers | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>In this edition of The Bay’s monthly news roundup, Ericka, Maria and Alan talk about how Richmond became the first city in the country to pass a resolution in support of Palestinians in Gaza, the Department of Motor Vehicles decision to pull Cruise’s permit in San Francisco, and a big labor win for childcare workers in California.\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=KQINC2019200695\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\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>Links:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cem>LA Times: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-25/california-city-first-in-nation-to-support-palestinians-in-gaza-with-resolution-accusing-israel-of-ethnic-cleansing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California city first in U.S. to officially back Palestinians, accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cem>KQED: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11964236/how-a-california-child-care-workers-union-fought-for-living-wages-and-won\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> How a California Child Care Workers’ Union Fought for Living Wages — and Won\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle:\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/s-f-cruise-driverless-taxis-suspended-18445110.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> California DMV suspends Cruise’s driverless taxis in S.F. after company allegedly withheld car crash footage\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>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. And welcome to our October news roundup where the bay team talks about some of the other stories that we’ve been following this month. I’m here with our producer, Maria Esquinca. Hi, Maria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Hello. Hello. Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And also our senior editor, Allan Montecillo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And wow, you all this month has been a lot. It’s been a lot. It’s been a heavy news month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I mean, before we get to the stories we are all following. I mean, I think everyone knows this has been a just completely chaotic news month. We have a new senator Lafond, a butler. Obviously, all this drama in the house, it looks like we do have a new speaker of the House as of this taping. So, you know, there is that Governor Gavin Newsom passed and vetoed a bunch of bills. And then, of course, the biggest story in the world, obviously, is the war between Israel and Hamas. So there’s been so much going on this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah, it’s a difficult time to also work in the in the media. I think we’re in a position where we literally cannot turn the news off and that can be heavy. And I’m sure a lot of people that also don’t work in the media are really closely following what’s going on in Gaza right now. I find that it’s a time where I feel myself at a loss of words about how to talk about this moment and what to say to people. And so all I can do is like, acknowledge, acknowledge what we’re feeling right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>When there’s big news that breaks nationally or internationally. We’re sort of in a weird position as a local show. We can’t necessarily cover every single, say, rally or meeting. We don’t have reporters in Israel or Gaza. We’re always trying to find the local angle. But it’s hard, you know, I mean, I think we tried to do that with some of our recent episodes covering rallies and gatherings in the Bay Area these last few weeks, an episode about kind of big tech and misinformation. But there’s obviously so much more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, the story that I actually brought to the table today is kind of at the sweet spot of some of the stuff we’re talking about on Tuesday night. The Richmond City Council voted 5 to 1 to pass a resolution affirming Richmond’s support and solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza. That’s what the resolution is called. It was sponsored by Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez and Vice Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>What does this resolution do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One of the big things is that it calls for an immediate cease fire and safe passage of aid into Gaza. It calls for the end of Israeli apartheid and an end to the occupation and blockade of Palestinian land. And it also calls for an immediate release of Israeli hostages by Hamas. So it really is a big statement, really laying out Richmond’s position on what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Richmond is the only city in the country to have done this. Why did they do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, the co-sponsors of the resolution mentioned a couple of things. A vice mayor, Gail McLaughlin, told KPIX that she believes that, quote, Richmond is not an island and she and the mayor made a lot of reference to the fact that U.S. tax dollars, including the tax dollars of Richmond residents, is supporting Israel’s military and that she believes that as a public official, as a representative of the city of Richmond, she has a moral obligation to speak out against what is happening to the people of Palestine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I have to imagine that this resolution drew very, very strong reactions. What has been said so far about the resolution?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, there have been some groups in support of Israel who kind of came out ahead of the vote. You also saw some community groups like the Jewish Community Relations Council coming out strong in opposition to this resolution, calling it inflammatory and biased and urging people to speak up against it. You know, that city council meeting was completely packed. There was literally like an overflow room of both supporters and opponents of the resolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>But honestly, there was a lot of support for this resolution. In fact, some local organizations say that they mobilized 6500 people to send letters. Encouraging the council to stand with the people of Palestine. You saw people at the council meeting with like huge Palestinian flags. I think the council is really felt very backed by the community and the constituents that this was the right thing to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It seems like the value of the resolution to council members and residents is this sort of official symbolic statement that says this is what the city thinks about this issue?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, definitely. I think it’s it’s really a matter for them of taking a moral stance here. Council member Doria Robinson actually talks about that. She mentioned how the fight to end slavery in the U.S. and also the civil rights movement. The fight against apartheid in South Africa were all once very unpopular and controversial issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>But at some point somebody has to say, I love you and you’re wrong. What you’re doing is wrong. And I cannot not say it’s wrong anymore. I think we’re at that point in Richmond. I hope we’re at that point in Richmond. I hope other people find courage in our actions. I hope we find the right resolution tonight. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So there’s my story. After the break, we will talk with Maria and Alan about what they’ve been following this October. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So my story is about Cruise. The driverless car company just this week had its permit removed by the California Department of Motor Vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>These were, just to be clear, the self-driving taxis, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So what happened is basically they got permission by state authorities. And so when this happened back in August, it was quite a moment where people were, you know, either shocked or worried or excited about this. And at the time when it when this got approved, again, there was sort of hesitation that was raised by some groups whether this was safe. And the latest news is that they got their permits removed and it was a decision that was effective immediately. And we do not know when they will be allowed to roam the streets of San Francisco again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, that’s kind of wild. I feel like the the rug was basically pulled out from under Cruz, who it seemed like was kind of on a roll. But why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So at the heart of this is an incident that happened early in the month, on October 2nd. This is according to the documents that were released by the Department of Motor Vehicles. This happened somewhere around Market Street in San Francisco. There was a pedestrian and this was a hit and run. So a real person driving a car hit her and threw her into the path of a Cruz car. The Cruz car came to a stop or braked, but then kept moving and did a pull what they’re calling a pull over maneuver while she was under the Cruz car and dragged her 20 feet before stopping.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Oh, my.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And the next day, DMV officials met with Cruz officials, officials of the Cruz. The company had video footage of this incident. According to the DMV, they only showed camera footage up to the point of the Cruz car breaking. Mm hmm. And then they didn’t show any additional video footage to DMV officials. And according to the DMV, they later found out that Cruz had additional video video footage that showed the Cruz car dragging this woman underneath their car and had withheld the this video footage. And that is really at the heart of like the suspension. And according to DMV officials, they only found out about this like additional video footage through another government agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Is the woman who was hit. Okay. Do we know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So according to media reports, the woman’s identity is unknown and she’s currently in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Okay. So these are serious allegations from the DMV. Obviously, having your permit suspended in San Francisco is a big deal. What has Cruz said about this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So Cruz is denying the allegations. And in their own statement, they said that they showed the complete video multiple times on October 3rd, the day after this incident happened, and they sent a copy to DMV officials. Omdia DMV officials in their own like statement had said that they received a copy of the whole footage, but that was way later on October 13th. And so Cruz is right now just denying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And how have city officials responded to this? Because they know actually some of them were actually kind of hesitant about allowing these cars to just roam free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So there are some city officials that are speaking out about this. And one of those is San Francisco’s city attorney, David Chiu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And our profound hope is that the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the ability of a ton of vehicles to carry passengers, that they will reconsider their recent decision. The CPC recently decided to allow for the unfettered, unlimited expansion of autonomous vehicles in San Francisco. We have formally requested that the CPC reconsider its decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And so I think part of the things that he’s flagging is a concern about transparency and the information that these companies are providing to the to the city, which arguably they need to be able to make these sort of decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Oh, Alan, I want to move on to you, and you’ve actually got a more positive story for us to end on. I know our listeners probably like to hear some good news. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So this is a story about childcare workers. It was a story reported by KQED Daisy, when this past month, childcare workers in California got $2 million from the state to provide about a 20% increase in wages. Wow. And to even create a first in the nation retirement fund for childcare workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>As Daisy as reported on in the past. California has a child care crisis in large part because many of the people who do this work don’t get paid living wages, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I mean, America has a child care crisis. Childcare workers all across the nation report just terrible, terrible pay, generally feeling kind of undervalued, like people don’t understand or care about the work that they do. As most people probably know, childcare workers tend to be immigrants. They tend to be women of color. They’ve generally been left out of a lot of labor protections. And obviously, in California, this is an expensive state to live in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So a lot of those problems just get compounded. One person that Daisy talked to is a woman named Nancy Harvey. She runs a daycare out of her home in West Oakland. And she actually transitioned to daycare after working in the private sector, after working in schools. And she was she was just shocked at how much worse the pay is in child care, how much worse the benefits are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I had come out of corporate. I had also worked in the school system, and a retirement plan was essential for anyone that worked a job. And I couldn’t understand how this very valuable industry did not have that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I mean, Alan, what kind of work are we talking about when we when we talk about childcare workers? And why is it the state that is paying them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So in this case, we’re mostly talking about home based child care providers. So people who are operating childcare centers out of their homes, these home based providers are considered self-employed small business owners. But many of them, especially those who serve lower income families, have long argued that they should be classified as public employees because a lot of their salary actually depends on reimbursement from the state of California. It’s not uncommon for people who work in childcare, who receive money from the state to pay their salaries to themselves, also qualify for public assistance. I mean, it’s hard to overstate how much lower the wages are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>How did they get this to happen? How did they organize?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It actually took about two decades of organizing for workers to even win the right to collectively bargain. In 2019, the union, which is called Childcare Providers United, which represents about 40,000 workers, was finally able to unionize and gain the right to collectively bargain. They were actually on the verge of negotiating their first contract. And then COVID happened. And one thing that happened with COVID is many child care centers closed. You know, in 2021, they did negotiate their first contract. They got $100 million from the state. But this is much, much bigger. So, yeah, I think that, you know, decades of organizing is one big part of it. I think the sort of inadvertent effect of COVID really just emphasizing how important childcare services are to people. And another thing that Daisy flagged in her story is that more women in the legislature made a big difference. One of the people who Daisy talked to, a state senator, Nancy Skinner, and she talked about just how much the pandemic really affected childcare services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So we just saw this collapse that affected not only families, obviously, and the little kids that that really deserve good childcare, but also affected California’s employers and our economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Many other workers who aren’t in the union will benefit, too. You know, they they got the state to change the way it pays providers so they’ll get a raise even if they’re not in the union. So this will supply apply to larger childcare centers that are subsidized by the state, not just home based ones. So this is a pretty big deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, thanks so much, Alan, for that bit of positive news. If you want to read more about Daisy’s reporting, we’ll leave a link to that story in our show notes, as well as coverage on the DMV’s decision on Cruz and some reporting on the Richmond City Council’s vote in solidarity with the people of Palestine. And meantime, Maria, Allan, thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Thanks to KQED reporter Sidney Johnson for the tape of David Chu that you heard in this episode. Shout out as well to the rest of our podcast team here at KQED. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. Cesar Saldana, our podcast engagement producer. 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. Talk to you next week.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In this edition of The Bay’s monthly news roundup, Ericka, Maria and Alan talk about how Richmond became the first city in the country to pass a resolution in support of Palestinians in Gaza, the Department of Motor Vehicles decision to pull Cruise’s permit in San Francisco, and a big labor win for childcare workers in California.\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=KQINC2019200695\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\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>Links:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cem>LA Times: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-25/california-city-first-in-nation-to-support-palestinians-in-gaza-with-resolution-accusing-israel-of-ethnic-cleansing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California city first in U.S. to officially back Palestinians, accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cem>KQED: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11964236/how-a-california-child-care-workers-union-fought-for-living-wages-and-won\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> How a California Child Care Workers’ Union Fought for Living Wages — and Won\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle:\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/s-f-cruise-driverless-taxis-suspended-18445110.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> California DMV suspends Cruise’s driverless taxis in S.F. after company allegedly withheld car crash footage\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\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. And welcome to our October news roundup where the bay team talks about some of the other stories that we’ve been following this month. I’m here with our producer, Maria Esquinca. Hi, Maria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Hello. Hello. Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And also our senior editor, Allan Montecillo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And wow, you all this month has been a lot. It’s been a lot. It’s been a heavy news month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I mean, before we get to the stories we are all following. I mean, I think everyone knows this has been a just completely chaotic news month. We have a new senator Lafond, a butler. Obviously, all this drama in the house, it looks like we do have a new speaker of the House as of this taping. So, you know, there is that Governor Gavin Newsom passed and vetoed a bunch of bills. And then, of course, the biggest story in the world, obviously, is the war between Israel and Hamas. So there’s been so much going on this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah, it’s a difficult time to also work in the in the media. I think we’re in a position where we literally cannot turn the news off and that can be heavy. And I’m sure a lot of people that also don’t work in the media are really closely following what’s going on in Gaza right now. I find that it’s a time where I feel myself at a loss of words about how to talk about this moment and what to say to people. And so all I can do is like, acknowledge, acknowledge what we’re feeling right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>When there’s big news that breaks nationally or internationally. We’re sort of in a weird position as a local show. We can’t necessarily cover every single, say, rally or meeting. We don’t have reporters in Israel or Gaza. We’re always trying to find the local angle. But it’s hard, you know, I mean, I think we tried to do that with some of our recent episodes covering rallies and gatherings in the Bay Area these last few weeks, an episode about kind of big tech and misinformation. But there’s obviously so much more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, the story that I actually brought to the table today is kind of at the sweet spot of some of the stuff we’re talking about on Tuesday night. The Richmond City Council voted 5 to 1 to pass a resolution affirming Richmond’s support and solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza. That’s what the resolution is called. It was sponsored by Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez and Vice Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>What does this resolution do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One of the big things is that it calls for an immediate cease fire and safe passage of aid into Gaza. It calls for the end of Israeli apartheid and an end to the occupation and blockade of Palestinian land. And it also calls for an immediate release of Israeli hostages by Hamas. So it really is a big statement, really laying out Richmond’s position on what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Richmond is the only city in the country to have done this. Why did they do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, the co-sponsors of the resolution mentioned a couple of things. A vice mayor, Gail McLaughlin, told KPIX that she believes that, quote, Richmond is not an island and she and the mayor made a lot of reference to the fact that U.S. tax dollars, including the tax dollars of Richmond residents, is supporting Israel’s military and that she believes that as a public official, as a representative of the city of Richmond, she has a moral obligation to speak out against what is happening to the people of Palestine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I have to imagine that this resolution drew very, very strong reactions. What has been said so far about the resolution?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, there have been some groups in support of Israel who kind of came out ahead of the vote. You also saw some community groups like the Jewish Community Relations Council coming out strong in opposition to this resolution, calling it inflammatory and biased and urging people to speak up against it. You know, that city council meeting was completely packed. There was literally like an overflow room of both supporters and opponents of the resolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>But honestly, there was a lot of support for this resolution. In fact, some local organizations say that they mobilized 6500 people to send letters. Encouraging the council to stand with the people of Palestine. You saw people at the council meeting with like huge Palestinian flags. I think the council is really felt very backed by the community and the constituents that this was the right thing to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It seems like the value of the resolution to council members and residents is this sort of official symbolic statement that says this is what the city thinks about this issue?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, definitely. I think it’s it’s really a matter for them of taking a moral stance here. Council member Doria Robinson actually talks about that. She mentioned how the fight to end slavery in the U.S. and also the civil rights movement. The fight against apartheid in South Africa were all once very unpopular and controversial issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>But at some point somebody has to say, I love you and you’re wrong. What you’re doing is wrong. And I cannot not say it’s wrong anymore. I think we’re at that point in Richmond. I hope we’re at that point in Richmond. I hope other people find courage in our actions. I hope we find the right resolution tonight. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So there’s my story. After the break, we will talk with Maria and Alan about what they’ve been following this October. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So my story is about Cruise. The driverless car company just this week had its permit removed by the California Department of Motor Vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>These were, just to be clear, the self-driving taxis, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So what happened is basically they got permission by state authorities. And so when this happened back in August, it was quite a moment where people were, you know, either shocked or worried or excited about this. And at the time when it when this got approved, again, there was sort of hesitation that was raised by some groups whether this was safe. And the latest news is that they got their permits removed and it was a decision that was effective immediately. And we do not know when they will be allowed to roam the streets of San Francisco again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, that’s kind of wild. I feel like the the rug was basically pulled out from under Cruz, who it seemed like was kind of on a roll. But why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So at the heart of this is an incident that happened early in the month, on October 2nd. This is according to the documents that were released by the Department of Motor Vehicles. This happened somewhere around Market Street in San Francisco. There was a pedestrian and this was a hit and run. So a real person driving a car hit her and threw her into the path of a Cruz car. The Cruz car came to a stop or braked, but then kept moving and did a pull what they’re calling a pull over maneuver while she was under the Cruz car and dragged her 20 feet before stopping.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Oh, my.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And the next day, DMV officials met with Cruz officials, officials of the Cruz. The company had video footage of this incident. According to the DMV, they only showed camera footage up to the point of the Cruz car breaking. Mm hmm. And then they didn’t show any additional video footage to DMV officials. And according to the DMV, they later found out that Cruz had additional video video footage that showed the Cruz car dragging this woman underneath their car and had withheld the this video footage. And that is really at the heart of like the suspension. And according to DMV officials, they only found out about this like additional video footage through another government agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Is the woman who was hit. Okay. Do we know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So according to media reports, the woman’s identity is unknown and she’s currently in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Okay. So these are serious allegations from the DMV. Obviously, having your permit suspended in San Francisco is a big deal. What has Cruz said about this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So Cruz is denying the allegations. And in their own statement, they said that they showed the complete video multiple times on October 3rd, the day after this incident happened, and they sent a copy to DMV officials. Omdia DMV officials in their own like statement had said that they received a copy of the whole footage, but that was way later on October 13th. And so Cruz is right now just denying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And how have city officials responded to this? Because they know actually some of them were actually kind of hesitant about allowing these cars to just roam free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah. So there are some city officials that are speaking out about this. And one of those is San Francisco’s city attorney, David Chiu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>And our profound hope is that the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the ability of a ton of vehicles to carry passengers, that they will reconsider their recent decision. The CPC recently decided to allow for the unfettered, unlimited expansion of autonomous vehicles in San Francisco. We have formally requested that the CPC reconsider its decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And so I think part of the things that he’s flagging is a concern about transparency and the information that these companies are providing to the to the city, which arguably they need to be able to make these sort of decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Oh, Alan, I want to move on to you, and you’ve actually got a more positive story for us to end on. I know our listeners probably like to hear some good news. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So this is a story about childcare workers. It was a story reported by KQED Daisy, when this past month, childcare workers in California got $2 million from the state to provide about a 20% increase in wages. Wow. And to even create a first in the nation retirement fund for childcare workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>As Daisy as reported on in the past. California has a child care crisis in large part because many of the people who do this work don’t get paid living wages, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I mean, America has a child care crisis. Childcare workers all across the nation report just terrible, terrible pay, generally feeling kind of undervalued, like people don’t understand or care about the work that they do. As most people probably know, childcare workers tend to be immigrants. They tend to be women of color. They’ve generally been left out of a lot of labor protections. And obviously, in California, this is an expensive state to live in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So a lot of those problems just get compounded. One person that Daisy talked to is a woman named Nancy Harvey. She runs a daycare out of her home in West Oakland. And she actually transitioned to daycare after working in the private sector, after working in schools. And she was she was just shocked at how much worse the pay is in child care, how much worse the benefits are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>I had come out of corporate. I had also worked in the school system, and a retirement plan was essential for anyone that worked a job. And I couldn’t understand how this very valuable industry did not have that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I mean, Alan, what kind of work are we talking about when we when we talk about childcare workers? And why is it the state that is paying them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So in this case, we’re mostly talking about home based child care providers. So people who are operating childcare centers out of their homes, these home based providers are considered self-employed small business owners. But many of them, especially those who serve lower income families, have long argued that they should be classified as public employees because a lot of their salary actually depends on reimbursement from the state of California. It’s not uncommon for people who work in childcare, who receive money from the state to pay their salaries to themselves, also qualify for public assistance. I mean, it’s hard to overstate how much lower the wages are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>How did they get this to happen? How did they organize?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It actually took about two decades of organizing for workers to even win the right to collectively bargain. In 2019, the union, which is called Childcare Providers United, which represents about 40,000 workers, was finally able to unionize and gain the right to collectively bargain. They were actually on the verge of negotiating their first contract. And then COVID happened. And one thing that happened with COVID is many child care centers closed. You know, in 2021, they did negotiate their first contract. They got $100 million from the state. But this is much, much bigger. So, yeah, I think that, you know, decades of organizing is one big part of it. I think the sort of inadvertent effect of COVID really just emphasizing how important childcare services are to people. And another thing that Daisy flagged in her story is that more women in the legislature made a big difference. One of the people who Daisy talked to, a state senator, Nancy Skinner, and she talked about just how much the pandemic really affected childcare services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So we just saw this collapse that affected not only families, obviously, and the little kids that that really deserve good childcare, but also affected California’s employers and our economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Many other workers who aren’t in the union will benefit, too. You know, they they got the state to change the way it pays providers so they’ll get a raise even if they’re not in the union. So this will supply apply to larger childcare centers that are subsidized by the state, not just home based ones. So this is a pretty big deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, thanks so much, Alan, for that bit of positive news. If you want to read more about Daisy’s reporting, we’ll leave a link to that story in our show notes, as well as coverage on the DMV’s decision on Cruz and some reporting on the Richmond City Council’s vote in solidarity with the people of Palestine. And meantime, Maria, Allan, thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Thanks to KQED reporter Sidney Johnson for the tape of David Chu that you heard in this episode. Shout out as well to the rest of our podcast team here at KQED. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. Cesar Saldana, our podcast engagement producer. 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. Talk to you next week.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Can the State Force Vallejo Police to Change?",
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"headTitle": "Can the State Force Vallejo Police to Change? | KQED",
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"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\">California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a new, legally binding reform agreement with the Vallejo Police Department last week. Scott Morris with the Vallejo Sun joins us to talk about what’s in the agreement, and why meeting it will be a tall order.\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=KQINC6621179482\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Links:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vallejosun.com/state-doj-announces-new-reform-agreement-with-vallejo-police-under-court-supervision/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">State DOJ announces new reform agreement with Vallejo police under court supervision\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\">Apply to be our intern!\u003c/a>\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>Hey, quick announcement. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity. So if you got a passion for local news and podcasts, let’s talk. The deadline to apply is November 17th. The link to the app is 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. Back in 2020, the Vallejo Police Department was in the spotlight for a series of killings. That’s when the State Department of Justice stepped in and a new police chief was hired to turn things around. The DOJ gave Vallejo police three years to complete 45 reforms. Now, those three years are up and there’s still a lot of work to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rob Bonta: \u003c/strong>Californians are hurting. Trust has been broken and it won’t be repaired overnight, but it can and will be repaired if we work together, if we make go forward commitments to do better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The reformer police chief Shawny Williams, has since been pushed out and Vpd has been in the spotlight again for a viral video of an officer shoving a woman and punching her in the head for its staffing crisis and for reinstating the officer who was fired after the killing of Sean Monterrosa. Now the state DOJ is back again with more reforms for the Vallejo Police Department. Today, we talked with the Vallejo Sun’s Scott Morris about a court ordered agreement to reform vallejo police and the barriers to real change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>The Department of Justice first came in to Vallejo just before Sean Monterrosa was shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Scott Morris is an investigative reporter and co-founder of the Vallejo Sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>After Willie McCoy was shot in 2019. There was this big push for, you know, something, something needed to be reformed in the Vallejo Police Department. The city had been required to fulfill 45 reforms under a contract with the Department Justice two starting in June 2020 that had a three year term on it that ended earlier this year. And according to DOJ, the city had completed about 20 of 45 recommendations for reform at that point. This was a kind of the next logical step in that process. You said he didn’t finish it. And so therefore, there needs to be some kind of oversight to make sure that the rest of this gets done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rob Bonta: \u003c/strong>The people of Vallejo deserve a police department that listens to them and guarantees that their civil rights are protected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Rob Bonta spoke at a press conference and it kind of announced this stipulated judgment. Vallejo City Hall last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rob Bonta: \u003c/strong>We can’t allow for lapses in improvement. We need to keep moving forward. Continuing to make that progress. We can’t allow for complacency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>In addition to the 45 required reforms, Bonta in this stipulated judgment has added ten new reforms that the department is now required to complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So that’s the context in which we’re talking about this stipulated judgment. What the heck is a stipulated judgment? What does that mean? And can you help us make sense of that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>A stipulated judgment is basically that this reform program that DOJ had been working on in Vallejo is now in front of a judge. So now is being kind of overseeing the judge who makes sure that there’s progress and the city is fulfilling its obligations. This and if not that, there could be potentially legal consequences for not fulfilling their obligations here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What are then these changes that are supposed to happen under this new court supervised agreement? What are some of the the big ones that people in Vallejo might be interested in hearing about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>So some of the stuff that it adds has to do with when officers can conduct searches, when they can stop people and whether they can search them when when once they’ve stopped them. You know, there’s all these reforms in terms of bias and policing. Another thing that they’re required to be doing now is they’re going to be conducting audits of incidents when officers point firearms at anyone or brandish a firearm. And so they’re going to be looking at that and making sure that, you know, officers are doing that for the right reasons. And they’re not just like pulling their guns in situations where it’s unnecessary. And then, you know, just simple stuff like soliciting feedback from the community or engaging community members in their promotions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You mentioned that the village police department has completed less than half of what was originally required of them. Now, there are these new reforms that the attorney general wants them to complete. They now have five years to do it. But why hasn’t the Vallejo Police Department been able to implement some of these before this stipulated order?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Yeah, that’s a complicated question. And and kind of depends who you ask. But press conference, the interim police chief right now, Jason Ta, kind of blames staffing shortages on a lot of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Ta: \u003c/strong>We have a staffing shortage. There are short term strategies that we are looking towards right now to to address that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>And he said there’s a lot of things he would want to do that he hasn’t been able to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Ta: \u003c/strong>So as the attorney general said that, you know, our staffing is not an excuse to not advance some of these changes forward as times, you know, you know, and the public knows that administrative responsibilities sometimes take kind of second priority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>You know, in the three years that this had been going on, I mean, for the first two and a half, there really wasn’t a lot of progress on this that I think that there was only two reforms that have been completed. You know, as of maybe at the middle or late last year, you know, one of the reasons for that is that there’s been pushback from the Vallejo Police Officers Association. The Police Officers Association has had enormous power in that city. Anything that changes the working conditions of Vallejo police officers is subject to a beat and confer process. So that can include policy changes, that can include kind of new oversight, that can include shift changes, that can include, you know, whether they work in an eight hour or 12 hour shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Any action by the city council, by the city government enters that process and then they have to reach some kind of consensus with the Vallejo Police Officers Association, but so that these negotiations can go on for a very long time. That’s also just something that’s like generally true of union contracts that like kind of if you want to make some change in the working conditions, you just have to run it by the union. It’s just difficult in this particular context when you’re trying to implement some kind of reforms and then you have a police officers association that’s hostile to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One big reform Vallejo police have yet to fully implement is the creation of an independent police commission, a civilian body whose job is to oversee the department. City councilors have already agreed on what a commission would look like, but it hasn’t taken off because of pushback from the police union. The union has even blocked efforts to hire more civilians, including a civilian hired to handle communication with the public, as well as efforts to hire an interim police auditor while a plan to build the commission was coming together. And as the department tries to meet all of these reforms, the opinion of the police union is going to matter a lot moving forward. What has the play said so far in response to this announcement by the attorney general?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>The day that this came out. The play, you know, put out a press release, you know, once again complaining about a staffing shortage and said that the blowback of reform will further play out. And if past consent decrees indicate anything, it’s only the citizens of Vallejo will be left behind in the process. So, you know, almost kind of a life threatening statement there in terms of like, you know, if you hold us back with this kind of reform things to the people of L.A. who are going to suffer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What have elected leaders, what have they been saying about this announcement?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>This has been well received both by the city council and by the, you know, leadership of the city of Alejo. They’ve been supportive of this and have pledged to work cooperatively in this effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor Robert McConnell: \u003c/strong>Police reform, consisting of a change in daily culture is not easy. It is often said that culture will eat programs for breakfast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Mayor Robert McConnell spoke at the press conference with Robert. And, you know, he kind of outlined and said that he was supportive of this effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor Robert McConnell: \u003c/strong>I now call upon the leaders of the Vallejo Police Officers Association, future Vallejo council members, future mayors, future staff and all candidates for council and indeed the entire populace to not only support what needs to and shall be done, but to even do it faster than the anticipated five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Scott, it does seem like this is one of the biggest attempts by Attorney General Rob Bonta to really come in and do something about what’s happening in the Vallejo Police Department. I guess how do you how are you making sense of this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>You know, John Burris, a civil rights attorney in Oakland, he had released a statement because he sued the Vallejo Police Department numerous times over a lot of the issues that have come up here. And he sued the Oakland Police Department in the early 2000, had a court ordered reform agreement that, you know, has been going on for more than 20 years now. And so, you know, he pointed out that that in itself really doesn’t implement change in a police department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>I think there’s reasons to think that, you know, the Department of Justice has some responsibility for delaying here. And in Vallejo, there’s a very prominent example of Sean Monterrosa that the DOJ or over two years ago agreed to pick up that case. But now it’s been two and a half years in the Department of Justice, and there’s still this not an answer about whether that officer is going to be charged or not. If the goal is accountability for loyal police officers or independent investigations, that is a really big thing that’s really in the Department of Justice’s control right now that they have not managed to get done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>So, you know, to kind of come in with with this big expansive thing, but not to be able to do this very specific thing, kind of makes me have questions about. What the Department of Justice has been really able to accomplish here so far, what the Department of Justice is able to accomplish in this space in general, given the delays in investigations throughout California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Right. The and that is one of the more important things for I know at least the families of those impacted by police violence in Vallejo. Is that accountability part of it? Right. I mean, so I guess, Scott, can the DOJ force Vallejo Police to change? And if so, what? What is it going to take?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>I mean, look like, you know, if the Vallejo Police Department historically has been in charge of it’s investigating itself after serious incidents and kind of has been this really insular space, like I think that there’s certain leadership in the department could force a change. But I think that the change really at the end of the day needs to come from within. Now, external pressures can certainly affect how they approach things. But, you know, I think that whether or not it can really force a change, I’m not so sure about that. More.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Scott, thanks so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Scott Morris, an investigative journalist and co-founder of the Vallejo Sun. This 40 minute conversation with Scott was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo; 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",
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"title": "Can the State Force Vallejo Police to Change? | KQED",
"description": "View the full episode transcript. California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a new, legally binding reform agreement with the Vallejo Police Department last week. Scott Morris with the Vallejo Sun joins us to talk about what’s in the agreement, and why meeting it will be a tall order. Links: State DOJ announces new reform agreement with Vallejo police under court supervision Apply to be our intern! Episode Transcript This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors. Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Hey, quick announcement. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16",
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"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\">California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a new, legally binding reform agreement with the Vallejo Police Department last week. Scott Morris with the Vallejo Sun joins us to talk about what’s in the agreement, and why meeting it will be a tall order.\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=KQINC6621179482\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Links:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vallejosun.com/state-doj-announces-new-reform-agreement-with-vallejo-police-under-court-supervision/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">State DOJ announces new reform agreement with Vallejo police under court supervision\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\">Apply to be our intern!\u003c/a>\u003c/div>",
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"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, quick announcement. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity. So if you got a passion for local news and podcasts, let’s talk. The deadline to apply is November 17th. The link to the app is 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. Back in 2020, the Vallejo Police Department was in the spotlight for a series of killings. That’s when the State Department of Justice stepped in and a new police chief was hired to turn things around. The DOJ gave Vallejo police three years to complete 45 reforms. Now, those three years are up and there’s still a lot of work to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rob Bonta: \u003c/strong>Californians are hurting. Trust has been broken and it won’t be repaired overnight, but it can and will be repaired if we work together, if we make go forward commitments to do better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The reformer police chief Shawny Williams, has since been pushed out and Vpd has been in the spotlight again for a viral video of an officer shoving a woman and punching her in the head for its staffing crisis and for reinstating the officer who was fired after the killing of Sean Monterrosa. Now the state DOJ is back again with more reforms for the Vallejo Police Department. Today, we talked with the Vallejo Sun’s Scott Morris about a court ordered agreement to reform vallejo police and the barriers to real change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>The Department of Justice first came in to Vallejo just before Sean Monterrosa was shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Scott Morris is an investigative reporter and co-founder of the Vallejo Sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>After Willie McCoy was shot in 2019. There was this big push for, you know, something, something needed to be reformed in the Vallejo Police Department. The city had been required to fulfill 45 reforms under a contract with the Department Justice two starting in June 2020 that had a three year term on it that ended earlier this year. And according to DOJ, the city had completed about 20 of 45 recommendations for reform at that point. This was a kind of the next logical step in that process. You said he didn’t finish it. And so therefore, there needs to be some kind of oversight to make sure that the rest of this gets done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rob Bonta: \u003c/strong>The people of Vallejo deserve a police department that listens to them and guarantees that their civil rights are protected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Rob Bonta spoke at a press conference and it kind of announced this stipulated judgment. Vallejo City Hall last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rob Bonta: \u003c/strong>We can’t allow for lapses in improvement. We need to keep moving forward. Continuing to make that progress. We can’t allow for complacency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>In addition to the 45 required reforms, Bonta in this stipulated judgment has added ten new reforms that the department is now required to complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So that’s the context in which we’re talking about this stipulated judgment. What the heck is a stipulated judgment? What does that mean? And can you help us make sense of that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>A stipulated judgment is basically that this reform program that DOJ had been working on in Vallejo is now in front of a judge. So now is being kind of overseeing the judge who makes sure that there’s progress and the city is fulfilling its obligations. This and if not that, there could be potentially legal consequences for not fulfilling their obligations here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What are then these changes that are supposed to happen under this new court supervised agreement? What are some of the the big ones that people in Vallejo might be interested in hearing about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>So some of the stuff that it adds has to do with when officers can conduct searches, when they can stop people and whether they can search them when when once they’ve stopped them. You know, there’s all these reforms in terms of bias and policing. Another thing that they’re required to be doing now is they’re going to be conducting audits of incidents when officers point firearms at anyone or brandish a firearm. And so they’re going to be looking at that and making sure that, you know, officers are doing that for the right reasons. And they’re not just like pulling their guns in situations where it’s unnecessary. And then, you know, just simple stuff like soliciting feedback from the community or engaging community members in their promotions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>You mentioned that the village police department has completed less than half of what was originally required of them. Now, there are these new reforms that the attorney general wants them to complete. They now have five years to do it. But why hasn’t the Vallejo Police Department been able to implement some of these before this stipulated order?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Yeah, that’s a complicated question. And and kind of depends who you ask. But press conference, the interim police chief right now, Jason Ta, kind of blames staffing shortages on a lot of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Ta: \u003c/strong>We have a staffing shortage. There are short term strategies that we are looking towards right now to to address that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>And he said there’s a lot of things he would want to do that he hasn’t been able to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Ta: \u003c/strong>So as the attorney general said that, you know, our staffing is not an excuse to not advance some of these changes forward as times, you know, you know, and the public knows that administrative responsibilities sometimes take kind of second priority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>You know, in the three years that this had been going on, I mean, for the first two and a half, there really wasn’t a lot of progress on this that I think that there was only two reforms that have been completed. You know, as of maybe at the middle or late last year, you know, one of the reasons for that is that there’s been pushback from the Vallejo Police Officers Association. The Police Officers Association has had enormous power in that city. Anything that changes the working conditions of Vallejo police officers is subject to a beat and confer process. So that can include policy changes, that can include kind of new oversight, that can include shift changes, that can include, you know, whether they work in an eight hour or 12 hour shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Any action by the city council, by the city government enters that process and then they have to reach some kind of consensus with the Vallejo Police Officers Association, but so that these negotiations can go on for a very long time. That’s also just something that’s like generally true of union contracts that like kind of if you want to make some change in the working conditions, you just have to run it by the union. It’s just difficult in this particular context when you’re trying to implement some kind of reforms and then you have a police officers association that’s hostile to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One big reform Vallejo police have yet to fully implement is the creation of an independent police commission, a civilian body whose job is to oversee the department. City councilors have already agreed on what a commission would look like, but it hasn’t taken off because of pushback from the police union. The union has even blocked efforts to hire more civilians, including a civilian hired to handle communication with the public, as well as efforts to hire an interim police auditor while a plan to build the commission was coming together. And as the department tries to meet all of these reforms, the opinion of the police union is going to matter a lot moving forward. What has the play said so far in response to this announcement by the attorney general?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>The day that this came out. The play, you know, put out a press release, you know, once again complaining about a staffing shortage and said that the blowback of reform will further play out. And if past consent decrees indicate anything, it’s only the citizens of Vallejo will be left behind in the process. So, you know, almost kind of a life threatening statement there in terms of like, you know, if you hold us back with this kind of reform things to the people of L.A. who are going to suffer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What have elected leaders, what have they been saying about this announcement?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>This has been well received both by the city council and by the, you know, leadership of the city of Alejo. They’ve been supportive of this and have pledged to work cooperatively in this effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor Robert McConnell: \u003c/strong>Police reform, consisting of a change in daily culture is not easy. It is often said that culture will eat programs for breakfast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Mayor Robert McConnell spoke at the press conference with Robert. And, you know, he kind of outlined and said that he was supportive of this effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mayor Robert McConnell: \u003c/strong>I now call upon the leaders of the Vallejo Police Officers Association, future Vallejo council members, future mayors, future staff and all candidates for council and indeed the entire populace to not only support what needs to and shall be done, but to even do it faster than the anticipated five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Scott, it does seem like this is one of the biggest attempts by Attorney General Rob Bonta to really come in and do something about what’s happening in the Vallejo Police Department. I guess how do you how are you making sense of this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>You know, John Burris, a civil rights attorney in Oakland, he had released a statement because he sued the Vallejo Police Department numerous times over a lot of the issues that have come up here. And he sued the Oakland Police Department in the early 2000, had a court ordered reform agreement that, you know, has been going on for more than 20 years now. And so, you know, he pointed out that that in itself really doesn’t implement change in a police department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>I think there’s reasons to think that, you know, the Department of Justice has some responsibility for delaying here. And in Vallejo, there’s a very prominent example of Sean Monterrosa that the DOJ or over two years ago agreed to pick up that case. But now it’s been two and a half years in the Department of Justice, and there’s still this not an answer about whether that officer is going to be charged or not. If the goal is accountability for loyal police officers or independent investigations, that is a really big thing that’s really in the Department of Justice’s control right now that they have not managed to get done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>So, you know, to kind of come in with with this big expansive thing, but not to be able to do this very specific thing, kind of makes me have questions about. What the Department of Justice has been really able to accomplish here so far, what the Department of Justice is able to accomplish in this space in general, given the delays in investigations throughout California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Right. The and that is one of the more important things for I know at least the families of those impacted by police violence in Vallejo. Is that accountability part of it? Right. I mean, so I guess, Scott, can the DOJ force Vallejo Police to change? And if so, what? What is it going to take?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>I mean, look like, you know, if the Vallejo Police Department historically has been in charge of it’s investigating itself after serious incidents and kind of has been this really insular space, like I think that there’s certain leadership in the department could force a change. But I think that the change really at the end of the day needs to come from within. Now, external pressures can certainly affect how they approach things. But, you know, I think that whether or not it can really force a change, I’m not so sure about that. More.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Scott, thanks so much for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Morris: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Scott Morris, an investigative journalist and co-founder of the Vallejo Sun. This 40 minute conversation with Scott was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo; 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>"
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"title": "On X, Misinformation About the Israel-Hamas War Is Spreading",
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"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>The Israel-Hamas war has put Elon Musk’s transformation of Twitter to the test. Changes to its verification policy, major cuts to the company’s Trust and Safety teams, and Musk’s own rhetoric have led to a worsening in the spread of misinformation on the platform — with real life consequences.\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=KQINC9559977348\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-10/israel-hamas-conflict-was-a-test-for-musk-s-x-and-it-failed?srnd=undefined\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bloomberg: Israel-Hamas Conflict Was a Test for Musk’s X, and It Failed\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.404media.co/twitter-verified-osint-accounts-are-destroying-the-israel-palestine-information-ecosystem/?ref=404-media-newsletter\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘Verified’ OSINT Accounts Are Destroying the Israel-Palestine Information Ecosystem\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Apply to be our intern!\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\">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. Quick announcement. We’re hiring an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity that goes from January to June of next year. If you’ve got a passion for local news and podcasts, let’s talk. DEADLINE to apply is November 17th. The link to the app is 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. Just hours after Hamas gunmen slipped into Israel from the Gaza Strip, unverified photos and videos began circulating on X, formerly known as Twitter. Old repurposed images of armed conflict were being shared and passed off as new by anonymous accounts that had purchased blue checkmarks under X’s premium subscription service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>A lot of misinformers kind of flooded the zone with their own narratives and spread confusion and fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Twitter has never really been the perfect source for reliable news. But ever since Elon Musk bought the company a year ago, the spread of misinformation on the platform has only gotten worse. And getting accurate news about Israel and Hamas on the platform feels like navigating a minefield today. Why? The Israel-Hamas conflict was a test for Elon Musk’s ex and how it failed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>It has been a mess on the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Davey Alba is a technology reporter for Bloomberg News.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>Beyond sort of the initial reports about the attack on Israel, there has been a steady drumbeat ever since of misinformation as Israel has turned its attention to Gaza. There’s a video of supposedly pro Hamas supporters blocking off a highway in New York ahead of the so-called Global Day of Jihad, which is when a former Hamas chief called for protests around the world. That was actually a street racer waving a Puerto Rican flag. There have been videos that sought to undermine the work of real journalists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>For instance, a video circulating asserting that CNN staged footage of its news crew under attack in Israel and the audio was manipulated to serve that narrative. And there have been even just awful denials of the atrocities that are actually happening. So it’s a combination of a lot of complicated factors. We are in a fog of war, as a lot of experts have pointed out, and there are real time events and reporting that needs to happen over time before we really know what happens day to day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>As you and your colleagues have reported, the spread of this false information, as we’re seeing in this moment, seems to have increased or gotten worse because of some of these systemic changes. Can you sort of tick through some of these these changes that have led to kind of what we’re seeing now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>The company loosened its platforms, rules, cut trust and safety employees after previously saying it would expand the team, reinstated banned accounts and allowed people to pay for a check mark on X. I’ll start with the cutting of the Trust and Safety team. Those are the folks who were focused on making sure that users had a safe experience on the site. And that means limiting, upsetting, offensive, hateful content. One thing that they put into place is a verification system where they had verified thousands of notable people who work in journalism, in media, have official positions, and beside their names there would be a checkmark that showed that Twitter itself had verified those folks in place of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>Anyone can buy a verified checkmark, the blue checkmark, as they call it. Getting the check mark now allows you to possibly reach audiences even more, given the algorithmic boost that Twitter gives the people who purchase this checkmark. And so, you know, if you’re Amazon former, then you might be motivated to sign up for that verification that that X premium program, as they call it. One thing that happened in just the past few days is an account of someone who claimed to be a journalist from Jazeera posted that they had seen a Hamas bomb fall on a hospital in Gaza. This account was verified with a check mark. Under the new system where anyone can buy a check mark for $8 a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>It took a while for people to point out that this person actually didn’t work for Al Jazeera. Eventually the account was suspended. But that’s the sort of thing that is really dangerous when you just glance at the platform and you see all these markers that are supposed to make you trust things that you see on the site. And the reality is that you can’t really trust anything on it right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It sounds like a new kind of system that actually rewards misinformation and people who spread misinformation on the platform. But there’s also Elon Musk himself. Right. And his rhetoric, his attempt to sort of rebrand Twitter. How has his rhetoric also contributed to some of this stuff we’re talking about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>When Elon Musk finally stepped into the CEO role, there was a huge surge in hateful speech. Elon Musk has said that he wants Twitter X to be the haven for all free speech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elon Musk: \u003c/strong>A good sign as to whether there is free speech is is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>A lot of people who post on Twitter take that as well. Oh, now I can say anything anti-Semitic tropes, racist slurs. I think a similar thing is happening with the misinformation around the Israel Gaza conflict in this conflict. He has recommended two accounts that have a track record of spreading misinformation or just unverified information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Where does that all sort of leave people who are still on this platform? I mean, myself included, who are I mean, just people who are trying to figure out, like in good faith what the hell is going on in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>Researchers I talked to in the space have told me that this is unfair and that enormous companies with years of experience and vast reach should be the ones to ensure that the people on their platforms are safe. And that is not what appears to be happening on a basic level. One feature that I will highlight under Elon Musk’s Twitter is community nodes. Community Nodes is a crowdsourced feature where people who are part of the program write notes that add context to any post that’s on the site that may contain misinformation or may be misleading to people. And then people vote on those notes that appear. And if you get enough votes, it gets displayed on the site. That is a thing that replaced some of Twitter’s own decision making on misinformation that’s been going around on the site. The problem with this whole system is that Twitter has basically pushed off the responsibility of keeping everyone on the platforms safe onto the users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why this problem goes way beyond Elon Musk and what it means for the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Is X unique? Or is this something that we should be worried about on a larger scale, like social media platforms becoming like worse and worse places to find facts about breaking news?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>I think that there was always a risk for people to be using social media as their main way of getting their news. The platforms have shown themselves to be unreliable on this front. I think that Twitter was, you know, sort of fully in lockstep with the other social media platforms in their struggles in the past few years, as we’ve seen. Democracy’s at risk because of viral misinformation. But I think we are also transitioning into a new era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>The companies seem to think that even with all the moderation, they still get criticized heavily for their moves. And so our reporting has found that there has been a move away writ large from humans looking at the content and making judgment calls and moderating to more automated systems. Maybe the platforms feel like they can’t really win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>It has also been a difficult economic year with lots of layoffs across all of the Silicon Valley companies. This sort of content moderation doesn’t sort of add to investor value. There’s also more broadly a trend by governments, including our own government, making the case that these platforms should not engage in censorship. This is usually coming from Republican lawmakers in Congress. There’s all sorts of subpoenas and groups that have called on there to be less coordination between local governments and some of these platforms around election posts, things like that. There’s a lot of pushback on even the idea of misinformation which has become so politicized. And we’re sort of entering a scary new era with Twitter taking the charge into rolling everything back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How would you maybe explain to someone like why it still matters what Elon Musk decides to do with this company? Because, I mean, I guess you could argue that no one has to be on Twitter or X, but why does it still matter?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>I think it matters because the reach of the posts is still enormous. And from my past reporting on this misinformation, be it, you can see that the problem is really a cross-platform one. Whether something starts on X and then spreads to Facebook or on conservative talk radio. These posts that carry false information are designed to elicit a specific reaction from people. Outrage, ideas of violence. And we’re already starting to see the consequences of some of these things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 2: \u003c/strong>Thousands of people packing a mosque in Bridgeview to mourn the death of a six year old Palestinian American boy allegedly murdered because of his Muslim faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That boy’s name is Wadi Alpha Yumi. He and his mother were attacked in their place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>There was a six year old boy who was killed after the landlord of the building he lived in, had spent hours listening to news on the radio about Israel and Gaza. And I think there is a risk of more tragedies like that. Users now carry a much greater responsibility to verify what they see on these platforms. All the knowledge that they have at their fingertips and the years of experience people have had from being on these platforms for, you know, a decade now. There’s this savviness that people have to rely on, and that’s just kind of the reality of where we are right now. I always think about misinformation as a community effort. You know, there’s not one NGO or one media company or one great CEO that’s going to solve the problem. It’s when everyone has an awareness of their civic responsibility and this good faith to try to make sure that everyone else around them is safe and informed and knows what is fact and what is fiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Davey, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Davey Alba, a technology reporter for Bloomberg News. We’ll leave you a link to Davey’s reporting on this story in our show notes. This conversation with Davey was cut down by producer Maria Esquinca. It was scored by senior editor Alan Montecillo with music courtesy of the audio network. Additional production support from me. 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",
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"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>The Israel-Hamas war has put Elon Musk’s transformation of Twitter to the test. Changes to its verification policy, major cuts to the company’s Trust and Safety teams, and Musk’s own rhetoric have led to a worsening in the spread of misinformation on the platform — with real life consequences.\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=KQINC9559977348\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-10/israel-hamas-conflict-was-a-test-for-musk-s-x-and-it-failed?srnd=undefined\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bloomberg: Israel-Hamas Conflict Was a Test for Musk’s X, and It Failed\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.404media.co/twitter-verified-osint-accounts-are-destroying-the-israel-palestine-information-ecosystem/?ref=404-media-newsletter\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘Verified’ OSINT Accounts Are Destroying the Israel-Palestine Information Ecosystem\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/g81IJAEpax/Intern-The-Bay-Podcast\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Apply to be our intern!\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\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. Quick announcement. We’re hiring an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity that goes from January to June of next year. If you’ve got a passion for local news and podcasts, let’s talk. DEADLINE to apply is November 17th. The link to the app is 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. Just hours after Hamas gunmen slipped into Israel from the Gaza Strip, unverified photos and videos began circulating on X, formerly known as Twitter. Old repurposed images of armed conflict were being shared and passed off as new by anonymous accounts that had purchased blue checkmarks under X’s premium subscription service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>A lot of misinformers kind of flooded the zone with their own narratives and spread confusion and fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Twitter has never really been the perfect source for reliable news. But ever since Elon Musk bought the company a year ago, the spread of misinformation on the platform has only gotten worse. And getting accurate news about Israel and Hamas on the platform feels like navigating a minefield today. Why? The Israel-Hamas conflict was a test for Elon Musk’s ex and how it failed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>It has been a mess on the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Davey Alba is a technology reporter for Bloomberg News.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>Beyond sort of the initial reports about the attack on Israel, there has been a steady drumbeat ever since of misinformation as Israel has turned its attention to Gaza. There’s a video of supposedly pro Hamas supporters blocking off a highway in New York ahead of the so-called Global Day of Jihad, which is when a former Hamas chief called for protests around the world. That was actually a street racer waving a Puerto Rican flag. There have been videos that sought to undermine the work of real journalists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>For instance, a video circulating asserting that CNN staged footage of its news crew under attack in Israel and the audio was manipulated to serve that narrative. And there have been even just awful denials of the atrocities that are actually happening. So it’s a combination of a lot of complicated factors. We are in a fog of war, as a lot of experts have pointed out, and there are real time events and reporting that needs to happen over time before we really know what happens day to day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>As you and your colleagues have reported, the spread of this false information, as we’re seeing in this moment, seems to have increased or gotten worse because of some of these systemic changes. Can you sort of tick through some of these these changes that have led to kind of what we’re seeing now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>The company loosened its platforms, rules, cut trust and safety employees after previously saying it would expand the team, reinstated banned accounts and allowed people to pay for a check mark on X. I’ll start with the cutting of the Trust and Safety team. Those are the folks who were focused on making sure that users had a safe experience on the site. And that means limiting, upsetting, offensive, hateful content. One thing that they put into place is a verification system where they had verified thousands of notable people who work in journalism, in media, have official positions, and beside their names there would be a checkmark that showed that Twitter itself had verified those folks in place of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>Anyone can buy a verified checkmark, the blue checkmark, as they call it. Getting the check mark now allows you to possibly reach audiences even more, given the algorithmic boost that Twitter gives the people who purchase this checkmark. And so, you know, if you’re Amazon former, then you might be motivated to sign up for that verification that that X premium program, as they call it. One thing that happened in just the past few days is an account of someone who claimed to be a journalist from Jazeera posted that they had seen a Hamas bomb fall on a hospital in Gaza. This account was verified with a check mark. Under the new system where anyone can buy a check mark for $8 a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>It took a while for people to point out that this person actually didn’t work for Al Jazeera. Eventually the account was suspended. But that’s the sort of thing that is really dangerous when you just glance at the platform and you see all these markers that are supposed to make you trust things that you see on the site. And the reality is that you can’t really trust anything on it right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It sounds like a new kind of system that actually rewards misinformation and people who spread misinformation on the platform. But there’s also Elon Musk himself. Right. And his rhetoric, his attempt to sort of rebrand Twitter. How has his rhetoric also contributed to some of this stuff we’re talking about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>When Elon Musk finally stepped into the CEO role, there was a huge surge in hateful speech. Elon Musk has said that he wants Twitter X to be the haven for all free speech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elon Musk: \u003c/strong>A good sign as to whether there is free speech is is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>A lot of people who post on Twitter take that as well. Oh, now I can say anything anti-Semitic tropes, racist slurs. I think a similar thing is happening with the misinformation around the Israel Gaza conflict in this conflict. He has recommended two accounts that have a track record of spreading misinformation or just unverified information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Where does that all sort of leave people who are still on this platform? I mean, myself included, who are I mean, just people who are trying to figure out, like in good faith what the hell is going on in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>Researchers I talked to in the space have told me that this is unfair and that enormous companies with years of experience and vast reach should be the ones to ensure that the people on their platforms are safe. And that is not what appears to be happening on a basic level. One feature that I will highlight under Elon Musk’s Twitter is community nodes. Community Nodes is a crowdsourced feature where people who are part of the program write notes that add context to any post that’s on the site that may contain misinformation or may be misleading to people. And then people vote on those notes that appear. And if you get enough votes, it gets displayed on the site. That is a thing that replaced some of Twitter’s own decision making on misinformation that’s been going around on the site. The problem with this whole system is that Twitter has basically pushed off the responsibility of keeping everyone on the platforms safe onto the users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why this problem goes way beyond Elon Musk and what it means for the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Is X unique? Or is this something that we should be worried about on a larger scale, like social media platforms becoming like worse and worse places to find facts about breaking news?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>I think that there was always a risk for people to be using social media as their main way of getting their news. The platforms have shown themselves to be unreliable on this front. I think that Twitter was, you know, sort of fully in lockstep with the other social media platforms in their struggles in the past few years, as we’ve seen. Democracy’s at risk because of viral misinformation. But I think we are also transitioning into a new era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>The companies seem to think that even with all the moderation, they still get criticized heavily for their moves. And so our reporting has found that there has been a move away writ large from humans looking at the content and making judgment calls and moderating to more automated systems. Maybe the platforms feel like they can’t really win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>It has also been a difficult economic year with lots of layoffs across all of the Silicon Valley companies. This sort of content moderation doesn’t sort of add to investor value. There’s also more broadly a trend by governments, including our own government, making the case that these platforms should not engage in censorship. This is usually coming from Republican lawmakers in Congress. There’s all sorts of subpoenas and groups that have called on there to be less coordination between local governments and some of these platforms around election posts, things like that. There’s a lot of pushback on even the idea of misinformation which has become so politicized. And we’re sort of entering a scary new era with Twitter taking the charge into rolling everything back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How would you maybe explain to someone like why it still matters what Elon Musk decides to do with this company? Because, I mean, I guess you could argue that no one has to be on Twitter or X, but why does it still matter?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>I think it matters because the reach of the posts is still enormous. And from my past reporting on this misinformation, be it, you can see that the problem is really a cross-platform one. Whether something starts on X and then spreads to Facebook or on conservative talk radio. These posts that carry false information are designed to elicit a specific reaction from people. Outrage, ideas of violence. And we’re already starting to see the consequences of some of these things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 2: \u003c/strong>Thousands of people packing a mosque in Bridgeview to mourn the death of a six year old Palestinian American boy allegedly murdered because of his Muslim faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That boy’s name is Wadi Alpha Yumi. He and his mother were attacked in their place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>There was a six year old boy who was killed after the landlord of the building he lived in, had spent hours listening to news on the radio about Israel and Gaza. And I think there is a risk of more tragedies like that. Users now carry a much greater responsibility to verify what they see on these platforms. All the knowledge that they have at their fingertips and the years of experience people have had from being on these platforms for, you know, a decade now. There’s this savviness that people have to rely on, and that’s just kind of the reality of where we are right now. I always think about misinformation as a community effort. You know, there’s not one NGO or one media company or one great CEO that’s going to solve the problem. It’s when everyone has an awareness of their civic responsibility and this good faith to try to make sure that everyone else around them is safe and informed and knows what is fact and what is fiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Davey, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Davey Alba: \u003c/strong>Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Davey Alba, a technology reporter for Bloomberg News. We’ll leave you a link to Davey’s reporting on this story in our show notes. This conversation with Davey was cut down by producer Maria Esquinca. It was scored by senior editor Alan Montecillo with music courtesy of the audio network. Additional production support from me. 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>"
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"title": "Sorrow, Fear, and Rage: Local Reactions to the Israel-Hamas War",
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"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\">People across the Bay Area have been watching in horror at the war between Israel and Hamas. Today, we bring you voices from three different rallies and gatherings that took place over the weekend.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Links:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/10/11/1205017249/how-to-talk-to-children-violence-israeli-palestinian-gaza-hamas\">How to talk to children about the violence in Israel and Gaza\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9791318874\" 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>[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. Over the past week, people across the Bay Area have been watching in horror at the war between Israel and Hamas, and they are responding with sadness, anxiety, fear and outrage. On Friday, hundreds dressed in blue carrying Israeli flags gathered outside San Francisco City Hall, calling for the release of hostages still being held by Hamas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>On Saturday, an estimated 3000 people marched from the ferry building, an upmarket street demanding that Israel stop bombarding and blockading Gaza. And at least married in Oakland, Jewish groups calling for the end of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Held a vigil on Sunday to mourn those killed in the war. Today, we’re going to take you to those actions and we’ll hear from the people here in the Bay Area about how they’re feeling in this moment and how they’re processing the events in Israel and Gaza. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>*\u003c/strong>audio from protest*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 6: \u003c/strong>Would you mind just stating your first and last name?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 8: \u003c/strong>Yes. My name is Arthur Zico. I I’m Israeli born and an American citizen now. So at a time like this. You want to feel that you are part of a community who is feeling what you’re feeling. And of course, as a sign of solidarity and support. It’s a sad day for all of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 9: \u003c/strong>Do you mind saying your first and last name for mme?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 10: \u003c/strong>NEARY. HASAN I’m here because this girl on the poster is a neighbor of my mother. I was raised and born in Kibbutz Nicholas. And on last Friday night, we were celebrating with friends. And someone all of a sudden said, there are rockets over Israel. And we tried to ignore. But then someone said, oh, my terrorists have crossed the border in Gaza. And immediately I felt like, oh, this is so serious. This is like the one worst nightmare I had as a child. I called my mother. She didn’t really know. And I told her, shut off the TV, go into the Mahmoud secure room and close the door, closed the TV, everything. And so we were we are five siblings, so we were following her the entire day until at midnight she was rescued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 10: \u003c/strong>She’s physically fine, but she’s part of a shattered community. My good friends, his mother was kidnaped. She’s 84. She’s barely walking. We know of Eliakim family, the parents of this beautiful girl who were kidnaped and so many. I don’t know if we have enough synonyms. Just nightmare. All that is just. There are no words anymore. There are no words You don’t liberate by kidnaping, abducting people, slaughtering them. Stop with the equation that Hamas is Palestinian. It’s actually hurting the Palestinians. In my humble opinion, the Hamas is the sole responsible for these atrocities, and this is regardless of any political argument or conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 7: \u003c/strong>Would you mind stating your first and last name real quick, and your title?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Becker: \u003c/strong> Sure, Josh Becker California State Senator, District 13. This rally is about bringing home the hostages and communicating very clearly to Hamas and to the world that they must release the hostages now. And vice chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. We’ve been in touch with our U.S. senators, our State Department. We are working every angle. And this rally is one of those. No matter how you feel about Middle East politics, we can all agree that kidnaping women and children and the elderly is wrong. It’s a violation of international law. We need them released now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 12: \u003c/strong>Do not mistake this as a fight for freedom. Freedom can never be stopped through brutal, inhumane and barbaric actions. As a citizen of Israel, I stand united with my country in our fight against Hamas. I call on the local, local and global community to stand with Israel as we fight for our lives, our homes and our future. I call on mothers and fathers to voice their horror and rage against these brutal crimes. I call all mothers and fathers to help Israel get our children back alive and safe with no negotiations right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 9: \u003c/strong>Where people are connected by businesses, by what people are still deciding that nothing that’s golden. Step up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Suzanna Ali: \u003c/strong>My name is Suzanne Ali. I’m an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement Bay Area. This week has been personally so difficult. You know, it’s not a new issue for us. Of course, the mainstream media has been portraying it as if this is something that just a war or a war that broke out like two or three days ago. But this is something that’s been ongoing for us. And having family in in Palestine, specifically me having family in Gaza, in Khan Yunis, which was bombarded last night, as I saw, is really difficult. I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve gone to school here and I’ve always been faced with, you know, teachers telling me that Palestine doesn’t exist. And that’s horrifying to hear, you know, And to it in this day and age when we’re seeing another genocide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 5: \u003c/strong>Would have you believe that this race, this notion that we want this violence to happen, that we want to bury close to 600 of our children in the last seven days. But the only thing we want is an end to the occupation and then through colonialism, an end to ethnic cleansing, an end to the siege of Gaza and honest reporting. That is the cruelty. And I think that this is the truth and stop with the propaganda and lies. The year is 2023 when it looks like the headlines read this 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maysa Al-Sharif: \u003c/strong>My name is Maysa. Al-Sharif. I’ve been protesting since I was a kid, and unfortunately I’m here today with my kids now, maybe in the past year. Sure. He’s nine and she’s five. I’ve been telling them the truth that their lives would it matter if they lived there? And it’s not fair that we get to live here and our people got to our family got to leave and we’re safe and they’re not. So I’m letting them know without traumatizing them as much as I could. But I’m definitely letting them know the way that I grew up knowing. We do live in India. They last heard of them days ago. Yeah, they’re not sure where. They know their houses were bombed and they’re not sure where they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 9: \u003c/strong>Right. Palestine. Palestine, Palestine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 14: \u003c/strong>Thank you all so, so much for joining us today. It’s so powerful to be here in community with all of you, with other Jews who know that Jewish safety can only come through ending apartheid and ensuring Palestinian safety and freedom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Suzanna Ali: \u003c/strong>Can I get your first and last name?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sidney Levy: \u003c/strong>Yes. Sidney Levy. I’m Jewish, Jewish, American. I’m in solidarity with Palestine. I have family that’s in the Israeli army, family in Israel. I have friends in Palestine on both sides of the border. Everybody is concerned. Everybody is upset and fearful, But nothing justifies what is happening now in Gaza. Last week has been very heavy, has been in mostly despair because so many things that we have been building as a movement of solidarity with Palestine at the beginning seem to be collapsing. What you hear from the U.S. government with all of the support, with all of that, it’s just incredible. But I think that people are waking up from their grief, which is still real into action. So one of the ways to deal with the despair is not to fall into the oppression, which I was depressed last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sidney Levy: \u003c/strong>And it’s just moving into action and just saying, we’re here, we’re opposed to what is happening, and we want a different world, a world without apartheid. It’s not that hard. A friend of mine was saying that in order to move from A to B, from the violence to action, you have to pass through the grief. And somebody was commenting here, it’s very hard to pursue the grief because the violence and the killing is still happening is taking place. So you’re grieving not only for the people that have died, but for the people that will continue to die, unfortunately. And that’s why you have to be able to hold both the community and the grief, but also the action, because there are things that we can still stop. We cannot stop the people that were killed yesterday. We can stop the killings. That will happen tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 7: \u003c/strong>We’re all grieving for so, so many people right now. And I think we’re also all grieving for something that’s beyond people or values or a Jewish community that we can trust. I mean, on our Mardi Gras day, the higher ground, your man on fire the whole day. It’s like a gala, man. You. I mean, the whole schmear. Rabbi McGrath Well, I’m on my.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Unidentified: \u003c/strong>On my, on for a number of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The audio you heard in this episode was gathered by KQED’s Sidney Johnson and Analise Finney. This episode was cut down and edited by Maria Esquinca and me. Allan Montecillo is our senior editor. By the way, I’m going to leave you all a link in our shownotes. It’s a story from NPR about how to talk to children about the violence in Israel and Gaza. I know much of what is happening right now. It can feel hard to explain. So in case you need it, it’s there. The Bay’s a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"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. Over the past week, people across the Bay Area have been watching in horror at the war between Israel and Hamas, and they are responding with sadness, anxiety, fear and outrage. On Friday, hundreds dressed in blue carrying Israeli flags gathered outside San Francisco City Hall, calling for the release of hostages still being held by Hamas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>On Saturday, an estimated 3000 people marched from the ferry building, an upmarket street demanding that Israel stop bombarding and blockading Gaza. And at least married in Oakland, Jewish groups calling for the end of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Held a vigil on Sunday to mourn those killed in the war. Today, we’re going to take you to those actions and we’ll hear from the people here in the Bay Area about how they’re feeling in this moment and how they’re processing the events in Israel and Gaza. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>*\u003c/strong>audio from protest*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 6: \u003c/strong>Would you mind just stating your first and last name?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 8: \u003c/strong>Yes. My name is Arthur Zico. I I’m Israeli born and an American citizen now. So at a time like this. You want to feel that you are part of a community who is feeling what you’re feeling. And of course, as a sign of solidarity and support. It’s a sad day for all of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 9: \u003c/strong>Do you mind saying your first and last name for mme?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 10: \u003c/strong>NEARY. HASAN I’m here because this girl on the poster is a neighbor of my mother. I was raised and born in Kibbutz Nicholas. And on last Friday night, we were celebrating with friends. And someone all of a sudden said, there are rockets over Israel. And we tried to ignore. But then someone said, oh, my terrorists have crossed the border in Gaza. And immediately I felt like, oh, this is so serious. This is like the one worst nightmare I had as a child. I called my mother. She didn’t really know. And I told her, shut off the TV, go into the Mahmoud secure room and close the door, closed the TV, everything. And so we were we are five siblings, so we were following her the entire day until at midnight she was rescued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 10: \u003c/strong>She’s physically fine, but she’s part of a shattered community. My good friends, his mother was kidnaped. She’s 84. She’s barely walking. We know of Eliakim family, the parents of this beautiful girl who were kidnaped and so many. I don’t know if we have enough synonyms. Just nightmare. All that is just. There are no words anymore. There are no words You don’t liberate by kidnaping, abducting people, slaughtering them. Stop with the equation that Hamas is Palestinian. It’s actually hurting the Palestinians. In my humble opinion, the Hamas is the sole responsible for these atrocities, and this is regardless of any political argument or conflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 7: \u003c/strong>Would you mind stating your first and last name real quick, and your title?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Josh Becker: \u003c/strong> Sure, Josh Becker California State Senator, District 13. This rally is about bringing home the hostages and communicating very clearly to Hamas and to the world that they must release the hostages now. And vice chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. We’ve been in touch with our U.S. senators, our State Department. We are working every angle. And this rally is one of those. No matter how you feel about Middle East politics, we can all agree that kidnaping women and children and the elderly is wrong. It’s a violation of international law. We need them released now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 12: \u003c/strong>Do not mistake this as a fight for freedom. Freedom can never be stopped through brutal, inhumane and barbaric actions. As a citizen of Israel, I stand united with my country in our fight against Hamas. I call on the local, local and global community to stand with Israel as we fight for our lives, our homes and our future. I call on mothers and fathers to voice their horror and rage against these brutal crimes. I call all mothers and fathers to help Israel get our children back alive and safe with no negotiations right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 9: \u003c/strong>Where people are connected by businesses, by what people are still deciding that nothing that’s golden. Step up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Suzanna Ali: \u003c/strong>My name is Suzanne Ali. I’m an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement Bay Area. This week has been personally so difficult. You know, it’s not a new issue for us. Of course, the mainstream media has been portraying it as if this is something that just a war or a war that broke out like two or three days ago. But this is something that’s been ongoing for us. And having family in in Palestine, specifically me having family in Gaza, in Khan Yunis, which was bombarded last night, as I saw, is really difficult. I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve gone to school here and I’ve always been faced with, you know, teachers telling me that Palestine doesn’t exist. And that’s horrifying to hear, you know, And to it in this day and age when we’re seeing another genocide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 5: \u003c/strong>Would have you believe that this race, this notion that we want this violence to happen, that we want to bury close to 600 of our children in the last seven days. But the only thing we want is an end to the occupation and then through colonialism, an end to ethnic cleansing, an end to the siege of Gaza and honest reporting. That is the cruelty. And I think that this is the truth and stop with the propaganda and lies. The year is 2023 when it looks like the headlines read this 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maysa Al-Sharif: \u003c/strong>My name is Maysa. Al-Sharif. I’ve been protesting since I was a kid, and unfortunately I’m here today with my kids now, maybe in the past year. Sure. He’s nine and she’s five. I’ve been telling them the truth that their lives would it matter if they lived there? And it’s not fair that we get to live here and our people got to our family got to leave and we’re safe and they’re not. So I’m letting them know without traumatizing them as much as I could. But I’m definitely letting them know the way that I grew up knowing. We do live in India. They last heard of them days ago. Yeah, they’re not sure where. They know their houses were bombed and they’re not sure where they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 9: \u003c/strong>Right. Palestine. Palestine, Palestine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 14: \u003c/strong>Thank you all so, so much for joining us today. It’s so powerful to be here in community with all of you, with other Jews who know that Jewish safety can only come through ending apartheid and ensuring Palestinian safety and freedom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Suzanna Ali: \u003c/strong>Can I get your first and last name?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sidney Levy: \u003c/strong>Yes. Sidney Levy. I’m Jewish, Jewish, American. I’m in solidarity with Palestine. I have family that’s in the Israeli army, family in Israel. I have friends in Palestine on both sides of the border. Everybody is concerned. Everybody is upset and fearful, But nothing justifies what is happening now in Gaza. Last week has been very heavy, has been in mostly despair because so many things that we have been building as a movement of solidarity with Palestine at the beginning seem to be collapsing. What you hear from the U.S. government with all of the support, with all of that, it’s just incredible. But I think that people are waking up from their grief, which is still real into action. So one of the ways to deal with the despair is not to fall into the oppression, which I was depressed last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sidney Levy: \u003c/strong>And it’s just moving into action and just saying, we’re here, we’re opposed to what is happening, and we want a different world, a world without apartheid. It’s not that hard. A friend of mine was saying that in order to move from A to B, from the violence to action, you have to pass through the grief. And somebody was commenting here, it’s very hard to pursue the grief because the violence and the killing is still happening is taking place. So you’re grieving not only for the people that have died, but for the people that will continue to die, unfortunately. And that’s why you have to be able to hold both the community and the grief, but also the action, because there are things that we can still stop. We cannot stop the people that were killed yesterday. We can stop the killings. That will happen tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker 7: \u003c/strong>We’re all grieving for so, so many people right now. And I think we’re also all grieving for something that’s beyond people or values or a Jewish community that we can trust. I mean, on our Mardi Gras day, the higher ground, your man on fire the whole day. It’s like a gala, man. You. I mean, the whole schmear. Rabbi McGrath Well, I’m on my.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Unidentified: \u003c/strong>On my, on for a number of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>The audio you heard in this episode was gathered by KQED’s Sidney Johnson and Analise Finney. This episode was cut down and edited by Maria Esquinca and me. Allan Montecillo is our senior editor. By the way, I’m going to leave you all a link in our shownotes. It’s a story from NPR about how to talk to children about the violence in Israel and Gaza. I know much of what is happening right now. It can feel hard to explain. So in case you need it, it’s there. The Bay’s a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"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\">Ecologists, indigenous groups, and forest management agencies agree that burning more “prescribed fire” — where overgrown areas of forests are burned off — is critical to preventing dangerous megafires in the future. KQED’s Dana Cronin explains how this process works, and whether we’ve done enough so far this year.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8772510641&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> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to The Bay; local news to keep you rooted. This is still kind of funny to say, but some fires are actually good. Prescribed burning, to be exact, is great. That’s when we burn off overgrown forests that end up feeding those bad mega-fires that threaten homes and communities. The kind of fires that we don’t want. Thanks to decades of fire suppression, we’ve got a lot of prescribed burning to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Ecologists and indigenous tribes have said for a long time that we’re not doing enough. And certainly they say right now there’s not enough prescribed burning happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, what it takes to burn a good fire in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>It’s important for us Californians to remember that our state, California, needs to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Dana Cronin is an editor and reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Fire is part of our ecosystem here. It has been part of our ecosystem here for centuries. Our forests really need it to avoid getting too dense. This is something that indigenous tribes have known forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elizabeth Azzuz: \u003c/strong>Prescribed fire really is beneficial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>I talked to Elizabeth Azzuz. She is the director of Indigenous and Family Burning for the Cultural Fire Management Council and she’s a York tribal member up in far north California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elizabeth Azzuz: \u003c/strong>It’s basically like the floors are littered with trees and brush and invasive species that have taken over. And when that happens, it kills all the native and and indigenous plants in the understory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>She told me that right now we have about 200 years worth of dead fuels. That’s things like dead leaves and sticks covering our forest floors. And that’s really bad for our ecosystem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elizabeth Azzuz: \u003c/strong>When you don’t have prescribed fire and you have all that fuel loading, that’s when you get the really ugly, unhealthy air quality. You know, the the levels that are so bad that they’re toxic to humans. That’s basically because no one is caring for the land. No one is restoring those environments. My father had a goal to be able to walk out in the forest and look as far as he could see in any direction. And we are actually making progress on that level currently. We’ve been able to see the elk and the deer return to the areas that we burned. So the prescribed fire really, honestly, is a prescription for the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what goes into a prescribed fire, Dana? Like, who even does this work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>It’s somewhat of a piecemeal system because it is up to landowners and to managers to burn on their land. So our state fire agency, Cal Fire, does a lot of burning. The U.S. Forest Service, indigenous tribes. Even private landowners can get burn permits. The way they do this, it’s very complicated. It takes a lot of planning, but, you know, essentially they light certain sections of forests on fire. You know, they, of course, have it very meticulously planned out. They bulldoze containment lines to make sure that the fire stays within a certain perimeter. They’ve, you know, ensured that conditions are perfect for burning. So, yeah, it takes a lot of of work on the front end and end, you know, as the fire is happening as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What are the conditions that have to exist in order to burn a good fire?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>The conditions are very specific. As you can imagine, you don’t want to set a fire on a day that’s too dry or too windy, because then you run the risk of it burning out of control. But it also can’t be too cool or too rainy because then it won’t burn enough. The fuel moisture also has to be just right, meaning trees and sticks and, you know, things on the ground can’t be too moist or else they won’t ignite. So it’s basically like this Goldilocks perfect set of conditions that are ideal for setting safe fires. Typically, though, that Goldilocks set of conditions happen in most of the spring and sometimes in the fall months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, then how does this year fit into that? Because I know we have had a pretty cold and wet year. Has California been burning good fires like it’s supposed to, given that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong> This year in general, there have been fewer prescribed fires than normal in California? That’s according to Cal Fire and some researchers have pointed that out, have noticed that and are wondering why in a seemingly, like you said, quote unquote, good fire year, fire agencies didn’t take advantage of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain: \u003c/strong>It was pretty clear this is going to be not a bad fire year wildfire wise and potentially a very favorable year for for doing prescribed burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>I talked to Daniel Swain. He is a climate researcher at UCLA, and he looked at his climate models that showed him the number of days this year that were favorable for prescribed burning and found that on those days, not much fire activity happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain: \u003c/strong>We implemented the methods in our study. We looked at the data from this year after the fact. And lo and behold, you know, there’s this broad swath of areas in California that would have seen far above the usual number of days favorable for prescribed fire this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Daniel is a climate scientist, not a fire scientist. I will just lead with that. But, you know, he’s especially concerned about that because he put out some research recently showing that climate change is actually narrowing the window for prescribed burn days across the West. Basically, climate change is making it harder to reach those Goldilocks conditions that we need to conduct safe burns. In fact, his research showed that the Bay Area is a hot spot for losing those safe burn days. Because it’s getting hotter here, it’s getting drier here. We could lose as many as 30 of them by the year 2060.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Climate isn’t the only factor dictating when we do prescribed burns. It’s also a question of resources. Daniel Swain, the researcher, mentioned that federal fire crews are mostly seasonal, which means there are more of them working in the summertime, but not so much in the cooler months when prescribed burns could theoretically happen. On the other hand, there are so many stakeholders responsible for prescribed burns in California, and one of the biggest ones said burning this year wasn’t so easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>I did talk to someone from Cal Fire. I brought these concerns to them. Gregg Bratcher is his name. He helps oversee the prescribed burning program in Sacramento. He did confirm that Cal Fire did not conduct as much prescribed burning this year as they normally do. But he said that, you know, while Daniel’s climate models might have shown these favorable conditions for safe burning, the conditions on the ground did not support that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>That we’ve lost a lot of burn days because it was just straight too wet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>He said that in the spring months, when most prescribed burning happens, the ground was still just too wet to light, you know, meaningful fires and to keep them burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>So we’ve seen some prescribed fire projects occur over the last couple of weeks. The lower elevations are yielding itself a little better for prescribed fire, but at the higher elevations, still fuel moisture or to wet even the dead fuel moisture components are still on the wetter side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>He says, you know, a Cal fire, they’re pretty used to having to balance their resources, especially, you know, depending on the year. This year, there were fewer fires. Presumably they had more staff available to to do things like conduct safe prescribed burns. What was a bigger hurdle in his mind is getting the public on board with prescribed burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>We’re not a landowner. Cal. Fire is not. We’re a little bit tired, you know, just because we want to or highly suggest to a landowner that this is what should occur, they still have the opportunity to say no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>You might remember that a couple weeks ago, a few weeks ago here in the Bay Area, we had really bad air quality for a few days. That was from smoke from wildfires burning in the northern part of the state. Those fires started naturally. They were ignited by lightning strikes. But agencies and tribes up there who manage that land decided to let them burn because they were located in such remote areas and conditions were good for burning fires safely. It’s another form of, quote unquote, good fire. Obviously, that bad air was a nuisance. I was annoyed. Same. But, you know, fire managers say that better a few days than, you know, many weeks on end like we’ve experienced in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>You know, a live fire scares some people. They’re not, you know, excited to see that and have smoke in their their homes. So we have to balance everything we use our environmental scientists or fire personnel, resource management folks, all that be looking at all the different angles, air quality, fuel, moisture as smoke management to make sure that we’ve got the right windows to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It does seem like everyone agrees more prescribed reading needs to happen and that climate change is really impacting our state’s ability to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Prescribed burning is hands down the best way to manage our forests and prevent those big mega-fires. You know, that’s according to like decades of research. And also, you know, indigenous tribes have been doing this for centuries. It is the best tool in our toolbox, but obviously they are getting harder to do safely. So there are other tools that we can use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>It’s not the only tool that we use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Gregg Bratcher with Cal Fire told me that they are starting to do more mechanical maintenance, which is basically like taking chainsaws and wood chippers and cleaning up the forest that way, like by hand, which is obviously very time consuming and again requires a lot of manpower. But he said that we need as many tools in our toolbox as we can get going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>We’re going to continue with our with our prescribed fire program. We will certainly we know the constraints that we have and we’ll keep moving forward with them. But like I said, the other the other tool is is cutting, masticating, piling on site for four burn piles or 100% removal of material offsite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>I think there’s sort of a glass half full and a glass half empty view. The glass half empty would be. And Daniel said, like, if we’re not doing enough and climate change is going to make it harder to do, then you know, what hope do we have going forward? But, you know, on the flipside, there’s so much opportunity here. We aren’t doing enough. We could be doing so much more. We have you know, according to Cal Fire, we have resources. Yes, the window is narrowing, but we’re not even meeting a certain threshold right now. There’s, you know, so much opportunity for us to really ramp up our prescribed burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Dana, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. I really appreciate it. Thank you. That was Dana Cronin, an editor and reporter for KQED. This 15 minute conversation with Dana was cut and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. It was produced and scored by me. Music courtesy of the audio network. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\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> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to The Bay; local news to keep you rooted. This is still kind of funny to say, but some fires are actually good. Prescribed burning, to be exact, is great. That’s when we burn off overgrown forests that end up feeding those bad mega-fires that threaten homes and communities. The kind of fires that we don’t want. Thanks to decades of fire suppression, we’ve got a lot of prescribed burning to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Ecologists and indigenous tribes have said for a long time that we’re not doing enough. And certainly they say right now there’s not enough prescribed burning happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, what it takes to burn a good fire in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>It’s important for us Californians to remember that our state, California, needs to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Dana Cronin is an editor and reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Fire is part of our ecosystem here. It has been part of our ecosystem here for centuries. Our forests really need it to avoid getting too dense. This is something that indigenous tribes have known forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elizabeth Azzuz: \u003c/strong>Prescribed fire really is beneficial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>I talked to Elizabeth Azzuz. She is the director of Indigenous and Family Burning for the Cultural Fire Management Council and she’s a York tribal member up in far north California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elizabeth Azzuz: \u003c/strong>It’s basically like the floors are littered with trees and brush and invasive species that have taken over. And when that happens, it kills all the native and and indigenous plants in the understory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>She told me that right now we have about 200 years worth of dead fuels. That’s things like dead leaves and sticks covering our forest floors. And that’s really bad for our ecosystem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elizabeth Azzuz: \u003c/strong>When you don’t have prescribed fire and you have all that fuel loading, that’s when you get the really ugly, unhealthy air quality. You know, the the levels that are so bad that they’re toxic to humans. That’s basically because no one is caring for the land. No one is restoring those environments. My father had a goal to be able to walk out in the forest and look as far as he could see in any direction. And we are actually making progress on that level currently. We’ve been able to see the elk and the deer return to the areas that we burned. So the prescribed fire really, honestly, is a prescription for the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, what goes into a prescribed fire, Dana? Like, who even does this work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>It’s somewhat of a piecemeal system because it is up to landowners and to managers to burn on their land. So our state fire agency, Cal Fire, does a lot of burning. The U.S. Forest Service, indigenous tribes. Even private landowners can get burn permits. The way they do this, it’s very complicated. It takes a lot of planning, but, you know, essentially they light certain sections of forests on fire. You know, they, of course, have it very meticulously planned out. They bulldoze containment lines to make sure that the fire stays within a certain perimeter. They’ve, you know, ensured that conditions are perfect for burning. So, yeah, it takes a lot of of work on the front end and end, you know, as the fire is happening as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What are the conditions that have to exist in order to burn a good fire?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>The conditions are very specific. As you can imagine, you don’t want to set a fire on a day that’s too dry or too windy, because then you run the risk of it burning out of control. But it also can’t be too cool or too rainy because then it won’t burn enough. The fuel moisture also has to be just right, meaning trees and sticks and, you know, things on the ground can’t be too moist or else they won’t ignite. So it’s basically like this Goldilocks perfect set of conditions that are ideal for setting safe fires. Typically, though, that Goldilocks set of conditions happen in most of the spring and sometimes in the fall months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, then how does this year fit into that? Because I know we have had a pretty cold and wet year. Has California been burning good fires like it’s supposed to, given that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong> This year in general, there have been fewer prescribed fires than normal in California? That’s according to Cal Fire and some researchers have pointed that out, have noticed that and are wondering why in a seemingly, like you said, quote unquote, good fire year, fire agencies didn’t take advantage of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain: \u003c/strong>It was pretty clear this is going to be not a bad fire year wildfire wise and potentially a very favorable year for for doing prescribed burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>I talked to Daniel Swain. He is a climate researcher at UCLA, and he looked at his climate models that showed him the number of days this year that were favorable for prescribed burning and found that on those days, not much fire activity happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain: \u003c/strong>We implemented the methods in our study. We looked at the data from this year after the fact. And lo and behold, you know, there’s this broad swath of areas in California that would have seen far above the usual number of days favorable for prescribed fire this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Daniel is a climate scientist, not a fire scientist. I will just lead with that. But, you know, he’s especially concerned about that because he put out some research recently showing that climate change is actually narrowing the window for prescribed burn days across the West. Basically, climate change is making it harder to reach those Goldilocks conditions that we need to conduct safe burns. In fact, his research showed that the Bay Area is a hot spot for losing those safe burn days. Because it’s getting hotter here, it’s getting drier here. We could lose as many as 30 of them by the year 2060.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Climate isn’t the only factor dictating when we do prescribed burns. It’s also a question of resources. Daniel Swain, the researcher, mentioned that federal fire crews are mostly seasonal, which means there are more of them working in the summertime, but not so much in the cooler months when prescribed burns could theoretically happen. On the other hand, there are so many stakeholders responsible for prescribed burns in California, and one of the biggest ones said burning this year wasn’t so easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>I did talk to someone from Cal Fire. I brought these concerns to them. Gregg Bratcher is his name. He helps oversee the prescribed burning program in Sacramento. He did confirm that Cal Fire did not conduct as much prescribed burning this year as they normally do. But he said that, you know, while Daniel’s climate models might have shown these favorable conditions for safe burning, the conditions on the ground did not support that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>That we’ve lost a lot of burn days because it was just straight too wet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>He said that in the spring months, when most prescribed burning happens, the ground was still just too wet to light, you know, meaningful fires and to keep them burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>So we’ve seen some prescribed fire projects occur over the last couple of weeks. The lower elevations are yielding itself a little better for prescribed fire, but at the higher elevations, still fuel moisture or to wet even the dead fuel moisture components are still on the wetter side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>He says, you know, a Cal fire, they’re pretty used to having to balance their resources, especially, you know, depending on the year. This year, there were fewer fires. Presumably they had more staff available to to do things like conduct safe prescribed burns. What was a bigger hurdle in his mind is getting the public on board with prescribed burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>We’re not a landowner. Cal. Fire is not. We’re a little bit tired, you know, just because we want to or highly suggest to a landowner that this is what should occur, they still have the opportunity to say no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>You might remember that a couple weeks ago, a few weeks ago here in the Bay Area, we had really bad air quality for a few days. That was from smoke from wildfires burning in the northern part of the state. Those fires started naturally. They were ignited by lightning strikes. But agencies and tribes up there who manage that land decided to let them burn because they were located in such remote areas and conditions were good for burning fires safely. It’s another form of, quote unquote, good fire. Obviously, that bad air was a nuisance. I was annoyed. Same. But, you know, fire managers say that better a few days than, you know, many weeks on end like we’ve experienced in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>You know, a live fire scares some people. They’re not, you know, excited to see that and have smoke in their their homes. So we have to balance everything we use our environmental scientists or fire personnel, resource management folks, all that be looking at all the different angles, air quality, fuel, moisture as smoke management to make sure that we’ve got the right windows to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It does seem like everyone agrees more prescribed reading needs to happen and that climate change is really impacting our state’s ability to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Prescribed burning is hands down the best way to manage our forests and prevent those big mega-fires. You know, that’s according to like decades of research. And also, you know, indigenous tribes have been doing this for centuries. It is the best tool in our toolbox, but obviously they are getting harder to do safely. So there are other tools that we can use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>It’s not the only tool that we use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>Gregg Bratcher with Cal Fire told me that they are starting to do more mechanical maintenance, which is basically like taking chainsaws and wood chippers and cleaning up the forest that way, like by hand, which is obviously very time consuming and again requires a lot of manpower. But he said that we need as many tools in our toolbox as we can get going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gregg Bratcher: \u003c/strong>We’re going to continue with our with our prescribed fire program. We will certainly we know the constraints that we have and we’ll keep moving forward with them. But like I said, the other the other tool is is cutting, masticating, piling on site for four burn piles or 100% removal of material offsite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dana Cronin: \u003c/strong>I think there’s sort of a glass half full and a glass half empty view. The glass half empty would be. And Daniel said, like, if we’re not doing enough and climate change is going to make it harder to do, then you know, what hope do we have going forward? But, you know, on the flipside, there’s so much opportunity here. We aren’t doing enough. We could be doing so much more. We have you know, according to Cal Fire, we have resources. Yes, the window is narrowing, but we’re not even meeting a certain threshold right now. There’s, you know, so much opportunity for us to really ramp up our prescribed burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Dana, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. I really appreciate it. Thank you. That was Dana Cronin, an editor and reporter for KQED. This 15 minute conversation with Dana was cut and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. It was produced and scored by me. Music courtesy of the audio network. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Most People Seriously Injured, Killed by San José Police are Mentally Ill or Intoxicated",
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"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 \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/10/08/when-san-jose-police-confront-people-in-mental-health-crisis-why-do-they-end-up-hurting-them-so-often/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">new investigation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from the Bay Area News Group, KQED, and the California Reporting Project finds that the vast majority of people seriously injured or killed by San José police are either mentally ill or intoxicated. KQED’s Rachael Vasquez spoke with one of the reporters, Robert Salonga, about how that trend has only continued, if not slightly worsened, with crisis intervention training.\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=KQINC9065930635&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Links:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/10/08/when-san-jose-police-confront-people-in-mental-health-crisis-why-do-they-end-up-hurting-them-so-often/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Losing control: When San Jose police confront people in mental health crisis, why do they end up hurting them so often?\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\">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. For years, we’ve been hearing a lot of talk about training police officers to do a better job at de-escalating difficult situations and preventing more civilians from getting hurt or even killed by the police. The San Jose Police Department has been seen as a leader on this. Since 2017, all officers have undergone what’s known as crisis intervention training. But an investigation from the Bay Area News Group, KQED, and the California Reporting Project highlights the limits of that training. Today, KQED’s Rachael Vasquez speaks with Robert Solanga of the Bay Area News Group about the investigation and its findings. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>Well, Robert, you and your team reviewed thousands of pages of police records for this story. What’s the most important takeaway in your mind?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>The most important takeaway is the limit to which so-called crisis intervention training had an effect on the rates of people with mental illness or psychiatric emergencies, suffering serious use of force at the hands of San Jose police. There was a demarcation line in 2017 when the department instituted it department wide. And what we can tell from before and from after is that the numbers of people were being seriously injured who are mentally ill, have a psychiatric crisis or are intoxicated to the point where they exhibit similar behavior did not change significantly. So it definitely calls into question how effective this training is and bolsters a lot of movements and programs all over the country about finding an alternative to police when it comes to responding to these kinds of emergencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One example highlighted in the investigation involves the violent arrest of William Wallace in May of 2021. Wallace was stopped by Officer Barron Kim for jaywalking with his bike across an empty street near downtown San Jose. Officer Kim ordered Wallace to stop, but Wallace walked away erratically instead, according to police records and body camera footage. Officer Kim grabs Wallace, who responds with threats, pushes his bike at the officer and reportedly throws a punch. Officer Kim chased Wallace and beat him with his hands and a baton, leaving Wallace with a broken nose. According to the investigation, Officer Kim suspected. Wallace says, quote, Bizarre behavior stemmed from mental illness or intoxication. But as Robert tells Rachel, this example raises questions about why the officer confronted someone he thought was mentally impaired in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>At no point did it seem like Mr. Wallace was posing any kind of imminent physical threat. His offense seemed more that he was not complying with the officer and eventually got physical and between both sides, and it resulted in a broken nose for Mr. Wallace for, again, an underlying offense initially of jaywalking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>Robert, what do San Jose police have to say about your findings?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>The general response from San Jose police has been to point out that the data we looked at, which covers strictly serious injury and death, are a small fraction of the psychiatric emergency calls and calls of that type that they encounter overall. So what they’re arguing is that this is a small slice of outcomes that typically and peacefully. They also state that the number of calls that involve someone in psychiatric emergency or with an apparent mental illness has more than doubled over the last few years. And so generally their point is the number of times they have to deal with this scenario has skyrocketed. And so that’s generally what what their responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>That said, if training hasn’t worked so far, what can police do to make these interactions less violent and in some cases less deadly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>I think one of the main takeaways we got from doing all of this data review is there are a lot of scenarios in which the underlying offense for a police contact is relatively minor, such as jaywalking, for instance. And so the question that arises out of this. Absent more effective training or a new alternative to responding to these kinds of cases, because right now police are often our primary people to turn to for any kind of 911 call or nuisance call or anything along those lines. I think there ought to be a review and some introspection about when they can let things go and when they should it. And when we’ve brought that question and posed that question to police. They generally agree and say their officers have full discretion on whether to walk away. But we know that the reality is it’s not that easy and it’s not that simple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>And in fairness, I would guess that walking away from a situation would be pretty counterintuitive to police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>It’s a very difficult thing to consider because when people call 911, they call police. They expect police to solve the problem. They expect them to respond and do something about it. And if police officers exercised that discretion of the offense that we’re being called in for is not worth the potential escalation of violence, then they also have to be accountable to the public and residents and again, people who expect something to be done when they call for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>Well, I know you’ve talked to families whose loved ones have been killed by police in these kinds of interactions. What do they tell you about what they want to see change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>The families of victims want to see more recognition of mental illness in psychiatric emergencies in the moments they understand that this isn’t black and white, it’s very gray. There’s a combination of both a psychiatric emergency and some danger to the officers or to the public, but they don’t believe that should necessarily equal what they call a death sentence just for calling. That’s the broadest take away is this idea of taking time, exercising patience, keeping distance when being up close to someone isn’t absolutely necessary. It’s along the lines of wanting to make sure that serious use of force and lethal force are really used as a last resort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>All right, Robert, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was the Bay Area news groups. Robert Solanga speaking with KQED’s Rachael Vasquez, KQED’s Lisa Pickoff-White and Mercury News reporter Harriet Rowan also investigated this story with reporters from the California newsroom. Berkeley journalism’s investigative reporting program. and Stanford University. We’ll leave you a full link to the investigation in our show notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This conversation was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. It was produced by Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman and scored by producer Maria Esquinca. Music courtesy of the audio network. Shout out as well to the rest of the podcast leadership team. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. We get audience engagement support from Cesar Saldana, and Holly Kiernan is our chief content officer. The Bay is a production of member-supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"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 \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/10/08/when-san-jose-police-confront-people-in-mental-health-crisis-why-do-they-end-up-hurting-them-so-often/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">new investigation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from the Bay Area News Group, KQED, and the California Reporting Project finds that the vast majority of people seriously injured or killed by San José police are either mentally ill or intoxicated. KQED’s Rachael Vasquez spoke with one of the reporters, Robert Salonga, about how that trend has only continued, if not slightly worsened, with crisis intervention training.\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=KQINC9065930635&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Links:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/10/08/when-san-jose-police-confront-people-in-mental-health-crisis-why-do-they-end-up-hurting-them-so-often/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Losing control: When San Jose police confront people in mental health crisis, why do they end up hurting them so often?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\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. For years, we’ve been hearing a lot of talk about training police officers to do a better job at de-escalating difficult situations and preventing more civilians from getting hurt or even killed by the police. The San Jose Police Department has been seen as a leader on this. Since 2017, all officers have undergone what’s known as crisis intervention training. But an investigation from the Bay Area News Group, KQED, and the California Reporting Project highlights the limits of that training. Today, KQED’s Rachael Vasquez speaks with Robert Solanga of the Bay Area News Group about the investigation and its findings. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>Well, Robert, you and your team reviewed thousands of pages of police records for this story. What’s the most important takeaway in your mind?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>The most important takeaway is the limit to which so-called crisis intervention training had an effect on the rates of people with mental illness or psychiatric emergencies, suffering serious use of force at the hands of San Jose police. There was a demarcation line in 2017 when the department instituted it department wide. And what we can tell from before and from after is that the numbers of people were being seriously injured who are mentally ill, have a psychiatric crisis or are intoxicated to the point where they exhibit similar behavior did not change significantly. So it definitely calls into question how effective this training is and bolsters a lot of movements and programs all over the country about finding an alternative to police when it comes to responding to these kinds of emergencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>One example highlighted in the investigation involves the violent arrest of William Wallace in May of 2021. Wallace was stopped by Officer Barron Kim for jaywalking with his bike across an empty street near downtown San Jose. Officer Kim ordered Wallace to stop, but Wallace walked away erratically instead, according to police records and body camera footage. Officer Kim grabs Wallace, who responds with threats, pushes his bike at the officer and reportedly throws a punch. Officer Kim chased Wallace and beat him with his hands and a baton, leaving Wallace with a broken nose. According to the investigation, Officer Kim suspected. Wallace says, quote, Bizarre behavior stemmed from mental illness or intoxication. But as Robert tells Rachel, this example raises questions about why the officer confronted someone he thought was mentally impaired in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>At no point did it seem like Mr. Wallace was posing any kind of imminent physical threat. His offense seemed more that he was not complying with the officer and eventually got physical and between both sides, and it resulted in a broken nose for Mr. Wallace for, again, an underlying offense initially of jaywalking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>Robert, what do San Jose police have to say about your findings?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>The general response from San Jose police has been to point out that the data we looked at, which covers strictly serious injury and death, are a small fraction of the psychiatric emergency calls and calls of that type that they encounter overall. So what they’re arguing is that this is a small slice of outcomes that typically and peacefully. They also state that the number of calls that involve someone in psychiatric emergency or with an apparent mental illness has more than doubled over the last few years. And so generally their point is the number of times they have to deal with this scenario has skyrocketed. And so that’s generally what what their responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>That said, if training hasn’t worked so far, what can police do to make these interactions less violent and in some cases less deadly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>I think one of the main takeaways we got from doing all of this data review is there are a lot of scenarios in which the underlying offense for a police contact is relatively minor, such as jaywalking, for instance. And so the question that arises out of this. Absent more effective training or a new alternative to responding to these kinds of cases, because right now police are often our primary people to turn to for any kind of 911 call or nuisance call or anything along those lines. I think there ought to be a review and some introspection about when they can let things go and when they should it. And when we’ve brought that question and posed that question to police. They generally agree and say their officers have full discretion on whether to walk away. But we know that the reality is it’s not that easy and it’s not that simple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>And in fairness, I would guess that walking away from a situation would be pretty counterintuitive to police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>It’s a very difficult thing to consider because when people call 911, they call police. They expect police to solve the problem. They expect them to respond and do something about it. And if police officers exercised that discretion of the offense that we’re being called in for is not worth the potential escalation of violence, then they also have to be accountable to the public and residents and again, people who expect something to be done when they call for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>Well, I know you’ve talked to families whose loved ones have been killed by police in these kinds of interactions. What do they tell you about what they want to see change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>The families of victims want to see more recognition of mental illness in psychiatric emergencies in the moments they understand that this isn’t black and white, it’s very gray. There’s a combination of both a psychiatric emergency and some danger to the officers or to the public, but they don’t believe that should necessarily equal what they call a death sentence just for calling. That’s the broadest take away is this idea of taking time, exercising patience, keeping distance when being up close to someone isn’t absolutely necessary. It’s along the lines of wanting to make sure that serious use of force and lethal force are really used as a last resort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rachael Vasquez: \u003c/strong>All right, Robert, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Robert Solanga: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was the Bay Area news groups. Robert Solanga speaking with KQED’s Rachael Vasquez, KQED’s Lisa Pickoff-White and Mercury News reporter Harriet Rowan also investigated this story with reporters from the California newsroom. Berkeley journalism’s investigative reporting program. and Stanford University. We’ll leave you a full link to the investigation in our show notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This conversation was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. It was produced by Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman and scored by producer Maria Esquinca. Music courtesy of the audio network. Shout out as well to the rest of the podcast leadership team. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. We get audience engagement support from Cesar Saldana, and Holly Kiernan is our chief content officer. The Bay is a production of member-supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "the-untold-story-of-richard-oakes-killing-part-2",
"title": "The Untold Story of Richard Oakes' Killing, Part 2",
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"headTitle": "The Untold Story of Richard Oakes’ Killing, Part 2 | KQED",
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"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\">The 1972 killing of Richard Oakes, the face of the Red Power movement, still sticks with the people who worked on the case. The detective who was at the scene of the killing remembers feeling suspicious of Michael Morgan, the man who shot Oakes. The prosecutor remembers the holes in Morgan’s story that he shot Oakes in self-defense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And yet, Morgan was acquitted of manslaughter charges. Today, they admit that the trial was botched.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Part 2 of our episode with \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> reporters Julie Johnson and Jason Fagone, we talk about missteps in the investigation into Oakes’ death, and how the justice system in Sonoma County was stacked against him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11963726/the-killing-of-richard-oakes-part-1-life-after-alcatraz\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen to Part 1 of this story about the killing of Richard Oakes.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Read\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/richard-oakes-killing/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the full story \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">on Richard Oakes’ death in the San Francisco Chronicle.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\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=KQINC6265142682\" 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>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to Keep You Rooted. When activist Richard Oakes was shot and killed in 1972 at the age of 30, he was well known for the famous occupation of Alcatraz that would kick off the native civil rights movement. The impact of his death is still felt today. Oakes His family has been traumatized and hasn’t felt like they’ve gotten closure. And Oakes, His legacy is largely unrecognized in mainstream American history. In our last episode, San Francisco Chronicle reporters Julie Johnson and Jason Fagone talked about what brought Richard Oakes to rural Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We talked about Michael Morgan, the man who killed Richard, and we learned about FBI documents that have been kept secret for decades that show how local police goaded Michael Morgan into violence days before he pulled the trigger. If you haven’t listened to part one of this two part story, go back and do that first, because today we sit down with Julie and Jason again to bring you up to speed on the day that Michael Morgan shot and killed Richard Oakes. We hear from the investigator who was on the scene right after it happened and we discuss how the trial that followed was botched. Stay with us. Julie, what happens in their second encounter with one another? How do they meet again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>So they meet again because Richard was back on the road looking for a kid. Billy Lazor, He didn’t return home, but it turns out Michael Morgan caught Billy and another kid poking around one of the horse tack barns and essentially forces him into his car at gunpoint. And Billy later says this is during trial that Michael Morgan had threatened to blow his head off. So Morgan takes Billy back to the camp. He makes like a citizen’s arrest for attempted horse theft, calls the sheriff’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Billy goes to jail. So it’s the next day and Richard’s out walking on Skaggs Springs Road looking for Billy. And he encounters Michael Morgan, who had just walked up to the road. He had been shoeing horses. So they’re both standing there. They’re maybe ten feet, 20 feet apart from each other, and they talk. It’s actually for a while, maybe two or 3 minutes. And then Morgan takes out a pistol and shoots Richard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Michael Morgan fired one shot from a concealed pistol that struck Richard Oaks in the heart, killing him instantly. When an investigator showed up at the scene, Morgan said that Oaks took him by surprise from behind the trees, asked him what happened to the boy, and then threatened to kill him. Morgan claimed that Oakes crouched down and lunged forward, at which point Morgan, fearing for his life, shot oaks in self-defense. But the investigator wasn’t so sure about this story. And I know you actually spoke with the detective, Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt. Did this detective buy Morgan’s version of events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Butch is a really seasoned homicide detective. He’d worked a lot of really serious cases. And so, you know, he shows up to the scene, they actually fly there in a helicopter, and he talks to Morgan. And when he got to the scene, he saw that Richard was laying on his back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt: \u003c/strong>Richard had no weapons on him at all, nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>That he was ten, maybe 20 feet away from. Morgan said he was standing. And that just didn’t make sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt: \u003c/strong>I went over across that bank over there because there was the exit wound on him. And I found that bullet. The bullet from the gun I found right over there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>But I thought, well, if he was lunging toward you, wouldn’t he fall forward when he was shot? Butch recalled something else at the scene that really stuck with him for 50 years. And that’s Morgan’s demeanor. So Morgan gave a statement. They had him write it out. They were preparing that paperwork on the side of the road. And Morgan asked him, Butch remembered, Can I go home now? And Butch thought that was strange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt: \u003c/strong>He thought he was going to just be released and nothing happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, most people, when you’ve just killed someone, you’re distraught or even if you’re calm, it’s unusual for someone to assume they can just go home, that it’s over. And so his suspicion began from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt: \u003c/strong>You can’t shoot somebody and not face consequences. You’ve got to be a hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Butch. Carlstedt wasn’t actually the only one, right, who was suspicious of Morgan’s account. As I understand it, the deputy D.A., Edward Krug, seemed to agree that something was off, too. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>It’s the crew of the story that Morgan was telling just did not add up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edward Krug: \u003c/strong>Morgan was there. I think he was in a more wrongful way than Richard Oakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Morgan Central claim was he shot Richard Oakes in a moment of panic, an overwhelming fear that he was about to die. But the picture painted by the evidence is just not a picture of someone who is credibly afraid for their own life. At the moment, the shot is fired. It’s a picture of that’s much calmer. That’s much more about choice. The shot was fired from at least ten feet away. So it’s not like there was any moment of hand-to-hand combat. Richard was always unarmed. Morgan always had a concealed pistol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edward Krug: \u003c/strong>He went there with a gun. He had the advantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>A bit later, Crook was able to speak with a man who had been visiting the YMCA camp in the days before the killing. He was having coffee with Morgan. He asked, Is it hunting season for anything? He said that, Morgan replied. It was hunting season for coons, foxes and Indians. And this visitor said that. The conversation went on. Morgan continued to talk about Oakes and how much he didn’t like. Richard Oakes said that Morgan called Oakes half crazy and said that he would be better off dead. That’s five days before the killing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, let’s talk about the trial of Michael Morgan. Jason, how does the DA’s office go about charging Morgan, given their skepticism of his account of what happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Initially, the DA’s office wanted to charge him with murder, but they ran into some resistance from a county judge. This judge was very dismissive of the idea that it could have been murder, and he tossed out the possibility of a murder charge. I think the other thing is that they were really worried about the kind of jury that they would get. Could you talk to us about this a lot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edward Krug: \u003c/strong>My concern was picking a jury.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>You knew that in 1972, 1973, in Sonoma County, it was probably gonna be an all white jury.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edward Krug: \u003c/strong>I said, there’s a white all white jury here. I didn’t think that was fair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>He just couldn’t be sure that a white jury would convict a white defendant for murdering a native person, any native person, but particularly a native person like Richard Oaks, who because of his prominence and because of his protest in the county, he had he had become perceived as scary and threatening to some people in the county at the time. And Krug thought a lot about that, and he worried about it. And it it sort of determined the shape of their strategy in a lot of ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How did prosecutors argue the case?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>So it ended up being a trial for manslaughter, both involuntary, voluntary. To get a conviction, the prosecutors just had to show that his story about killing out of self-defense in this panic was was bogus. And the main way that they did that was by pointing out all of the contradictions between the physical evidence, the crime scene evidence, and Morgan’s own story that he told police that the evidence showed he was lying. Morgan took the stand in his own defense to cross-examine him and really kind of put the screws to him, to the point where Morgan even changed his story multiple times in court during the trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>But there would have been another way to show that it was an unlawful killing. Right. Which is to talk about Morgan’s motive, to argue that he was motivated by racism. Right. So crew could have said this wasn’t about self-defense, this is about hatred. But to really do it effectively, he would have needed to put race and racism at the forefront of of the arguments, at the forefront of the trial and for other reasons that we that we already talked about his concerns about a jury, the environment in the country at the time. He he just didn’t do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And Julie, I know you you and Jason also talked with Krug about sort of his thoughts on how he went about arguing this case. And it sounded like he had some regrets. Is that right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I think we were both really surprised at how quickly he admitted, you know, I think I screwed up. But he was also really frank with the challenges that he faced. And just to give you a little contrast, he was up against really experienced attorneys. Crew, I think, was four years into being a prosecutor. And Michael Morgan hired a really stellar defense team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>And yeah, the Berkeley Y put out the call. They found the two best Catholic defense attorneys in Sonoma County, literally the guys who ran the County Bar Association and helped judges get elected and were inextricably tied to the Democratic Party political machine in Sonoma County. He got the best attorneys in the business, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>And there was Kruh who was still pretty green, although he tried felony cases really early in his career. There were small things that he felt like he missed, like he realized at some point during the trial that he had neglected to get some of Richard’s clothing, including his pants analyzed. And, you know, if there were scuff marks on his knees, what does that say about the way that Richard maybe fell forward and then fell back? These details really haunted him 50 years later when he spoke about what he could have done to get the outcome that he really thought was just.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And, Julie, earlier we talked about these FBI witness statements that really, I think, reveal some of the racism that was really at play in this case. Does Krug and the DA’s office know about all these FBI statements that we talked about earlier? And do do they come up at all?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, I think they knew some of what the FBI was learning and they did not have the full report. I don’t believe they had the full picture. But Krug did know about what Mike Craver, a sheriff’s deputy, said and what witnesses corroborated, he said. One thing he said is that to put the deputy I understand all the deputy has to do is say, well, I don’t remember that. I didn’t say that. And a jury is really traditional even to this day. The jury juries want to believe police officers. Another thing that he worried about when thinking about bringing race into the center of the trial was whether he was willing or the county the DA’s office was willing to to portray a law enforcement officer as racist. That was really not his job. He felt, to make the public question law enforcement officers who are out there protecting them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So much of that did not make it into the trial, it sounds like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I think a lot of the most important things that happened in the six days before the killing were never aired during the trial of Michael Morgan. We now know that they happened because we have these documents, but at the time, the jury never heard about a lot of these things. And the public certainly didn’t hear about a lot of these things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And you both actually talked to some of these jurors, at least the ones who are still alive today. What do they remember of this trial?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Their memories of the trial, I think, were so telling. I spoke to two jurors and they both remembered how well the defense portrayed Michael Morgan as like just an American dad, nervous about his family, uncomfortable with this powerful figure who had kind of appeared and intruded upon his life. And, you know, I think they really identified with him as a family man. But in particular, one juror I spoke with, he also said things that frankly illuminated how much bias existed then and exists today toward indigenous people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>He said, Oh, I remember that Richard, you know, had children with all these different women and, you know, was shooting flaming arrows toward the camp. Well, that is just like a complete fabrication. And none of that was presented at trial. None of that actually happened. I don’t know why he has those memories, but I can only imagine that that is the kind of lens that these jurors had, based on whatever was in the movie, is portraying Native Americans at the time of what kind of person had been killed in this situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So, Jason, what did jurors ultimately decide?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>They acquitted Morgan on both of the manslaughter counts. Not guilty verdicts, took them about three days and that was it. Morgan was set free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, we hear from Richard Oakes, his family, and how his legacy still lives on today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about Richard Oakes, his family? Julie, how do they talk about the impact of his killing? I know you actually spoke with his daughter recently, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Fawn Oaks is Richard’s youngest daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fawn Oakes: \u003c/strong>My mom never talked about him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>She’s now 53 years old and she was a toddler when he was killed. And she was actually present on September 14th when Michael Morgan fired the warning shot above Richard’s head. She was there. She was a little child at the side. She really feels so strongly that the country, the world, should understand what her father was about and what he did and how important he was at such a young age. You know, only 30, and he had done so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fawn Oakes: \u003c/strong>My father was educated and smart and courageous, who was more than people can handle. And they shut them down for the fine oaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>And her son, Elijah Oaks, who’s Richard’s grandson, they really talked about how their family has always felt that the acquittal invalidated how awful his death was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elijah Oakes: \u003c/strong>I think racism played a big part in the entire situation and the entire deal. They don’t want unity between people. We’re not true unity. And I think that’s the message that was sent when they killed my own grandfather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>And they felt robbed. Fine. Grew up without a father. Any need to raise children without her husband. And in fact, the story that lasted was just some small argument between two men. But they felt always that Richard was targeted because of his activism, because of his politics, and because of his identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Is Michael Morgan still around? And did you hear anything from him for this story?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Michael Morgan is alive. He’s 84. He lives in Oklahoma. We sent in letters and received no response. We called and left messages, the response. And, you know, we really wanted to hear from him and include his perspective. And Jason, actually, he flew to Oklahoma and knocked on his door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>I could see him through the screen door. Then he sort of stood up, slowly came to the door and he said, I got your letters. Don’t want to talk. And I tried to make this case to him that whatever it whatever he had to say, it was important for history. But he just nodded his head and he said, you know, it was a sad thing that happened. And then he went inside and closed the door. And I went back the next day, but he was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What I think is so important about your story is the way that it sort of reframes what we know about this killing. And Jason, I can’t help but think, you know, what if. Right. Like, what if these details in your reporting were shared at the trial? What if the trial had turned out differently? What is, you think, the impact of the fact that so many of these details have been kept secret until now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I think about that a lot. It’s I it’s hard to know exactly because, you know, you can’t rerun history, right? I mean, maybe the jury would still have acquitted Morgan, even if all of this stuff had been a part of the trial and been public. I don’t know. But but I am really certain, like 100% certain, that if these documents had been available at the time to the public, it would have made a difference if they’d been available to the native community. I have to think that there would have been a lot of pressure on the local police department, on the DOJ to find out what really happened here and to keep investigating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Right. Like there would have been much more of a spotlight. But because a lot of this was concealed and covered up, there was no one really watching. And so it was able to just be buried. And that has had an enormous impact on Richard’s legacy because it kind of erased him. There’s an alternate history where his song gets sung along with the song of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. There’s a version of history where there’s a big Hollywood movie about Richard and his life, but he never joined that sort of great pantheon of civil rights heroes who were assassinated for what they believed in and became martyrs to their cause and inspirations for generations that came after. Right. And that’s because the trial was so botched and so muddy. His story just is not known in the way that it really, really deserves to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>His story is buried, but it also seems like it’s not too late to remember and learn about his contributions to the native civil rights movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>It’s definitely not too late. If you go back and you read a lot of the news coverage of the end of the Alcatraz occupation when protesters were forcibly removed from the island. The whole thing was portrayed as a big failure, but it was actually a huge success because it sparked this whole red power movement that ended up having this enduring impact on on US law and the way that the US government deals with native tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Even today, this protest movement that was launched in the wake of his killing, the Trail of broken treaties proved to be enormously influential on U.S. policy and law. They brought a list of demands to the federal government, and a number of those demands were over the next decades, you know, gradually adopted and passed as law, treating tribes as sovereign nations. Today, that’s normal. At the time when Richard was talking about that, he was portrayed as some kind of wild eyed radical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, how much did you learn about Alcatraz when you were in grade school? How much did I learn about it? We ever hear his name before at all? Exactly. But what a unique example he is for young people. Taking what he’d heard from elders on the reservation near the Canadian border. You know, there were land fights happening there. You know, he grew up hearing those stories and and brought that across the country and joined this roiling hotbed of counterculture and civil rights. And, you know, these types of stories are really illuminating about history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And that journey to Alcatraz here in the Bay Area still happens every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Every year there are sunrise ceremonies in October and November where Alcatraz veterans, friends and family of Richard Knox, they go back to the islands to give thanks, to honor the memories of their loved ones and keep the spirit of Alcatraz alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*recording playing*.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Julie Johnson and Jason Fagone. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your reporting. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was San Francisco Chronicle reporters Julie Johnson and Jason Fagone. You can read their full story for the San Francisco Chronicle on the true story of Richard Oakes. His death will leave you a link for that in our show notes. This conversation with Jason and Julie was cut down by producer Maria Esquinca, senior editor Alan Montecillo scored this episode and added all the tape music courtesy of the Audio Network. Special thanks as well to San Francisco Chronicle staff photojournalist Brontë Wittpenn. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\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\">The 1972 killing of Richard Oakes, the face of the Red Power movement, still sticks with the people who worked on the case. The detective who was at the scene of the killing remembers feeling suspicious of Michael Morgan, the man who shot Oakes. The prosecutor remembers the holes in Morgan’s story that he shot Oakes in self-defense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And yet, Morgan was acquitted of manslaughter charges. Today, they admit that the trial was botched.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Part 2 of our episode with \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> reporters Julie Johnson and Jason Fagone, we talk about missteps in the investigation into Oakes’ death, and how the justice system in Sonoma County was stacked against him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11963726/the-killing-of-richard-oakes-part-1-life-after-alcatraz\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen to Part 1 of this story about the killing of Richard Oakes.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\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>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to Keep You Rooted. When activist Richard Oakes was shot and killed in 1972 at the age of 30, he was well known for the famous occupation of Alcatraz that would kick off the native civil rights movement. The impact of his death is still felt today. Oakes His family has been traumatized and hasn’t felt like they’ve gotten closure. And Oakes, His legacy is largely unrecognized in mainstream American history. In our last episode, San Francisco Chronicle reporters Julie Johnson and Jason Fagone talked about what brought Richard Oakes to rural Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>We talked about Michael Morgan, the man who killed Richard, and we learned about FBI documents that have been kept secret for decades that show how local police goaded Michael Morgan into violence days before he pulled the trigger. If you haven’t listened to part one of this two part story, go back and do that first, because today we sit down with Julie and Jason again to bring you up to speed on the day that Michael Morgan shot and killed Richard Oakes. We hear from the investigator who was on the scene right after it happened and we discuss how the trial that followed was botched. Stay with us. Julie, what happens in their second encounter with one another? How do they meet again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>So they meet again because Richard was back on the road looking for a kid. Billy Lazor, He didn’t return home, but it turns out Michael Morgan caught Billy and another kid poking around one of the horse tack barns and essentially forces him into his car at gunpoint. And Billy later says this is during trial that Michael Morgan had threatened to blow his head off. So Morgan takes Billy back to the camp. He makes like a citizen’s arrest for attempted horse theft, calls the sheriff’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Billy goes to jail. So it’s the next day and Richard’s out walking on Skaggs Springs Road looking for Billy. And he encounters Michael Morgan, who had just walked up to the road. He had been shoeing horses. So they’re both standing there. They’re maybe ten feet, 20 feet apart from each other, and they talk. It’s actually for a while, maybe two or 3 minutes. And then Morgan takes out a pistol and shoots Richard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Michael Morgan fired one shot from a concealed pistol that struck Richard Oaks in the heart, killing him instantly. When an investigator showed up at the scene, Morgan said that Oaks took him by surprise from behind the trees, asked him what happened to the boy, and then threatened to kill him. Morgan claimed that Oakes crouched down and lunged forward, at which point Morgan, fearing for his life, shot oaks in self-defense. But the investigator wasn’t so sure about this story. And I know you actually spoke with the detective, Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt. Did this detective buy Morgan’s version of events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Butch is a really seasoned homicide detective. He’d worked a lot of really serious cases. And so, you know, he shows up to the scene, they actually fly there in a helicopter, and he talks to Morgan. And when he got to the scene, he saw that Richard was laying on his back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt: \u003c/strong>Richard had no weapons on him at all, nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>That he was ten, maybe 20 feet away from. Morgan said he was standing. And that just didn’t make sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt: \u003c/strong>I went over across that bank over there because there was the exit wound on him. And I found that bullet. The bullet from the gun I found right over there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>But I thought, well, if he was lunging toward you, wouldn’t he fall forward when he was shot? Butch recalled something else at the scene that really stuck with him for 50 years. And that’s Morgan’s demeanor. So Morgan gave a statement. They had him write it out. They were preparing that paperwork on the side of the road. And Morgan asked him, Butch remembered, Can I go home now? And Butch thought that was strange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt: \u003c/strong>He thought he was going to just be released and nothing happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, most people, when you’ve just killed someone, you’re distraught or even if you’re calm, it’s unusual for someone to assume they can just go home, that it’s over. And so his suspicion began from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edwin “Butch” Carlstedt: \u003c/strong>You can’t shoot somebody and not face consequences. You’ve got to be a hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Butch. Carlstedt wasn’t actually the only one, right, who was suspicious of Morgan’s account. As I understand it, the deputy D.A., Edward Krug, seemed to agree that something was off, too. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>It’s the crew of the story that Morgan was telling just did not add up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edward Krug: \u003c/strong>Morgan was there. I think he was in a more wrongful way than Richard Oakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Morgan Central claim was he shot Richard Oakes in a moment of panic, an overwhelming fear that he was about to die. But the picture painted by the evidence is just not a picture of someone who is credibly afraid for their own life. At the moment, the shot is fired. It’s a picture of that’s much calmer. That’s much more about choice. The shot was fired from at least ten feet away. So it’s not like there was any moment of hand-to-hand combat. Richard was always unarmed. Morgan always had a concealed pistol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edward Krug: \u003c/strong>He went there with a gun. He had the advantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>A bit later, Crook was able to speak with a man who had been visiting the YMCA camp in the days before the killing. He was having coffee with Morgan. He asked, Is it hunting season for anything? He said that, Morgan replied. It was hunting season for coons, foxes and Indians. And this visitor said that. The conversation went on. Morgan continued to talk about Oakes and how much he didn’t like. Richard Oakes said that Morgan called Oakes half crazy and said that he would be better off dead. That’s five days before the killing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, let’s talk about the trial of Michael Morgan. Jason, how does the DA’s office go about charging Morgan, given their skepticism of his account of what happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Initially, the DA’s office wanted to charge him with murder, but they ran into some resistance from a county judge. This judge was very dismissive of the idea that it could have been murder, and he tossed out the possibility of a murder charge. I think the other thing is that they were really worried about the kind of jury that they would get. Could you talk to us about this a lot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edward Krug: \u003c/strong>My concern was picking a jury.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>You knew that in 1972, 1973, in Sonoma County, it was probably gonna be an all white jury.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Edward Krug: \u003c/strong>I said, there’s a white all white jury here. I didn’t think that was fair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>He just couldn’t be sure that a white jury would convict a white defendant for murdering a native person, any native person, but particularly a native person like Richard Oaks, who because of his prominence and because of his protest in the county, he had he had become perceived as scary and threatening to some people in the county at the time. And Krug thought a lot about that, and he worried about it. And it it sort of determined the shape of their strategy in a lot of ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>How did prosecutors argue the case?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>So it ended up being a trial for manslaughter, both involuntary, voluntary. To get a conviction, the prosecutors just had to show that his story about killing out of self-defense in this panic was was bogus. And the main way that they did that was by pointing out all of the contradictions between the physical evidence, the crime scene evidence, and Morgan’s own story that he told police that the evidence showed he was lying. Morgan took the stand in his own defense to cross-examine him and really kind of put the screws to him, to the point where Morgan even changed his story multiple times in court during the trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>But there would have been another way to show that it was an unlawful killing. Right. Which is to talk about Morgan’s motive, to argue that he was motivated by racism. Right. So crew could have said this wasn’t about self-defense, this is about hatred. But to really do it effectively, he would have needed to put race and racism at the forefront of of the arguments, at the forefront of the trial and for other reasons that we that we already talked about his concerns about a jury, the environment in the country at the time. He he just didn’t do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And Julie, I know you you and Jason also talked with Krug about sort of his thoughts on how he went about arguing this case. And it sounded like he had some regrets. Is that right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I think we were both really surprised at how quickly he admitted, you know, I think I screwed up. But he was also really frank with the challenges that he faced. And just to give you a little contrast, he was up against really experienced attorneys. Crew, I think, was four years into being a prosecutor. And Michael Morgan hired a really stellar defense team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>And yeah, the Berkeley Y put out the call. They found the two best Catholic defense attorneys in Sonoma County, literally the guys who ran the County Bar Association and helped judges get elected and were inextricably tied to the Democratic Party political machine in Sonoma County. He got the best attorneys in the business, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>And there was Kruh who was still pretty green, although he tried felony cases really early in his career. There were small things that he felt like he missed, like he realized at some point during the trial that he had neglected to get some of Richard’s clothing, including his pants analyzed. And, you know, if there were scuff marks on his knees, what does that say about the way that Richard maybe fell forward and then fell back? These details really haunted him 50 years later when he spoke about what he could have done to get the outcome that he really thought was just.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And, Julie, earlier we talked about these FBI witness statements that really, I think, reveal some of the racism that was really at play in this case. Does Krug and the DA’s office know about all these FBI statements that we talked about earlier? And do do they come up at all?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, I think they knew some of what the FBI was learning and they did not have the full report. I don’t believe they had the full picture. But Krug did know about what Mike Craver, a sheriff’s deputy, said and what witnesses corroborated, he said. One thing he said is that to put the deputy I understand all the deputy has to do is say, well, I don’t remember that. I didn’t say that. And a jury is really traditional even to this day. The jury juries want to believe police officers. Another thing that he worried about when thinking about bringing race into the center of the trial was whether he was willing or the county the DA’s office was willing to to portray a law enforcement officer as racist. That was really not his job. He felt, to make the public question law enforcement officers who are out there protecting them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So much of that did not make it into the trial, it sounds like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I think a lot of the most important things that happened in the six days before the killing were never aired during the trial of Michael Morgan. We now know that they happened because we have these documents, but at the time, the jury never heard about a lot of these things. And the public certainly didn’t hear about a lot of these things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And you both actually talked to some of these jurors, at least the ones who are still alive today. What do they remember of this trial?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Their memories of the trial, I think, were so telling. I spoke to two jurors and they both remembered how well the defense portrayed Michael Morgan as like just an American dad, nervous about his family, uncomfortable with this powerful figure who had kind of appeared and intruded upon his life. And, you know, I think they really identified with him as a family man. But in particular, one juror I spoke with, he also said things that frankly illuminated how much bias existed then and exists today toward indigenous people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>He said, Oh, I remember that Richard, you know, had children with all these different women and, you know, was shooting flaming arrows toward the camp. Well, that is just like a complete fabrication. And none of that was presented at trial. None of that actually happened. I don’t know why he has those memories, but I can only imagine that that is the kind of lens that these jurors had, based on whatever was in the movie, is portraying Native Americans at the time of what kind of person had been killed in this situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So, Jason, what did jurors ultimately decide?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>They acquitted Morgan on both of the manslaughter counts. Not guilty verdicts, took them about three days and that was it. Morgan was set free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, we hear from Richard Oakes, his family, and how his legacy still lives on today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What about Richard Oakes, his family? Julie, how do they talk about the impact of his killing? I know you actually spoke with his daughter recently, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Fawn Oaks is Richard’s youngest daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fawn Oakes: \u003c/strong>My mom never talked about him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>She’s now 53 years old and she was a toddler when he was killed. And she was actually present on September 14th when Michael Morgan fired the warning shot above Richard’s head. She was there. She was a little child at the side. She really feels so strongly that the country, the world, should understand what her father was about and what he did and how important he was at such a young age. You know, only 30, and he had done so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fawn Oakes: \u003c/strong>My father was educated and smart and courageous, who was more than people can handle. And they shut them down for the fine oaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>And her son, Elijah Oaks, who’s Richard’s grandson, they really talked about how their family has always felt that the acquittal invalidated how awful his death was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elijah Oakes: \u003c/strong>I think racism played a big part in the entire situation and the entire deal. They don’t want unity between people. We’re not true unity. And I think that’s the message that was sent when they killed my own grandfather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>And they felt robbed. Fine. Grew up without a father. Any need to raise children without her husband. And in fact, the story that lasted was just some small argument between two men. But they felt always that Richard was targeted because of his activism, because of his politics, and because of his identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Is Michael Morgan still around? And did you hear anything from him for this story?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Michael Morgan is alive. He’s 84. He lives in Oklahoma. We sent in letters and received no response. We called and left messages, the response. And, you know, we really wanted to hear from him and include his perspective. And Jason, actually, he flew to Oklahoma and knocked on his door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>I could see him through the screen door. Then he sort of stood up, slowly came to the door and he said, I got your letters. Don’t want to talk. And I tried to make this case to him that whatever it whatever he had to say, it was important for history. But he just nodded his head and he said, you know, it was a sad thing that happened. And then he went inside and closed the door. And I went back the next day, but he was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What I think is so important about your story is the way that it sort of reframes what we know about this killing. And Jason, I can’t help but think, you know, what if. Right. Like, what if these details in your reporting were shared at the trial? What if the trial had turned out differently? What is, you think, the impact of the fact that so many of these details have been kept secret until now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I think about that a lot. It’s I it’s hard to know exactly because, you know, you can’t rerun history, right? I mean, maybe the jury would still have acquitted Morgan, even if all of this stuff had been a part of the trial and been public. I don’t know. But but I am really certain, like 100% certain, that if these documents had been available at the time to the public, it would have made a difference if they’d been available to the native community. I have to think that there would have been a lot of pressure on the local police department, on the DOJ to find out what really happened here and to keep investigating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Right. Like there would have been much more of a spotlight. But because a lot of this was concealed and covered up, there was no one really watching. And so it was able to just be buried. And that has had an enormous impact on Richard’s legacy because it kind of erased him. There’s an alternate history where his song gets sung along with the song of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. There’s a version of history where there’s a big Hollywood movie about Richard and his life, but he never joined that sort of great pantheon of civil rights heroes who were assassinated for what they believed in and became martyrs to their cause and inspirations for generations that came after. Right. And that’s because the trial was so botched and so muddy. His story just is not known in the way that it really, really deserves to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>His story is buried, but it also seems like it’s not too late to remember and learn about his contributions to the native civil rights movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>It’s definitely not too late. If you go back and you read a lot of the news coverage of the end of the Alcatraz occupation when protesters were forcibly removed from the island. The whole thing was portrayed as a big failure, but it was actually a huge success because it sparked this whole red power movement that ended up having this enduring impact on on US law and the way that the US government deals with native tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Even today, this protest movement that was launched in the wake of his killing, the Trail of broken treaties proved to be enormously influential on U.S. policy and law. They brought a list of demands to the federal government, and a number of those demands were over the next decades, you know, gradually adopted and passed as law, treating tribes as sovereign nations. Today, that’s normal. At the time when Richard was talking about that, he was portrayed as some kind of wild eyed radical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>You know, how much did you learn about Alcatraz when you were in grade school? How much did I learn about it? We ever hear his name before at all? Exactly. But what a unique example he is for young people. Taking what he’d heard from elders on the reservation near the Canadian border. You know, there were land fights happening there. You know, he grew up hearing those stories and and brought that across the country and joined this roiling hotbed of counterculture and civil rights. And, you know, these types of stories are really illuminating about history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And that journey to Alcatraz here in the Bay Area still happens every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Every year there are sunrise ceremonies in October and November where Alcatraz veterans, friends and family of Richard Knox, they go back to the islands to give thanks, to honor the memories of their loved ones and keep the spirit of Alcatraz alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*recording playing*.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Julie Johnson and Jason Fagone. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your reporting. I really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Julie Johnson: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jason Fagone: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was San Francisco Chronicle reporters Julie Johnson and Jason Fagone. You can read their full story for the San Francisco Chronicle on the true story of Richard Oakes. His death will leave you a link for that in our show notes. This conversation with Jason and Julie was cut down by producer Maria Esquinca, senior editor Alan Montecillo scored this episode and added all the tape music courtesy of the Audio Network. Special thanks as well to San Francisco Chronicle staff photojournalist Brontë Wittpenn. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"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.",
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"mindshift": {
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"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>",
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"order": 12
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"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?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"perspectives": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"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.",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
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},
"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"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.",
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},
"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.",
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