Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay local news to keep you rooted. And welcome to our March News roundup, where me and the Bay team sit down to talk about some of the other stories that we’ve been following this month. I’m here with producer Maria Esquinca. Hey.
Maria Esquinca: Hello. Hello, hello.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: And senior editor Alan Montecillo. What’s up? Allan.
Allan Montecillo: Hey.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: And, it’s officially spring in the Bay area, which is my favorite. How are y’all feeling?
Maria Esquinca: I’m feeling really excited for the flowers, the sunlight. I can’t wait to go to Lake Merritt and hang out with my friends and feel the sun. So I’m pretty. I’m pretty excited.
Allan Montecillo: I’m cautiously optimistic about spring. Obviously, it is very, very pretty. There’s, you know, the super blooms. You can see the wildflowers. I can definitely feel spring on my face, if you know what I mean. Like I’m sneezing all the time.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Y’all, as listeners probably heard Allan a bunch in the hot seat. Sort of. On a personal note from me, you probably didn’t hear as much from me as usual this month because I was dealing with some family stuff, helping my mom recover from breast cancer, which I do feel comfortable talking about because it is such a common thing.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: So many people deal with breast cancer. She’s doing really well. She’s recovering, she’s feeling good. So I feel like that was also sort of a turn of the winter to spring, the shift and the transition on that end for me. So shout out to the Bay team for holding it down.
Allan Montecillo: Of course. And you know, we’re all very, very happy and relief that your mom’s doing well.
Allan Montecillo: Yeah. Shout out to mom. All right, well, let’s hop into some of the other stories we’ve been following this month, starting with Maria, who has some pretty good news out of the East Bay.
Maria Esquinca: Yeah. So something that happened earlier this month is that the Street Spirit newspaper is back in print after being out of print for eight months.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I mean, I think I’ve seen news, like are usually very concerned to hear whenever, like a newspaper goes out of business or stops printing. But can you remind us of, like what street spirit was known for? Like what kind of reporting were they doing in the East Bay, and what role did it serve in the community?
Maria Esquinca: It was created in the 90s when the Oakland Tribune was sold by homeless people, and the founders noticed that the irony of it was, you know, unhoused people were selling this newspaper. But the coverage that they saw out of the Oakland Tribune was not reflecting their stories and was actually disparaging of of unhoused people.
Maria Esquinca: And so that was the seed of this newspaper. And so it’s a it’s a monthly newspaper that is sold by homeless people. They get some of the funds back from, selling them. And I think the intention is really to have a publication that is written by and for unhoused people, for.
Alastair Boone The purpose of st reet spirit is to shed light on the experience of homelessness.
Maria Esquinca: Alastair Boone, the current director of Street Spirit, spoke in July about some of this, the intention behind it and I think really responding to. How sometimes news coverage of unhoused people does not even include them. It does not quote them. And so really responding to what they see as an absence of homeless people and stories that report about them.
Alastair Boone So that means that every story we publish is either written by somebody who has experience of homelessness, or if it’s like a new style article. We go to great lengths to make sure that it has people, their voices and their experiences are represented in this story.
Maria Esquinca: And I think it’s also important to highlight that it’s not just reporting on the problem and the trauma and and the violence and the sort of heaviness that is associated with, homeless people. Like, it’s kind of a magazine style publication that also includes more joyous stories.
Alastair Boone But we try to we try to make each issue joyful and, you know, not just kind of focus on the bad stuff that happens.
Allan Montecillo: And I know it was out of print for a while because it was facing financial challenges. Right?
Maria Esquinca: So what happened was that back in May, the nonprofit that funded them pulled out and was unable to continue. The current director and the current editor in chief, Bradley Penner, basically, raised $250,000 from individual donations, and that’s enough to cover them until the end of the year. The newspaper will be continued to be printed and sold, around 40 vendors in Berkeley, Oakland and Fairfax.
Maria Esquinca: All these newspapers and and some of the funds directly go back to them. So it’s a way to support them. And Alistair Boon also mentioned that this event, ways to support them. So that includes anything from volunteering to raising funds on your own and donating them to the publication. And so if people you know are interested in supporting their work, there’s like a number of ways to to do that.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, thank you so much, Maria. For that piece of good news. When we come back, we’ll talk about a new phone number for non-emergency situations in Oakland and Aaron Peskin running for mayor. Stay with us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Support for KQED podcasts comes from Star One Credit Union, now offering real time money movement with instant pay, make transfers and payments instantly between financial institutions online or through Star One’s mobile app. Star one credit union in your best interest.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: And welcome back to The Bay’s monthly news roundup, where we discuss the stories that we’ve been following this month. And up next is my story, which is about a new phone line that residents in Oakland can call for nonviolent, non-emergency situations.
Maria Esquinca: So when you’re talking about, nonviolent and non-emergency situations, what are we talking about?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: This phone line, which is called the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland, line or macro for short, is really about giving community members in Oakland a number to call for nonviolent, non-emergency situations where maybe someone could use some help or some connections with social services. Maybe they could use some water or some blankets.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Some examples of the kinds of things that Oakland residents can pick up the phone for would be a wellness check for someone on the streets, a noise complaint, someone maybe being drunk in public, or even panhandling. When you call macro, you’re really reaching out to civilian responders. So in other words, not police. And the whole idea behind macro was really to be an alternative to police…
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: …Who so often in all parts of the state and the country are kind of the only people that you can call when you see someone having a mental health crisis on the streets, or you see a homeless person suffering on the streets. And so the idea behind macro is to create an alternative to police that can actually connect people with services, and perhaps be more helpful when people are in crisis.
Allan Montecillo: Is this, a new thing for the Bay area, for California? How common is something like this?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: There are definitely other versions of this across the Bay area. But I think what’s really different about this in Oakland are what’s really changed in Oakland is that this is a separate line from 901 that civilians can call. That basically makes it easier on 911 dispatchers who are, as the Oakland side has reported, really overwhelmed by the number of calls that they get every year, majority of which are actually non-emergency related calls.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: And that’s really meant that the 901 system in the city has really struggled to respond quickly to actual emergencies in a timely manner. Macro actually first launched in April of 2022, and until now, in order to reach macro civilian responders, you had to call 911, and then have your your non-emergency call diverted through these sort of other channels before you could actually reach a macro responder. But this new number makes it so that you can reach a, a macro responder directly.
Allan Montecillo: We should probably tell people what the phone number is, right?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Yes. So, if you have a pen and paper, write this down. The phone number is (510) 446-2276. And they also have an email address which is Macro@Oakland ca.gov. All right. Well, that was my story. And last but not least, Alan, what’s your story?
Allan Montecillo: There’s a mayoral election in San Francisco this November. Mayor London Breed is running for another term. It is already very competitive. There are, you know, several major candidates at this point, but there’s one very prominent politician in the city who many people have speculated or even have confirmed with other sources, although he won’t say it yet. And that’s Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.
Maria Esquinca: I think this is really interesting, and I think it’s putting a little wrench on local San Francisco politics, especially coming off of the primaries. How is this expected to kind of shift things?
Allan Montecillo: Well, I think it might be helpful to start with who Aaron Peskin is. I think he’s very well known to people who have been in San Francisco a long time, probably less so for people outside of the city. He’s been in office for a while. He was elected in the early 2000. He’s been on the board for more than 20 years. He’s historically represented North Beach Chinatown in the Financial district. He’s someone who really, you know, knows how the city works, has been in politics a long time.
Allan Montecillo: He is someone who I think most would say is in the progressive camp, at least in terms of, you know, who his main political alliances have been with. You know, I wouldn’t call him like a, you know, very progressive or a very left candidate. But I think what what makes his possible candidacy interesting now is because right now, all of the major candidates currently running for mayor are moderates. Mayor London breed. You have former supervisor and one time, you know briefly mayor Mark Farrell.
Allan Montecillo: There’s also Daniel Lurie, the nonprofit executive, and Levi Strauss er and you have supervisor Asher Safai, but there isn’t really a candidate who the more left leaning and progressive interest groups and voters are really energized by right now. And that’s why many people are wondering that if Peskin decides to run, if if he could be that candidate, and if in a ranked choice voting system, he might actually have a shot.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, Alan, you mentioned Aaron Peskin hasn’t officially declared his candidacy for mayor. So how do we know this? How likely is it? And is it basically a sure thing at this point?
Allan Montecillo: Basically, several publications say, including the Chronicle, including San Francisco Standard, that sources close to Peskin have told them that he plans to run. But when asked directly currently, he will not say that he’s running. There’s been some speculation that one reason he’s held off is because right now, you can really see the moderate candidates going at each other already.
Allan Montecillo: You know, Mayor London Breed is vulnerable. Her unfavorable favorables are very high. So, you know, I don’t know if it’s for sure a sure thing. I think people would be surprised that after all this kind of hubbub, he decides not to run.
Maria Esquinca: Well, another interesting part of this is there’s been a lot of reporting, including a story by Mission Local in The Guardian, about the political contributions in S.F. that can be traced back to the tech industry and and these billionaires. How do you think that will play a role in this?
Allan Montecillo: They’re already coming out and saying, we do not want this guy as the mayor after the primary. The founder of grow SF told KQED and other reporters that they’re basically saying anybody but Peskin grow S.F.. Moderate politicians and groups see Peskin as a as someone who’s basically presided over San Francisco’s decline. One main objection to Aaron Peskin is when it comes to housing.
Allan Montecillo: You know, there’s been a much stronger push in California for, you know, I guess the term Nimby. Yes. In my backyard, basically people who say we need to build housing much, much more aggressively all over the city, including market rate housing if we’re going to solve the housing crisis. Peskin has generally prioritized affordable housing while also wanting to limit construction. In some cases when he feels like it might negatively affect the surrounding neighborhood.
Allan Montecillo: He once said, in a separate fight over density, which we only get into, essentially, we can save San Francisco without destroying San Francisco. So to a lot of the moderate aligned politicians who want to build much more housing, they say, this guy, he’s just said, no in my backyard Nimby, someone who’s going to stop change. But yeah, we’ll see what happens.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, thank you so much, Alan, for that story. Usually we end it off right here, but we do want to try something a little bit different after a meal. I usually like something a little sweet, a soda, some dessert for y’all. We want to end off with just some good news. Something that we as a team, are excited about. And one big thing is KEXP, a new radio station in the Bay.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Yeah, I think this is going to be really cool for the Bay area’s independent music scene, as many of us from the Bay know. You know, we are a place where independent artists are working on and making really cool stuff, and that’s kind of KEXP’s bread and butter. So I think that’s going to be really exciting. I already saved the station and my favorites and my car.
Allan Montecillo: 92.7.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Yeah. Exciting stuff.
Maria Esquinca: Yeah.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: And Maria, what are you excited about?
Maria Esquinca: Well, it’s no surprise because I’ve talked about this a lot to Allan and ECG. April is National Poetry Month. I’m a poet, I love poetry, I think everyone is a poet. And so I’m very excited that there’s a whole month to celebrate poetry and a little tradition that we kind of have going on since I came on the show is that every April we feature a Bay poet, so listeners can expect that dropping in our feed sometime in April. And I do want, Plug Medicine for nightmares, which is a local bookstore in the mission, and they have tons of poetry events all year round. And so there could be someone to, to look for and. Yeah.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: And what about you, Allan?
Allan Montecillo: Oh, I mean, it’s March Madness. There are brackets going on at KQED. I think third and fourth right now in both the men’s and women’s side. There’s a batch of games this weekend. Stanford is still in. I have them going to the Final Four, but losing to Iowa in the finals. Sorry, but I can’t bet against Caitlin Clark. But that that’s a lot of what I’m looking forward to in the in the next week or so.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, Maria, look forward to celebrating National Poetry Month with you and Allan. Good luck in your March Madness bracket.
Allan Montecillo: Thank you.
Maria Esquinca: Thank you.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. Shout out to our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan, for the tape that you heard in this episode. The rest of our podcast team here at KQED includes Jen Chien, our director of podcasts, Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager, Cesar Saldana, our podcast engagement producer, Maha Sanad and our podcast engagement intern, and Holly Kernan, our chief content officer. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Peace.
