Several ballot measures including proposition c, which would overturn the ban selling or distributing e cigarettes. Two housing measures including a 600 million Affordable Housing bond that mayor london breed supported appears to be headed for victory. Still no winner in the close contest to elect San Franciscos next district nd attorney. Thouof ballots are left to be counted. For most of the week interim has climbed to a slim lead over chase houboudine. And editor, columnist joe esconozzi, welcome to both of you. Lets start with the to the topic, breezing to the easy reelection, getting almost 70 of the vote. Did she get joa mandate, i dont know if i could use the term mandate, but i thin she got enough votes. You would have to be splitting hairs to say thats not a good enough percentage. What i would look at if i were in mayor breeds inner circle is the vast number of people vo whd for mayor and just skipped it. Tens of thousands of people. The statistics we know a anthir offranciscans apparently want to leave. You know, disturbing circumstances like these and that a fringed candidate with disturbing racist views would get v15 of tes. And that could show some cracks in the base of the moderate movewint specifically right leaning chinese americans. And so given that he is somewhat popular ancithe is going, now why werent there more people running against them . Anto have a serious mayoral campaign. Between june of last year and e now and ly people in the position to do it would be mark leno and jane ki and that just wasnt on the radar for them. And they are filling out, you know, the lay mayor, and the service as mayor, and so obviously they will need a little more time. And you would think if you had four years instead of the time that there might have been more opposition to her and nonetheless, prop a we mentioned briefly, the housing bond, a victory for her and that is somthing she supported along with many other people. What does that mean in terms of what shell be doing going rward. Obviously housing,g homelessnes are sues in the city. Huge issues. I mean we would look at the citys controller that was released and housing is on the minds of people who are considering whether they want to stay in the city or leave. I ink her challenge is trying to figure out how to house l of our homeless populations. They need a place to stay and housing is st expensive to build. It will take a while to build, you know, from the Mayors Office that it will take about 700,000 to build an Affordable Housing unit and about five years, the most expensive place in the world to build. Its expensive. Theres a lot of reasons why and so that is going to be the challenge in trying to get housing units, not just for pl incople and middle income people and also for extremely low income people who are sleeping on the streets. I want to abtalk t the das race and the district five race where the mayors appointee is struggling to get elected onr n against dean preston, the tenant rights attorney. Whatifference will the outcome of that make in terms of what mayor breed could do with the board of supervisors . It will be significant. Its not going to be game changer, but it will be more difficult for mayor breed if you are hand picked and a former aid replaced by someone who ran against you and is one of your more opponents. He almost beat london breed. Yes, he did. And so there is a progressive super majority on the board and if they replace them, there will not be a ymmoderate block e. And it will be a couple of moderates and some factions of the progressive. There will be more to make things difficult for her and to propose whatever they want, it push n front of her. That could certainly be a pain for the mayor in moving forward. The votes are still being counted and it is exaordinarily close. In terms of Affordable Housing and homelessness, erica, you would think th there would be a natural coalition with almost anybody on the boeyd of supervisors. Ll want to do something about that and there is a split is there not between more progressives and what they want to do wh it comes to things like getting people with mentalt illness off the st ⌞ right there, is always a difference in politics and how to solve the homeless crisis. Even the housing cris in building low income housing, spending money on the top of the market to let them sort of trickle down. To house people through that withwo different ways. Honestly sometimes you forget how long it will take to build housing so when thyou k that they would trickle that it will take a little while before those units there, and then again we know its toexpensive build in services. Lets talk about the d. A. s race. At one is reallynip and tuck and they would play into that as well, shortly before the election, he will step down and the mayor will appoint one of the four people runni for the d. A. Who is clinging to a very slim lead throughout the week. What influence do you think pp thatntment made on voters . I think it helped and hurt and we ne to note that the mayor and her advisers were aware of the potential blowback, though not as much as they got and they were ofaware the polling that would show a low name recognition by appointing thto the post, she was able to fire out a mountain of press releases that are approaching all the items thathey care about and her opponents gripe, they were her ideas. Now stealing good ideas, it is a tried and true position in politics, that complaint just goes so far and a very tough argument to sait was anything, but the political appointment, and that we may or may not be le to see that as we sift through the adults. I want to talk about her main opponent, but before we do that, i want to show you a clip on election ght at her headquarters and to say she would capture a chant that was shown. I just want to note before we play the clip that it is blurred out and bleeped out because of what she was saying, but lets look at it. Just a quick translation there, she was saying f thpoa being the Police Officer association. And what is we will ge nto whether thats appropriate, but whats the history of toanger rds the poa . The poa had led a charge. They had law enforcemen agencies all arounto dump tomoney the d. A. s race to boost both and then in some of the harshest terms with villains who look like they would be on that market production. But a white. Will it was dog whistle, but not a whistle whistla and it has beenbig force in San Francisco politics for quite a long time and ile they still have a lot of money, they have been losing race left and right and fairly late. And they are out of step with them even. They are a step with almost everybody in the city and they still have that unionized representation so you could say they would have it coming with regards to that frustration. I dont think that it will be wise to do that in public that y and to play into their narrative that they would tell their cops that everybody hates you and only we could represen yo it was an unwise thing to do. Just quickly as they were put on the ballot. They would overturn their ban on ecigarettes and sales. And of courat the very end ou after spending 18 million, they pulled back of it because of all the bad publicity. What is the implication, the fact that they so soundly, 81 of the voters saying no, were going to keep that ban. And you thknow would have like 160,000 in votes, u know, one of the measures that showed them the polls, considering what else was on ba thot and that housing bond measure and that proposition got 169,000 votes. So it is just the contentious matter that the fact th youre at home that will bring them to the polls for this one, you kn. And just the last word for you. I dont think that they would pull back because of bad publicity, but the campaign that they were running locally was undermining e goalof getting the fda approval. And they were shooting themselves in that foot by claiming that they are a smoking sensation device and doing so in a way that they were undermining their efforts with the fd a d consulting the fda, which is not a good thing to do. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. On monday san jose mayor d e coalition of californias mayors and supervisors, in urging the states top regulator to turn pg e into a customerowned cooperative. More than two dozen lawmakers from northern and Central California have signed onto the efforts, representing nearly five million pg e customers. Meanwhile on tuesday Governor Newsom met with billjohnson in sacramento. Last friday the governor announced the appointments of the new energy czar saying ulth state cotake over if it doesnt emerge from bankruptcy by the start of next onars wildfire se joining us now is our politics correspondent. The former president of the blic utilities commission, now welcome to both of you. Lets thbegin this letter. What is the case that the mayor and all the other people that are turning this into a customerowned utility . K their case will trwhat people would like to see them take it over and anybody that would like to see sort ofthe current structure resolved. Traded company, they are being paid dividends. You have bondholders who are making money off the bonds that they would issue and they think that, you eyknow, have lost that Public Confidence and if it could become sort of something thats customer owned and not traded on wall street that you wod have more money to reinvest in the system and you might be able to rebuild that confidence. Maintenance and because you need to make the shareholders and just the distrust that we would have for the company which is very widespread. It is one of the few non partisan issues that you can see thate have seen over and over again, you know, starting with the Energy Crisis 20 years ago, up to the san bruno explosion in 2010 through the wildfires and a sense that safety is not inthat culture of this company and it is something dramatic that needs tochange. Any kind of model for this or in californielsewhere . Absolutely. There are publicly owned utilities in every state of the nation incluiang in califo about 20 of our power right now thatill come from the governmentowned utilities. Like smud . Oalpalo and so it is not a radical experiment, but it is what happens tokeep their lights on every day. How much dissatisfaction there with those Public Utilities . Is there more confidence you would say . Es, absolutely. And it is just that fact that they are mosafer, they are reliable, cleaner, and they are cheaper. Now they are not perfect and there are always problems with the in der shenanigans in any systems. So you have to get it right, you have to make sure that ople are not financially conflicted. But the public power is power that is cheaper, better, quicker, cleaner. We did ask for a action to what the mayors letter said. Partly reads thwe will share the governors focus on reducing the wildfire risk and r the same goal of fairly resolving the wildfire claims and exiting the chapter 11 process as quickly as possible. Kind of a vanilla statement i would say. Not too much. I think pg e at this po t trying to keep their heads above water and to see w to put forth that Restructuring Plan that will be acceptable to Governor Newsom and other lawmakers. There are challenges to bringing ts company in particular public, whether that is a coop, essentially only meaning rate payers in the rv e area, the bigger government takeover, as they would really mean the taxpayers and the e,entire steven those who are not impeaching the service territory. One of the is still dont know the total cost of the last few years of the wildfires. Now that would be tran erred l of us. we are paying for it any way and i do think that there are some questions about that. In loretta, they would say this week the total liability could be Something Like 6 billion. Thats lot of money, but if you are spreading it out, getting maybe th loans, as the public entity, maybe you could get a better rate, for example, than you could from bondholders . The profit in the system and plow it had back either to pay the victims, workers, or to improve safety. What we know is that they have once over and over and over again done the wrong thing. Their Corporate Culture is one of corporate negligence, cutting corners. California just simply could not afford to allow them to remain a private utility where they would cut the corners, where they are always looking for the profit and nofor safety or reliability. One of the things gavin newsom said and i will ask you about this has been in his words cozy with the utilities of over the past coupl decades. What are your thoughts abait that . Cethat period under michael brown, you know, that he did not d. Get reappointe he chose to go away. Is that a fair criticism . I think it has changed the last few years to some extent. You know, that we saw slews of n mails in that uno ca, where he was being wined and dined and where they were gun shopping for the favorable administrad ve law structure. Was very i mean theres no question that it was a culture of coziness best. But i do think Michael Picker who jerry brown t pointed after pb ldid try to change that. I think theres a lot of criticism for regulatrs to go aroundnd that we asked him to do a lot and that safety was not necessarily the main charge of the cpuc. It always should be, of course, but it wasnt the extent. I think you could ask that question why didntboth pg e and cpuc see this wildfire Climate Crisis coming. I think t we dow yet. Well, first of all do you think thats a fair criticism of the puc . Yes, absolutely. They were complicit. When i was there we were a watchdog. And the very first thini did and the first month i was there to order pg e to trim their trees and we would find them for cutting corners on maintenance and safety. It is true for the last 15 years the puc has been oped and not concerned about safety. Now we were and what happened instead of trimming the trees and doing the right things, pg e, 15 years ago, they chose bankptcy to get out from under californias control. And w remember they chose bankruptcy this time too. And we are seeing San Francisco has been flirting with municip powers for a long time and mayor london d brs not one that signed that letter and they would set off. And how is it that those bears are proposing others than what san frantasco is ing about . On the basis, the idea is taking away sort of the grid and the Delivery System from pg e. And making it either a coop or a government entity, arguably similar things. I think the challenge for san sc franis that taking away the San Francisco part of the grid doesnt really address the underlining problems. But we are talking about our transmission lines, they have been kept and where there are tree issues and they have not started in urban areas. So i will have a hard time believing that regulators are even gng to allow San Francisco to take over and if there is not a broader Restructuring Plan that could really change the dynamics, leaving uteveryonede the urban area. And now you need to Pay Attention to politics, i know as they would now own this, whether or not they like thd. They do. What are the risks for him politically in any of these at options hes confronted with . Both the governor has a whole will need to get that right. They could not allow them to get it whereon yet again. Its bad for our economy and bad for our business and bad for our family. But the esal on here is not is it technically possible or is fit evancially possible . And because it is. Now todays maet cap of pg e is 3. 2 billion. Thats purchasable if you want to go and purchase their stock and the huge question is it politically possible . And will the cielected polis do the right thing here. And that i woaud apmayor lccardo answering about that questi and for california and not whats best fopg e. All right, political mind fields. Yes, think Governor Newsom says there is no secret that they would have broader ambitions for Northern California and this really is an issue, obviously attracting national attention. If they could fix it, it a is huge win. If they cant, it could be the end of the political career. And that is who you would work for. Now tell them a little bit about that. Im sorry to bring thatup in the end. A cautionary tale. Exactly. All right, thank you both thank you. Who owns Silicon Valley . Thats the question asked by a team of reporters om kqed, the mercury news, and several other bay area ws outlets. The yearlong collaboration investigated top la. Owners of the regi a role in a housing crisis that led to sky high rentand hours long commutes. Among the findings, Stanford UniversitysProperty Holdings are worth nearly 20 billion. Thats more than google, apple, and intel combined. And also this week apple pledged 2. 5 billion to combat the housing crisis, saying it is, committed tobeing a part of the solution. Joining me now is rachel semyro or editor of the Silicon Valley news desk. Hi, rachel. Hi, scott. What were you settg t to do in this yearlong project . We wanted to find out who were the big players. How do you find that out from a data perspective . You start with the assesss office. One of the l wonderthings about having a multinewsroom collaboration was we were able to have a team of data reporters from the mercury news, nbc bay area. Going into this data, which is pretty messy, li by line, cleaning it up, figuring out who owns the most land. And also who owns the most valule land. And so obviously Stanford University is the 800pound gorilla here by far. And how did they acquire so much land . Well itall started with leland stanford, the ofdad leland jr. Who, of course, whom the university is named after. He was one of the original Big Four Railroad rrens, robert from the guilded age. And toin additiopurchasing a beautiful knob hill mansion in San Francisco, he also developed the Country Estate that grew and grew overtime to the point where he finallytook over that land. Thats a ndlot of stanford has what i would say a re benign or positive reputation than say facebook or google these days any way. And so o how should welook at them when it comes to these issues of the ishousing cr well thats an interesting estion, right many their community is more than 34,000 people. When you add the undergraduate students, the service workers, the nu e practitioners at their medica would have more than one. And a very big employer, rather than organization that will bring in a oflot people to its these tech giants. Yeah, and google and facebo, they had announced a billion dollar contribution for housing and then apple this past week, 2. 5 billion. And so how much housing could built withthat kind of money and why are they coming forward now . Are they feeling the pressure basically . Ithink a lot of these organizations, they are waking up to the fact that the housing crisis has grown in the bay area wre communities arnow asking landowners, organizations with a lot of wear with what they could do to soften the edges of the housing crisis that they would help to create. It is tonot fairblame stanford, even though it had a big hand in creating Silicon Valley. Its not fair to blame them alone and there are a lot of factors playing into the housing crisis. Starting to ask more of these organizations. Right. For quite some time. Has the similar kind of pressure been placed on an rd or should it be . And i think that we see the collapse erfor their most g use permit. I an example on how their conversation have changed between stanford and Santa Clara County official and that every 10, 15, years, they would sort of create that game plan for how thwa to grow and expand year by year in Santa Clara County, for the most part that has gone through without a hitch. We saw e county pushing back with the demands for the campus to mitigate some imof thcts of their suspected growth in the next 15 years. And it is not st tharea that will have that housing crisis that will be expensive everywhere in the bay how they compare . Goodness gracious. I mean you have a sense where it is just getting to the dysfunctional place where it is not just a few people who are working class or forced out of the community, but now tens of thousands of people. If you ke less than six figures and even if you do make six figures t is very hard to live here. Not just because of the housinga crisis and e of the traffic and because of the underfunded Public Schools that there are a lot of reasons that the bay area has become a less pleasant feasible place for many peop to live in. Because of the expensive and more people especially if e they are not highlevel further and further away, which exacerbates the commute. Exactly. You have these commutes. And they are stanford workers who have been making these commutes. Just before county supervisors were to vote on this general use application and i think conversation about gro e the bay area has changed. Is what are you hearing as a result of the investigation from stanford or anyone else . They have not contacted us directly. To talkveabout it. We did an opportunity to talk with them, but not on tape for this collaborative investatio its hard to know exactly what led totheir final decision to withdraw that application, what they plan to do next. Do you get a sense . I thk he told you that they have never been turned down, in all the dedes. Do you get a sense that there will be a shift in that way that Public Officials wibe looking at not just stanford, but the other developers, the Corporate Developers . Absolutely. There has always been some give and take. Depending on the city or the county, whenever you have a large developer, proposed massive extension and will in june, the Santa Clara CountyPlanning Commission unanimousl approved theplication and just that they came back with turns that stanford watot willinmeet. Rachel, thanks so much for your reporting. Real interesting series. Atll do it for us as always, you could find more of our coverage on kqed. Org newsroom. Im scott shafer. Thanks so much for joining us. Robert impeachment testimony goes public and a blue wave sweeps the suburbs. We will bin our open hearings in the impeachment inquiry next week. Robert ahead of public testimony, transcripts reveal newetails about the president and his advisers and democrats make their case. We he not heard a single witness come in and provide testimony that would suggest this was anythg other than defense dollars for dirt. Robert republicans balk at the process, dismissing suggestions of quid pro quo. Wrote in report was a lie. G he my phone call was a perfect. The whistleblower, because of that, should be revealed. Rt roplus, Election Results g. O. P. Uburban challenges for the