>> belva: good evening. i'm bell have a davis and welcome to "this week in northern california." joining me on our news panel tonight. tom vacar, ktvu news. rachel gordon, city hall reporter with the "san francisco chronicle." and wyatt buchanan, sacramento bureau reporter, also with "the chronicle." and josh richman, legal call affairs reporter with "the oakland tribune." how is california so far ahead of other states in implementing president obama's health care bill? >> we had a governor, former republican governor, who was very supportive of it. even before this new administration came to power, california was kind of ahead of the curve on this. former governor schwarzenegger signed legislation authorizing a -- the creation of a health care exchange, which is basically a state-run marketplace where unemployed californians will be able to get insurance. he appointed two relatively moderate people to it who are very likely to want to stay the course with the law as it was enacted. we actually got a little bit ahead of the curve even further yet by cracking down on insurance companies that didn't react well to the immediate mandate that they not deny insurance to children with preexisting conditions. we basically said, if you're not going to sell policies for kids, then you can't sell anything, any individual health policies here, for five years. so on and so forth. there's been a lot of movement in california since the federal law was signed. all of this has been happening over the last couple of months. it really came into focus this week as this political theater played out in washington, as house republicans voted on a bill to repeal the law that was enacted last year. i say political theater because i think even house republicans know it's not going anywhere. the senate won't take it up, the white house wouldn't sign it. and so, you know, they're basically operating on a political level more so than a policy level. they don't actually have a plan right now to replace it. they voted to come up with a plan this past week. but they say they'll come up with a plan eventually. it's really about the election. >> let me ask you, because they did run on repealing the health care reform bill. they followed through their promise. on the other hand, we're seeing polling showing the american people don't want the law repealed. it seems it's crossing each other. >> yeah, well it's going to be an interesting two-year election cycle now. if the gop really decides that they want to continue with making this a centerpiece of their political agenda, of rolling back these reforms that were enacted, it's going to be interesting to see how that meshes with this popularity, at least the popularity of individual aspects of it. >> that's the interesting part. they say, we don't want to roll back the pre-existing conditions, we don't want to roll back this and this. it's the heart what was people want for the reforms anyways. those are the issues they don't want to touch at this point. >> absolutely, absolutely. they've yet to say exactly what they want to replace it with. if you want to know how political this is, all you really had to see was the communications that the national republican congressional committee was putting out early this week about jerry mcnerney, the most vulnerable congressman in the bay area. will he vote to uphold this job-killing, budget-busting law? of course, he voted with almost all the house democrats to you hold the law, and they're pounding away at him. the only issue really about mcnerney in california, he's the only one they see as politically vulnerable. campaign tactic. >> obama care such as it's called, basically safe until early 2013 when that election is finalized. >> right. >> does this stop california from continuing to implement this, or does it retard the ability of the state to implement this, not knowing whether or not it's going to continue after that? >> what happened this week doesn't really get in the way of california's implementation. but house republicans being in the majority have some control over the purse strings now. and california's ability to really implement this over the next couple of years is going to depend on us having the money to go so, and we were counting on federal money to go that. that gets cut off, hard to see where it's going to come from. it's not like we have a lot of general fund money laying around. obviously with a $28 billion deficit. so that's where things could really get hairy. >> the federal government had set about $10 billion. i believe is what california would get. >> something like that. you know, governor schwarzenegger had estimated -- former governor schwarzenegger, excuse me -- estimated last spring that health care reform could cost about $2 billion or more a year. once we get this up and running. and yet, because of our budget problems, governor brown has now proposed cutting medical by $1.7 billion, lowering the doctor reimbursement rate. we're actually losing ground on the way that we finance health care in this state, while trying to, you know, advance and implement and even get ahead of some of the national reforms that are supposed to save us money in the long run, according to the congressional budget office, but going to cost some money in the short run to get it up and going. >> so of the monies needed, california doesn't have it. republicans could block the effort? >> could. could steinmy our ability to get it, yeah. >> so we may not be as far ahead as assumed? >> we're getting as far as we can, until somebody writes us a check. isn't that always the way? >> now, i notice that the republicans have taken some action to repeal abortion rights. >> yeah, and again, this is something that's been a matter of concern for the republicans all along. and you're going to see that continue to ramp up. there are certain catch phrases you're going to hear a lot of. job-killing. although the evidence of that is a little shaky. budget-busting. the supposed fiscal irresponsibility of this plan. although the cbo, congressional budget office, just said that repealing it is going to cost us a lot more. and hot-button social issues like abortion. this is what turns people out to the polls when you get down to it. >> well, at the bottom of what you're saying as to whether we have a health care reform bill that's going to be going forward or not has to do with the budget, and that brings us to your story, wyatt, about the redevelopment money that the governor would like to take possession of. tell us, how is this money used by cities and counties and why does the governor think he deserves to have it to help him fill that gap? >> sure. the redevelopment money is used by cities and counties. they designate areas, you know, that are urban blight, that they want to redevelop. sort of give new life to. oftentimes they're areas where private developers aren't motivated enough to go just in on their own. so if there's some public money ponied up, they'll join in and we can have this great new project. a museum, something like that. and governor brown -- what's happened is that it's funded through property taxes. the redevelopment money. once an area is designated as that, though, they'll get a portion of property taxes to further the redevelopment efforts, and when that money would have gone to schools, you know, police, fire departments, things like that. and so governor brown is saying, well, these things, you know, we've been cutting. you know, we've got a budget problem, let's stop this redevelopment. let's you decide if you want to do this locally. you can vote and have your projects locally. but no more taking the property tax money, we're going to give that back to the cities, the counties, the school districts. >> and the property tax money now is being held by whom? >> well, the redevelopment agencies. the local redevelopment agencies. they get a portion of the increase in value from the project. because you do this, you know, the property value goes up >> belva: it does supposedly spur economic development in communities when you have redevelopment areas? we're going now in san francisco, looking at the hunter's point 95al shipyard area, that's supposed to bring jobs for building it and creating new businesses there. spurring home growth there. it seems that maybe that's what you have to do is to be kind of short-sighted now to balance the budget but in the long term that could hurt communities that have relied on these redevelopment projects. well, a lot of academic -- i guess people who have looked at this question have said it's really not clear that this actually helps spur development that wouldn't happen on its own. you know, some say instead of, you know -- it just moves where the development happens. instead of it happening in this part of san francisco, well, it's going to happen over here. but it would have happened anyway. so, you know, that's a really open question on whether it actually, you know, does sort of the goal that it's intended to. and that's -- you're seeing a real push-back by cities. the league of cities had an event today in sacramento. a few hundred mayors and councilmen standing up, using rhetoric that we heard in the health care debate. this is a job-killing proposal, it's going to annihilate jobs in california, 300,000 jobs. people have taken a look at that and said it's not so clear that it actually -- >> belva : i mean, san francisco would not look like the san francisco we see today, the south of market area, the convention area, the museums that are here, would not look like that at all, would not have that kind of value. how can it be said that this would have just happened on its own? what happens in the redevelopment areas? don't they designate it as an area where you get sort of special treatments and tax credits and all of that stuff? >> yeah, that's right. and that's where the argument is a little bit. because you've got the redevelopment agencies saying, how in the world can you say this isn't having an effect? look at all these great things, you know, that we've built. and san francisco does have a long history with this. and it's interesting as this debate's come out just to see the number of developments and projects and things in cities that have redevelopment money in them. it seems like it's everything. >> i don't know the answer to this. maybe you don't. but i wonder if, with all of the plans we now have for the americas cup, and a lot of that has to do with rehabilitating piers, if we're going to lose money on that which could adversely impact the whole america's cup thing. >> i haven't seen that on the list. it might be -- i know the candlestick project is -- they've signed contracts and that's -- governor brown has said, if things are in the pipeline and moving, then they will be safe. but new things -- >> that's caused everyone to do this in a rush. we're going to forge these contracts right away and these plans right away because we don't want to lose out on the money. isn't that a concern of brown, that maybe we're not going to pencil out getting as much money from this as we expected because everyone's trying to get in right now? >> that is a concern. there's a great editorial cartoon in "the sacramento bee" this week, the new gold rush and all these cities and counties jumping for the redevelopment funds. and, you know, governor brown was asked on monday whether he might consider pushing for a freeze on this. he said that's something, yeah, he would like to take a look at. >> belva: but mayor brown used redevelopment money to make a great part of oakland's new waterfront. >> he sure did. >> belva: what does he say about that? >> he acknowledges that. he says at the time we didn't have a $25 billion deficit. and he actually was a little flip about it. he went to an event in front of all these city officials earlier in the week and tried to sell them a little bit on this plan. and he said, you know -- he mentioned the fox theater which is one of the projects. and he said, i'm sure glad we got that done before this budget came out. >> belva: well, that puts him in a rather peculiar position. and right now we have three cities, the three largest cities around in a peculiar position. they are all in turmoil about their police chiefs. >> oakland, san jose, san francisco are all going to be potentially in the search for police chiefs. it's always -- crime's always one of those bread and butter issues for constituents. being the police chief is a big deal in all these cities. there are two things that play right now. one, san francisco's police chief george gascon, fairly new to the job. he got appointed to be the district attorney of san francisco. he's a lawyer, he's never been a prosecutor. that was one of gavin newsom's last tasks as being mayor before he went on to the lieutenant governor's job. here's a vacancy in the d.a.'s spot because kamala harris went to the district attorney's office. san francisco will be looking for a new chief. anthony batts, police chief of oakland, well-loved by the constituents, the rank and file, a lot of the politicians like him. i might be going to san jose. which has a vacancy as well. he's one of two finalists to be the police chief of san jose. he just kind of dropped it on the mayor a week ago friday. he told his rank and file, the police union, that he's doing it. he's saying, right now i am the police chief of oakland, i might be going to san jose. then san jose is looking for its police chief as well. right now christopher moore, long-time police officer there, is in the acting position. he's one of two finalists for that job. there's a possibility maybe they'll do this big shuffle. rolling the dice and saying, you go to san francisco, moore, you go to oakland. you know. >> just going to rotate. >> it really has a lot of people just figuring out what to do. it puts the new mayor of oakland in a very difficult spot because oakland's crime rate is probably the number one issue on constituents' minds. >> you've covered this so long i guess my question to you is, police agency in a real sense kind of breathes on its own, operates on its own. while the chief is important and sets policy the reality is the policing goes on and on. will this be such a great upset or is it just because these people are relatively new, that it would be just hard to swallow all at once? >> i think it could be an upset, particularly for oakland. it's under fire in a number of places. especially when you look at police staffing and kind of police morale, not only within the department but wind the community. that was expecting to have a police force of 800 people, officers, now he has 650 people. a big touted community policing program had to be put on hold because of budget problems. it's a chance that oakland's police department could be put under federal receivership. because of the whole riders case, eight years ago or so, it's under federal monitor to make sure reform measures are put in place. oakland's not been able to meet those guidelines that the federal officials wanted. >> i think there's a community confidence dimension to this as well. batts, a very good speaker, communicator, spent time putting himself in the community, having get to know me meetings. and, you know, he's only been there a year, now it's like, i may be leaving. so i think a lot of people sort of have a little bit of whiplash from that as well. >> you're right, the police department will run regardless. but the police chief really does set a tone for the police department. are you going to come in as a reformer? are you going to come in as someone who's going to do status quo? for politicians can hide behind their police chiefs or blame their police chiefs for something. and gene kwon, it's going to be a big choice. if batts goes to san jose, she's got to figure out how you can attract someone to come to oakland. i was surprised, she's like, we're a admit-sized city, i can understand why someone would come here and want to go on to somewhere else. if i was trying to recruit someone i might say what a dynamic city we are in oakland, what opportunity and challenges to do community policing, to have diverse community, to do reforms there. >> she already had problems with her relationship with the police department. >> right. >> belva: she needed a good friend within the department to move forward and she's made some promises to some neighborhoods who have had lots of trouble. >> on the other hand, she was taken by surprise. by chief batts. she didn't expect him to go. in san francisco they're going to have to decide what to do as well. chief gascon came in after heather fong, career police officer who didn't have the support of the rank and file there. he came in as an outsider, one of the few who's ever been an outsider chief in san francisco, same kind of thing. dynamic, good public speaker, got the public behind him, the rank and file behind him. now they have to decide do they go to an outsider? do they go from within? they are thinking of putting another woman in charge, first lesbian in charge of the san francisco police department as kind of the front-runner for the job, denise schmidt. jeff godan is also there, he came from l.a. whether he stays in or not, i think that's when you're going to see some trouble. >> belva: san jose, it's got big problems. >> big problems in terms of community relations with the police department. large latino population there, there's been trouble in the past. there's been troubles with the police department and use of the tasers and fatalities connected with that. we're also seeing that like all cities, san francisco, oakland and san jose, there are real budget problems. you might have grand plans of how you want to do policing in your community. but budget constraints really keep police departments from doing that. >> seems like the coach should run around. coach goes from this team to that team. what about the team? what about the fans, ie, the citizens who are paying for all of this, watching this juggling? >> chris could go to one of the police departments. after a world series win, have a run at the police. >> maybe, i don't know. seems like they're hopping around. >> belva: tom, you refresh us on a story, the pg&e explosion in san bruno. what's been found out lately? >> just today the ntsb released a report, and without making any conclusions and without making any recommendations, they did say basically that what they found was that first of all, despite the fact that pg&e initially said this was a seamless pipe, that in fact it was a seamed pipe, and in fact they found cracked -- >> belva: explain that, that's important right there. >> when you make a pipe that is seamless, you kind of push metal through a ring and it comes out like as a whole piece. when you make a seamed pipe you take a flat piece of metal, bend it up, weld along the seam. that's basically what the difference is. done correctly, one can be as good as the other. that's not the problem. but apparently what happened here was, the met leisure gist that looked at this 50-foot section found cracked welds, and found there were some not all that good welds. this is welding that's 50 years old. on the other hand, you know, pg&e was relying on this to carry this enormous amount of gas under enormous pressure. so at least they say that it was not corrosion. they say that it was not any puncture. that it has something to do with these welds, ostensibly again without making any conclusions. as a result, pg&e has lowered the pressure in all of these similar pipes by 20%. just to add a safety factor. but the ntsb report really starts narrowing what needs to be done in order to worry about these other pipes that over the last eight years or so, there are about ten pipes in the system, big pipes like, this where they have spiked the pressure up to the maximum operating pressure, i think about 400 pounds per square inch, just to test them, see if they'll leak, see if they're good, all of that. if you have defective welds or have problems with welds or anything like, that then you run the risk of causing another problem. even though the pipes are probably graded for many hundreds of pounds of pressure on top of that. apparently this pipe had some sort of a problem that was not expected and was not believed was going to happen. bottom line is that they now have a pretty good idea of what happened. now they've got to get to the root cause of it, which will take more months. >> does pg&e not know what kinds of pipes it has somewhere, or was there some deception, and which would be worse? >> that's going to be a major question. the san mateo district attorney's office is interested in getting information from the california public utilities commission about what they knew and how they knew and it when they knew it and therefore what pg&e knew. so that's been delayed. and the d.a. is complaining about that. the question does go to the issue, did they know what kind of pipe it really was? or was it the fact that it was buried there for a half certainry, they method they knew what it was but they didn't. >> belva: let's talk about that. half century, 50, 60 years, records-keeping was different there, probably all by hand on some ledger put in someone's desk somewhere and you're lucky if he shared it with someone else. do we have any faith pg&e is trying to actually update their records now and make it that it's accessible to everyone except in a little small office? >> sure, and i think for most of their big pipes they have a pretty good idea. they can run these robotic checking machines and really take a look at them. seams, the welds, everything like that. the trouble is because this pipe is an amalgamation of pieces weldeding to, they couldn't get that kind of machine in there. the way you test is you sniff on the surface, do helicopters that look for methane traces, other kinds of things. if you want to know you stop the gas from flowing, fill it with water and pressurize it and see safely if this thing is going to fail or not. the trouble is that's expensive and you have to reroute gas and all that stuff. much easier, simpler if you put a whole lot of gas pressure there. the trouble is if something fails now you've got something highly volatile that can explode or cause a leak that may be very hard to detect. having said all of that, you're right. the record-keeping from 50, 60 years ago is way different. i saw a picture of san bruno back during that era of time. what you see is this little town sit is at the bottom of a hill, a couple of roads, nothing up top. when that thing was put in there they buried it, forgot about it. the city grew up around it. the trouble is the city grew up on top of it. >> is there any sense of what direction this is going? as far as how this is going to end up? how people are going to be punished? are we talking possible criminal penalties? is it civil, is it too soon to know? >> it's too soon to know. there are definitely going to be penalties. one of the things that is absolutely expected is you don't kill eight people and destroy almost 40 homes. that we know there's going to be some consequence to. on top of that you have other issues that are coming up. a number of lawsuits have been filed by people whose homes were destroyed and people whose families lost members and all that stuff. that's going to be one thing. the other thing that's fascinating about this is, and we go back to governor brown. when i went to the last puc meeting a couple of weeks ago there are three people sitting there. there's the president. and he's got a longer term but he can be taken out of the presidency. there's another person that's there for the long-term. there's one person that jerry brown has to reconfirm. there are two empty seats. jerry brown could completely change the complexion and the attitude of that to be a pro-consumer, much more tough on the utility industry kind of cpuc. one of the criticisms you hear about the cpuc from the utility reform group and other consumer groups is it's too much of a handmaden to the utilities. now they're saying, let's get people in who will be fair-minded brokers who have a present-public attitude. >> brown's point secretaappointy is a former pg&e executive, the person doing the vetting and checking on these people. >> when you have the utility reform group looking at that, it's likely one of their people, mike florio, is going to end up on the public utilities commission. he was on the electricity board for a long time. it will be interesting. but i promise you it will be a much more down the middle of the road kind of a organization than it was, say, six months ago. >> belva: just a few seconds. what's pg&e's attitude about this? >> i think they are absolutely at the operational level mortified. mortified as much as you could possibly be. the question is, does that extend all the way to the top? that's an issue that the investigators will learn. >> belva: my thanks to all of you for joining us here tonight. good discussion. and that is all for tonight. you can visit us any time at kqed.org/theweek to watch complete episodes and segments and subscribe to our newsletter and our podcast. and share your thoughts about the program. i'm bell have a davis. good night.