Transcripts For KQEH KQED Newsroom 20140809

Good evening, welcome to kqed newsroom, im scott schafer, thuy vu is off tonight. As colorado and washington surge ahead, polls show a growing number of americans support legalizing pot. Four years ago, california voters rejected a statewide ballot measure to legalize Recreational Marijuana use, but plans are under way to put the question before voters again in 2016. Governor jerry brown opposes the idea, but Lieutenant Governor gavin newsom is chairing a task force to study the issue. Thuy vu spoke to him earlier. Lieutenant governor gavin newsom, welcome to the program. Good to be here, thanks. Well, you did not take a stand in californias prop 19 four years ago, a measure that would have legalized cannabis. Voters rejected it. Why are you supporting legalizing marijuana now . Prop 14 i was a coward, i didnt give it a lot of thought, i tried to get excuses. There were parts i legitimately would not argue for today that could have created a real patchwork that was difficult, but i admired the courage of those that put that on the ballot; to begin the conversatin and knew on the failure on the war on drugs. Had prop 19 not have been on the ballot, you would not have had a Colorado Initiative and Washington State initiative to move forward on this debate. So i admire that. That said, about two years ago someone asked me the question and i couldnt share my private thoughts any longer without the courage of sharing them publicly and i said i support moving in a new direction, taxing, regulating for adults this drug in a thoughtful way that does our best to keep it out of the hands of our children. But how would you do that, how would you go about regulating the manufacturing, sale of american . Thats why we put together a task force to ask and answer the tough questions. The biggest challenge with prop 19 is a lot of those questions remained silent while there were aspects of that initiative, there were other things left silent that left a lot of people wanting and expressed a lot of concern about what this actually would mean. Were trying to answer those tough questions now in anticipation of putting it on the 2016 ballot. Let me give you examples what that means. Is it for 21 year olds or 18 year olds . What are the advertising restrictions . Whats the appropriate tax, if you tax too high, you still have a black market. What happens to existing medical marijuana clubs . Are you going to be in a competition, is it an appropriate tax for the medical marijuana clubs substantially lower than for the forprofit clubs . Do we restrict licenses . Who are the prioritized, what do we do about duis . I could go on with a dozen other questions that were asking and answering in this task force that we have to look people in the eye and be able to respond to before the initiative finds its way on the ballot in 16. Obviously, a lot of questions. There are polls showing now the majority of americans support legalizing marijuana, but still a lot of concerns. According to Columbia University center for addiction and substance abuse, about 9 of adults who use marijuana do become addicted. Opponents say it could be the gateway for other more dangerous drugs, kids could swipe their parents cannabis supply. How do you respond to that . All those are legitimate concerns, i get it. I have three kids, i dont want them using and abusing the drug. I dont like the drug, i dont like the smell, i dont want it at parks and playgrounds and people walking down the sidewalk smoking marijuana. Quite the contrary, i dont like drug abuse or drug use, that said, i dont like the war on drugs even more, a war on people of color, people in poverty. We spent 40 years drumming the beat of this war on drugs, aggressively expand our criminal Justice System and weve wasted 1 trillion and the drugs are more powerful than ever. We have to have an honest and thoughtful conversation. You cant be flipping about this. I dont know of a parent that wants to see their children using and abusing drugs. There are real and legitimate concerns about Brain Development for very young people, young teenagers that are using this drug. It is a powerful drug. That said, incarcerating people, wasting money on the criminal Justice System, continuing to perpetuate a mythology that we can do it in a way that does not discriminate, i think that needs to be questioned. We need to be judged to a much higher standard, a thoughtful standard, time to regulate. Time to tax, time to focus on doing our best to create reduction strategies. Having said that, though, you talked about the war on drugs, but do you run a risk here of creating a different kind of crime . For example, colorado, where Legal Marijuana was legalized, marijuana was legalized this year. Law enforcement officials there are using a new problem, they have documentation showing marijuana from colorado has now shown up in 40 other states, selling for up to three times the price. Are we risking creating a new black market . Of course. All these things need to be worked out, and i think, look, you have to be open to argument in this debate, you cant be ideological about it, and if you are, youre not going to persuade a lot of people that may be on the fence on this. Most people now, and your polls show that, agree that something needs to change. And theres been a real push now people saying, all right, maybe we should decriminalize it. All of a sudden theres a different debate there because some people have had the courage to talk about legalizing it. Even folks on the right, rick perry, Grover Norquist and other interesting folks out front on this, George Schultz for years and years, william f. Buckley in his day, William Freeman talking about moving in a different direction. Most people would acknowledge the idea that the federal government has in their controlled substances act marijuana sitting side by side with heroin and lsd and above in terms of its potency and problems, above methamphetamine and cocaine, thats absurd and its time we become more mature on this topic, have courage of our convictions, try to bring people that are concerned, parents, on to a conversation or on board a conversation where we can work through the black market concerns, work through the legitimate cultivation concerns, the issue of edibles, which are real concerns i have, particularly as a parent, and how we do this in a thoughtful and judicious way. Quickly, when will the task force finish its report . Weve been together for about a year and have a series of subcommittees and hope by the end of this year were going to have a report that will begin to inform a real discussion around an initiative that will start getting signatures around this time next year. Before i let you go, i want to ask you quickly about the bay bridge. There are allegations that caltrans not only accepted sub standard work, but also tried to silence engineers who were critical. State transportation secretary brian kelly is ordering the chp to investigate. Do you think there should be a criminal investigation . I think there should always be an investigation of the facts, whether thats criminal or more traditional investigation, thats above my capacity at this point with the facts ive been presented to judge. That said, if the allegations prove to be true, people need to be held accountable. Its impact is so much bigger than the bay bridge. It impacts peoples confidence in a high speed rail system and perhaps more problematic than anything else, impact peoples judgment given the opportunity to address the number one issue, infrastructure issue in the state, and thats water and water bonds. So we need to be held to a higher rate of accountability and if something was done wrong, people need to be fired and need to be, i think, we need to as taxpayers be confident were doing everything we can to be honest and thoughtful about that. All right. Well, Lieutenant Governor gavin newsom, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. And now a look at the state of the arts in northern california. This week the sacramento philharmonic and opera cancelled their upcoming seasons in the face of financial problems. The decision leaves sacramento as the only u. S. City of its size without an active symphony orchestra. Earlier this year, san jose rep filed for bankruptcy and also scaled back operations and furloughed its staff. And yet as some companies struggle, others are clearly thriving. Whats behind their success . Joining me to provide insight are marc bamuthi joseph, artistic director of center for the arts in San Francisco, rebecca ratzkin, Senior Consultant with wolfbrown, a National Arts consulting company, and tom decaigny, Cultural Affairs director for the San Francisco arts commission. Welcome to all of you. When we hear the news coming out of sacramento, as we did this week, san jose earlier, is there a common theme that you see or is each story unique . Well, you know, every story has a little uniqueness, because every market is different. However, every organization is dealing with the same challenges of a changing environment, both in terms of demographics and in terms of general consumer behavior, the role of social media in Decision Making and consumption, the changing patterns of music consumption via pandora and spotify is changing the arts in general and funding mechanisms. When we hear about a cancellation of the season, is that a shock, or are there a lot of warning signs along the way . Its hard to say. I cant speak specifically to sacramento, but some are shocking and some people have heard about for a long time. There have been so many stories now, i wouldnt say in general looking at the field that its shocking anymore. Tom, how does the city assess the sort of play, the field of play in San Francisco . How healthy are the arts, from your perspective . Well, San Franciscos lucky in that we have the largest number of nonprofits per capita of any city in the country, so we have a robust arts ecosystem. That said, we know the cost of living challenges and affordability issues we face in San Francisco are a huge barrier to the thriving arts scenery and our arts and cultural nonprofit organizations, many of them, are struggling for affordable real estate. The city recently allocated 2 million to help mitigate that displacement, but we have a lot of work to do on a policy level to look longterm at what these solutions are. Mark, when you think about building an audience, what does that mean today . Youve got everyone can have an audience on their youtube channel, their social media, whatever it might be. How do you go about that . You know, when you mention youtube, you mention social media, i think that is part of the fallacy, because those are platforms for entertainment and i think historically, the symphony or the theater or the ballet are places where inspiration happens. The market share for entertainment is oversaturated. You can have a million views on youtube, but that doesnt necessarily qualify you as an agent of inspiration, and i think where our literary agents are, where our cultural spaces thrive, are when we tap into audiences that are looking to be inspired over the threshold of entertainment. And part of that, rebecca, or any of you really, is about building new audiences, younger audiences, more diverse audiences. Yeah, as you were speaking, marc, i was thinking about where is there potential connection, not necessarily to dumb down the arts, because we dont want to remove the inspiration, but can we work with Digital Strategies and live strategies to create that connection and bring people into a more intensive and interactive environment they are seeking . People want to be engaged. Yeah, i agree. One of the ways i think weve been successful at the center is through Diverse Revenue strategies, but no one has kind of pulled the magic lever of monetizing virtual space, certainly not in the context of nontraditional art spaces, but i think that the question begs us to wonder at what point are we trying to activate our audiences . What do you mean activate . Are we introducing audiences at the point where they are witnesses to objects, witnesses to a play, or witnesses to an opera . Or are we engaging them at the point of the inquiry, the point where the light bulb goes off for, you know, the general audience. Not a passive observer, but participant maybe . Absolutely. Beyond being precipitory, i think we can be collaborative at the point of inspiration, we can be more pedagogical, i think, in our approach to sharing audience and sharing ideas. And tom, when you look at the landscape of arts organizations in San Francisco, how do you assess how healthy they are, or are they doing that for themselves or are they too small sometimes to really figure that out . It really varies, and i think there are a lot of indicators that we look at to the health of an organization. The robustness of the audience and participation of the audiences, how reflective they are of San Francisco and our visitors to San Francisco, and their balance sheet, you know, their financial picture, and are they able to diversify revenues, are they able to draw audiences, but also are they able to seek investors, people willing to invest in their work, and are they challenging audiences to think and is it dynamic and is there a high quality of artistic excellence . I think this point of the arts is kind of critical to Critical Thinking and inquiry, they are critical to a democracy. The arts are reflective of our human condition and where we are as a society. Thats what artists do, kind of remind us of our moment in time, but also set a course for the future. When you think, rebecca, as the size of an organization, do Larger Organizations have an inherent benefit or disadvantage, or does it really depend . It really depends, you know, i think a lot about capacity for organizations, both in terms of doing and learning and implementing, and often i think about capacities being one about prioritizati prioritization. A lot of people think Large Organizations do have the benefit because they might have a larger budget, more Diverse Income streams, they might have more staff, but they still struggle. They still struggle for money. They still struggle for audiences. Its just were talking about Different Levels of scale, so less nimble probably, as well, right . And they are less nimble. Organizations like orchestras traditionally, Opera Companies traditionally, are planning their seasons out three years ahead of time, so even if somebody decides to cancel a season, there are other contract issues. Go ahead. I think its also important that they are part of an ecosystem. Those Large Organizations might have Union Artists and thats a really important part of the ecosystem, especially in a cost of living like San Francisco. We need to understand they also feel emerging artists and they invest in emerging artists through other platforms and they are also critical to their success. Sometimes when you go to some of the Larger Organization venues, the ballet, the opera, the audience is not that diverse in terms of age, socioeconomic status, race, that kind of thing. How important is diversity and cultivating diverse audiences, and how do you do it . You know, i think we want to tie the Structural Integrity of all of our cities to the cultural stability and diversity of the arts. As manifested, you know, in the arts. Now, how do you do mention continue to validate the privacy of the object itself, the opera itself is the reason why you should go as opposed to the people that will be at the opera, being part of the ritual of performance is another reason to attend. Do they, all arts organizations need to think about diversifying what they are presenting, making it perhaps shorter, more interactive, that sort of thing. Yeah, its kind of to this point Audience Development is about programming. We talk about marketing, but were starting to talk about it more in the context of programming, so what is it that appeals to people, and talking about diversity is important in terms of talking about being relevant to your community, however you define diversity. In the city of San Francisco, we have a Grant Program called the cultural Equity Grants Program and that is happening in Many Organizations successfully in San Francisco, and that happened in small, mid, and largesized budget organizations, but there is that happening successfully and i think San Francisco and the bay area generally speaking is help leading the way about investing in that work. All right, exciting and also very Turbulent Times in the arts. Thank you all very much, tom decaigny, marc bamuthi joseph, and rebecca ratzkin. Thank you. Thank you. The number of assisted living facilities has doubled in the last 25 years, while the industry has grown dramatically, theres been little regulation or oversight. Kqed public radio is airing a series on assisted living and joining me now is kqed Health Reporter april dembosky. Hi, april. Hi. Lets begin, what is assisted living and how does it differ from say, Nursing Homes . Nursing homes are for people that are really sick, People Living with a feeding tube or ventilator or otherwise need roundtheclock care. Assisted living is for folks who dont need that kind of medical attention, but just need a little bit of help to live independently. Assisted living will provide three meals a day, theyll provide help with managing medication or getting bathed and dressed in the morning. Really basic care. Whats behind this explosion and the number of assisted Living Centers . Well, the number has been growing, a number of people have been moving into assisted living facilities, but part of whats also changing is that the people who are living there are also growing a lot older and a lot more frail, so youre starting to see the population living in assisted living start to look a little bit more like the population living in Nursing Homes. However, the care hasnt kept up and the regulation hasnt kept up. So theres no requirement for a nurse to be on staff, for example. And one of the things you reported this week on kqed is that its difficult in california, relatively speaking, to get information, to find out before you put a loved one in assisted living, what kind of reputation they have, what kind of record they have. Exactly. Some of the facilities will have their own website, but thats really a marketing device. You know, place where you can go to get objective information doesnt exist in california, despite the fact that we have it for a hotel or a car or anything else that you want to shop for and thats one thing some lawmakers really want to change. They want to see all information about citations and complaints posted online where people can find them. And other states already have that, right . A number of states already have that, make it really easy for consumers to shop and compare. And whats really terrible about that is, there are some really egregious things that have happened in california. People who have died in the care of assisted living, suffered really serious injuries, but most people cant really theres no way to really find it. And its scary, because this is a big decision, a lot of times people put a loved one in assisted living and cant be there personally all the time to check in. Exactly. Theres legislation in sacramento, a package of bills. Give us a sense of what are some of the things theyd address. Theres one bill that would require the state to develop a consumerfriendly database. The state has in the last two months actually started to put some information online. It only lists the number of citations or complaints at a facility, but it gives no detail whatsoever. This system would require them to put an easy Rating System in place, a kind of one to five. Theres also legislation around fines, so, for example, if somebody does die in the care of assisted living and the state determines that its the result of neglect of the staff in an assisted living facility, the maximum fine is 150. This legislation would toughen that up . It would toughen it up, raise it to 15,000. Scott detrow has been a little under the radar up there, one of the most pressing issues, however, is water. So joining us now from the state capital to talk about that, our Sacramento Bureau chief, scott detrow. Scott, give us a sense of as of today whats happening with the water bond, theres already a water bond on the november ballot, but legislators want to change that, right . Thats right. They think the bond already on the ballot, which passed in 2009, is too expensive. The argument is, you know, given all the problems california has had with debt the last few years, theres not going to be a voter appetite to approve something that large. So theres argument about it and they are up against the deadline for getting this on the ballot in time. Everybody thinks that will come monday at the latest, if theres no bond agreement by monday, thats probably it. We have, of course, heard allegations theres a lot of pork in that bond thats already on the ballot. What are the things they want to strip out of it and what do they want to make sure is in it . Theres broad agreement there should be money for new Water Treatment programs, for water recycling programs. Theres been a lot of concern about groundwater during this drought. The aquifers are being sucked dry by people tapping into them. Everybody is onboard spending money treating that issue. The big Sticking Point is a lot of republicans and a handful of moderate democrats from Central Valley communities, want enough money to build at least two new reservoirs and say that will cost at least 3 billion, but governor jerry brown says he doesnt want to spend anymore than 6 billion and theres hesitance from other democrats to use half the water bond on reservoir products they are skeptical of. Scott, in the minute or so we have left, theres another issue up there, cap and trade, the states landmark legislation to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions is already being implemented, but theres some concern its being implemented too soon or they want to put the brakes on it a bit. Tell us whats going on there. Cap and trade goes into a new phase next year, and beginning next year, youre going to have to account for the fact the carbon and other Greenhouse Gases, gasoline in your car burns off, that means gasoline prices are going to go up, according to a lot of studies that are done. Theres a big pushback from the oil industry and a growing number of democrats who represent poorer communities saying lets slow this down, wait until the economy improved a bit more and delay that implementation a little bit. I cant imagine environmentalists are happy about that. They are not happy. They are upset about that. This is a top priority for Governor Brown and a lot of democrats and environmentalists make the point, if you delay gasoline and other transportation fuels, its pointless, because they make up about 40 of californias Greenhouse Gas emissions. So just quickly, the chances of this moving forward, any changes on the implementation timeline . I think youre going to hear a lot about it going forward, but the chances of a change are very slim. Like i said, Governor Brown simply wouldnt stand for that and would veto anything that got to his desk and wouldnt get there to begin with. Scott detrow, kqed Sacramento Bureau chief. Thanks a lot. Thank you. And april dembosky, thank you, as well. Thank you. And for all of kqed news coverage, go to kqed. Org. Im scott schafer, thuy vu will be back next week. Thanks for watching, good night. Im sorry, jack, but this case is neither unsolved nor open. Peter edelmann committed suicide. Derek always thought there was more to it than that. Yes, a lot more, according to his files, and none of it remotely plausible. Look id be the first to admit that some of dereks theories. I know he was a friend, jack. This is not about friendship, sandra. Its about loyalty a fellow Police Officer whose name is about to be dragged through the mud. Jack, if we take this case on, all that happens is that we end up looking every bit as crazy as derek. Wheres the harm in looking through the files unofficially . He may have missed something. Be honest, jack. If this file landed on your desk, and youd never even heard the name Derek Brooker i know, i know. Id think he was several sandwiches short of a picnic. But i knew derek, and he was a good detective. And if he thought that edelmanns death was suspicious, he mustve had grounds for it. Okay, then. Put it on the board