Politics we have been told is about the improvement of peoples lives. I know that the work i have been able to do has improved peoples lives. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. For a decade now, every time i would get tired or discouraged or frustrated i would think about the people i was doing this for and it would get me up on my feet. I know the same will be true for everyone who decides to pursue politics that is about improving peoples lives. I hope you know that i will be fighting alongside you every step of the way. With that, mr. President i yielded the floor. There you have it live from the United States senate, minnesota senator al franken addressing his colleagues and says he is announcing he will be resigning from the u. S. Senate. This comes after multiple women have come forward recently alleging franken harassed them. He did address some allegations. He said some are not true but others he remembers differently. He took immediate digs at President Trump and then roy moore. He called this the worst day of his political life. He went on to say that he will continue to be a champion of women. We are going to look to see who replaces him in the senate. With that, welcome. I want to dive into this with our political writer. You have been listening to the speech. He talked about the Ethics Committee and waiting for them to conclude but those days are gone. That is kind of a face saving thing. Lets be clear. This is a milestone moment in politics. This was a sitting us senator resigning because of public pressure led by democratic female senators to say enough is enough as it was set on facebook. Politicians rarely call out their own. Their own party. This is a time when they call it their own party. That said there is a political element. On tuesday roy moore may very well likely be the senator from alabama. This gives the democrats the high ground. They can say we got rid of our guy are you going to seat this senator . Can you roll us back a few weeks. In the case of al franken, largely there was silence and then there was a watershed moment just this week. Senator after senator they have said he has to go. What about the initial silence . The initial silence was al franken is seen as a solid senator. He has been solid. He is a moneymaker for the party. When he is on the road he can raise money. He is a good guy. Even all of the women who criticized him, the female democrats, they said he is a good guy. I like him personally. Now half a dozen women came forward and said he touched me inappropriately. May be one person you can excuse but if it is three, four or more and now two others, enough is enough. Obviously this is a political calculated decision to give the democrats the solid moral footing to criticize republicans but does it impact folks on the other side . Do they react in any way . We will have to see. The polls say that Sexual Harassment means a lot more to democratic voters. Something like 2 3 of the motor say it is a big deal but conservative voters it is not as high on their list. They do not feel the internal pressure from their base to respond and that is the difference. Also, this is kind of a perfect political scenario for democrats. There is a democratic governor in minnesota. He gets to choose the replacement so it is not like you are losing a seat. Minnesota is decently strong blue state and there will likely be a democrat replacing him eventually. This shows the power of the female voice in congress. You touched on it at the top and we watched that live. You can compare the counterparts in the senate. It was the female senators on the democratic side who got this done. Right, and there are still very few women, maybe 25 of the house is women. And there are many more democrats who are women. And a woman will be replacing senator al franken. Thats right. The people of minnesota deserve a senator who can focus all of her energy. Very subtle, but that was certainly solving some political problems for the democrats. Real quickly, he says he wants to remain a voice can he do that . Give him one year of going underground maybe do some writing but now he has to disappear. He is not a champion for women now. Publicly if he says i want to talk about women, nobody would listen. Okay, thank you for joining us. We have been turning to you with the question of the day. Do you think al franken should resign . 66 say yes, 34 say no. One viewer says others are stepping down with accusations at least one of the accusers has photographic evidence. There is no excuse. Renie says no not with roy moore being kept. It is a sad world we live in that this is an issue. Another viewer says the fact that he has the option is ridiculous. He should be fired and convicted. Thank you for your responses be sure to use our hashtag on twitter. One man is dead and his wife is in the hospital after a deadly case of Carbon Monoxide poisoning. This happened in bruneau heights this morning. Christien kafton is joining us live from San Francisco at the scene. What are neighbors telling you . Reporter the investigation is underway. We talked with a neighbor who lives in the upper unit and that is where the 911 call came from this morning around 4 25. Officials arrived here on scene and did confirm there was apparently a Carbon Monoxide buildup. They then began to ask about the downstairs neighbor. When they went downstairs they could hear a television on and nobody answered the door. Finally they forced the door open and discovered a woman unconscious. There was a man in the back unconscious as well. The woman was treated and is now being treated at an area hospital receiving treatment for Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Crews worked for 45 minutes trying to resuscitate the man, but he did die. The Fire Department is stressing the importance of having working Carbon Monoxide detectors in your home. Meanwhile the investigation is underway. At this point they believe it may have been a faulty water heater. You might be able to see in this home that there are pg e personnel here as well as the active Police Investigation trying to get to the bottom of what happened. So far, one man has passed away from Carbon Monoxide poisoning. His wife is being treated at a hospital for Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Four other residents hear god treated at the scene and they are okay. Two firefighters as well had some level of poisoning and they were treated and are okay. Certainly this is a warning for anybody going into the colder months to make sure your appliances are working and make sure you have a working Carbon Monoxide detector. Christien kafton, thank you. Lets move to the Southern California wildfires. Crews have a long day with fierce winds. Late yesterday fire crews started to get some containment on the big fires in los angeles and Ventura County. This could change with extreme wind being forecasted through tonight with wind expected so strong there is a purple wind warning, the highest level ever. The top fire Officials Say if the wind reaches 80 Miles Per Hour it would be impossible to control the flames being pushed. One death reported in the thomas fire in Ventura County which grew overnight. We have Cristina Rendon joining us live from the western part of Ventura County. Talk about the conditions where you are. What have you seen . Reporter morning. We have thick smoke in this air with low visibility and ash raining down because of the thomas fire burning on the hillside. We are in the community where you can see the hills are burning right behind the community of these homes. There is roughly 50 to 60 homes in this subdivision and all of the folks were told to get out. This is video from earlier this morning of the firefight in this community. Firefighters say that the flames were fanned overnight by erratic wind and they were concerned about the wind going into today because today they fear that it could reach 80 Miles Per Hour. One abandoned house didnt burn down but firefighters were able to save five homes over near this hillside including the home of one man who stayed behind to try to water down what he could. The flames came within five feet of his house and he said it sounded like a freight train. We could see the firemen show up and they took action and saved our house. My wife is in ventura right now. She could not bear the thought of this. She loves this place so much. She can see it, but this is a little community. It is a Little Paradise for us. Reporter that man was very emotional when he spoke to us. Taking a live look at the hillside, you can see the entire hillside burned from these flames. This community was under mandatory evacuation and now they have opened it up and people can come back in. These orders spread west to the Santa Barbara county line even for this little town. On the other side of the ridge is the community of ojai. Those people under evacuation because this thomas fire is growing and it is now at 96,000 acres. 150 structures have been destroyed and one person has died. They found a woman in her car. They believe it was a single car crash. Her death is the First Official death of the thomas fire. Coming up next, the paper that is asking high profile women from here in the bay area to share their stories of Sexual Assault and harassment. Coming up we will talk with the editor and the mayor of oakland. Welcome back. In recent months women have come forward sharing their experiences of Sexual Assault or harassment. Many of them using the metoo hashtag. The east bay express is publishing essays from women coming forward to tell their stories. We are happy to be joined by the editor in chief of the paper as well as the mayor of oakland, libby schaaf. You are watching in the green room as we heard from al franken stepping down. There will be a lot of coverage devoted to that. You wanted to switch the conversation. Yes i did. I thought in listening to the allegations that are coming forward particularly with one of the victims of harvey weinstein, what i was hit by was the psychological damage being done. I did not want to gloss over that. I wanted to recognize this sort of trauma that has been inflicted and to look at how it is impacting lives of women. Through your own essay, you detail your experience and i think a lot of us went through our own mental rolodex and think did that happen to me . What considers crossing the line but you detail what happened. Yes, i tried to talk about the different categories. Obviously there is the unwanted physical sexual advance which obviously falls short of assault. However, it can be just as damaging particularly when it comes from a trusted person. This is what happened to you starting at a young age. Yes. I talked about my experience with professors in college and that is such a sacred relationship. It is not just end when you finish with their class. When you are still enrolled or right out of school you are counting on that individual to validate your intellectual worth. As women we dont need sexual worth validated anymore. We get so much of that through the media but oftentimes we struggle to feel validated for our skills and intellect. When a professor violates the trust it really throws you into a crisis of confidence. Whether you are a student or professional people say you cant believe that. It is not just gender, it can be ethnicity or how someone looks and acts. Definitely. As an Asian American women woman i have faced bias and discrimination. You know, i think that it kind of compounds the sort of oppression that women face. Especially with in my case being sexually abused as a child. In my essay i write about how it compounds the levels of oppression. It just causes you to just doubt yourself to have shame and i think there is so much stigma attached. So, you mentioned an issue you got a lot on the campaign trail. Are you sure you can do the job . You have children at home. Perhaps they dont realize that is the wrong comment. It was more than an inquiry, it was accusation. I was told i should be ashamed of myself for running for office while i have children. I got that all the time mostly from other women. That is what hurt. Can you both talk about something, a fellow high profile women in the bay area Sheryl Sandberg the facebook of ceo says perhaps people of power wont be inviting female workers to the mixers after work because of all of these. I wont hire them because it can be problematic. Are either of you concerned about this . Absolutely. We have heard stories in sacramento political offices have said no more cocktails with women lobbyists. There is a lobbying firm made up of women and they say that you are discriminating against us based on gender. I dont think we should be excluding interactions with women. We should just be professional and unbiased. Kathleen can you give us a peek ahead into what you guys are working on . I know that we will hear from former Oakland Police officers and women across the community. Yes, all of these essays are in this weeks issue and we have essays from former Police Officers, from the executive director of girls inc. Of alameda county. As well as a cal state east bay professor and a local author. Since the stories have come out there have been a lot of readers reaching out with their stories of Sexual Harassment and next week we have a story about a local Sexual Assault case. Very good work being done. Kathleen richards, thank you. Mayor libby schaaf can you hang out . As you know there is a lot going on. We have asked the mayor to stay with us. We are going to talk about what is going on with city workers as well as what is happening with the oakland as ballpark. 3000 oakland city workers are on strike for a third day. The Oakland City Council met hoping to find a solution but could not agree so 2700 workers are striking leaving many city buildings closed. The union wants a twoyear deal with a 4 raise each year. The council will be meeting again to try to reach an agreement today. We are joined by the mayor of oakland. Two years, 4 are you on board . No. My staff came out with a fiscal analysis that shows that will likely result in laying off up to 188 fulltime workers in the city. Fewer services, basic services that are relied upon. Smoke so the city just cant afford it . Correct. We cant spend money we dont have unlike the congress. The union says the city has 350 fully budgeted positions that are opened. 350 is more than 188. The budget assumes a vacancy rate that is baked into the budget projection. The union says what do you say to their contention that the city relies too heavily on temporary workers, mandatory overtime and folks working 16 hour shifts. I agree with them. If we have to cut staffing it will only make the problem worse. We will have to work critical Public Safety employees on more overtime. This is why we need to get the organization financially stable. What we have on the table exceeds the cost of living increase. It is a fair deal we have offered. It is financially prudent and also they have accused us of underestimating Revenue Growth to address that issue and we have put on the table an additional 2 in the second year if revenue meets certain growth projections. Is marijuana in the tax . Yes, marijuana is in the projections. It has been taken into account. You dont want to give any public funds for a new ballpark for the oakland as so you think about that and you could put that toward the 4 but the ballpark says they are not happy. The Organization Says they are shocked. I was surprised and honestly disappointed that they were not willing to even have the conversation or explore the possibility of what a partnership could look like with the oakland as. With that said i think it is better to move on and find out earlier rather than later this will not work so we can focus attention on sites working for both parties. What are the issues the Peralta College board had with building the ballpark or do you think they just took issue with how this was sort of rolled out . Some people thought they came out and said look we have chosen this site. Do you think the board maybe took issue and said lets dial back . Im not going to speculate or try to get in the minds of those decisionmakers. I have respect for the board of trustees for the Community College and my personal opinion is that they came out with humility. They knew that there were very legitimate concerns about the site and frankly any Major Development in oakland. Everyone is worried about the housing crisis. The displacement and the fact that as the economy is growing it is not benefiting everyone equally. That is true for the oakland as development and every other development in oakland. Those are important questions. On the issue of housing, we saw the rollout of your tuff shed plan. The first day we reported one person took the city up of the offer, what is the status now . How many people are in these temporary structures . I have not had a very recent update because i have my hands full with the strike but the last time i heard three people moved in. I expect more have chosen the option. Is the city going to be more aggressive in clearing out the homeless encampment . This morning we saw a fire underneath a freeway bridge. Part of the deal with the tuff shed shelter is when we have offered the people in the immediate vicinity this option that we think is very good with a low barrier dog run. When we have made the offer and really tried to encourage people to take us up on it we will be clearing the